Well the idea on that forum would be to try and reduce the speeds to HD7970 levels, meaning something like 900 MHz for the Core, and perhaps 1350 MHz for the memory.

Did you overclock anything else ? RAM perhaps ? Could you try going as close to "stock" as possible ?

Perhaps wiping the display drivers and re-installing them could help ...



There are numerous reports about "artifacts" with the R9-280X, unfortunately.

icarus86 wrote:
Great to hear that the HD7970 settings finally worked ^^ That.s what I aimed for.

I guess that different APIs or different versions of a given API "talk" differently to GPU systems (shaders, processors, texture units, etc.) and thus can put more or less stress on any of these components ...

In the end, the 280x is mostly an overclocked HD7970 so you.re basically a bit un-lucky that your specific base HD7970 wasn.t that overclock-friendly

I have very similar hardware to you OP. I'm not at home right now but I believe it's the MSI 260 or 270x OC edition. (2GB VRAM card) Running with quad-core 3.0 ghz AMD processor. Fast forward- how to solve your overheating/artifacting issue.



I had the SAME exact thing happening to me, only when I run Endless Legend. So it's not a "you" problem. It's just the combination of our hardware, with the way they optimized this game to run with or without VSYNC.



If you absolutely don't want to take any more chances with overheating your GPU, reduce rendering quality to BEAUTIFUL, set MAX FPS at 60, and then select "Vertical SYNC 1:2" OPTION. Also, I don't trust Crimson's fan control. I use MSI afterburner and manually set my own User-defined curve. Make sure MSI is running, with your user-defined fan curve, BEFORE running Endless Legend. I recommend having the minimum fan speed number at like 21 so you know it's running off your defined set. I usually set the GPU fan to run at 90-100% only when GPU Temps are going to reach 70-80 C.



With Endless Legend, I feel safer with it kicking in when it gets to like 60-70. Might sound a little loud but it's better than melting your card and potentially your board.



If things are running well and you want it prettier, then bump up to FANTASTIC, keeping everything else the same. THEN you can try to go to VSYNC 1:1, which would give you the full 60 FPS if your CPU is capable. Mine wasn't (at the higher video settings), which I think was causing the GPU to work extra hard and, including unstable frame rate issues, leading to the artifacting/screen tearing you described. Hope that helps. FYI- If u start to see that stuff happening, immediately zoom all the way out on the world map, (this seems to cool things off fairly quickly) exit the program, steam, etc. and shut off your computer. That will help prevent cooking video cards. Hope this helps.

Great to hear that the HD7970 settings finally worked ^^ That.s what I aimed for.

I guess that different APIs or different versions of a given API "talk" differently to GPU systems (shaders, processors, texture units, etc.) and thus can put more or less stress on any of these components ...

In the end, the 280x is mostly an overclocked HD7970 so you.re basically a bit un-lucky that your specific base HD7970 wasn.t that overclock-friendly

Hi guys



Don't think i forgot about this post, finally and i mean FINALLY the "artifacting" has gone.



I've been reading threads and testing a lot of things and certainly this had something to do with the video memory and the gpu itself, this is the profile that worked for EL:



- All drivers up to date

- GPU Core Clock 925 MHz (from 1070 MHz)

- GPU Memory Clock 1375 MHz (from 1500 MHz)

Those clocks were taken from http://gpuboss.com/graphics-card/Radeon-HD-7970 wich is the reference HD7970 and were applied using MSI Afterburner, no voltage tweaks were needed.



Those two tweaks allowed me to run EL properly and by the way, the game is awesome and i'm having a blast





Finally and just for the record, i'd like to leave these comments and thoughts:



- For what i've seen in other forums these kind of issues are attributed to DX9 when there is no issues with the hardware

- My gpu works at propper temperatures and has passed exhausting tests with no issues, so i can safely say that my gpu runs well even at the OC'd profile from stock. Have to say that all the tests where made under DX11

- So, it got me to thinking

why does Endless Legend have to run under a lower profile (in my case)?

there will be some kind of patch to run EL under DX11?

could it be something related with the Unity engine itself? since ES and EL are the only games where a have seen "artifacting"





None of the above have to be answered, those are just thoughts i had now that i can run EL properly.





Once again thanks for the ideas and comments.

The issue has been solved.

Try to decrease voltage, not increase it. More voltage equals more heat. Less voltage, with a small reduction in the clock rate, may help. Nevertheless, your temperatures are good.



The "run as admin" thing sounds very interesting. I.ve never seen such a behaviour ...

