Oblivion Visual Glitch - Help?

While playing Oblivion - and this ONLY happens in Oblivion - if I look at the top of the screen, it gets distorted as though it's doing a miserable job of masking the location of the mouse.

I've attached a screenshot to give you an idea; look at the top of it in the tree and you'll notice a random square of sky and leaves - this square flickers maddeningly when it's onscreen.

I'm using patch 1.2 and running it on my desktop (specs in sig). Help?

 

That is called an artifact.

Often it means you have to update your graphics drivers.

 

I've had the number of mis-haps in Oblivion increase greatly since updating to 1.2. Vista sidebar doesn't work with it, Oblivion crashes about three times every hour, etc. Did this happen before you updated to 1.2?

 

Yeah, it did. It's been an unusually consistent problem. Do you think it has something to do with my running dual monitors?

 

Disable one monitor and go play for a little while...does it show up then?

Given the newer card (I'm assuming you are playing on the desktop!) and XP x64, you might indeed have a driver related problem.

 

I've updated to the most recent driver, 158.18.

I tried disabling one monitor and I still get the artifact.

On the bright side, the performance on the 158.18s is MUCH improved. Oblivion is way, WAY smoother.

 

Any updates?