Detecting artifacts - overclocking

[Nil Einne]

Hi,

In anticipation of my future graphics card purchase (no I'm still not sure if it will be a Radeon 8500LE or Ti200. I'm stil waiting for the @*&*$^&*$%@ people to bring the Epox 8K3A or 8K3A+ into NZ), if decided to ask for help on overclocking my card, specifically, what the best way to look for artifacts. I know this will depend on many factors but generally what do you find best (what games, levels etc). Or isn't there a best, i.e. is it random when and where the artifacts appear?

Also are these artifact detectors that I have read any help at all or ate they total bs? If they are helpful, which one do you recommend and where can I find it?

 

[Dave Baumann]

I noticed that on the Radeon 8500 when I had overclocked to much I got some odd geometry artifacts; these were most evident in 3DMark Vertex Tests and some of the game benchmarks. You'll know what I mean.

 

[Althornin]

Well, i would say to use Artifact Tester.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/article.php?sid=201

 

[Thowllly]

Well, i would say to use Artifact Tester.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/article.php?sid=201

I have tried that program, and for me it was totally useless. It would report zero artifacts no matter how much I overclocked, but when I tried a game, any game, I got loads of artifacts.

Maybe this version is better than the one I tried

 

[Randell]

The Vertex shader tes in 3dMark 2001 is really sensitive to overclocking. On seetings where you can loop the game ones for hours, you will see artifacts on the little 'matrix' guys.

For the 8500 the ATI Rachel demo is really sensitive as well, you will see the skin & lips start to crawl after about 3 loops if the memory is too high.

I have never had artifact tester work on a V5 or an 8500.

 

[Hyp-X]

Try S.W.I.N.E.

Seriously, I heard some people said, it was their first program to show artifacts when they are overclocking.
I even heard of a case when someone had to underclock to get rid of them. (So much for cheap noname cards...)

I still wonder whether the lot of texture layers on the terrain, the dynamic render-to-texture shadows, or the 50k-150k polygons in view did the damage...

 

[Althornin]

The artifact tester doesnt put a high load on your vid. card, so if the problem is HEAT related (IE, your game crashes or has problems a few minutes into it) it wont nessesarily pick up any artifacts, because heat isnt an issue yet, when you run it. BUt i have had success with artifact tester on a V5, Radeon/8500, and GF3's.

 

[jvd]

well

Normaly i take unreal and do the fly by demo and loop it for 24 hours ... that will tell all ...

 

[Althornin]

Another favoirte of mine (i got this from MArlin Watson, a friend of mine) is to create a Unreal Tournament game (CTF) on LavaGiant, as a spectator. Then go to the console and type "addbots 100"
Adds 100 bots - zoom out to where you can see them all, and its a full CPU graphics overload stress test. let it run overnight, if it hasnt crashed, you are A-OK.