Artifacts in oblivion

[TaunoDolphinDream]

Hello,

I have a big problem that i dont know how to fix. I've had this graphics card over a year now and it has never done something like this before.

The problem:

http://dolphindream.planet.ee/muu/Clipboard01.jpg

Whole screen is full of bars and lines...it dosent appear at the start of the game, usually happens at the same places in games.

Appearance:

This kind of problem mostly comes out in oblivion, its the most gpu-intensive game i have. I allso have Tomb Rider: Legend and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. This comes problem appears in these games too but rarely and not in that greate magnitude. When i run 3dmark06 test then all the cpu tests are performed properly and there dosent appear to be any these gliches, but on gpu tests there are same anomalies like in the screenshot but in smaller amounts (oblivion has whole screen full of it). I have experienced one system freeze but it was not in games, it was in msn.

Other notes:

When i go out of fullscreen and back to the game then the anomalies are gone. They come back fast in oblivion but in other games, it rarely appears in the same game session again. The 3dmark06 test has decreased result, about 200 points, same with other benchmark tests, but i closed all excess processes and programs.

History:

I have used the same drivers and i have never had this problem. I have reinstalled my winxp like 5 times and installed same draivers from cd's, never had any kind of problems. It first appeared after i had installed couple of games (tr:legend and the godfather).

What i have tried:

I tried to reinstal directx and graphics driver, no impact what so ever. Thought maybe its the windows error. I was suprised when after format, windows and draiver clean install, the problem was still there. Installed new draivers from nvidia homepage (162.18_forceware_winxp_32bit_english_whql) but only thing that changed was that in oblivion, the screen sometimes goes black, only the text is shown in oblivion and mouse often freezes but the keyboard keys work fine. I have tried it ALL! Cleaned my pc from dust, reinstalled different draivers, changed graphical settings...and so on, still no change.

 

My hardware:

DualCore Intel Pentium D 945, 3417 MHz (17 x 201)

Gigabyte GA-965P-S3R S775

1024 MB (DDR2-533 DDR2 SDRAM)

NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS (256 MB) PCI-E x16 (400 MHz Core, 800 MHz Memory)

Realtek ALC883 @ Intel 82801HB ICH8

Western Digital Caviar WD3200KS 320GB (7200rpm, 16MB, SATA 3Gb/s)

Lite-On DVD-RW SHW 16H5S SCSI

 

I havent overclocked anything and the temperatures of gpu are normal (45-50'C idle and -60'C in stressing, long session games)

 

WHAT NOW?

My worst worry is that theres something wrong with my craphics card and it needs to be replaced (no warranty left).

How to make SURE that this is the case and i need to replace it?

 

Subtopic:

I have a feeling that my gpu is dieing and i am actually thinking of ordering new graphics card, the sparkle geforce 8800 gts 320 mb:

http://epood.atf.ee/index.php?productID=6944

Is this card good for Oblivion? How well it suits to my pc (im not hinking pc'i or agp, i know i have psi-e and this card has it too? How well it will work on win XP, i dont have vista. Am i missing much if i use this card with xp not vista?

 

Thank you all who takes the time to reply :blush:

[stefbuik]

Your graphics card is most likely the culprit. Sorry..

BTW You won`t miss a thing in XP. DX10 for VISTA is far from ready. geforce8800 in XP is plenty fast teamed with a dualcore Pentium(You did know NVIDIA`s drivers use the second core of Your dual-core CPU quite extensively?!)

Do NOT fall for the geforce 8600-scam..It`s a DX10 card, but slower than a 7600GT!!! Go for the 8800!

[TheTerminator2004]

Try updating to the latest drivers first- that might help. Also try running dxdiag, and doing all the tests (particularly the direct3d ones), that might help point to the problem.

 

As a last resort, you could try contacting Nvidia technical support- they'll probably be able to shed some light on the problem, and it's a lot cheaper than buying a new card.