If you have STALKER CS or Metro 2033, get in here

[Flogger23m]

If any of you have Metro 2033 or STALKER Clear Sky, I would like to ask you if you ever experienced graphical artifacts?

When playing Metro, I got a flashing orange screen and audio distortion after playing for a short period of time. Only way to fix it was to turn off the power button.

Shelved it, and played through Far Cry 2, sections of Crysis, and many other games since then.

Recently got STALKER CS, and played around 8 hours, and got the same orange flashing screen again.

I updated my direct X, updated motherboard BIOS, and have the latest drivers.

I am trying to see if my GTX 260 is dying... I have a feeling it is.

I just find it odd that games like Crysis and FC2 had no issues, but these two games do... I just hope it is the games.

 

[Zips]

I never experienced that on those games. But it does sound like a heating issue with the card. It can happen pretty much at any time on any game.

Hell, my GTX260 started to die during some CS: Source with a few buddies some months, hardly a graphically demanding game.

 

[SheepDip]

90% of the time will be a heating issue with the card.

STALKER and Metro 2033 have similar engines if you go back far enough (a splinter group of devs from GSC who worked on the X-Ray engine created the 4A engine) so there could be a link between the way the graphics are being processed/routines (whutever I'm not a coder!) leading to the artifacts. And the reason they don't appear in games based in other engines.

 

[PNV]

I've been getting some strange artifacts on my monitor lately, when not playing any game, just browsing the internet. I have a GTX 260 as well, but I've never had a video card die on me before so I wouldn't know what happens.

 

[Grobut]

It could easilly be heat, it's possible that Metro and Stalker are bottlenecking your vid-card more than the other games, causing it to run hotter, and then you get artifacts.

Try timing how long it takes from starting the game till the artifacts show up, then clean your vid-card, if you have a compressor blast all the dust out, if not, get a can of lighter gas (Propane) and use that instead (Why use Propane? and not the Air-on-a-can stuff they sell in computer shops? because thouse are a scam, it's just Propane at double the price!).

With the card nice and clean, see if it didn't fix the problem, or if it atleast makes it take longer for the artifacts to make an appearence, if either of the two happens, it's heat.

 

[Flogger23m]

Yeah, cleaned it recently with canned air, although did not do the greatest job.

Will have to try that again.

It was running 82-83C at its peak while playing STALKER CS. A bit hot for me, but many people say that it is designed to run at those temps.


The idea that they run on a similar engine is interesting, but I've played through the other two STALKER games without this issue.

 

[Nimsky]

Artifacts can definitely mean a broken videocard.

This is what it looked like when my 8800 GTX died.





If you get stuff like that in Windows, even after a format, there is nothing you can do about it.

 

[SheepDip]

The idea that they run on a similar engine is interesting, but I've played through the other two STALKER games without this issue.

So no issues with Pimphat but issues with Clear Sky? Hmmmm...

 

[Grobut]

So no issues with Pimphat but issues with Clear Sky? Hmmmm...

That's not so supricing, with Clear Sky they went bonkers with the graphics, Crysis style, but they didn't with Pimphat, which even my old box will run ok.

The same is true of Metro, which is going to be very demanding on your vid-card if you don't run rubbish graphics settings.

So yeah, if you want a non-Crysis game that can overheat your card, thouse would surely be they.


But aye, it seems you either have a heat problem (it's plenty hot around here, hell knows i have to remove the side panel from my case lest all the fans have to run at max speed to keep the box cool, and if it's around the 31c where you live aswell, try doing the same), or, some of the more advanced graphics processing on your card is dying (ergo it flips out when asked to run games that are capable of advanced effects, but not ones that don't use them).
That's my take on it anyway.

 

[Dcode]

Run Furmark's burn in test for half an hour. That will establish if your video card is broken.

 

[Flogger23m]

Played some STALKER CS today, got the error again.

Both times it happened at Agoprom/the Duty base, when talking to the Duty leader.

Played 1 1/2 hour of Crysis Warhead and in the Crysis editor. No issues.

Played HW2 for a little over an hour. No issues.

So, as odd as it may be, I think the person who suggested my PC has issues with this STALKER/Metro engine might be on to something.

Will have to try other games tomorrow.

 

[Grobut]

It might be a simple driver issue then, try another driver and see if the problem persists.
Or actually, before doing that, try messing around with the settings in the nvidia control panel, the engine might have issues with certain settings and your current driver, try forcing AA, try not forcing it, same for Anisotropic or however thats spelled, AA transparency on/off, tripplebuffer on/off, all that stuff.

I did have some driver related issues with the first Stalker, that did cause artifacts (hurr hurr, gleee!) on the screen, the game did not appreciate that driver trying to override it's AA settings for some reason, so i had to run AA as App controlled to play the game with that driver, the next driver removed that problem.

 

[Flogger23m]

I think Nvidia just released new drivers, so I will try them.

Played Red Faction Guerrilla for 1 hour today, no issues either.