Artifacts only in unreal engine games

[Arranion]

Games based on unreal engine have become unplayable to me.
I first noticed this issue on Hogwarts legacy, where it started happening after 30h of playtime.
Black shapes flicker all over the screen, and sometimes coloured spikes appear everywhere.
I then tried an unreal engine benchmark (element), and the same thing happened when fire effects started.
I have no graphical issues in other games, just UE based ones.
Any ideas how to fix this? I tried reinstalling drivers, some obscure registry fixes, reinstalled windows.. Nothing works.
Here's a link to my HL bug report, there are some screenshots there:
https://hogwartslegacy.bugs.wbgames.com/bug/HL-4825

I'm using a 1060 6GB card, on a laptop

[Arranion]

Nah, I sincerely doubt that Hogwarts Legacy put files everywhere. It does create a folder in program data, but those are only shader cache files.
I'll keep my eyes open for any additional issues, but if my GPU is dying, there's not much I can do but throw the laptop in the trash when that happens.
Serves me right for even buying a gaming laptop 🤣

[plat]

You have little choice but to wait for a reply to your report, OP. If you don't get one at all, that pretty much means the issue is on your side.

Some things to consider via NV Control Panel but if you're not sure, I would leave it.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/best-nvdia-control-panel-settings/

[PopinFRESH]

I'd concur that it looks much more like failing VRAM than a software issue. Considering you've already wiped the system and completely reinstalled Windows, and DDU'd and reinstalled the graphics driver I'd think it is pretty safe to rule out software as being the issue.

In regards to why it has only been noticed in some UE games that very well could be due to whatever settings you have configured for those games. You may have some graphics settings that make more use of VRAM than you are seeing in other games.

You could try to run some other graphically intense GPU benchmarks that will stress the GPU and VRAM and see if you have any crashes and/or artifacting.

Furmark [geeks3d.com] will usually fully load the GPU and VRAM so that will likely show the issue.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/223850/3DMark/

3DMark using Timespy Extreme should also fairly heavily load the GPU and VRAM in certain segments of the benchmark so that should also show the issue.

[AustrAlien2010]

If you have a laptop, then sometimes the video card needs drivers specifically for that model laptop. Sometimes the manufacturer has a website where you can download those.

What brand & model is the laptop?

[Arranion]

That's the thing - I tried Furmark, Unigine Valley and Superposition, as well as OCCT.
None of them showed any artifacts, even after prolonged tests. My temps don't go above 70°C in any of them, but I've already ruled out overheating.

AustrAlien2010 eredeti hozzászólása:

If you have a laptop, then sometimes the video card needs drivers specifically for that model laptop. Sometimes the manufacturer has a website where you can download those.

What brand & model is the laptop?

It's an Acer Predator Helios 300, with a GTX 1060 6GB, i7-8750 and 16GB RAM, also 2 SSD-s.
It is around 3 years old, but I'm still hoping that the GPU isn't quite dead yet.

[PopinFRESH]

Arranion eredeti hozzászólása:

That's the thing - I tried Furmark, Unigine Valley and Superposition, as well as OCCT.
None of them showed any artifacts, even after prolonged tests. My temps don't go above 70°C in any of them, but I've already ruled out overheating.

I'm not really suggesting it's an overheating issue. Did you happen to install and run GPU Shark alongside Furmark? What settings in Furmark did you use?

GPU Shark will show you GPU memory use and GPU memory controller use. So you can watch that while Furmark is running to make sure you've run it with settings that are fully/near fully using your VRAM and VRAM controller. You could also use GPU-Z to monitor/log while running Furmark and then look at the Memory Used data point during the burn-in and see if you're using most of your VRAM or not.

Same suggestions with Unigen. Valley isn't really going to be taxing on VRAM for a 1060 6GB card. Superposition could be depending on the options you've configured. Using its default settings for it isn't going to use a substantial amount of VRAM. IIRC its default settings is going to only use about 2GB - 3GB of VRAM.

Also, it could be memory clock stability. You can use GPU-Z to see what the memory frequency, and voltage, is hitting when running a game where you're seeing the artifacting. Then use MSI Afterburner to slightly under clock the memory and see if it is still having issues.

[AmaiAmai]

Certain laptop models have VRAM check features. You will be able to run a test yourself to check the VRAM (though it may take some time).

Your manufacturer will know how to access those features if they are available on your PC.

But really, it could still be anything. Lots of buggy interactions exist, esp. when more than one program uses the GPU and during hardware acceleration. Lots of programmers also use shortcuts that get patched out of existence at some point because they aren't intended.