Starcraft 2 graphic artifacts

Just got SC2 for Christmas, I'm loving the game so far, but I'm worried about the artifacts I'm getting. Sometimes it will be bright streaks of light from the SCVs or it will be "smears" of blood from Zerg. The game has never crashed on me, although I've gotten some pretty interesting temps on both CPU and GPU, up to mid 90's on both. Mostly temps are in upper 80s for CPU and mid 70's for GPU.

This video shows an example of what I am getting.
Starcraft 2 Graphic Artifacts

My specs are as follows:
DV6tSe
Core i5 m450 @ 2.4GHz
Radeon 5650 1Gb
6Gb Ram
Windows 7
160 Gb SSD

Settings are all on medium, which I believed should be completely playable on this machine. Framerate is decent also, no noticeable lag.

 

Are you overclocking your GPU at all? What version of the Catalysts are you running? You should be running the latest, the 10.12 version.

 

Most likely your GPU memory clock is too overclocked. It won't crash the game but it will show artifacts.

 

I'm assuming stock settings.

Common issue with AMD drivers sadly....
It occurs commonly when doing an upgrade path instead of doing a clean install.

The workaround....
Just simply to a clean install of the AMD drivers for your card. When I say clean, there is no instances of AMD drivers. Then install whatever version you want or have.

If that didn't work,...as stupid as this sounds... create a new windows login account and run the game from there. This oddly worked for me when clean install failed. I never understood why.

And yes, I did had what the OP is suffering...Lucky for him, he only noticed in SC2.

There is a post it on blizzard about it, the devs are currently working to resolve it. It existed since beta.

 

GPU isn't overclocked at all, it's the same as when I pulled it out of the box. I just played SC2 for maybe 30 minutes, GPU got to 96 and CPU to 97. Those are scary numbers.

I would think the Catalyst software would be up to date, where do I find the version?

 

He can't run 10.12 because the dv6 with an i5 has switchable graphics and can only use HP's modified driver, which is still only up to 10.10 IIRC.

 

You need to replace the thermal paste on both of them, and I mean now. If you have at home service, call them immediately.

 

Does yours look like this?

YouTube - SCV Laser Light Show Graphic Artifacts

As citypig suggested, send it back to HP or HP home service to fix the temp problems asap so you don't regret it like he did

Edit: Didn't even notice, the OP vid link. Which is a Yes

 

Actually, his temps are even worse than mine. The highest I've ever seen for my GPU is 92C, and that was a total anomaly. Never goes above 80C otherwise. During that same anomaly, the CPU went up to 105C, but I think there was an exhaust issue caused by the way it was positioned on my cooler (though I haven't played BFBC2 since out of fear of overheating).

 

Make sure to edit your variables.txt file to have a FPS clamp.

StarCraft 2 doesn't limit framerates | bit-gamer.net

 

That's a bandaid fix that does nothing to address the root cause of his problem. If his GPU and cooling system are functioning properly, he should be able to run it flat-out all day without overheating, which is exactly what I would consider temps of 97 to be. Have it fixed, as those temps are not even borderline acceptable. If I recall correctly, the 5650 shuts itself off at 100 degrees, so being 3 away from that is not even remotely ok.

 

Instead of 1 problem, he has 2...

GPU Temp and a buggy driver.

He could try to reinstall the driver and run it a bit.

I did got this fluke problem a several times on all of my AMD card systems even on my desktops, which was mostly resolved by a reinstall.

Finally found the thread that helped...it was in sticked reported issued ;P
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/218522146?page=1#1

 

Your GPU memory is overheating. It's as simple as that.

 

That was only for the beta. Retail, even unpatched, already capped it to ~60fps (62fps seems common) even in game.

 

Hey, Mine does the same thing.

My specs are as follows:
DV6tSe
Core i5 m460 @ 2.53GHz
Radeon 5650 (not overclocked)
6Gb Ram
Windows 7

I have the latest drivers from HP.

However I am running in Medium settings, and texture on High and am getting good frame rates. But my highest GPU temp was 65C and CPU temp was 74C. Your temps are oddly high.

It seems to be a common problem though.
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/218522146

 

Whoa, lots of replies, I leave to go to a Detroit Pistons game and come back to unsettling news about my laptop, hah.

I'll try to address all the replies here. City Pig is correct, I cannot install 10.12

The temps I posted are AFTER the variables.txt file edit.

My temps on bootup, with only mozilla running, are in mid 50s, low 60s. They've since gone to low 50's in the time of writing this post.

Anyone know how long it will take to get HP to fix my computer? I'm going back to college the 10th, it'd be a shame to be without it for a month...


Edit: on chat with HP support currently, they want me to do a BIOS update, she said if that doesn't work, it's hardware related and I can send it in. I feel like I'm jumping through hoops here..

Edit2: BIOS update done. Computer restarted and temps for both CPU and GPU rocketed to ~80C at login. They are at 54 and 58C now, with the minimum recorded at 49C.

 

Uh, no. The first thing you should do in SC2 is cap the FPS. Why would you want your GPU working 100% all the time when it doesn't have to? It was a poor design choice for Blizz not to cap the framerate, many devs do it.

While I agree that you have a heat issue, I would STRONGLY advise putting a FPS cap on. I applied a universal 60 FPS cap for all 3D apps...more just isn't worth the fan noise and reduced component life.

EDIT: Oh, I see that retail already applied a FPS cap.. nevermind, lol.

I would consider an undervolt. Those temps are pretty bad. The max thermal junction for most AMD GPUs is 110C, for the iX series CPUs, its usually 100C...you are dangerously close to those numbers.

 

It's 105C for i5s.

@jakej: The BIOS update really made a difference? Hm...

 

Not really, it was only marginally lower when using the computer, the difference could have been from anything. I'm going to try a game of SC2 today, since my computer has had a night to rest and cool down and see how it goes. What temps should I be getting?

 

I'm getting the same sort of problem. I'm using a Dell Studio XPS with a Mobility Radeon 3670 512mb GPU. Does anyone know exactly where I can download new drivers? I'm still using 10.1, but I can't seem to find support for this card anywhere on AMD's website.

 

I definitely know my computer has a cooling issue. Just browsing these forums, my CPU got up to 81C and GPU to 77C. Having 2 applications open, Firefox and HWmonitor, should not be giving me these temperatures. I think I'll be sending in a request for service to HP.

 

Is the fan ramping up? Maybe the fan profile is not agressive enough.... I know my m11x tries to be quiet until about 75C, then it just drops all pretense and ramps up the fan to 100% (something I didn't experience until this week o.0).

In which case do you have the latest BIOS?

 

Fan goes absolutely nuts, sounds like my laptop is about to fly away.

I tried playing Mass Effect 2 today, its never given me bad temps before, but oh my god.

GPU got to 101C
CPU got to 102C

This thing is going in the mail.