Frogsquadron wrote:


I'm interested in hearing about whether you eventually manage to run the game properly. Of course, we only run the game on fairly standard hardware configurations since we can't ensure it runs well on overclocked machines, but others here might encounter the same issue and benefit from your experience!

Sure thing. I'm actually testing some stuff before i customize my gpu, as for the overclocked systems, well the only thing OC'd on my system is the cpu and just 100 Mhz, the gpu is OC'd from stock but it's "supposedly" safe. But yeah, if i manage to run EL properly without touching anything i'll let you know.



Two things that have shown changes:



- Running EL as admin massively reduces the gpu load, don't know why.

- Running EL with opengl seems to work but the framerate is quite low.



Besides, i've found that in previous drivers AMD had issues with Directx 9 and some overclocking, here's is a thread if you are interesed:



http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2264583&page=3

icarus86 wrote:


Downclocking your card should reduce the generated heat. You could also try to downvolt it a bit, but not too much, otherwise it might get unstable. Enforcing a frame-limit and reducing graphic quality should also reduce the load on your GPU.



Finally, from my experience, running your PC with an open case could also reduce temps on the GPU by quite a bit (not necessarily on the CPU, though).

Yes, i've tried reducing the memory clock to 5,500 Mhz from 6,500 MHz from stock, the gpu clock to 950 Mhz from 1070 MHz from stock and nothing, artifacts appear.



About the framerate i've also tried forcing the fps to 60 and 30, with vsync on and off, also i've tried running the game with lowest settings possible.



For the voltage, well i think my gpu runs at proper voltage, it runs at 1175 mV max, as the Asus Panel says. And just for the record, i've tried increasing the voltage to 1200 mV and nothing. The only thing that left is reducing memory voltage, but i don't think that's possible from the Asus panel.



Finally, about the case well i could try but i if that helps then it surely is an overheating issue, and not for the gpu core but for the memory chips, the gpu core at full load runs at 72-74ºC. Besides i've played more demanding games that raises the gpu temp and i haven't seen any problem.





Thanks for comments, i'll post more info as you soon as have it.

Downclocking your card should reduce the generated heat. You could also try to downvolt it a bit, but not too much, otherwise it might get unstable. Enforcing a frame-limit and reducing graphic quality should also reduce the load on your GPU.



Finally, from my experience, running your PC with an open case could also reduce temps on the GPU by quite a bit (not necessarily on the CPU, though).

I'm interested in hearing about whether you eventually manage to run the game properly. Of course, we only run the game on fairly standard hardware configurations since we can't ensure it runs well on overclocked machines, but others here might encounter the same issue and benefit from your experience!

Alright, this issue has been SOLVED, with bad news but finally solved.



First, i'd like to apologize for creating all this mess.



The reason is overheating mixed with a bit of memory handling or something. I'm running an Asus R9 280x DirectCU II TOP, wich is overclocked in both memory and gpu clocks, this naturally is going to produce more heat and for the gpu there is no problem but for the vram chips there is no proper heat dissipation. I don't know why all my games run properly even at full load... what can i say... overheating is overheating.



This guy explains deeply why does this happens and he gives a solution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz2ybPrjhdw





Now that i know what's exactly happening I'm going to try a few things to see if i can play EL properly but i'm going to stop posting here.



If someone wants to talk about it feel free to send me a messsage.





Once again, thanks for all the comments, tips and ideas.

See ya!!

icarus86 wrote:
Quick question : did you try running the game in "Windowed" mode and/or other resolutions ?

Thanks for the answer.





Yes, actually i like to play these games in windowed mode at 1600x900, so i've tried both windowed (1600x900) and fullscreen (1920x1080) modes.

Quick question : did you try running the game in "Windowed" mode and/or other resolutions ?

Frogsquadron wrote:
I'd suggest making sure your drivers are fully uninstalled (ccleaner) before reinstalling them, as another user reported in this very forum that their drivers had uninstalled incorrectly and that it caused issues.

Thanks for the answer.





Yes, i've removed all the drivers using the AMD tool to remove current and previous installations.



I'd like to comment that i've tried forcing EL to run with opengl and the game seems to work fine but the cutscenes are not available and the fps drops dramatically, the game runs at 30 fps or less.



Also i tried with dx11 but that didn't fix anything.





Once again i appreciate all the comments, i'm still looking for a solution i'm dying to play EL propperly.

I'd suggest making sure your drivers are fully uninstalled (ccleaner) before reinstalling them, as another user reported in this very forum that their drivers had uninstalled incorrectly and that it caused issues.

icarus86 wrote:
Well the idea on that forum would be to try and reduce the speeds to HD7970 levels, meaning something like 900 MHz for the Core, and perhaps 1350 MHz for the memory.

