strange bitmaps behavior in fs (is this hardware problem?)

[lfe 0]

i have been using fs for years now and never encountered this problem. but today, all of a sudden, when i played fs9, i notice a lot of flickering on my screen. the red information text on top is distorted and i begin to see strange bitmaps appearing everywhere. sometimes, the entire cockpit view would be like a screen shot of an entire bitmap file of the aircraft. i am not sure if this is a hardware problem, but all my other programs seems to work fine. i tried updating my drivers, defrag my computer, cleaning registries but the problem persists.here are some screenshots of the game. here, the bitmaps are showing around the plane body here, changed the scene to day time here, changed aircraft to default aircraft cessna, notice the dashboard is just black here, notice lower left on the ground, some bitmaps of the aircraft replaced the ground texture well, same thing happening to the water changed aircraft to 748. everything just got weirder after a while, things got back to normal but the red information text on upper left have gone mad finally, though some portions of the text returned, there are still black blocks.after quitting the game, that's when my monitor starts to show weird issues as well.corei7gigabyte x58-ud7corsair 2gigx3 ramnvdia geforce 460 gtx seany ideas??hope to hear some response. thanks.LL

[HoratioWondersocks 4]

Artifacts

A little expansion on 'Artifacts' may help the poster.It could be your Gcard is failing or overheating,Have you made sure that there is not a build up of dust and gunge inside your PC?Andy

[lfe 0]

i just got this computer last march. so everything is fairly new. i opened the case and everything looks clean. although i have overclocking, i don't overclock my gpu because i have good fps anyway.here is a shot of my gpu while playingbesides, if it overheats, i'm supposed to get a warning from my mobo right?with regards to artifacts, not sure what this means and how do i go about it. same with if my gpu overheats, is there a solution?sorry, am not so techie.

[Swoop 0]

Do you have an extra video card laying around that you can swap your 460 with...just for a test? You might even just try taking it out of it's slot and re-seating it...Mark

[lfe 0]

unfotunately no. my other gpu will not work with my new set up. let me try your suggestion and see if this works.

[HoratioWondersocks 4]

unfotunately no. my other gpu will not work with my new set up. let me try your suggestion and see if this works.

I am no tech man myself ,just trying with my limited knowledge to help.Have got the latest drivers for your video card?If you have overclocked your PC could you try setting it back to default clock speeds and see what occurs.I know when I had similar problems to yours it WAS a failing Gcard .(My local pc shop actually used some new technique and repaired mine which i didn't know you could do.AnywaysI hope you get some more help here and get it sorted.Andy

[lfe 0]

I am no tech man myself ,just trying with my limited knowledge to help.Have got the latest drivers for your video card?If you have overclocked your PC could you try setting it back to default clock speeds and see what occurs.I know when I had similar problems to yours it WAS a failing Gcard .(My local pc shop actually used some new technique and repaired mine which i didn't know you could do.AnywaysI hope you get some more help here and get it sorted.Andy

i have updated the latest driver to my gpu, i don't overclock my gpu or cpu.i did some search on video artifacts but somehow, i cannot find a way to underclock my gpu, just to test if it works. nvidia has compiled it's control panel into one window and there is no clock frequency option there anymore. tried riva tuner but it does not display my gpu in the custom option. so i guess i have no choice but to bring this in to a computer technician.just keeping my fingers crossed as they can be expensive and don't want to spend for another gpu when this one is not even one year old.really appreciate everyone's advise.

[HoratioWondersocks 4]

i have updated the latest driver to my gpu, i don't overclock my gpu or cpu.i did some search on video artifacts but somehow, i cannot find a way to underclock my gpu, just to test if it works. nvidia has compiled it's control panel into one window and there is no clock frequency option there anymore. tried riva tuner but it does not display my gpu in the custom option. so i guess i have no choice but to bring this in to a computer technician.just keeping my fingers crossed as they can be expensive and don't want to spend for another gpu when this one is not even one year old.really appreciate everyone's advise.

