Screen Tearing/Offset during Gaming

[rich18144]

Hey all,

i was wondering if someone can give me some insight into the possible cause/solution to a problem I am having with my desktop setup. Essentially, when I run a gaming application (in this particular case TESO & WoW) my screen will do one of two things.

1. The games work fine for a while, and then parts of the screen instantly change to something approximating white noise on a T.V., only coloured by what should be there. This effect takes place in the games and, once I am out of the game, seems to be permanent until I restart the machine. The "slashes" or static are horizontal only and take up somewhere between 25-75% of the screen

2. Again, the games work fine for and then around 1/4-1/2 of the screen will offset, meaning that a vertical chunk of the screen moves from the left hand side to the right, resulting in a split image being presented on the screen, the mouse will not let you pass across the "edge" of the screen, but will let you move the mouse off the left hand side of the monitor for it to appear on the right hand edge of the monitor.

The system has just had a fresh install of Windows to attempt to resolve this situation, with no luck. I apologise if the descriptions above are unclear, but I cannot think of any other way to describe these two issues. I am at work currently, but I will add pictures this evening once I am home.

Thank you in advance for any time spent,

Rich

 

[Araxie]

Vsync??

 

[Armenius]

Vsync would not explain either of the issues OP is describing.

Can you give us your system configuration, like in Araxie's signature? Are you using a monitor with MST (multistream transport)?

 

[tdowning]

Well, the obvious first step is to isolate the video card and the monitor.

How is the computer connected to the monitor? VGA? DVI? Display Port? HDMI? If you have another port and/or cable you can use, that's something else you can try.

If you have another monitor, try using that with your gaming PC. If the known-good monitor is the same resolution as the suspect one, and you get no issues, then the suspect monitor is the problem. If the known good monitor exhibits the same symptoms, the problem is almost certainly either in the computer (software/drivers) the video card itself, or the cable. If it works but at a different resolution, (especially at a lower resolution) It could be the monitor, or it could be an issue with either power delivery to the video card, or the card itself overheating.

If you take the monitor to another machine and it exhibits the same symptoms, the problem is almost certainly in the monitor, (or the cable, if you're using the same one from your gaming computer.)

You said you have these problems while gaming, and that problem 1 remains after exiting the game, but did not specify specifically for problem 2. does that one also persist after exiting?

While on the subject, is this an integrated video subsystem or a PCI Express card? Integrated video usually uses a chunk of main memory as the video buffer. If a portion of the system RAM that is being used for the video buffer has issues, weird and varied artifacts can occur.

that's all I've been able to come up with...

 

[rich18144]

Hey,

Thanks for the reply both, I appreciate your suggestions.

I hadn't thought of trying VSync, but I will give it a try to see if it helps.

In terms of my setup, it is as follows:

CPU: AMD FX8320 3.5GHz 16MB Cache, Stock Cooler
MB: MSI 970A-G43
GPU: PowerColour HD 6870 1GB
Monitor: BenQ E2400HD 24" TFT Monitor
RAM: Corsair 2x4GB DDR3 1866Mhz Vengeance Pro
HDD: OCZ120GB Vertex 3 SSD

You'll have to excuse my ignorance, as I am unsure of what MST is, let alone if my monitor has it!

Thank you again for your time,

Rich