Did you overclock anything else ? RAM perhaps ? Could you try going as close to "stock" as possible ?

Perhaps wiping the display drivers and re-installing them could help ...



There are numerous reports about "artifacts" with the R9-280X, unfortunately.

Well here i must say that i'm using an Asus DirectCU II TOP, the stock clocks for it are 1070 Mhz for the gpu and 1600 Mhz for the memory clock. First i tried reducing the memory clock to 1500 Mhz and nothing and for the gpu clock i also tried at 970 Mhz. None of these tricks worked.



Also, i've installed the latest bios patch for this graphics card that fixes the artifacting in some games. As they say here http://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/R9280XDC2T3GD5/HelpDesk_Download/

"R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 VBIOS update

BIOS update to remove rare artifacting events during gaming, Please also update the Catalyst driver to 13.251 or above."



What makes me curious is that Endless Space and Endless Legend are the only games that suffer this issue, i've seen artifacting on Endless Space like 5 times but i solve this restarting the game. And i wouldn't consider dropping the games because i like them.



Finally about drivers, i haven't tried that because i think my installation is ok, but i guess i have to try.





So i'm going to try a few things more and see what happends.



Thanks for the ideas.

Hi!



I've been trying to play EL but the screen starts to flicker after some time and some kind of color squares appear suddenly.



Some screeshots here -> https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3gkdy9jydvq9a2t/AADDD6p1L0HaOYoHAvT9w584a?dl=0



Is there something i can do to fix this? I'm dying to play EL but i can't.



Oh by the way... i use to play ES too and from time to time this happens in that game too.



PC Specs

- AMD A10 7850k @4.1 GHz

- 8 GB RAM

- AMD R9 280x @ 1 GHz (updated drivers)

- 1080p screen @ 60 Hz

- 1 TB HDD

- OS Windows 7 64-bit



EL Version

- 1.3.5 S3 (32-bit)



I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks.

Frogsquadron wrote:
If Afterburner was an issue at some point, it could be another software running interference. I'd advise trying another clean boot and seeing how the game handles itself with the bare minimum, and if satisfactory, re-adding other programs one at a time to rule out the offender.

Well i've tried a clean boot, with almost nothing, just the anti-virus, corsair link and the Crimson manager but the issue is still there.



Have to say that somehow the game was working fine with vsync set on 1:2 for about 1 hour, suddenly some artifacts appeared in some objects, pre-battle menu for example. If i disable the vsync the artifacts are gone but in matter of minutes they come back, so if i go back to vsync 1:2 the artifacts are gone once again, and so.

icarus86 wrote:


Sorry, I didn't read your initial post properly - that's why I wrote about the CPU ... my bad.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answer...-problems.html - Could you try to DOWN-clock your 280X with 50-100 MHz ? Perhaps try to use Radeon Crimson instead of Afterburner ?

I've tried reducing the memory clock to 1500 Mhz, and nothing, Afterburner has been unistalled so Crimson is handling the gpu stuff.



I've tried with the "AMD Optimized" settings ON and OFF.





I don't want to look like a fool on this but i'd like to see if there is a fix for this.



Thanks.

Sorry, I didn't read your initial post properly - that's why I wrote about the CPU ... my bad.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1996290/280x-artifacts-flickers-problems.html - Could you try to DOWN-clock your 280X with 50-100 MHz ? Perhaps try to use Radeon Crimson instead of Afterburner ?

If Afterburner was an issue at some point, it could be another software running interference. I'd advise trying another clean boot and seeing how the game handles itself with the bare minimum, and if satisfactory, re-adding other programs one at a time to rule out the offender.

Guys... i've come back, sadly.



Well issue still goes on, this time i've tried a few things and clearly identified the isse:



+ The issue is ARTIFACTING, no doubt.

- Certainly i mentioned that when removed Afterburner the game was working fine, but not anymore.

- I tried forcing DX11, playing at very low settings, customized profile via Crimson Panel and nothing.

- There is one way to stop the artifacting for a few minutes; changing the vsync settings from Disabled to 1:1 and viceversa. That makes the artifacting dissapear at least for a few minutes.



Just for the record, i forced my gpu in search for the same issue working at 80% @ 72 ºC and there was no artifacting. The test i made were; Unigine Valley Benchmark and Tomb Raider.



So, i'm so sorry to ask again for help.



Thanks.

Hey! Glad to see you got it resolved!