graphics bugs with ATI 4800 series (4850/4870/4890)

[fjaekel 10]

Hi! There is a severe graphics bug thats happening to me. I allready searched the forum for anything similar but found nothing. So I hope it may get fixed in a patch because it makes this great game pretty much unplayable for me.

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So ... I got this strange layers everywhere in the game. The higher the settings the more it appears. Its also caused by areas with many objects. Looking on the ground makes it disappear. And they even drop shadows as you can see in picture 2. It might also interest you that I had several blue screens when I tried to change settings in the moment these things appeared. No blue screens when they were not visible.

My System:

Windows XP SP2

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.93Ghz

ATI Radeon HD 4850

4GB Memory

Edited July 2, 2009 by Placebo

[telejunky 0]

I there i got also a HD4850 the first time i hade these problems i manually set up the fan up to 40% and now i can uses it without manual control, maybe to hot?

Type shift and - on the numblock one time together and then "flush". it helps a bit for a while. I got the same problems only some times in arma 1...

[sidhellfire 0]

Yep, I owned HD4850 before and it's stock fan needs boost if you do not need additional oven.

Edited May 29, 2009 by sidhellfire

[craig3000 10]

GPU VRAM problems maybe

Anywho check your temps with this : http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/

If your receiving temperatures of 80 degrees celsius you should be worried if its 90+ then ye that's probably the reason :)

50-70 degrees celsius is usually the standard temp for the 4850 when playing a game and by 4850 I mean one with a good cooler or the fan raised, the default card gets temps of 90+ which is insane for constant use, so if you have high temps go into the control center and change the fan to manual and adjust to what you feel comfortable with

If its not the temperatures and you suspect the drivers then report it here : http://ati.supportcenteronline.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=894&surveyID=486

[fjaekel 10]

Thanks guys. I will take a look at the GPU temperature and report back. It truly gets very hot ... but I think it shouldnt be over 70 degrees. If this heating-thing is true can you suggest any software to controle the fan with? And why does this problem only occur in Arma? I played several games and none showed problems of this kind.

It may also help to say that sometimes framerates get lower when these things show up.

[craig3000 10]

Thanks guys. I will take a look at the GPU temperature and report back. It truly gets very hot ... but I think it shouldnt be over 70 degrees. If this heating-thing is true can you suggest any software to controle the fan with? And why does this problem only occur in Arma? I played several games and none showed problems of this kind.

It may also help to say that sometimes framerates get lower when these things show up.

Yeah when the GPU gets to hot it should reduce the clocks which would result in lower framerates

Make sure you have the latest drivers here http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

Make sure to download the full catalyst software, once installed you should have an icon bottom right of the screen saying ATI this is the control center, enter advanced mode, if you go down to the overdrive tab and enable you will see the manual controls for the fan

Looks like this : http://www.vistax64.com/attachments/graphic-cards/10872d1237241112-fan-speed-control-ccc-fan-control-enable.jpg

[fjaekel 10]

I wish i could. I tried everything to install this control center. It always tells me "could not find drivers for your device".

[sidhellfire 0]

o_O

Go to system preferences, device manager, and check if anything goes wrong there. Remember to uninstall drivers first.

[craig3000 10]

There are other means to overclock but that not as flexible

Check your temps first there might not even be anything wrong :)

[fjaekel 10]

There are other means to overclock but that not as flexible

Check your temps first there might not even be anything wrong :)

Ok craig. I downloaded the GPU-Z software but I dont understand where to get the temperature from. There is information about pretty much anything but the temperature. In the "Sonsors" tab i only got two "Clock"-bars which are both red.

Thx in advance!

Edited May 29, 2009 by fjaekel

[craig3000 10]

That's what it should look like if you have an ATi4850, the overall temperature being the third one down

Also go back to the graphics card tab and tell me the driver version, thanks

Edited May 29, 2009 by craig3000

[ginger mcale 11]

Hi everyone,

iam having the same problem. I had this problem in ArmA 1 also, but very rare, so i did not further investigate it. But now, when i saw this thread i did some tests and recorded also a video.

