Curious about why this happened...

[earwicker7]

This isn't really a problem per se, as I've been able to "fix" it, but I'm really interested in understanding the reason behind it.

I recently installed Fallout: New Vegas on my computer. Here is what happened in order:

1. I started FNV, and there was major flickering, to the point that I would consider the game too annoying to play.
2. I changed the overclock in Afterburner back to stock, rebooted, and then used GPU-Z to make sure the clock settings were at stock. I still got flickering.
3. I then set Afterburner to not start with Windows, and restarted. When I started FNV, there was no flickering. I quit, then went into GPU-Z to make sure the settings were still at stock, and not another Afterburner profile, then restarted FNV, and it was back to flickering.

I could go on, but basically it boils down to this: I can overclock or keep it stock, and there is no flickering. However, if I run either GPU-Z or MSI Afterburner, even after they are shut down, FNV will flicker and will not stop flickering unless I reboot my computer.

Just curious what could cause this.

 

[earwicker7]

Update... it's not just GPU-Z and MSI Afterburner; if I run ANY program before FNV, I get a flickering screen.

 

[Slaymate]

Try a different video driver.

 

[earwicker7]

HD5970 Flickering in Full-Screen, Fine in Windowed Mode

I originally thought this was a Fallout New Vegas problem, but when I tried running GPU Tool, it also happened. I am getting flickering screens on both of these programs if they are running in fullscreen, but they are fine when I run in windowed mode. Most of the time, Fallout will run fine in fullscreen if I don't run any programs before it (i.e., I have to reboot if I have run anything else), but even this doesn't happen 100% of the time.

The weird thing is that neither of the Futuremark programs (either DX10 or DX11) has this issue. I think I read somewhere that Fallout uses DX9 tech; is this the case with GPU Tool?

Some odds and ends; last week, I made the mistake of using DriverCleaner, which practically killed my computer (BSOD with any ATI drivers, drivers wouldn't install correctly, etc.). I was ready to do a clean reinstall, but miraculously, through some dumb luck (i.e., I don't know what exactly happened) I managed to get the 11.4 drivers to install. This was right before I started playing Fallout. I went ahead and used DriverSweeper (it's free, and it doesn't kill your computer) and unistalled 11.4, then reinstalled it, and it still is having this issue.

Could this be a Crossfire issue caused by something that was deleted by DriverCleaner? And no, I didn't know about the backup function until after I used it

 

[earwicker7]

As in older drivers? Where is this kind of stuff archived?

By the way, I made a different thread without thinking about this one; you may want to merge them: http://www.techist.com/forums/f77/hd5970-flickering-full-screen-fine-windowed-mode-244954/

 

[Slaymate]

The Vista and Windows 7 drivers are the same

Previous Catalyst

 

[earwicker7]

You may want to check the other thread for this to make sense (the flickering is now occuring on other programs). Did what you said, and no change... by process of elimination, I was able to find out what the problem is; it's Steam. If Steam is in the startup group, it causes GPU Tool to flicker. When I removed from the startup group, the flicker was gone. Now I'm really stumped.

 

[Slaymate]

Why did you make two threads for the same problem??

 

[earwicker7]

I know, that's why I asked you if you could merge them.

 

[earwicker7]

Now I'm getting games where the 2D stuff (the user interface) is there, but the 3D parts are missing. I'm just going to do a clean reinstall; all of this started happening right after I used DriverCleaner, so I'm hoping it's a software issue, not a hardware problem (I can still run Futuremark on both DX10 and DX11 with no problems).