Maybe someone here can help?

[fueled_by_ramen]

My problem started happening about a month ago, and occurs only when I play Call of Duty or Call of Duty: UO.

Basically what happens is while playing the game, in a handful of areas on the maps and particularly indoors, the player models start to flicker. Sometimes it flickers really bad, to the point where I can barely concentrate on the game, while other times it flickers only slightly. It almost always happens indoors where there is some kind of artificial light source (ie. a lamp or other light that is inside the room I am in). If I am in a room that doesn't have a lamp, it doesn't happen usually. And on the rare occasion it might start to flicker while I'm outside running around, but only in a couple of areas on each map and usually it doesn't flicker that bad at all.

The things that flicker are only my own player model (ie. my gun and my arm(s), and any other players that are in the same room/area as I am). The rest of the game world (textures, ground, vehicles, rocks, etc) aren't affected.

The best way I can describe the flickering is that it looks as if I downloaded a mod that adds a strobe light to the game or something. LOL That's basically the effect. I can't think of the actual term for this graphical glitch (like graphical artifacts or clipping) but I'm pretty sure it's something that will occur from time to time in some games and certain systems...just can't figure out how to fix it!

My system:
P4 2.4GHz
1.5 GB RAM
GeForce FX 5600 256MB AGP

When I got the game a couple months ago it played absolutely great with no problems. I was able to play at high settings and 1200x1000 resolution with great framerates.

I really can't figure out what's causing this.
What I've tried so far:
-Re-installed the game twice
-Formated HDD and re-installed Win XP from scratch
-updated graphics drivers
-tweaked settings in graphics card setup
-tweaked settings in game itself
-changed VSync settings back and forth
-and a whole bunch of other things

I figured it's being caused by the lighting in the game, so I tried turning off or lowering the lighting options in the game, but nothing changed. I've tried looking this problem up online but couldn't find anyone else that had the same problems I'm having. Nothing is overheated or anything. I had my GFX card overclocked before but is currently running at stock speeds. It was overclocked both when it was running fine and after this started happening, but it wasn't clocked too high at all. All of my other games are still working fine as they always have. And I can't think of anything else that has changed in the past month or so that might cause this.

If anyone has heard of this or experienced this problem and has some ideas on what can fix it, I'd greatly appreciate it. Worse comes to worse, I am planning on finally building a new PC soon to replace my ancient system, but in the meantime I'd still like to play this game normally and enjoy it.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[cleeve]

Driver problem, or overheating/dying videocard.

Is the fan on the card still spinning?

 

[JJMAN]

Driver problem, or overheating/dying videocard.

Is the fan on the card still spinning?

Sounds like a heat issue honestly. Try blowing all the dust from the machine as well. Check to make sure that the video card fan is spinning like Cleeve said. Leave the side of the case off while you play. Put a housefan blowing into the case just to test also. But overall, sounds to me like a heat issue. Good Luck!

 

[fueled_by_ramen]

Well, I guess it's quite possible that the card is just dying. There are some components that either work or don't, and a handful that can have varying degrees of functionality, so it stands to reason I guess.

Just weird because it still works fine with my other games. I play Age of Empires 3 regularly with no problems.

At first I thought it was the drivers. Sometimes even new drivers end up disagreeing with a certain game. And I think I may have updated the drivers to the newest 93.71 ForceWare drivers at some point recently. That's why I tried wiping those drivers off and going back to my previous 91.47 drivers, but it still happens.

I guess it could be heat, but I actually recently cleaned out my entire case with a can of compressed air and took off the HSF from my GFX card and CPU to give them a good cleaning. They were fairly covered in dust and what not. Now both my GPU and CPU are running a few degrees less than they were before I cleaned it. It's possible that the heat damage was from before I cleaned them, but even that I'm not 100% sure on because the temps were still within acceptable levels. But it could still have gotten warmer than it should have without me realizing at some points I guess. It's not outside the realm of possibility.

I appreciate you guys' input. If anyone else has some other tricks I could try, I'm all ears.