Graphics card issues

[Jorgen]

I got a new Evga Geforce GTX460 1GB graphics card a while ago, and when I recently swapped it into the PC I got some weird artifacts when running rFactor. It looks like solid color triangles shooting out from the center of the screen. It doesn't happen if I drive myself, but once there are a few other cars on track, it happens. I've tested another gMotor based game too, Race07, with similar artifacts. At first I thought it was a broken card, but I can run the video memory stress test (http://www.mikelab.kiev.ua/index_en....ROGRAMS/vmt_en) for hours without problems, and all Unigine benchmarks run without any problems. (http://www.unigine.com/) So far I have tested both the 258.96 and 260.99 drivers with the same results. I also tried Wombat's FPS fix (http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail...ia%20FPS%20Fix), and then I got a different behaviour. Instead of artifacts, some cars showed up only partially. I saw the suspension, wheels and wings, but no body, for example.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this? Is it a broken card, or is it some kind of incompatibility between the card, the drivers and the game?

EDIT: I just ran the somewhat old 3DMark06 with zero problems.

[Bee]

First ensure that you are running with a clean install of rfactor with no mods/addons/plugins to ensure the game isn't corrupt. You can do this by installing rfactor into a new clean folder (e.g. "rfactor clean") and testing from there.

I've seen this before a few times and below are the reported causes in different cases:

- Installing a new video card without completely removing the drivers from an old one (residual files). You might try a 3rd party driver removal tool to clean out all driver files, reboot Windows and let the default VGA driver load, then make a clean install of your video driver.

- Hardware conflict (perhaps try the video card in another system and see if the same thing happens)

- Video card driver

- Bad video memory or fried card (static or other shock) - See if you can get your hands on the exact same model card and test it in your system to see if it's the video card. Just doing memory and 3D stress tests won't always expose the issue.


Note that just because it may happen in gMotor based games and not other games doesn't necessarily mean that there is an issue with gMotor and the video card or other hardware. Keep in mind that different games use different resources and/or the same resources differently, so one game may expose system level issues, where another game may not.

[xTr3me]

@Jorgen : Can you upload a screenshot, where we can see the artifacts?
Do you get that artifacts immediately after starting rFactor or just after a while?

[Jorgen]

Oh, I didn't think of taking any screenshots, sorry. I've swapped the old card back and am about to return the card for a new one, so we'll see if it behaves the same way. The last thing I tried was running lower resolutions with DX8 and even DX7, but that still resulted in artifacts. In DX8 it looked really weird in the trackside cameras, almost as if the cars were made up of hundreds of colored polygons, rolling along like something out of a science fiction movie. I wish I had used Fraps to capture a movie, but I just forgot. The odd thing was that the artifacts only affected the track view, not the GUI edges around it, for example when looking at a race replay without the main view in fullscreen. The artifacts appeared both in the main view and in the ultra widescreen portion of the replay window where you move the time slider. Anyway, thanks for the reply Bee. We'll see how the new card works out.

[Jorgen]

Since I haven't RMA'ed the card yet (waiting for shipment papers), I decided to pop it back in and capture a quick movie. As you can see it's mostly beige flickering, and although the track is Bahrain, it's not a sandstorm, he he. (The mod in question is a league mod loosely based on FSOne 2009) Worth mentioning is perhaps that I did not install either the nVidia PhysX nor the HD Audio drivers. After reading a few forums I have found that the onboard HD audio device that the 400 series cards have seem to cause quite a bit of problems for many users. There's no way to disable it through the card's BIOS at this point, so I had to do it in the device manager in Windows.

Here's the capture:
http://www.racehub.se/f1-2010/rf-artifacts.mp4
(Plays with Quicktime, VLC, GOM player or other MPEG-4 capable players)

[Bee]

You should always troubleshoot issues with a clean install of rfactor with no mods/addons/plugins since there is no way of knowing if the game is corrupt after installing 3rd party mods. You can do this simply by installing rfactor to a new clean folder (e.g. "rfactor clean") and testing from there.

[MaD_King]

Same issue here, just in offline (I have the first drivers published for the 460 GTX, because the following creates more artifacts). I have the problem on the first AI car loaded in game, this is often due to transparency problems. No problem with my older card (a 8800 GTX 640).
For me it's a problem link to the drivers and the old games.

