Spikey corruption in Mafia II

S

I've been seeing spike like corruption in Mafia II. This happens as soon as I start playing so i don't think heating is the cause. I haven't seen it in any other game that I played (COD: Black Ops, Metro 2033 and Mass Effect). The only other program where I see it is in the 3D Immersed interface of Moovida.

System Specs:
AMD Phenom X2 550 @ stock speed
ATI Radeon HD 4850 with Catalyst 11.1
4GB DDR2 RAM
550W PSU
Win7 32

I've tried going back to Catalyst 10.6, but I still see the spikes. I changed all the video settings to minimum but still it persists.

I had been playing it for a few weeks before this started happening. A few weeks ago I took apart my card to clean out the fan and heatsink. The corruption started after that. So did I screw up something?? I've tried other forums, but haven't found a solution. Any help is appreciated.

*i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr272/jithint/mafia22011-03-0322-05-12-92.png

*i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr272/jithint/mafia22011-03-0322-08-21-38.png

Those are artifacts. Actually that is the result of your GPU being in a continuous threshold for extended period. Try lowering settings.

As you said you cleaned the fan, you might have rubbed the thermal grease off. Apply a new coat of thermal grease and make sure that fan's base is touching the GPU's processor.

And, Mafia is extremely taxing for ATI cards. And, posting your GPU temps while running the game will be more helpful in understanding your problem.

i hope the prob is due to thermal paste....

S

mailme.manju said:
i hope the prob is due to thermal paste....

I reapplied thermal paste when I cleaned the GPU. And the temps stay below 80 C during game play. I think the VRAM has gone bad. Is there any tool that specifically tests VRAM? I ran Borderlands and found that the gun textures look odd. Everything else looks ok.

Tried reinstalling the drivers and the games?

SciFi said:
I reapplied thermal paste when I cleaned the GPU. And the temps stay below 80 C during game play. I think the VRAM has gone bad. Is there any tool that specifically tests VRAM? I ran Borderlands and found that the gun textures look odd. Everything else looks ok.

Which PSU?