MSI GTX 560 Ti artifacting ONLY in WoW

[pxsalmers]

Title says it all. MSI Twin Frozr II GTX 560 Ti is displaying artifacts in WoW. NO OTHER GAME.

Minecraft plays fine at max settings
Call of Duty: Black Ops plays fine at max settings
Mirror's Edge plays fine at max settings

The card is neither overheating nor artifacting anywhere else. It does this whether overclocked or not.

I've tried:

clean uninstall and install of drivers (various versions, currently using 270.61)
re-seated the card in its current slot
moved the card to a different PCI-E slot
tried different 6-pin PCI-E power connectors
removing dust
changing power settings
resetting back to factory clock frequencies.
changing the display from the HDMI input to DVI input

any other suggestions?

 

[Maguscreed]

WoW now uses dx11 components... do any of the other games you play use DX11?

Here see if it runs this smoothly.
Heaven DX11 Benchmark | Unigine - advanced real-time 3D engine (for games and virtual reality systems)

It's the only thing I know of that properly stresses dx11 cards.
The actual deal here could simply be that none of the other games you are playing are pushing the card at all.

 

[Wishmaster]

Artifacts can be a sign of a unstable OC.

You are still seeing them even at default clocks though, correct?


And when you say Artifacts, exactly what are you seeing? A screenie would be helpful if possible.
May also be a conflict betwern the game itself and a enabled feature such as AA.


As far as your drivers go, I personally have found 260.71 to be quite stable, and still using them myself. I don't think they would be causing the issue TBH.

It wouldn't hurt to try the newest drivers to see if they help & certainly worth a try.
Personally I found 275.33 drivers to be a bit buggy, but not everyone will. Theres actually a newer set out now too to try.



Beyond that, the only thing I can suggest is to test the card and see if any artifacts show up during a full load test.
Something like Evgas OC Scanner for example, although others may have a better suggestion.

If the stress test comes out good, and artifact free, I would guess it has something to do with that particular game.

 

[pxsalmers]

Artifacts can be a sign of a unstable OC.

You are still seeing them even at default clocks though, correct?


And when you say Artifacts, exactly what are you seeing? A screenie would be helpful if possible.
May also be a conflict betwern the game itself and a enabled feature such as AA.


As far as your drivers go, I personally have found 260.71 to be quite stable, and still using them myself. I don't think they would be causing the issue TBH.

It wouldn't hurt to try the newest drivers to see if they help & certainly worth a try.
Personally I found 275.33 drivers to be a bit buggy, but not everyone will. Theres actually a newer set out now too to try.



Beyond that, the only thing I can suggest is to test the card and see if any artifacts show up during a full load test.
Something like Evgas OC Scanner for example, although others may have a better suggestion.

If the stress test comes out good, and artifact free, I would guess it has something to do with that particular game.

Yes, I am seeing them at stock clocks and OC clock frequencies. The first thing I did was revert to stock. Artifacts meaning choppy lines when rendering should be smooth. Jagged edges, lack of color in spots. Nothing has froze or crashed on me yet, so it can't be too serious.

Magus, I will try out your suggestion.

 

[Wishmaster]

Maybe Im misuderstanding you,and apologies if so.
But what you are describing sounds to me like Image Alaising and Image Tearing, not really artifacts. Artifacts are typically colored blocks everywhere.


Have you tried Vsync and AA?

Alaising can be fixed by enabling Anti-Alaising in game, or through the Control panel. This should smooth the jagged edges.

Image Tearing can be resolved by enabling Vsync. This happens when the card is drawing far more frames per second than the monitor can display.
Are you seeing these lines as you turn?



If these are things you've tried, have you yet tried to run the game in DX9 mode to see if its any better?

 

[pxsalmers]

As of now I made an application profile for WoW with:

Power management: Prefer max performance
16x Anistropic filtering
Gamma correction on
AA - Enhance application setting
AA - 32x (max)
AA - Multisample

The problems I tried to describe went away, without having to use vsync.

Will reply if any other problems arise.

 

[Wishmaster]

How did you benchamark test turnout that Maguscreed suggested?

If all was OK, without any problems, chances are the card itself is fine.

With that heavy of AA being applied, its possible the FPS dropped to right at or below your monitors refresh rate.
In which case, tearing (if there was any) should disapear as well. So Vsync may not be needed.


Let us know

 

[pxsalmers]

How did you benchamark test turnout that Maguscreed suggested?

If all was OK, without any problems, chances are the card itself is fine.

