In-Game Computer Problems

Calamity Jane

Alright. I have a vanilla GeForce 6800, an AMD Athlon 64 Processor, 2.00GHZ and 512 RAM, and a K8VGA-M Biostar motherboard.

Now, lately when I've played games like Far Cry, Vampire: The Reckoning Bloodlines, or just about any game with 3D rendering I've run across strange colored strips extending across the whole of the gamespace, and a lot of things like bushes and walls have goofy-ass white spots. Having played Far Cry to completion to before, I knew that shit wasn't supposed to be there. After reinstalling my operating system and getting my drivers reupdated, this problem is still occurring. I haven't the first clue how computers work and so forth, so bear with me here...what the hell is wrong with my computer?

Zxerol

That sounds pretty much like a model case of your video card overheating and causing artifacts. It also happens when you overclock your video card too hard and it starts complaining (which also may or may not be also related to heat), but I don't think that applies here.

Try moving to a cooler area and vent air out of your computer's case. You could also try a more extreme solution like my brother when his Geforce4 Ti started acting up like that: underclock it. Icky, but it worked in that case.

Calamity Jane

It's vanilla, never really considered overclocking it due to what I'd heard happening because of it.

Edit: How does one go about underclocking?

Calamity Jane

Also...are these "artifacts" permanent?

saggio

Are you sure it's a video card problem, and not a monitor problem?

Calamity Jane

It only occurs in-game, and they're attached on angles to very specific objects within the game. For example, I'll see a bush covered with these artifacts...and then my character's arm will become covered with the same white spots. It was horrendous in VTMB. The monitor doesn't seem to be the problem, though I unplugged and replugged to be sure.