TF2 Death Cams

Rellik

Rellik

EGO Is My Life!
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Jul 15, 2008
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This is mostly an issue in TF2 regarding the death cams. But have seen it act weird in other source games that effect the screen (ie: Getting hit with a grenade in DOD:S)

The Problem:
When I get killed in TF2 and it goes to the "death-cam" (The still image that is shown of your killer) It flashes between the current death-cam, and the previous one. or between two unrelated images. This "flashing" occurs in "columns". Its kind of hard to describe. But its like a 50px column of one image, next to that is a 50px column of the other image, etc etc. And it flashes between that and the "proper" death cam... Its been doing this for the last several drivers. Yes i have updated my video drivers several times. It didn't use to do this. I have done internet searches to no avail.

My System Info:
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58
Processor: Intel Core i7 920
Ram: CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
GPU: XFX GX295NHHFF GeForce GTX 295

I'm thinking it has something to do with the video-card/drivers... but maybe there's something else.
Also FYI: I play with it on max settings - 1920x1200, all menu-options set to max. Multi-core enabled. etc etc.
 
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Have you tried using another video card. It might be some bad memory blocks on the video card causing the corruption. If your video card is running hot, which is definantly a possibility for such a powerful video card, it might be causing memory errors also. Check your video card's temps, if they are more than 50 or so degrees celcius, you probably should open the side of the case to get better airflow and try again to see if it does anything.

Also, have you tried clearing the game files and reinstalling them in case there is a bug somewhere in the programming.
 
1) i have tried other video cards. and don't get the problem
2) this thing runs hot period. its IDLE temps are like 55+c and talked to their tech department. this thing can handle 90c no problem. so its not heat.
3) it only started doing this after updating the drivers. but the newest drivers are better for everything else (except death cams).
4) it happens. EVERY time i get a death cam. whether i just fired up tf2 (ie: temps are low) or have been playing for 2 hours.
 
If you take a snapshot when you see the death cam, does the screenshot (in your tf/screenshots folder) come out OK, or is it still messed up?
 
If it just only started happening after you updated the drivers, you can try using the roll back driver feature in device manager to try to get the old drivers back and see if it works. Otherwise you can uninstall the drivers and reinstall them from the driver cd that came with the video card.
Also, while the card may be designed to handle up to a certain temperature, it is quite possible individual components may fail quicker because of the heat. If you can get additional or better cooling on it (I would probably recommend liquid cooling for those temperatures) it would likely improve performance and reduce the chance that components on the card will fail. At too high of temperatures, you will likely start to see the circuit boards distorting (This is the reason the first gen XBOX 360s had so many 3 red light errors) as well as seeing solder start to soften and possibly bridge circuits.
The problem not occurring when you tried a different video card definantly suggests the problem is with the video card or drivers. Sometimes new drivers will activate features on the card that weren't active before, which could cause problems, or change default settings. If reverting to your old drivers does not fix the problem, you may want to consider requesting a RMA on the card, as something may have been damaged.
 
Crazy, if he was running too hot he'd be getting some tearing/artifacting before it starts messing with the kill cam.

I'd recommend verifying game files, and if that dosn't work I'd reinstall TF2
 
I've verified game files. and it doesn't happen with other video cards.
And i will try rolling back to some really old drivers. problem is the newest nVIDIA drivers work sooooo great with everything else. seems silly for me to settle with some old drivers, just for kill cams. but i will try this to see if it works. other reason i haven't done this yet, is nVIDIA bundles their drivers and they are like 100mb per download... which is crazy.


i'll update once/if i've done this.
 
Something like this happens to me, but ONLY with death cams. I too have an i7 now. Also, the only other thing I changed (while keeping the video card) was that I backed up the games.

Basically, I'm not sure if it's because they're backed up or if it is because of the i7.

My issue is that it will flash. I think it does previous death cams now that you mention it. It does black bars along the whole thing while it is flashing messed up images.

Do you have black bars as well as the images?

Did you back up your TF2 and reinstall it from the backup?

Did this start happening after you installed your i7?
 
Custom maps have that issue when the developer doesn't set it up correctly, but, try turning up the fan speed on the card..
 
