Videocard artifacts in-game

from Sins Forums
I was all happy, playing my first few moments online with a friend of mine until, suddenly, my screen suddenly turned all artifact on me.

I tabbed out of the game and forced it to close. Then I started up firefox and lo and behold.

My specs:
Amd Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ @ 2x 2.61
2 GB ram
GeForce 8600GTS
Plenty of harddisk space
2,761 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
What drivers are you on?
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Version 163.75
Also, Windows XP. It might have something to do with ObjectDock taking focus. (Auto-hide; Always on top.)
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Ugh! That looks like a cooked video card.
I am no longer a tech so I am out of the loop, but I have seen my share, and had some of my own go, and they look like that(the website graphics)
I am going to guess that this is new behaviour, I would wonder if you are doing ANY overclocking? Either system, vid card, or both?
(Before I go further I just have to say that would be a BIOS setting and if you don't have experience with that stuff, then I wouldn't fool around with it)disclaimer just in case;)
If so, try default settings and see what that does.
I would also wonder if you recently changed drivers.
If so, and this happens across the board i.e. Windows programs, internet browser, games, I would rollback the driver.
For kicks you could try to reinstall DirectX.
That's about all i can think of ATM.

small edit
when I saw the post title I thought of a joke post, like:

Oh yes that is just the Viewer Scramble/Jam Transmission artifact. The AI pirates sometimes employ this so you can't see your starmap. It passes after five minutes, and they may use it again as soon as ten minutes.
But seeing your pics, I figured that wouldn't be very funny.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
The card is about 3 months old, not overclocked. Never happened before. Never happened after that either. Even with ObjectDock running. Must've been a one time thing.