The screen has glitchy imagery sometimes

[Dubnoman]

I started a new game on a new computer. Clean install. I have about 55 to 60 mods installed right now. I have noticed that I've had minor issues ever since I installed about 50 mods at the start of a new game, but it isn't stability issues. Sometimes, for a fraction of a second, I'll see a glitchy display of imagery on the screen. Usually, it is black or white, covers only a portion of the screen, and covers it in a random array. They have straight edges and it is a random array, no conventional shapes. It lasts for only what seems like a few hundredths of a second or so. It'll occasionally pop up on the screen for a small fraction of a second. Most times, it happens in the outdoors. It may have happened indoors before. I'll have to keep an eye out for that; make note of it if it happens indoors.

 

I've been a little worried since I've seen things like this since the beginning of this game. I did decrease the frequency of this by tinkering with some mods. I installed one and then installed another and it asked me to replace files. I uninstalled both mods, and installed one before the other, and then did not replace files, and this seemed to improve things.

 

But I'm just wondering if I should be worried. This flickering on the screen doesn't happen all that much. I'm just wondering if I should be worried about corrupted saves. Should I be worried about that or anything else? The game runs real stable. However, the game has done sudden CTDs before. I'm at about level 27 or 28 now. At around levels 18-20 (I forget where), I had a sudden CTD while running down a path, and today I used a feature from a mod (which was classified as a power and you hit the dragon shout button to activate it) and right after using the mods feature, the game CTD.

 

What do you guys think? Should I have some concerns, or am I likely to be fine?

[Georgiegril]

Sounds like artifacting.

Have you checked the temps of your drivers while running the game? Dusted out your computer?

Artifacting indicates a fairly serious driver problem, usually--many times this can be fixed by reducing the demands on your driver by decreasing the game's graphic settings, using less-taxing graphics mods (have you tried not using ENB?), etc. Sometimes the problem is with a driver download--- have you tried updating/rolling back your drivers?

 

In any case, over time if you do not address the problem, you might end up killing your drivers, especially if you are overheating. I would stop playing, personally, and focus on fixing this problem, even if it means starting a new game.

[Dubnoman]

Sounds like artifacting.

Have you checked the temps of your drivers while running the game? Dusted out your computer?

Artifacting indicates a fairly serious driver problem, usually--many times this can be fixed by reducing the demands on your driver by decreasing the game's graphic settings, using less-taxing graphics mods (have you tried not using ENB?), etc. Sometimes the problem is with a driver download--- have you tried updating/rolling back your drivers?

 

In any case, over time if you do not address the problem, you might end up killing your drivers, especially if you are overheating. I would stop playing, personally, and focus on fixing this problem, even if it means starting a new game.

 

I'll update my drivers and try to see what the CPU and GPU temps are. Now I'm worried. : ( I play on Ultra settings, but I don't use any ENBs.

 

 

Edit: I didn't know drivers had temps. I thought drivers were software. What exactly is a driver? I'm confused? How do you check their temps? Did you mean check my GPU temp?

 

If I should check my GPU temp, I will. If it is running at safe temps, I might not have a serious issue? For now, I scaled down the graphics. I had everything on ultra, full AA and AF and I had FXAA on. Is FXAA really intensive? Would all I have to do is take off FXAA?

 

I have an AMD GPU and I hear their drivers aren't as good. Do these problems happen less with Nvidia cards?

 

So many questions, I know, but I'm looking for answers. I'm a bit freaked out that I might be damaging my GPU when I play Skyrim. :(

Edited January 23, 2013 by Dubnoman

[Dubnoman]

Does anyone else have any input as to what my issue may be? I'd like to be able to determine what my problem is so that I can determine what I can do to solve the issue. I had the game running on Ultra and with the 2K HD texture pack, and I turned down some of the graphics settings and I installed a less intensive HD texture pack, but I'll still see this imagery on the screen sometimes, although it usually happens when the graphics aren't system intensive (I've seen it happen mostly when going into a menu screen with merchants). Also, I monitored the GPU temps and I've never seen it go above 60 degrees Celsius. Next time I play the game, I'll try to play for a couple or few hours and I'll monitor the GPU temps then, too. Edited January 27, 2013 by Dubnoman

[Georgiegril]

HI sorry for the confusion. Yes your GPU (or CPU) is what you check temps on. Sorry I was being lazy with the language there.

