Pixelated Square in Game

Darren

Darren

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Staff member
Tonight I was playing TF2 and Dirt 3. I first noticed it in TF2, but a rectangle would flash on my screen and was very pixelated like an artifact. It flashed blue, white, and then the normal color of the game. I thought it was a UI glitch and ignored it but it did the same thing in Dirt 3 but in a different location and different color.

What's going on exactly? My GPU is running a tad toasty. Saw it hit 66 oC. Clock is at the GHz edition but comes like that stock. It is hotter in my room than normal but I didn't think 66 would start giving it issues.
 
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The first thing I'd do Darren is try uninstalling/reinstalling your drivers and then start to see if there is something up with the card itself:

1 - Download Display Driver Uninstaller: http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

2 - Download latest drivers for your card from link AMD's website.

3 - Disconnect from the internet (remove Ethernet cable or disable internet adapter temporarily).

4 - *Important* Once both are downloaded and you're offline, reboot PC into Safe Mode by hitting F8 when Windows is booting and selecting Safe Mode when prompted. OR on Windows 8/8.1 type 'Advanced' when you are on the Start Screen, select Change Advanced Startup options and press Restart Now under Advanced Startup. Hit the 4 key upon rebooting to access Safe Mode.

5 - Run Display Driver Uninstaller - select 'Remove AMD/NVIDIA Folder' and make sure the option to reboot is selected. You don't need to boot back into Safe Mode. This will proceed to completely remove your display drivers and all associated software.

6 - Install your new drivers once you have rebooted. The reason I've told you to disconnect from the internet so that Windows Update doesn't try and download 'updated' drivers for you.

7 - Reboot after installing drivers. Hopefully you are now good to go. Connect back to the internet.


I will just say that if the current stable drivers are the 14.4 ones (which knowing AMD they will be - even 4 months on) then it might be worth trying out the 14.7 RC drivers because in my experience the 14.4 drivers were the worst AMD drivers I'd ever used. A lot of screen glitches in games and even on the desktop, so these drivers could be your issue. A lot of people online also don't like the 14.4 drivers.
 
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I reinstalled my drivers. I also was having other artifacts in TF2 again tonight but that prompted me to actually do as you suggested. It's pretty sporadic so I'm not sure if it's totally gone now. I'm hoping it was just a driver issue since if the card is toast I'm basically SOL. I ran FurMark and it ran great and had no issues. It did get up to 72 degrees but for gaming it's never gone above 66.
 
Yup probably driver issues - especially likely if it only happens in a few games.

I wasn't happy with the 14.4 drivers. Have you tried the 14.7 RC ones? For me they weren't much better but they weren't as bad. Hope the next driver is better for AMD users. ;)
 
I've never really had driver issues before until now. It also happened in WoW a week or two back but it was fixed when I restarted the game and didn't do it again. I've also been playing WoW a lot since and had no trouble. I played TF2 for an hour after reinstalling drivers and it didn't have any trouble. I'm trying to remember if I ever used the 14.4 drivers with my 7850. I'm not sure if I did or not.

Either way, if I have more trouble I'll try rolling them back or the beta drivers. Is 72 at full load still a safe temperature? The card is overclocked by default to what the GHz edition is at 1000 Core and 1450 Memory. Can't imagine it should struggle with the stock clocks considering it's got pretty good cooling. Is GHz Edition trademarked or something, because my card is just the "Boost" version.

And also the issues I had in WoW and TF2 the second time were full on artifact with basically planes of random textures flashing on the screen.
 
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I forgot to ask if you were using two screens. That's the other thing 14.4 hated and had problems with. I got the screen tearing when I had two monitors.

72C is fine for a GPU. In fact, it is relatively cool since temperatures of close to 100C are not unheard of.

I think this is a driver problem. You could either try the RC drivers (but they're not much better from my experience) or look on the internet and see if you can find a driver older then 14.4 to use for the time being. Not sure if AMD have a driver archive page where you can download older drivers, but knowing their track record I think they should have. ;)

Like you, I was relatively happy with their drivers until I used 14.4 and 14.7. I think Catalyst 14.4 can go down with some of the 2012 Intel drivers and the GeForce 285 drivers as one of the crappiest display drivers I have ever used.
 