Zapfacid > Yes thats the error i'm talking about.

And i just removed all my drivers and installed the old 181.22 drivers (the original gtx295 drivers) and now kill cams work fine. Which is so stupid. Newer drivers should work better. and i don't want to roll back to those drivers because they suck. bad. in everything else. (can't even play FO3 with them) So i'm now going to try to re-upgrade my drivers (without uninstalling the old ones) and see what happens.


@NUFAN> This isn't a custom maps issue. it happens no matter what map i'm playing. and only with deathcams. Also this isn't an over heating issue. it happens even if i JUST entered the game, or been there 3 hours. And rolling back the drivers fixed it. so its got to be a driver issue. but how stupid that the newer drivers would do this, and not the old ones /sigh
 
Yea, as I mentioned, new drivers sometimes change defaults or activate new features. It seems foolish for them to do this, but they do anyways and it sometimes causes problems. I might recommend going into windows update and selecting "do not show this update again" if the nvidia drivers are listed so they won't get installed accidentally.

Good luck with your fragging!
 
I just re-installed the new drivers. and the issue is back.
To clarify some things its actually rows of flashing black. not columns as previously stated.
Also it is LITERALLY flashing between two images. because i took like 20 screenshots really quickly and everyother screen shot is of the correct "death cam" while the others are of the "previous screen" or whatever. Its like its keeping some imagine in a buffer. and (forwhatever reason) when the deathcam comes up it quickly (and i mean super quickly) flashes between the proper death-cam and this other "saved" image.

I don't want to downgrade my drivers because aside from this problem everything else works great.

Anyone with a gtx295 and the newest drivers have this issue? Find a fix? anything?
thank you guys all for your help thus far.
 
UPDATE:
If i disable the multi-GPU setting within the nVIDIA control panel. this error goes away... but then i'm loosing half of my graphics power, and half of my ram...
Surely there must be a better way?
With the old drivers, multi-gpu is enabled. and i don't have this error...

EDIT UPDATE:
I have found a work around. though i wish there was more information. maybe ya'll know:
What i had to do was create a game-profile through the nVIDIA control panel for tf2. then in the
"Multi-GPU performance mode" i set it to "Force split-frame rendering"
and this fixed it... But my question is... Is it still using multi-gpu's? thus, am i still getting double the power, and double the ram?
I will list all the options available for this option, if anyone has any extra info that would be great. thanks:

  • Use global setting (NVIDIA recommended) <-- Causes Error
  • Single-GPU
  • Force split-frame rendering <-- Fixes Error
  • Force alternate frame rendering 1
  • Force alternate frame rendering 2
Haven't tried the other modes (though global single-gpu did. so am willing to bet that would fix it here) What i'm really wondering is what the other options are. cuz they make no sense to me, and NVIDIA's help is... lacking.
 
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Rellik said:
UPDATE:
If i disable the multi-GPU setting within the nVIDIA control panel. this error goes away... but then i'm loosing half of my graphics power, and half of my ram...
Surely there must be a better way?
With the old drivers, multi-gpu is enabled. and i don't have this error...

EDIT UPDATE:
I have found a work around. though i wish there was more information. maybe ya'll know:
What i had to do was create a game-profile through the nVIDIA control panel for tf2. then in the
"Multi-GPU performance mode" i set it to "Force split-frame rendering"
and this fixed it... But my question is... Is it still using multi-gpu's? thus, am i still getting double the power, and double the ram?
I will list all the options available for this option, if anyone has any extra info that would be great. thanks:

  • Use global setting (NVIDIA recommended) <-- Causes Error
  • Single-GPU
  • Force split-frame rendering <-- Fixes Error
  • Force alternate frame rendering 1
  • Force alternate frame rendering 2
Haven't tried the other modes (though global single-gpu did. so am willing to bet that would fix it here) What i'm really wondering is what the other options are. cuz they make no sense to me, and NVIDIA's help is... lacking.
Click to expand...

This is a common problem on SLi or Crossfire Rigs. IIRC, Split frame rendering has both cards running, but i may be wrong. I am not good at SLi yet. I'll do a bit more research. Homes things keep working out of your rellik
 
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