I tought I would never ask this but is my video card dead?

What ATi card are you using? I think this is a problem possibly with the card overheating, even if you are running it at stock speeds, because artifacts to my knowledge are usually caused by cards that are oc'ed to far and either overheat or simply can't handle the speed. You can try running those games in lower detail or use a older driver to see if that fixes the problem.
edit: another good idea is to make sure the card's fan is working properly, if you already haven't checked that.

Yeah, if you're using stock cooling on your 9800 Pro, you'e bound to encounter artifacts, even at stock.. I got a vf700-alcu and I haven't seen a single artifact.

The video card is runing stock and the artifacts can sometimes be predictably made, in Act Of War it only occurs after 30 seconds of starting and won't occur in windowed mode but will start again in full screen mode, in FEAR the artifacts sometimes appears in the same places in the same form

try running with your computer's cover off (perhaps shoving a fan to blow into your comp) to see if that solves it?

although artifacts appearing in the same form is kinda weird... most heat artifacts are small blocks (usually pixel-sized) flickering. And i don't think heat artifacts are contained only to certain textures (as the floor in your screenshot is).

I can't believe i'm suggesting this, but are your DX drivers updated?

I can't believe i'm suggesting this, but are your DX drivers updated?

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yes they are
it's wierd as the water also reflects the same texture

hmmm.... I would try running an older version the drivers... THAT to ME looks like a driver memory managment issue... Doesn't look like any dying card I have seen....dying cards don't care where they give glitch's...those seem to be texture specific....as in missing texture or misaligned look up table

hmmm.... I would try running an older version the drivers... THAT to ME looks like a driver memory managment issue... Doesn't look like any dying card I have seen....dying cards don't care where they give glitch's...those seem to be texture specific....as in missing texture or misaligned look up table

Click to expand...

Basicly you mean maybe the 5.7 drivers (Both ATI and Omega) have issues with my card right??

i second that. It really sounds like a driver issue, as the glitches are texture specific. You mentioned that it messes up on water too, so I'm thinking it's something to do with the pixel shaders.

It happened to me a while ago while playing mgs pc. Every single time i played it the game would corrupt after 30 seconds of play no matter where i was. I had to reinstall directx in order to get it fixed but as cooliscool adviced, a 9800 pro wll show artifacts in graphic intensive games with stock cooling. Try using another cooling solution and see.

Well, before tearing apart your card you can downclock it. Get ATiTool and lower the clock speeds on both your core and memory by about 10mhz on your memory, and about 50mhz on your core. That will hurt performance alot, but it will help you diagnose your problem.

It was the memory managements "improvements" in the 5.7 drivers causing trouble on both the cat and omega drivers, I am now using the 5.6 drivers again

I like being right
lol

Strange, with my 9800 Pro the 5.7, both official and Omega, have been fine.

You have the 256mb model right, mine is 128mb, maybe that's part of the cause of the problem

mine is 128meg and its fine as far as i can tell >_> tho ive only played CS source lately.

Try alternate drivers, my 9800 displayed lots of artifacts on 3Dmark 2k5 and HL2 until I switched to Omega (not even a clean install made them work with Cats)

I am using the omega 5.6 drivers as the 5.7 version also has issues

So I guess you'll just have to RMA it, like most of the gamers with good cards

Mine's a 128MB/256-bit card Player-X, and I've not a single issue with the 5.7s.