What's causing these Crysis 3 Artifacts?

I've been playing through Crysis 3 again, and once I get to a certain section in the root of all evil level, there are random black flashes that happen when I look at certain locations.

Here's a video of whats happening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o8Opgn2hME&index=1&list=PL4LC1kLVctMP0jtBzGV7MGteUftfN-X-x

Does this look like a hardware issue or a software thing?

I haven't seen it in any other games or benchmarks, or even other sections of crysis 3 as far as I can tell.

Is your GPU overclocked?

@klunt_bumskrint:

It was, I brought the clocks back down to stock and the artifacts still appear.

I should note that I didn't raise the voltages at all.

@topgunmv:

Your GPU is unstable. Some times down clocking will work. Other times a bump in voltage and other the card needs to be RMA'ed.

You could have damage to RAM or a resistor.

My GTX 690 had a burnt resister on the back it still functioned. But would get artifacting now and then.

The GTX 580 I'm using that is borrowed... A lot has a problem with crashes and slight artifacts. I bumped the voltage up 3 levels and it works perfectly fine.

When you reset the clocks make sure you turn off the PC. Unplug it then press the power button. That'll clear anything left in the RAM just to make sure the clock reset.

@klunt_bumskrint: @Truth_Hurts_U:

I under clocked the card and unplugged the computer, still having the same issue.

Is there no chance that it's just a software issue? I made a better video showing what's going on, I can get the square to stay on screen without flashing, it almost reminds me of the black dot artifacts in crysis warhead on the train level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MROPBvqDTM&feature=youtu.be

What video card do you have?

r9 290x

@topgunmv: Well it's been at least 3 or 4 years since I had any hands on with a AMD card.

Nvidia has a remove old driver option when installing a driver. I'm not sure if AMD have this.

But if it doesn't you can try this program http://treexy.com/products/driver-fusion/download

I have the prem version from steam. I had to use it a few times from drivers that didn't uninstall correctly. They can cause artifacts. But more times then not if down clocking or raising the voltage doesn't work it's normally a HW issue.

You can try uninstalling your driver and then reinstalling it with windows. But some files will more then likely remain.

You could try reseating the GPU or repairing any C3 files through Origin.

@klunt_bumskrint: @Truth_Hurts_U:

Thanks for your assistance.

While I haven't been able to get rid of the artifacting in that one spot, I also haven't been able to reproduce it in any other games, benchmarks, or stress tests.

I think it's just an issue confined to that one spot of that one level, and while I don't remember for sure, I think it may have been happening the first time I played through the game before my overclock as well.

Either way, the card has a lifetime warranty, so I guess I'll just keep using it till I have issues elsewhere.

@topgunmv: Tesselation is a bit bad on AMD hardware. Crytek never bothered to fix it. Try disabling tesselation (object detail to medium) and see if it works. It's a problem in the engine.

I was actually looking at youtube videos and ran across someone showing his r9 290 performance on the same level, and he had the exact same artifact appear in the exact same spot, so that leads me to also believe it's probably just an issue with the level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gVmiIQ5D0K4#t=14

17-18 second mark you can see it quickly flash on the screen.

Yeah, I don't think you have to worry about anything. Especially if its only happening in Crysis 3.