Massive tearing and other graphical anomalies after a few minutes of play

[Titanian]

When I first load up EQ2 I'm golden. I don't play with super high graphical settings - in fact, most of the details are turned down to a minimum (water sucks, no bloom, etc.) However, even after a few minutes, tearing begins. It starts with little things, like a part of my character's arm linking to the middle of his base, but then seems to just roll up in intensity exponentially. It can get so bad that, after a half an hour, I can't turn without flashes of tearing landscape obscuring, at the very minimum, half of my screen. Even if that doesn't happen, the ground and walls do weird things, like turn into blotchy bright green/purple/blue smudges.I run what was, at least a year ago, a fairly high end laptop. 3.6 ghz single core processor, with a ATI Mobility Radeon 9600/9700 and the latest Omega Drivers installed.Anyone have any suggestions?

[kjfett4]

would be odd that it was a heating issue that quickly, can you think of anything that changed on the laptop about the time you started noticing this? Maybe reinstall the newest drivers from ATI.

[Dark_Grue]

<p><cite>Titanian wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>When I first load up EQ2 I'm golden. I don't play with super high graphical settings - in fact, most of the details are turned down to a minimum (water sucks, no bloom, etc.) However, even after a few minutes, tearing begins. It starts with little things, like a part of my character's arm linking to the middle of his base, but then seems to just roll up in intensity exponentially. It can get so bad that, after a half an hour, I can't turn without flashes of tearing landscape obscuring, at the very minimum, half of my screen. Even if that doesn't happen, the ground and walls do weird things, like turn into blotchy bright green/purple/blue smudges.</blockquote><p>What your describing doesn't sound entirely like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tearing" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">typical use of the term tearing</a>, so much as progressively massive video corruption. "Tearing" as related to frame synchronization, wouldn't corrupt graphical objects in the way you describe. There is, however, a v-sync option in the game options that may be off by default (think it's in the first group of video options). You can try turning it on, I don't think it's going to solve your problems.</p><p><cite>kjfett4 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>would be odd that it was a heating issue that quickly, can you think of anything that changed on the laptop about the time you started noticing this? Maybe reinstall the newest drivers from ATI.</blockquote><p>Actually, video cards start to heat up very fast once you start using 3D features. On the order of handfuls of seconds, not minutes. A card with a severe heat dissapation issue can fail quickly. Although there is some relation to how much heat the chip generates based on how hard it's working, there's less correlation between turning on and off game graphics features and thermal load - once you start using the 3D aspects, the card's generally going to be operating in the upper operating temperature band regardless of how graphically complex the game is.</p><p>Unless EQ2 never worked correctly at all, I wouldn't expect this to be a driver issue. Nevertheless, reinstalling the drivers is a relatively no-cost troubleshooting step that's worth performing before considering a hardware problem. I would recommend getting Driver Cleaner and reading the instructions on how to use it (the order and steps <i>need</i> to be followed exactly in order for it to be effective).</p><p><cite>Titanian wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I run what was, at least a year ago, a fairly high end laptop. 3.6 ghz single core processor, with a ATI Mobility Radeon 9600/9700 and the latest Omega Drivers installed.Anyone have any suggestions? </blockquote><p>Well, given your laptop's got some hours on it, it's a possibility you have a family of dust bunnies choking the heatsinks. Partially disassembling it to clean the heatsink(s) might resolve your problem. However, laptop disassembly isn't very straightforward, and can be very specific to the make and model of your laptop. Some laptops are a bear to get apart, others are relatively intuitive.</p><p>I do not recommend just sticking a air can in the slot and blowing - canned air can overrev fans easily and melt the fan bearings. This is true for all computer fans, but even more so for the super-compact ones used in laptops. A damaged laptop fan can leave you totally hosed, since unlike desktops (with few exceptions), there is no standardization. You can't just hop down to the local shop and ask for a replacement (unless said shop is an authorized repair depot for that manufacturer, and it's a replaceable part unit, and it's still an available part...). If you're going to clean a heatsink with compressed air, make sure you (gently) hold the fan from turning. This is best done by holding the blade stationary, rather than pushing down on the fan hub (which can compress the fan bearings and damage them). If you can do this without disassembling the laptop (by sticking a toothpick between the blade to keep them from turning, you can avoid disassembling your laptop, but it's not ideal, as you can still drive dust farther into you laptop into places you might not wish it to go.</p><p>Another possibility is the thermal pad or paste on the heatsink(s) has dried out or lost contact, in which case you'd have to disassemble it, clean the old stuff off (lighter fluid works well), and apply a replacement. Some laptop heatsink assemblies only work with thermal pads (because they have lousy tolerances), others you can "improve" by applying a good paste like Artic Silver. Not necessaily a project for a beginner, though.</p>

[Titanian]

My laptop is a pretty solid beast - I'm leery of prising open its hard exoskeleton to peer at the delicately ticking innards that lay beneath.It seems I was using the term 'tearing' wrongly, though. Here is a screenshot I took that is fairly representative of the problem: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eq2000000hp2.jpg" target="_blank">http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?...q2000000hp2.jpg</a>I should mention that this problem happens in all games I have, but NEVER TO THIS DEGREE. The occasional corruption in WoW is easily dealt with by a quick alt-tab. It "fixes" the graphics in EQ2 as well, but only for a few seconds before the ravenous maw of flashing planes surfaces again.Edit: Oh yes, I've tried updating as well as downgrading drivers (as per the sticky) in an attempt to find something that works with EQ2. Nothing so far has helped.

[Tebos]

<cite>Titanian wrote:</cite><blockquote>When I first load up EQ2 I'm golden. I don't play with super high graphical settings - in fact, most of the details are turned down to a minimum (water sucks, no bloom, etc.) However, even after a few minutes, tearing begins. It starts with little things, like a part of my character's arm linking to the middle of his base, but then seems to just roll up in intensity exponentially. It can get so bad that, after a half an hour, I can't turn without flashes of tearing landscape obscuring, at the very minimum, half of my screen. Even if that doesn't happen, the ground and walls do weird things, like turn into blotchy bright green/purple/blue smudges.I run what was, at least a year ago, a fairly high end laptop. 3.6 ghz single core processor, with a ATI Mobility Radeon 9600/9700 and the latest Omega Drivers installed.Anyone have any suggestions? </blockquote><p>This is classic over-heating issue. You can purchase a can-of-air and see if you can clear out the dust bunnies that maybe interfering with air flow. It might not be enough to just spray air into the ventalation's but instead it may require you open the hood of the notebook computer. </p>

[kjfett4]

If you are not comfortable with opening the unit up, I would recommend paying to have it cleaned. A $100 cleaning is well worth it if it fixes the problem and saves the parts from the added stress of overheating.