1.3 graphical glitch: rays stemming from some far perspective point...

I've never had any graphical glitches with ETW before, but yesterday I encountered one in several battles in a row. Once the battle opened, a good portion of the battlefield was messed up by some spectral rays stemming out from a far-away perspective point. The "rays" would cover the battlefield and not let me see neither the field, nor any units under it.

Has anyone encountered something like this? Any ideas how to fix it?

P.S. I have not changed any graphics options, by the way.

Only times I've seen this in games my video card was dying and I've ended up returning it for replacement within a couple months. Might just be something overheating though as it is deep summer, try cleaning all fans / grills with a compressed air can.

Yeah, this sounds like a hardware problem to me too.

Is it still doing it?

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Originally Posted by Babblearossa

Only times I've seen this in games my video card was dying and I've ended up returning it for replacement within a couple months. Might just be something overheating though as it is deep summer, try cleaning all fans / grills with a compressed air can.

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That would really s-k!... (If the card was dying). That card is only a couple months old. But I'll try the "cleaning" method later tonight. So, is there a way to tell if the graphics card is broken?

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Originally Posted by Slaists

So, is there a way to tell if the graphics card is broken?

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Yeah, if you get graphical glitches that's one indication ;)

Being more serious, try running another graphically demanding game, or maybe a 3D benchmark and see if it does the same thing. Also, is it consistent? Does it do it in every battle, or does it start once the game has been running for a while (giving the card a chance to heat up)?

Something a bit like this?
http://www.badcrush.com/art1.jpg

As said by others its normally a case of the card being too hot & should go away if you cool it down.
If the card is covered in dust, fans not running &/or ventilation slots blocked with dust then cleaning that out can improve things.

Make sure there is plenty of room for cool air to enter the PC & for the warm air to get away.

Depending on how the computer is setup & how hot wherever you live gets, it could be that the computer fans can't cope with the heat.

If all the above fails you my friend, try going to your User Interface options and disable the Target Zones marker. If you are encountering the same problem I had, your Target Zone Markers are causing a kaleidoscope of target rays to overwhelm your screen.:juggle2:

Its usually a heat issue.

If your card does fry and you're out of warranty:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread....highlight=oven

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Originally Posted by hoom

Something a bit like this?
http://www.badcrush.com/art1.jpg

As said by others its normally a case of the card being too hot & should go away if you cool it down.
If the card is covered in dust, fans not running &/or ventilation slots blocked with dust then cleaning that out can improve things.

Make sure there is plenty of room for cool air to enter the PC & for the warm air to get away.

Depending on how the computer is setup & how hot wherever you live gets, it could be that the computer fans can't cope with the heat.

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Yes, that's exactly how it looked...

For now, after cleaning my fans, etc., the glitch seems to have disappeared (let's hope it stays that way). Also, if I remember correctly, on the day the glitch happened, my apartment AC was off and it was quite hot.

Thanks for the tips everyone!

I double checked the innards of my system and did not find any dust there... :laugh4: Well, it's a pretty new system. The glitch seemed to have vanished too, at least, for some time.

It came back the other day, but this time I noticed a pattern. It would show up if I applied the field defense option to my artillery. It was one particular artillery unit that seemed affected (not the first, not the last) in several battles. I tried different options, clicking the field defense on and off for different combinations of artillery units): the glitch always showed up for that particular unit (all my artillery pieces were horse artillery, btw).

Also, I remembered that in the previous two occasions when I observed this glitch, the AI (not me) had deployed artillery field defenses...