F.E.A.R. Graphics problem

[seth]

After I got to the 8th chapter on F.E.A.R. my graphics got really messed up. Polygons started shooting out of everything and all the textures started to look messed up.

It started doing this after I installed new sound card drivers and updated F.E.A.R. to 1.02 . I also noticed that my video card's fan stopped spinning. I turned off my computer and cleaned out a whole bunch of crud out of the fan and heatsink and fiddled around with the fan connection and got it to start spinning again. The game was still messed up looking though, even when I set everything to minimum settings. All my other games look perfectly fine though, like HL2, and I haven't noticed any other problems with anything.

I have a Radeon 9600 xt and a 1.5ish GHz Athlon processor running Windows XP. So does anyone know what the problem might be?

[Lusty_Muffins]

Those are what we doctors like to call "artifacts".

It was most likely your GPU overheating. If you graphics card didn't initiate a shutdown when the core got too hot (which would've been really fast if the fan turned off) then your core might've gotten a tad fried. Usually video card drivers give an option where if the temperature reaches a certain level, the program or your computer shuts down automatically.

Have you tried reinstalling FEAR and seeing if it works? I doubt you fried anything if other games, such as HL2, aren't showing artifacts.

[Wallrod]

First thought is have you got the latest vidcard drivers? Did this start happening after a while of FEAR being normal, or has it always since you've had it installed?

[siddy]

certainly seems like artifacting to me, what GFX card do you have, btw?

[nojmaster]

Just roll back or reinstall to 1.00, unless you're intent on multiplayer, for me I noticed no difference between the two in the single player campaign.

[seth]

I was able to play through most of the game normally, until about the last hour of the game or so when everything got messed up. I tried installing the newest video card drivers and reinstalling F.E.A.R., neither worked though.

Last night I installed one of my brothers old video cards and after that everything looked normal. So I guess it was just my video card getting fried, I suppose. I can't think of what else it would be since the game did work before, and nothing other than using a different video card seemed to work. It does seem kind of weird that my other games work though. I was planning to upgrade a bunch of crap on my computer pretty soon anyway.

I was using a Radeon 9600 xt when everything started artifacting. Now I'm using an Nvidia fx5900, I think. I had this same graphics problem when I was playing Far Cry before, I think I was able to fix that with a patch or something though, that's why I didn't think it was overheating when the same thing happened on F.E.A.R. . I can't think of what else it would be now though. It was probably just overheating on Far Cry too anyway and I've just forgotten what I did to fix it.

Anyways, I was able to beat the game using my brother's graphics card, but just for future reference, if the Radeon 9600 did have an option to shut down when it was overheating, where would it be? And is there a way to be sure if my video card is fried? Also, thanks for the help guys.

[Delta]

Probably worth upgrading from a 9600 if you can, nomatter how you cut it. You can get one twice as fast or more for basically the bottom pricemargin of 'new' cards right now.

[Paluch]

problem is your 9600xt has no temp probe. So if the fan stoped and you started getting these artifacts then your card is fuxed. There is no option to shut it down from overheating. I know the drivers automatically will shutdown the card if it stops responding. That happaned to me when i overclocked my 9800pro to 500mhz accidentally.

[Delta]

problem is your 9600xt has no temp probe. So if the fan stoped and you started getting these artifacts then your card is fuxed. There is no option to shut it down from overheating. I know the drivers automatically will shutdown the card if it stops responding. That happaned to me when i overclocked my 9800pro to 500mhz accidentally.

lmao. 'accidentally'. you're lucky ATI just makes such good shit, they'd be perfectly free of any blame if you fried your card entirely and had to buy a new one.