Weird video behavior

Sounds like a driver issue to me. Try updating the drivers to the newest version. See if that helps. :idea:

latest drivers : /

this game is Company of Heroes btw

It doesn't do it on simpler games like Warcraft 3 etc.

i take that back, it just did it.

And it ONLY happens when you alt-tab?

Are you using Vista?

not using Vista, XP pro sp2

It happends running a 3D game. Alt-tabbing out and in will sometimes fix the problem temporarily.

perhaps your 3d video drivers for your nvidia card are corrupted somehow. When you run 2d apps you have no problems correct? Just when you run 3d enhanced graphics?

please post your complete system specs ... can't tell if you have ATi or nVidia, AMD or Intel... please post your complete system specs ... T.T

p5b deluxe w/ wifi
e6600 2.4ghz
7900GT
2gb ddr2 dual channel
sound blaster x-fi

there used to be a strange issue with the following hardware:

AMD64 procesor
Creative Audigy/Audigy 2
nVidia Video Card
Windows XP

where UT2K4 would do the same thing... the only solution I could find on the net was the remove the sound card and using onboard sound as a troubleshooting step...

this worked for me and helped me narrow it down to my specific setup as being the problem... I recommend trying the same... remove your sound card and try it... i know it sounds strange, but try it anyway... let us know what happens.

i think I found that it is actually a memory issue.

one of the sticks I use is considerably hotter than the other even at idle state
(dual channel)

is this a sign of bad ram?

if they're the same make/model it could be a sign of bad ram, yes... download memtest 86+ and test it... and you're right, the bluescreen can be caused by bad RAM... but the video won't normally cut out that long before Blue screening if it's system RAM... i still think it's your video card, but if it's bluescreening, why not write down the code it's generating so we can give you a better diagnosis... it's a blue screen of death, but it's not without useful information  

I havn't gotten a blue screen in quite some time now, but I do still get these strange screens.

Recently however, while browsing some websites, i'm starting to get artifacting on the websites! Check it out:

http://home.comcast.net/~armyguns/weirdpage.jpg

How do you explain that?

sounds like its time to either reseat the heatsink/fan setup or get a new graphics card. A long time ago I had a Ti4600 that was slowly dying, did the same thing, then even started artifacting with the same lines you have when browsing, when it was in dos booting.

I dont think you can do anything, its definately a hardware issue, try getting a new heatsink fan, it may be showing as cool, but perhaps not all of it is cool, is the fan on nicely or is it falling off, check the card if you havent already!

My advice

cheetsy

usually artifacts are caused by bad bad video memory or overheating video memory... I'd replace the card

I'm having the exact same problem on Company Of Heroes..
Strange graphical behaviour and when I alt-tab or alt-f4 the game it blue screens.....How ever alt-tabbing is not always the time that it happens....some times if a explosion in the game happens a blue screen will occur...
I'm running a 8800 GT on a Asus P5K pro motherboard with a Intel E6850 Core 2 Duo at 3.0ghz

I have the latest drivers and I have re-installed them several times, how ever i'm not convinced that i'm uninstalling them completely each time I get rid of the drivers. Is there a way to remove the files manually?
I think something went wrong when my virus protector picked up a "root kit" in the driver folder and I accidently clicked delete....

After using a driver sweeper and reinstalling the video drivers several times, I'm now convinced that the driver's can not be the problem.
My RAM is perfectly fine.

Looking in event viewer I've been getting strange errors such as:
Unknown error on CMDre 00000001 000000c0 40013cbc 00000004 00000084

I'm running out of ideas as to what the problem is exactly...

I've finally fixed my issue.
It was the latest nVidia Drivers...
I found the answer in the 190.38 driver release notes.

"This is not an NVIDIA bug, but rather an application issue.
• GeForce 8800 GT: Company of Heroes DirectX10 ‐ the application crashes when
MSAA is enabled. [346495]
This is a Fraps 2.9.2 issue."