Call of Duty 4 Artifacting 5870

I was playing Call of Duty 4 on my Sager NP8690 with a 5870. I windowed out for some reason, and when I returned to the game I saw what I thought was artifacting. It went a way in a few seconds, and I immediately re windowed out and launched HWmoniter. After playing for another 10 minutes, I my GPU was at a max of 73 degrees C, which is perfectly safe. I also got ATI tool and did an artifact scan with no errors. I'm new the this type of thing and I am curious if I should be worried about this, because I've heard bad things about ATI cards dying.

 

Oh, and I was using Catalyst 10.9, but I'm on 10.11 now.

 

If it only occurs when you minimize out and go back into the game, it might be the game, not the card. Some games tend to not "like" when you minimize it.

 

NVidia was making the cards that were known to fail, not ATi; any card has a possibility of failure though. I would run an hour OCCT test w/error checking, it's much better than ATiTool's scanner.

 

Ok thanks, I'll try the OCCT test and hopefully COD just doesn't like being minimized.

 

Just be sure to keep an eye on your temps, and watch the screen every so often. I usually watch a TV show in a window next to the test.

 

hmm... used an ati desktop cards a while back, and thats the only time i had ati, so can some one care to explain what an artifacting is ?
thanks

 

Artifacts are rendering errors. They're either caused by an unstable GPU or a software problem (application or driver).

 

oh i see, but i had that quite a lot back when i was using my old desktop as a gaming platform which used a built-in graphics card and when it didnt handle hitman 3 its was giving me those errors, i was walking in the air as the ground disappeared and other stuff too, not to mention some strong games which i nearly just saw the main character xDDD, and as i remember the pc was working after all that until i exchange it for another one, oh old days ^_^

 

Ya it doesn't sound hardware related. Plus I think 5800 series gpus prevent artifacting by downclocking. I know my desktop 5850 does which makes it harder to test my overclocks on it.

 

The desktop 58xx line down-clocks at stock, but not under load (which is when you'll get artifacts). It should only throttle if temps break the safety limit. You should be able to test any clock settings, if it's down-clocking you may have a driver problem.