Graphical Glitch: Little flickering squares aorund objects

[Ravhin]

Screenshot:

http://www.destinati.com/eqprob2.jpg
<br>
http://www.destinati.com/eqprob.jpg

Little squares flicker in and out around the edges of all kinds of objects, sprites, geometry edges, whatever. It must be video driver related but I'm on a laptop so not too much freedom. I have a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 (drivers version 8.632.1.2000 from 8/18/2009). Dell Studio XPS 16.

Anyone else have this problem and fix it?

[Bizarostormy]

you are using a driver that is over a year old, easy solution:
Uninstall your old video driver
Install newest driver from here: http://www.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDHomePage.aspx

ATI provides driver updates for laptop chipsets, you do not have to wait for the laptop manufacturer to provide the updates (as they never do)
Hope that helps

[KZIMM]

I love your legs in the 2nd pic. Looks like something out of Nintendo.

[Ravhin]

Updated to Catalyst 10.11 11/17/2010. No change. Flipped all the switches in the control panel (aa, af, etc). None had any effect.

This is also a win7 64-bit laptop where I have the "dualcore/slow-mo" problem. Haven't been able to fix it using affinity setting, power setting, bios SpeedStep setting.

Thoughts?

[Rickroy]

Try compatability mode for win98/win95 and also force the game to start in 640x480

[bluedecember]

For me going into windows 2000 compatibility mode plus disabling visual themes and desktop composition (not necessary but helps) fixed the problem. Unfortunately it also makes it so you get kicked out of fullscreen once before entering the game and anytime you click on your taskbar (at least if you have autohide). Now it works great at 1920x1080p with all effects on. I almost posted about it then decided to figure it out myself.
PS, I tried using an earlier compatibility mode and it crashed.

[Divarin]

I just recently switched to an ATI card because my nvidia card fried itself.
I'm having similar issues but it looks a bit different.
I'd be interested to know what types of video cards players are using and what issues (if any) they are having.

[Divarin]

here's what mine looked like:
http://www.divarin.net/t/messed.jpg

[MiRo2]

I just recently switched to an ATI card because my nvidia card fried itself.
I'm having similar issues but it looks a bit different.
I'd be interested to know what types of video cards players are using and what issues (if any) they are having.

Very possible a graphics card going bad. How old is your laptop, and how well ventilated is it when you play games on it?

[Bizarostormy]

I'm running an ATI HD 5550 on windows XP and have not had any graphics glitches or problems.
Try different compatibility modes as others have said, as well as running as administrator.

[Tippett]

I have the same issue and so far compatibility mode hasnt done squat, its really annoying, makes the game unplayable. Btw my vid card is an ATI 4500 and just got out of the box a few weeks ago

[Ravhin]

I also cannot run in any compatibility mode -earlier- than win2000, it gives:

Windows - Application Error
The instruction at 0x770ae23ed referenced memory at 0x00bfb374. The memory could not be read.

Doing win2000 compatibility + disabling visual themes/composition (Aero) didn't solve the graphical problem.

[Ravhin]

Anyone have this problem on a non-ati card? Could be something related to ATI drivers and old DX games?

[bluedecember]

Mine happened on an ATI card, and sometimes I get the pixelation but only in the character selection screen. As soon as I log in it looks normal. At this point I have no idea why it does what it does but it never did this on my NVidia integrated card. You could try to update your drivers if you haven't but I'm not guaranteeing anything.

[gprater]

I get that same pixelation effect. I eliminate it by turning skies off.

[odizzido]

I am on windows 7 and a 5850 and have 0 issues. No special settings.

[Ravhin]

I get that same pixelation effect. I eliminate it by turning skies off.

Aha! Fixed! With Skies at complex you get the effect in my screenshot. With skies at simple at I got similar tiling effects as the other posted screenshot. With skies off (black :( ) it is gone.

Going to miss the sky.

On a sidenote, for me (dell studio xps 16, core 2 duo, win 7 64 bit) I was only able to fix the "slow motion" problem with msconfig -> Boot -> Advanced -> Number of Processors = 1. The set affinity didn't do anything.

[gprater]

glad it worked for you too....maybe some "techie" person can attempt to explain why it does that and if there may be another solution...I'd like to have the skies back as well

[freakyuno]

I had the exact same problem on an ATI card, and a Dell Studio 16. I did not have the slow-mo problem, but the graphics corruption showed up after the first couple of times of playing.

Updating drivers did not help, using old drivers did not help, updating directx did not help. Switching off complex skys DID help.

As a side note, I usually run in windowed mode, and I'm able to run with simple / complex skies on using the following method:

1.) Enter game, see corruption
2.) Maximize game into full screen, turn skies OFF
3.) Go back to windowed mode, turn skies ON

If I follow that procedure, everything seems to work fine. I usually have to repeat this when I zone into specific zones. It shows up a lot in Butcher, never in gfay (I assume because the damn sky doesn't show), sometimes in qeynos hills, never in qeynos city.

I think the issue arrises because it's a mobility graphics chipset, which shares memory with the main system, as well as borrows processing from the main system. Corruption in the graphics are a result of that sharing.

[Yopachi]

Thanks I have a laptop with a built in ATI card. Turning off the sky fixes the jaggy render.

[GradnerLives]

Have you tried using WinEQ 2?

http://www.lavishsoft.com/ (http://www.lavishsoft.com/)

Known to fix a metric crap ton of graphical and framerate issues.

If you haven't tried it, do so!

[Yopachi]

I tried a lot of things before I found this thread. WinEQ does not affect this graphical glitch. I have a:

64-bit
HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470
AMD Phenom(tm) II P940 Quad-Core Processor
Windows 7

In order for the graphics to look decent I had to turn off the sky and the advanced lighting.

[Golaniel]

Thank you everyone for posting this thread, as it helped me fix the issue on my bro's computer.

Per Yopachi, first needed to turn OFF "Use Advanced Lighting" - that was creating the glitch all over the place. Then there was still the glitches around objects as most people have been reporting.

Turning off the sky does work, BUT I believe I have found an alternate solution where you can key the sky ON! In Advanced display settings, change the Sky Reflection Update Interval from "Always Update" to "Every 10 seconds". It appears the sky update is what triggers the glitch (you can see the glitch get less prominent as you reduce the sky refresh) and changing to "Every 10 seconds" basically makes the problem go away! Or at least it does for me :)

And yes, like everyone else on this thread, the computer has an ATI video card.

[mdavis522]

Im having a similar issue where certain parts of the graphics appear disjointed upon movement, like... the houses in freeport with the striped wallpaper. When i move all the stripes look disjointed. It's there all the time in other landscapes, but the stripes make it definitely noticeable. Not sure how to fix it. I tried changing the sky, reflection, and matching fps, but it seems to be there for good, for now. It has never been there before, I just now patched v44 when it started. I have an nvidia GeForce 8600M GT, and there is only one driver that will work. Updating drivers for nvidia is as bad as updating apps on your phone. Always a bad idea.