If someone have a solution.

[Jorgen]

Now that's interesting info! Thanks for posting MaD_King! I wonder if I should keep the card after all? It does work fine in everything else I have tried it with, but I guess nothing puts as much load on the card in terms of textures as a full grid of F1 cars with high res skins... I think I remember that the 258.96 drivers were better than the latest ones. I attempted to upgrade the card's BIOS yesterday, but it already had the latest revision. I wonder what's going on here? I haven't really tested to see if it happens online, but I might give it a shot.

If anyone with an nVidia Geforce GTX460 card has the same problem and has found a solution to it, please let us know.

@MaD_King: How much RAM do you have in your PC, and what operating system are you running?

My box "only" has 2GB of RAM while my 460 GTX has 1GB, so perhaps it's the ratio of video memory vs. RAM that might cause it? I remember an e-mail conversation with rF support where the value of the VideoRAM parameter in config.ini was explained. It's value is always larger than the graphics card's memory capacity, and apparently rF uses conventional memory to decompress textures before loading them into video memory. Maybe something goes wrong there? Or perhaps it's just bad video drivers? nVidia seem to be doing an awful amount of optimization for newer games, so I wouldn't be surprised if older games broke because of it...

EDIT: We're not alone with this issue it seems, there are plenty of people with the exact same issues. Here's one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dch6FUXN3M

Here's a thread about it:
http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/sh...d.php?t=222664

EDIT 2: I just rolled back to the 258.96 drivers and the whole issue is a lot less extreme now. It's still an issue though, so we'll see if newer drivers might address the issue.

[lukapeklaj]

I have 450 GTS and i'm haveing exactly the same problems. Dont have a clue how to fix them. Any new ideas maybe?

[Max Angelo]

In the italian section of the forum
http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.ph...ull=1#post3880

was posted this fix:

1) install 197.13 nVidia display driver

2) install DirectX March 2009 version

Always use Driver Sweeper in safety mode before to install a new driver
http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

Also, a different italian user wrote Win7 fixes the issue.

I have an ATI card so i cant try the fix, assuring it works.

[lukapeklaj]

Hm hm hm. This display driver 197.13 doesn't support my graphic card. Shall i try it anyway?
258.96 drivers doesnt suport my card. ( Jorgen said that he whole issue is a lot less extreme with them).
I have nvidia 450 gts. Any idea for its drivers? I just bought it so i have 10 days to return it and repalce it with any other. Shuld i consider doing that? (and looks like that ati is the thing to have for rFactor. Like 5770 i think would be in that price rang)

Ty for your post and efford. I'll come back to you if anything works for me.

p.s. If anyone tryed win7, please let me know if that fixed the issue.

[MaD_King]

Now that's interesting info! Thanks for posting MaD_King! I wonder if I should keep the card after all? It does work fine in everything else I have tried it with, but I guess nothing puts as much load on the card in terms of textures as a full grid of F1 cars with high res skins... I think I remember that the 258.96 drivers were better than the latest ones. I attempted to upgrade the card's BIOS yesterday, but it already had the latest revision. I wonder what's going on here? I haven't really tested to see if it happens online, but I might give it a shot.

If anyone with an nVidia Geforce GTX460 card has the same problem and has found a solution to it, please let us know.

@MaD_King: How much RAM do you have in your PC, and what operating system are you running?

My box "only" has 2GB of RAM while my 460 GTX has 1GB, so perhaps it's the ratio of video memory vs. RAM that might cause it? I remember an e-mail conversation with rF support where the value of the VideoRAM parameter in config.ini was explained. It's value is always larger than the graphics card's memory capacity, and apparently rF uses conventional memory to decompress textures before loading them into video memory. Maybe something goes wrong there? Or perhaps it's just bad video drivers? nVidia seem to be doing an awful amount of optimization for newer games, so I wouldn't be surprised if older games broke because of it...

EDIT: We're not alone with this issue it seems, there are plenty of people with the exact same issues. Here's one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dch6FUXN3M

Here's a thread about it:
http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/sh...d.php?t=222664

EDIT 2: I just rolled back to the 258.96 drivers and the whole issue is a lot less extreme now. It's still an issue though, so we'll see if newer drivers might address the issue.