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Got artifacts like crazy again today while playing Dirt 3. It would only happen for maybe 10 seconds at a time then stop and look totally fine, then do it again. The whole screen would freak and have random black textures and planes show up during the game. I'm going to try the new drivers.

Does the fact that it's so sporadic and random point towards it being a faulty card or faulty drivers? I'm really concerned that my card is dying since I got it used but I also feel like if it was dying, it would be a bit more consistent and just always do it.

Edit: It basically is like this but a whole lot more drastic and makes the game unplayable when it's going on. Oddly enough this is my video for an issue I had with my 7850 that was resolved with new drivers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYzM-9dwpJk&list=UUOPAN0zGdN5icawRwIjvreA

The flashing thing has only happened in WoW and Dirt 3, and it seems very random and I can't reproduce it intentionally, it just happens.
 
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Have you updated your drivers or tried an older one?

It could be a card issue. The best way to tell is to either get another card and put it in your PC or put your card into another PC.

It might be the power supply... but more likely drivers or GPU.
 
Well I don't really have another card to test except a GTX 650, but that wouldn't do me any good since it has different drivers too. I did do a fresh install of the 14.4 drivers and thought the problem was gone but it came back today. I'm going to try the 14.7 drivers though and see if there's a difference. The patch notes didn't mention anything about issues like what I have. The problem I had with my 7850 in the video was localized to the 12.X series of drivers and was fixed when they released 13.1. Maybe this will be similar.

Is there any actual like graphics stress test I can that could point me in the direction of whether or not it's failing. I've done FurMark and it was fine, but again the issue is so rare and random I can't intentionally cause it. For example there was a week in between the last two occurrences.
 
Had the issue again tonight with 14.7 while playing TF2. I was at a point where I could fairly easily recreate the issue so on a hunch I turned off V Sync and the problem disappeared for the next 30 mins or so of playing. Played Dirt 3 a bit now with V Sync on also and it was fine. Again the issue is rare so it may be a fluke but I'm kind of thinking that's what the issue is, because I specifically turned off V Sync to see what kind of frames I could get with the new card, even if I couldn't tell the difference.
 
Denther said:
I've done FurMark and it was fine, but again the issue is so rare and random I can't intentionally cause it. For example there was a week in between the last two occurrences.
Click to expand...

I think this and the V-sync issue suggests it's a driver problem.

Can you try an older driver? (ie - anything that's not 14.4 or 14.7): http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/previous?os=windows+7+-+64 (they work on Windows 8 too).

If you still have problems I think it's fair to say the card is the problem IF you are sure that the PSU is OK.
 
Well I turned V-Sync on and if that fixes it I don't really care anymore. :P

Thanks for the help.
 
Got the issue again. This time in GTA IV. Going to try rolling back to 13.12 drivers. V Sync had no effect being on or off. Had no problem since my last post and changed my games to V Sync to on in both Dirt 3 and TF2. TF2 hasn't had a problem since the switch but now this cropped up.


Video of the issue in GTA IV.

[UT]-Z_Xddu794Q[/UT]
 
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Denther said:
I did just that and didn't have the problem with GTA IV after that. Damn it AMD.
Click to expand...

Too bad AMD cut their 'monthly driver update' policy - means you lot have been stuck with 14.4 for months. They have to be the some of the worst display drivers I've ever used (second only to some of Intel's older ones).

I also can't believe how many people have been having problems and yet here we are, 5 months on and 14.4 is STILL the current stable release for most AMD cards. :mad:

Anyway, I'm pleased installing 13.12 has fixed it for you. So far there's no problems to report with NVIDIA 340.52 drivers (for me, at least). ;)
 
I've also been noticing in a few games that they basically flip out and don't understand the concept of 3GB of VRAM. GTA IV locked my settings to the absolute lowest because it thought I didn't have enough VRAM even though it showed I was using like 300MB out of over 3000MB. GRID did something similar and wouldn't let me raise the resolution passed 720p. Is this a driver thing or just the nature of running older games?

I was able to fix both problems fairly easily so it wasn't a real issue. Ever heard of that before?
 
It could be either Darren. Difficult to tell. Are you able to use higher settings on the games now? If yes, then it was a driver problem. If not, then it's the older games.

But, probably more to do with drivers I would suggest.
 
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