Severe texture artifacting! help!

[gillius28 0]

I have been having this problem for a long time and I need assistance.

 

When I am in a game, and have my graphics set to low settings, it is fine. However, when I crank up the settings to a higher quality, (usually the texture quality that triggers this), all my textures start artifacting. As soon as I change it back, it is fine, meaning the card is not overheating. This problem is running with the following specs: Geforce 4 TI 4600 128mb AGP 4x, Athlon 64 3500+, A8V Deluxe Asus motherboard, 1024mb RAM Crosair.

 

I have tried different sticks of RAM and it is still doesnt work. So it looked like it was the graphics card that was defective. However, I tried this in my old dell computer 1.6ghz, and it worked FINE. My PC hasnt had any other problems that would suggest my motherboard being defective.

 

I have tried around 5 differnet drivers and 2 different Operating systems: Win XP PRO and WIN XP PRO 64-bit.

 

There is also plenty of ventalation in both systems. I am powered by a 470-watt Enermax power supply, so it does not seem to be a power issue.

 

The games I have tried are Counter Strike Source, SWAT 4, Unreal Tournament 2004, Battlefield Vietnam, and Half- Life 2. ALL of these games work at low settings and screw up at higher settings.

 

Below are some screen shots from CS Source of my exact problem...

 

http://img157.echo.cx/my.php?image=dedust200149sw.jpg

 

http://img249.echo.cx/my.php?image=dedust200119ax.jpg

 

And sometimes it was even this bad...

http://img249.echo.cx/my.php?image=dedust200070nv.jpg

 

Your assitance will be greatly appreciated!

Please feel free to message me on AIM @ gillius28, or just post in this forum.

 

THANKS!

[ScinteX 0]

Hi,

Not that I am an expert but maybe I could offer a theory?

 

Lets assume (maybe wrongly or rightly) that your new machine can run AGP@8X and your old system is say 4X. That would mean that when you crank up the graphics levels in a game, your graphics card is running around about 2 times the speed on the new machine compared to your old machine.

 

Assuming this is correct then there's a few options:

 

The card really is broke (RMA it)

You need to crank up the AGP voltage in the BIOS (in the new machine, just try the smallest increment 1st to see if it helps... 0.1 of a volt)

Your power supply isn't cutting it (a possibility although doubtful, u have a quality PSU there)

It's maybe a monitor problem...?

 

Anyhow theres a few thoughts, I hope it helps a little.

 

All the best

 

S

 

 

[Shadow64Bt 0]

Check your BIOS for the setting "AGP Aperture Size" and either increase or decrease it to 128Mb (you can use higher, but it's not recommended, too much of a good thing can be bad). It sounds and looks to me like your AGP BUS is sending more texture data than can actually be held by the physical RAM, increasing the Aperture allows it to store more data, and more textures.

Give it a try, if that's not the problem, try a variation of ScinteX's suggestion, lower the AGP BUS down to 4X, don't ask it to, force it. If you're not comfortable in your BIOS, make sure you touch nothing else in it other than these options, and cranking voltage normally doesn't solve texture loss, it will however, help with preventing overheating, and effectively void your warranty