It seems not to be a temperature problem. My ATI 4850 HD 512 MB is watercooled and is not reaching high temperatures. Take a look yourself:

Max temperatures during playing ArmA 2 and getting the graphic error:

Temperatures a few seconds after going out from Arma 2 with ALT+Tab back to Windows:

I know that problems do happen when you overclock your card, so i have disabled the overclocking to exclude this error source. I think the problem here is when there is too much work todo for the graphics card, but hey, this is just speculation, i have no idea how graphic cards work. My graphics game settings are at normal, when setting them to very high, the graphic error does come faster and is more intensive. When setting all graphic settings to low, the error does not occur.

Also interesting, as you can see in the video, only the 3D things are affected by the error. The 2D overlay images (team member avatars, comunication menu) are being displayed properly.

Here is the video: (errors start from 0:40 seconds)

http://www.tsviewer.com/lager/arma2.2009-05-29.21-32-42-18_1.flv

31 MB, Flash Video, just open it with your media player, should work. If not, say a word and i will upload it in a another format.

I hope someone can help with that.

*edit*

This is with the newest ATI driver. I had it updated yesterday when the problem did occured the first time at Arma2. I thought it could be a driver problem, but it does also happen with the actual driver.

Edited May 29, 2009 by Ginger McAle

[fjaekel 10]

Hi everyone,iam having the same problem.

Hi Ginger. Its great not to be the only one. Looks exactly like mine.

That's what it should look lize if you have an ATi4850, the overall temperature being the third one down

Also go back to the graphics card tab and tell me the driver version, thanks

Sorry craig I can only see the first two bars "GPU Core Clock" and "GPU Memory Clock". The Version is "ati2mtag 6.14.10.6903 (Catalyst 9.1) /XP

[craig3000 10]

Hi Ginger. Its great not to be the only one. Looks exactly like mine.

Sorry craig I can only see the first two bars "GPU Core Clock" and "GPU Memory Clock". The Version is "ati2mtag 6.14.10.6903 (Catalyst 9.1) /XP

I did say upgrade your drivers as you have 9.1's the current are 9.5, But did you say that it wouldn't install or was that just the control center?

You can download just the drivers by themselves no control center, its hard to tell what the problem is game/GPU/drivers etc, I have to go now :) hope you can fix it

Edited May 29, 2009 by craig3000

[fjaekel 10]

I did say upgrade your drivers as you have 9.1's the current are 9.5, But did you say that it wouldn't install or was that just the control center?

You can download just the drivers by themselves no control center, its hard to tell what the problem is game/GPU/drivers etc, I have to go now :) hope you can fix it

Yea i know. I tried that the last 4 hours. Now I remember why I hate windows. I tried every version of the driver and the CC and its always the same messege. But anyway after Gingers statement its propably not heatrelated.

[craig3000 10]

Yea i know. I tried that the last 4 hours. Now I remember why I hate windows. I tried every version of the driver and the CC and its always the same messege. But anyway after Gingers statement its propably not heatrelated.

Ye I guess that's annoying you can't upgrade your drivers, it really can benefit if you upgrade em, especially when they release more after ARMA2 is released worldwide

Check out the AMD game forums, see if they can help with your driver trouble :D

Signing out!

[santafee 10]

Also owning a HD4850.The boxed fan just sux badass what often ends in Display Problems.

In my thing it was still not the problem...^^I thought about checking the air rotation in my computer and i saw that the graphic card(its only 5 month old) had terrible much dust in the van so the card was gettin damn hot.After i cleaned that my temperature nearly lowered about 15Degrees^^and i had no Problems no more lol.maybe u check that before

[fjaekel 10]

Also owning a HD4850.The boxed fan just sux badass what often ends in Display Problems.

In my thing it was still not the problem...^^I thought about checking the air rotation in my computer and i saw that the graphic card(its only 5 month old) had terrible much dust in the van so the card was gettin damn hot.After i cleaned that my temperature nearly lowered about 15Degrees^^and i had no Problems no more lol.maybe u check that before

Hi Himmelsfeuer ... my computer is mearly as new so I doubt there should be much dust allready.

Ye I guess that's annoying you can't upgrade your drivers, it really can benefit if you upgrade em, especially when they release more after ARMA2 is released worldwide

Check out the AMD game forums, see if they can help with your driver trouble :D

Signing out!