Yes I have 2 Go of RAM and I'm on Windows XP, I will check this

In the italian section of the forum
http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.ph...ull=1#post3880

was posted this fix:

1) install 197.13 nVidia display driver

2) install DirectX March 2009 version

Always use Driver Sweeper in safety mode before to install a new driver
http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

Also, a different italian user wrote Win7 fixes the issue.

I have an ATI card so i cant try the fix, assuring it works.

Interesting, I will test this and feedback if it's work, not sure my version of drivers exactly, but it's the first proposed by nVidia for 460 GTX cards, the last version add more bug on rFactor.

Yesterday I got the bug in online for the first time and seems to be transparency management problem, twice reconnection have solved the problem, but I think I was lucky, not a really solution.

[Jorgen]

The only three driver versions that officially support the 460 card are 258.96, 260.89 and 260.99. The 450 is limited to the latest two of those. Older drivers won't recognize the hardware, unfortunately, unless you hack the .inf file, but I don't think that is an acceptable solution. I think I will report the artifacts as a bug to nVidia. The user named "kunc" has done that if you read the thread on nogripracing.com that I linked to, and if we're more who report the same thing, it will hopefully be fixed quicker. I guess we can make our voices heard on the nVidia community forums too. I'll register there and start a thread or post something about the issue in existing threads. I suggest you all do the same thing because this isn't a hardware problem, it's buggy drivers when running in DX9 on Windows XP.

EDIT: Issue submitted to nVidia. Let's see what happens...

EDIT2: Lo and behold, I actually got a response. It sounded like they would attempt to reproduce the issue, so fingers crossed...

[MaD_King]

So, I tested with the DirectX March 2009 version and no change for me.
I'm on drivers 258.96 because de following introduce the bug more than this version

The 197.13 nVidia display driver refuses to install because not compliant with my card ...

So for the moment no status change for me

[Jorgen]

I've had some contact with nVidia customer support and they have asked for more details, which I have supplied. They will now attempt to replicate the issue, so fingers crossed it will be fixed eventually. I'm also staying on 258.96, which work reasonably well. I'm only seeing corrupt graphics originating from one car out of 20 with them, as opposed to almost all cars with the 260.99 drivers. Increasing the quality settings does not affect the artifacts at all. I just love how things look at high settings. Now if only those ugly colored triangles could be fixed too...

[MaD_King]

I've had some contact with nVidia customer support and they have asked for more details, which I have supplied. They will now attempt to replicate the issue, so fingers crossed it will be fixed eventually. I'm also staying on 258.96, which work reasonably well. I'm only seeing corrupt graphics originating from one car out of 20 with them, as opposed to almost all cars with the 260.99 drivers. Increasing the quality settings does not affect the artifacts at all. I just love how things look at high settings. Now if only those ugly colored triangles could be fixed too...

Great, I keep my fingers crossed, let us know if this is fixed in next drivers version !!

[Jorgen]

Alright guys, I'm going to need a bit of help here. Can you list the exact combination of mod and track where you get the artifacts? I tested a race weekend with the standard SR Grand Prix series at Mills Grand Prix but got no artifacts at all, but when choosing a custom track and the same mod, I got them. The guy I'm working together with at nVidia tech support says he can't reproduce the problem, so if I can help him with as exact details as possible, it would be great. (I have details where I'm getting corrupt graphics, but it would be good to hand him some more combinations to test with)

Thanks,
Jörgen

[MaD_King]

With the Endurance Series mod SP1. No notice any particular track without the problem. I have the problem systematically in Offline always at least one car with the problem in the AI (never the same).

[Jorgen]

I accidentally found a way to fix the artifacts today. I got them playing online when a player joined, but after alt/tabbing out to Windows and back, they were gone and didn't return! Fingers crossed that the 265 series drivers will fix it permanently.

[MaD_King]

I accidentally found a way to fix the artifacts today. I got them playing online when a player joined, but after alt/tabbing out to Windows and back, they were gone and didn't return! Fingers crossed that the 265 series drivers will fix it permanently.

I will try this workaround to confirm if it's working for me (I play in windowed mode in my full resolution to allow the alt/tab without lock of rF in some mods).