It is important that you check your temps in game, because there can be huge differences in the temperatures. You can use something like CPU-Z to monitor this.

Even if you think it doesn't need it, blow out your computer with canned air. It only takes the barest film of dust to affect temperatures, increase the static charge, etc.

 

Can you capture a screen shot of the effect you are describing? While it sounds to me like artifacting, a picture would make this easier to diagnose. It might possible be that you are missing textures, although that usually presents as purple.

 

To determine if the problem is related to your graphics demands being too much for your system, I would try turning everything to the lowest possible setting. No AA, No AF, No AO or FXAA. Turn all distance sliders to the far left. Remove all light and texture affecting mods, and also the Bethesda's high-res textures. Hopefully, this is just a temporary step. Now, with everything like this, go back into the game, and check out the areas where you normally see the problem. Is it gone? If it is, then slowly, one at a time, increase the graphics settings, mods, whatever, in incremental steps, if possible. Recheck. Once the problem reappears, you will know you've gone too far. It may be that there is a mod that you simply will need to do without, or you may need to fuss with settings to try to give up a little on one area so that you can push another area a little further. This will take time, but you will eventually get to know a lot about your system, and that will make future problems easier to handle quickly. (honestly, the above would be most conclusive an evaluation if you did a complete uninstall/clean reinstall with no mods, no savegames, and then set everything at the lowest possible settings--if you can bear to do that.)

 

If the problem is there, even with the lowest settings then it is possible that you either need to update or roll back or drivers, make some specific change in your driver settings, reinstall skyrim (because even in installing lighting mods, sometimes the effects continue, I've noticed) or worst case scenario, you might be looking at failure of your graphics card. Hopefully it wont get that far. (Edit: Forget to add that yes it seems like AMD cards are having more problems, so it might not be card failure but just that your card doesn't like Skyrim. There are a bunch of threads and stuff on Google I've noticed about this but I have NVidia, so no first hand experience on this.)

 

After you try this, (or if you want another opinion) it would probably really help to post a picture, your computer specs, especially your GPU, driver version, mods list, any changes you've made to the prefs.ini, graphics card settings, and mods list.

 

I hope this helps, good luck!

[Dubnoman]

I think my first step is to see if it is an issue with conflicting mods. I'm gonna disable my mods and see if the problem happens then. If it doesn't, it should mean that two or more mods were conflicting. That'll be my first step. See if it is a problem from mods, and not a problem with my computer. I can't try to take a pic of this problem. It happens here and there and out of the blue, and it only happens for a split second. It lasts for shorter than a half a second.

 

If I determine that it is a problem from mods, should I worry about corrupt saves happening? Once I get rid of the mod or mods causing the problem, should I uninstall and reinstall and then start a new game, lest I want to risk game breaking glitches hours later in my current game?

[gamefever]

The trouble with mod removal is that a lot of the popular mods that get modders going crazy to play, use scripts.

 

In those cases do not entirely remove the mod from your game folder. If you do then your save games cannot find the scripts on the call function and will crash your game. Also some mods were designed to use a stopquest command, to stop call functions from being made. Honestly removal of mods is a bear, but also an important learning experience for modders in general. You'll pick up a lot of the lingo, develop an understanding of the mods, and how to patch them as you put in more time.

 

Just take care not to entirely remove your mods in this process just uncheck them. Leave them sit in there until you've called it and are going to clean install start fresh.