Yea but thanks anyway. Maybe I will try to reinstall Windows later and see if that fixes the driverproblem.

[Skeptic 10]

Folks, alt-tabbing from game back to GPU-z won't display actual load temp of the card. You need to enable logging by clicking "Log to file". In A1 I had that problem, logged temps and they were pretty high. I manually set fan in Catalyst to 35-40% and it was cured.

Make sure your case is properly ventilated. Meaning: at least 1 intake fan and 1 exhaust. If possible always go for 12cm ones. Some single slot cooler GPUs don't exhaust hot air out of the case - that leads to heat build up. You might have other parts of GPU over-heating too (VRAM for example) and there is no sensors for it.

[mr_centipede 31]

i had something like that with ARMA1 before, with AGP ATI card. I solved it at CMOS settings, cant remember where, but it's something like video memory (or somthing) and set it to maximum of the card memory. default was set at 64mb. my card was 512mb by I can only set it to 256mb and that solve the problem. Last time i think the term of this bug is called "graphic artifacts"...

pls note I dont have ARMA2. but the screen look something lik i had with ARMA1 so I figure that might help

[telejunky 0]

Interesting that it is not heat related but how about your vram while cooling the gpu with water... maybe they are too hot?

[Phnx 0]

I have an HD3850. I have the exact same problem and my temps are ok. I checked them. It seems this problem is vram related.

[mike@uk 0]

I've also been having this problem with an ATI 3870, it seems to happen more when I'm in built up city areas like Chernogorsk and Elektrozavodsk or other areas where alot of objects are loaded / loading quickly (like when I'm flying a jet).

Card temperatures are between 60 - 70c while in game (Although afew days ago I noticed my fan only ran at 20% speed and was getting to 80 - 90c!, however I have it set at 45% speed now so the temperature is more stable, however the artefacts still show up.)

Here's an example:

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/2264/graphicstear.jpg

Edited June 1, 2009 by Mike@Uk
Added Picture

[Goeth 0]

Yup me too, had the artefacts few times. First i thought it was the big cities that caused it but then it happened on the countryside too. Card temps were ok, it think it was alt+tab that caused the problem.

[ginger mcale 11]

You might have other parts of GPU over-heating too (VRAM for example) and there is no sensors for it.

Interesting that it is not heat related but how about your vram while cooling the gpu with water... maybe they are too hot?

At the 4850 there are sensors for the memory.

i had something like that with ARMA1 before, with AGP ATI card. I solved it at CMOS settings, cant remember where, but it's something like video memory (or somthing) and set it to maximum of the card memory. default was set at 64mb. my card was 512mb by I can only set it to 256mb and that solve the problem. Last time i think the term of this bug is called "graphic artifacts"...

I think you mean the AGP Aperture size, its only at AGP graphic cards. Today most cards are PCI Express, this setting is not there anymore.

I did again research for a few hours, its definetly not a heat problem. As you can see in my video, the graphic error/bug can be triggered by looking in different directions.

And i can also confirm that this grapic bug/error is also there at country side, not only in big cities. When lowering almost all graphic settings to minimum it seems the bug does not occur. But this is more a workaround till Bohemia finds a solution for it.

Here are my temps (watercooled), ingame at a minute later in windows when the temperatures are cooled down:

As you can see, the temperature differences are very small when the card is water cooled. When cooling the card with the stock cooler, the temperatures are somewhere between 70-90 ° Celsius (this sounds high, but is a normal heat). As we can see now the ATI 38xx product line is also affected.

Yesterday i had also made a test and set all the fans that do cool down the water to 100% and pointed an additional fan on the graphics card and set it to 100% also. The graphic error/bug did occur, made no difference, only the temperatures were cooler.

Again,

1. its most propably NOT a heat problem
   
2. different graphic driver versions seems not to make any difference
   
3. in ArmA 1 this do also happen, but less often
   
4. the card is not overclocked
   
5. problem is reproducable
   
6. problem does not occur in other games i played
   

I know, when you overclock your card, you have exact the same graphic glitches/errors/symptoms (big full screen fast moving triangles) but this problem does occur on NOT overclocked cards.

I hope Bohemia will see this thread and will help us ATI users.

Regards

Ginger aka Mariusz

Edited June 2, 2009 by Ginger McAle