That's about the limit of my knowledge I am afraid. I hope you can get your problem sorted out .I would give it a little more time before going to a technician .Somebody else here may have an idea.Have you tried different settings in FS9?Have you checked carefully your Graphic card settings?Do your problems only occur in FS9 and not other games (if you have any )PSI had a problem last week were by my own stupidity I messed up my XP installation.I nearly rushed to get it to my local PC shop were the owner would do a reinstall of XP , but the greedy %$%^& must have seen that I was desperate and wanted to charge MUCH more to do this than previously. Fortunately I held fire and with the help of members of this site I did eventually sort it out myself and saved myself fifty pounds. as well.Anyways cheers Andy

[lfe 0]

That's about the limit of my knowledge I am afraid. I hope you can get your problem sorted out .I would give it a little more time before going to a technician .Somebody else here may have an idea.Have you tried different settings in FS9?Have you checked carefully your Graphic card settings?Do your problems only occur in FS9 and not other games (if you have any )PSI had a problem last week were by my own stupidity I messed up my XP installation.I nearly rushed to get it to my local PC shop were the owner would do a reinstall of XP , but the greedy %$%^& must have seen that I was desperate and wanted to charge MUCH more to do this than previously. Fortunately I held fire and with the help of members of this site I did eventually sort it out myself and saved myself fifty pounds. as well.Anyways cheers Andy

i did play starcraft (just to test it) but there was no problem. i tried call of duty 4 (my cousin plays this one, not me) and this one had really very heavy artifacts. my computer even freezes.i was planning to call on a technician next week as i am travelling on vacation this week, thankfully, i didn't jump into the idea of calling one today. after so much frustration looking for a solution, i stumbled on one site of some advise on how to cool down my gpu because i think this could be a problem. i found this great program that can control your fan speeds and even monitor the health of all your devices. it's called fanspeed from http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php. and i think this has helped. after configuring it, i played the game without a hitch. everything looks good, i got all my clouds 100% full and in 3dimensiion, my terrain is in the highest setting, traffic is 100% and so far, no artifacts.i have to do some test play again tomorrow to just be sure. i just hope this is the solution.thanks again for the replies.regards.LL

[HoratioWondersocks 4]

i did play starcraft (just to test it) but there was no problem. i tried call of duty 4 (my cousin plays this one, not me) and this one had really very heavy artifacts. my computer even freezes.i was planning to call on a technician next week as i am travelling on vacation this week, thankfully, i didn't jump into the idea of calling one today. after so much frustration looking for a solution, i stumbled on one site of some advise on how to cool down my gpu because i think this could be a problem. i found this great program that can control your fan speeds and even monitor the health of all your devices. it's called fanspeed from http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php. and i think this has helped. after configuring it, i played the game without a hitch. everything looks good, i got all my clouds 100% full and in 3dimensiion, my terrain is in the highest setting, traffic is 100% and so far, no artifacts.i have to do some test play again tomorrow to just be sure. i just hope this is the solution.thanks again for the replies.regards.LL

HelloI am glad you are getting somewhere with your problem. My one concern is WHY is your Gcard overheating in the first place as you say your system is quite new. Anyways things are looking better.PSI always run my PC with side panel off to help ward of any potential overheating problems.Trouble with that is there is a school of thought that says cooling is actually MORE efficient with ALL panels on.That's the internet everybody has a solution and there's is always the correct one.PPS I have also used hardware monitoring programs that you describe, trouble is you have to be able to interpret the results correctly to make any use of them, I couldn't really ,so never did.

[lfe 0]

hello,i am back after a few days of vacation. i did some flying before i left and unfortunately, the artifacts were back. worst, my desktop wallpaper disappeared, some programs do not open, and paying videos sometimes crashes. i also encountered some BSoDs.so i have no choice but to call a technician in upon my return. diagnosis : virus. but i also showed him the games, so he thought that there could be some error from reading through my video card. his suggestion, to relocate the card to a different pci slot. initally, my gpu was located at pci-16 2, no it's moved to pci-16 1. if that fails, then i have a broken vga.after reformating the system drive and moving the card, everything seems fine. so i guess, it's more of the virus that affected my system.