 

edit

I just found this maybe it'll help

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/897665-7970-glitchy-graphics/page__gopid__7208055#entry7208055

 

some other ppl use cards just like yours and one of them posted with a way to stop artifacting

Edited January 29, 2013 by gamefever

[Dubnoman]

I have given kudos to Georgiegril, for she has been helping me out, and I have given kudos to gamefever. Gamefever, thanks for linking to that thread. It seems like it is a graphics driver issue. Here is something I posted somewhere else, I wanted to post it here:

 

So I played the game after a reinstall, and with no mods, and I disabled the Bethesda HD texture packs. I made the game totally vanilla. I had the problem still. When I get a chance later today, in the evening, I'll play some other PC games and see if I have the same problem with different games. If I do, this might be some drivers issues. If I don't have the problem with the games I try (I'm gonna try a couple or few games), it could still be drivers issues, right? Driver issues might happen with certain games but not all games. That is how it can be, right?

 

If I can rule out that it isn't a mod issue, then perhaps I don't have to worry about corrupt saves. If this is a driver issue, would I have to worry about corrupt saves? If not, then that is some relief, as I wouldn't have to start from the beginning. I backed up about 30 of my most recent saves in the game, so I should be able to pick the game back up. I just gotta solve my current issue, because I don't know if it is harmless, or if it'll lead to problems later on.

 

 

 

So...I probably screwed things up. I uninstalled mods and did a total clean slate, fresh reinstall. I probably shouldn't try to salvage my current game. I have been planning a character build in case I had to start from the beginning again, and I'm kind of eager to actualize that character build, heh. :laugh:

 

 

 

Two things; 1) Would this artifacting be something to be concerned about, or is it harmless? I'm only concerned about it because I'm worried about the problem leading to other problems, but if it is harmless, the problem ain't that bad, because I don't mind this artifacting all that much. It isn't that much of a bother.

 

2) This is being serious, should I just invest in an Nvidia card? I like AMD cards, but I've heard about the graphics drivers problems, and now I'm experiencing it (this is probably a drivers problem). I have the money to get a Geforce 660 Ti. I put aside some money for a Wii U, but really, I can wait until later in the year to get one, and I'm thinking about getting a Geforce 660 Ti, as I hear Nvidia driver support is definitely superior to AMDs.

[Georgiegril]

Artifacting can be serious, but it seems like there is a lot of it occurring with Radeon cards having driver issues. It may be a symptom of driver software problems that Radeon will address. If you checked your running temperatures in-game and they are within safe parameters (generally speaking that would be under 90C, but each card has its own specifications) you are less likely to be causing any damage to your system. If the artifacting gets continually worse, even with reduced graphics, and especially if it spreads to other applications, driver failure may be inevitable.

 

If you decide to get a new one, my opinion based only on observation of posts in a few forums, is that NVidia is having less problems. I have an old Nvidia card (9800GT) and although I can't run graphics on ultra, I am able to enjoy a smooth, pretty game with some tweaking of settings and careful mod choices. Certainly I seem to be having far fewer issues than a lot of radeon card users that have much more advanced cards. So, as my totally subjective and personal opinion, I'd buy the most advanced and well-reviewed Nvidia card I could afford and my system could support, if I were in the market.

 

In your case, I think I probably would carefully monitor the temps, lower the graphics settings and reduce graphic mods (or pick the lower-res versions) and wait to see if Radeon puts out a driver that works before the annoyance becomes intolerable.Since you have to restart your game, (sorry!) it is a good opportunity to carefully select and thoroughly test each mod you add. It may be that you can find a way to stretch out your current driver long enough to eventually enjoy an even better new driver than you could if you bought one now.

[gamefever]

The trouble with getting a new Graphics Card is that,

-Often have to get a new Power Supply, should be up to $50, I picked up one for 30 last time I went that route.

-Yes go with an Nvidea, more support, and constant Driver Updates across all games is always better.

-Consider a second Hard Drive if you can go with an older model Nvidea to fit it in the budget.

-Your second Hard Drive should be a fancy beast of a Solid State drive.

-You run just your modded game from there. Solid States fetch information much faster, and well Skyrim makes a lot of use of the Read/Write function of the Hard Drive. Pretty important that it's able to exchange information quickly.

-A lot of utility programs that measure computers performance for gameing measure your Hard Drive for the above reasons.

 

Trouble with a Solid State is they're starting in the 200 dollar range.

Edited January 30, 2013 by gamefever