With that heavy of AA being applied, its possible the FPS dropped to right at or below your monitors refresh rate.
In which case, tearing (if there was any) should disapear as well. So Vsync may not be needed.


Let us know

The benchmark was fine, some jagged edges here and there but no crashes or anything.

And yeah, my FPS is now a solid 60-80 instead of 250, but I'll take that over bad graphics =)

 

[Maguscreed]

Despite what some hardcore gamers say to the contrary science still only suggest the human eye will see no difference between anything around 30+ frames.
280 is completely meaningless anyhow it's so high over your display rate (unless you're using a plasma) you're not even seeing more than half of them.

 

[pxsalmers]

Despite what some hardcore gamers say to the contrary science still only suggest the human eye will see no difference between anything around 30+ frames.
280 is completely meaningless anyhow it's so high over your display rate (unless you're using a plasma) you're not even seeing more than half of them.

I notice a PERFORMANCE difference between 30 and 60.

In FPS, 60-100 I notice a difference, 100+ I don't.

In MMORPGs, 60+ I notice no difference.

 

[Maguscreed]

Okay superman, I'm not going to bother having this argument with someone again.
Whatever makes you feel better.
I suppose movies look just awful to you since most of them are only filmed at 24 fps.

 

[Wishmaster]

Lets assume you have a monitor with a refresh rate of 60, which is the most common for LCD monitors.

Quite simply, that means it can not display more than 60FPS.
So even if the card is drawing 100FPS, only 60 are getting displayed and the rest never make it to the display.

I know many claim they can see the difference, but I do not understand how. The monitor isn't even displaying them ..


Generally speaking, 30-60FPS is the sweet spot.

You can even get by with 25, so long as it doesnt drop below that. Once it starts dropping below 25 is when you start noticing it.

 

[pxsalmers]

Okay superman, I'm not going to bother having this argument with someone again.
Whatever makes you feel better.
I suppose movies look just awful to you since most of them are only filmed at 24 fps.

note how I said PERFORMANCE and not visuals.

If my comp is going under 60 FPS in any game, I notice visually because my comp is struggling to handle the game (which, for the games I play, it never should be unless I'm having hardware issues). Unless I have a FPS graph/meter, I don't notice above 60. But I know for the most part that it probably is above 60 based on graphics settings. My eyesight sucks.

Wish, as for your point, I understand the concept but for me its just what I described above.

 

[MvdB]

If you notice computer/gameplay performance issues below 60 and no more if above 60... then either you're looking at the wrong measurement OR the settings of the Graphical card is messed up... OR, log shot... You have an IRQ problem that goes away on >60 settings because the Graphical card claims priority in a higher frequency and now gets it whilst below 60... might be having trouble.
Sorry if the English here is not clear, it is not my first language...

 

[pxsalmers]

If you notice computer/gameplay performance issues below 60 and no more if above 60... then either you're looking at the wrong measurement OR the settings of the Graphical card is messed up... OR, log shot... You have an IRQ problem that goes away on >60 settings because the Graphical card claims priority in a higher frequency and now gets it whilst below 60... might be having trouble.
Sorry if the English here is not clear, it is not my first language...

no, I understand you perfectly fine.

and it could be possible that I'm looking at the wrong setting, all I know is low FPS = not smooth gameplay

 

[Wishmaster]

How does the game look now with settings you currently have?


If your getting hiccups at times, you may be able to just lower the AA some to smooth it out.



Personally, Id leave the AF at x16. It usually doesn't cause that much of a hit (at least not to the extent AA does)

 

[Maguscreed]

AF is basically model detail, and only applies to the models. AA can and in some instances does account for every single pixel on the screen.
I've not noticed a huge difference using massive aa when at 1080p resolutions myself.
yeah there's a difference, just not a big enough one to justify the performance hit for most people.

 

[Wishmaster]

AF is basically model detail, and only applies to the models. AA can and in some instances does account for every single pixel on the screen.
I've not noticed a huge difference using massive aa when at 1080p resolutions myself.
yeah there's a difference, just not a big enough one to justify the performance hit for most people.

Yea, personally I can not really tell any difference over x8.
In most cases x4 is plenty, and certain titles x8.

At least at 1080P.

 

[pxsalmers]

I've been having no issues. I have AF at 8x and AA at 32x. I might lower AA to 16x because 32x might be overkill, but my comp handles it no problem.

Getting a solid 70+ fps with current settings and no jagged edges. Was playing Crysis on max also and was getting about 50+ fps.

thanks for all your help guys!

 

[Wishmaster]

Glad you got it sorted out, and even more so it wasnt a defective card