Seeing "Seams" while playing some games, seeking some help.

[Venion]

I have for the past few months, been seeing some "seams" while playing games on my PC, I've only experienced these "seams" on Final Fantasy XI (an MMO) and World of Warcraft (another MMO) at first I thought it was something released in a patch on Final Fantasy XI that was causing these "seems" then I went and played World of Warcraft and noticed them there as well.

What I see is two textures that look as if they're not close enough thus leaving a 1 pixel wide line that runs in between the textures.

These seems I know were not there 4-5 months ago as they stand out enough for one to not be able to not notice them.

I have done nothing to my PC except update to newer graphic drivers as they are released but the issue is still there even if I roll back to some pretty old drivers so I am confused as to what the issue may be.

I use a Dell made computer with a Nvidia GeForce 7300 LE graphics card (which is supported by both games) and I use DirectX 9.0c. My graphics Driver is 169.21 Forceware from the Nvidia website, and as I stated, rolling back to older models has not changed the problem.

While playing these games as well, I noticed that sometimes shading is not blending as it should, (example: I am staring at a building, there is light hitting the building from one side thus making it bright, and it's dark on the other side, the darkness and light are not blending together like they used to, instead it's just a line separating the light and dark, instead of them blending together.)

After updating drivers/downgrading drivers the only change I make inside the Nvidia Control Panel is put Vertical Sync Forced on to prevent the tearing, and also put Triple Buffering on, I have tried having Triple Buffering on and off and there is no difference between the two.

 

[TriplexDread]

Have you tried cleaning the HSF on the card?

After a while of use the Heatsink can get clogged up with dust and fluff etc
If you can check to make sure the gan is spinning and the Heatsink is clear. The problems you described are indicative of heat building up on the GPU

 

[Venion]

I cleaned out my PC today, all the dust and fluff, and I am still seeing the "seams" inside these games.

 

[Anon_F]

Trying taking out the Graphics Card & re-sitting it in the G/C Slot?
And reconnect up the power to the fan on it.

 

[Ian]

If you have already updated your in game drivers, try resetting the graphics options in the nvidia panel to the defaults. Then try tweaking them from there to see if it makes a difference.

Driver problems and overheating can cause glitches like this, but it sounds as though you have tried most things.

 

[Venion]

Trying taking out the Graphics Card & re-sitting it in the G/C Slot?
And reconnect up the power to the fan on it.

I'm pretty good with Computer Software, but messing around with Hardware makes me nervous, any advice on how to go about this or should I get someone else to do what you described?

If you have already updated your in game drivers, try resetting the graphics options in the nvidia panel to the defaults. Then try tweaking them from there to see if it makes a difference.

Driver problems and overheating can cause glitches like this, but it sounds as though you have tried most things.

I'll go mess around with the graphics options, since it affects multiple games it's possible that it's something in there, as well as something with overheating, or the card itself, wanna exhaust all options before I think about replacing the card though.

 

[Venion]

These are my Graphic Options inside the Nvidia Options thingy, I posted the Defaults (Right after I upgrade a new driver) and my current (what I put it on after the driver is installed)


Any help and assistance on what good options would be would be great.


Defaults

Anisotropic Filtering: Application Controlled

Antialiasing – Gamma: Off

Antialiasing – Setting: Application Controlled

Antialiasing – Transparency: Off

Conformant Texture Clamp: Use Hardware

Extension Limit: Off

Force Mipmap: None

Multi-Display/Mixed GPU Acceleration: Multiple display performance mode

Stereo Display mode: Use Vertical Interlace Monitor

Texture Filtering Anisotropic mip filter… Off

Texture Filtering Anisotropic sample opti… Off

Texture Filtering Negative LOD bias: Allow

Texture Filtering Quality Quality

Texture Filtering Trilinear Optimization On

Tripe Buffering: Off

Vertical Sync: Use the 3D application setting



Current

Anisotropic Filtering: Application Controlled

Antialiasing – Gamma: Off

Antialiasing – Setting: Application Controlled

Antialiasing – Transparency: Off

Conformant Texture Clamp: Use Hardware

Extension Limit: Off

Force Mipmap: None

Multi-Display/Mixed GPU Acceleration: Multiple display performance mode

Stereo Display mode: Use Vertical Interlace Monitor

Texture Filtering Anisotropic mip filter… Off

Texture Filtering Anisotropic sample opti… Off

Texture Filtering Negative LOD bias: Allow

Texture Filtering Quality Quality

Texture Filtering Trilinear Optimization On

Tripe Buffering: On

Vertical Sync: Force On

 

[Alf]

Unless your using multiple monitors to display the game, i suggest changing
Multi-Display/mixed GPU Acceleration : (Multiple display performance mode) To (Single Display performance mode)

I doubt that fix your problem, but thats one thing out of the way

 

[Venion]

I removed my Graphics card today and put it back in, the issue was not solved.

Well, I'm getting a new graphics card soon so I hope that will fix the problem but, what else could this be caused by?

 

[michael 118]

I removed my Graphics card today and put it back in, the issue was not solved.

Well, I'm getting a new graphics card soon so I hope that will fix the problem but, what else could this be caused by?

i don't know if you could maybe try running your computer using integrated graphics? I think your computer will default to running with integrated graphics if there isn't a card in the slot... games will look ugly, but at least you'll be able to see if there are these "seem" problems you're talking about. Good luck

edit: it does sound like a problem with your graphics card specifically, and not with any other pieces of hardware (fingers crossed).

 

[Venion]

I have a plug'n'play monitor that plugs into my graphics card, so I'm not sure I can try that, and where the issue only affects games I thinks it's doubtful that it's my monitor.