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In every 3D game I play, models of characters, buildings, cars etc. appear with holes and their texture strings like a bubble gum. How can I solve it?

It occurred on

  • GTA San Adreas
  • Skyrim
  • Left 4 Dead 2
  • Bully
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Not sure if this originally meant to have a picture on it defining the problem? – kalina Jun 25 '12 at 10:26
Welcome to the site. If you want help you have to provide, in addition to a working image (just link to one if you can't embed it), more information such as your system specifications. – Oak♦ Jun 25 '12 at 10:43
I believe he means something like this note this is from Battlefield and only demonstrates the problem on a minor scale – kalina Jun 25 '12 at 10:50

closed as not a real question by Jupotter, Kappei, fredley, ChrisF, kotekzot Jun 25 '12 at 12:14

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

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From your rather vague (and image-less) description, it sounds like you could have a problem with your graphics card's drivers. Here are a few things to check:

1. Is your graphics card supported by these games? Unless it's a strange, out-of-the-ordinary chipset it should be, but you should double-check. If it's a normal nVidia or ATi card, you should be ok.

2. Are your card's drivers up to date? Old drivers could contain bugs or incompatibilities for certain games. New drivers often offer better performance as well as graphical fixes for specific games. Check the website for your video card's manufacturer. Some (like nVidia, not sure about ATi) have a feature that will automatically check if your drivers are up to date.

3. Is the rest of your system functioning ok? I'm not 100% sure how much faulty RAM or other issues could affect this (perhaps it's not able to load textures/models into memory even though it thinks it should be able to?) but it's something to consider.

Beyond that, we can't guess from your description what the problem could be. Your best bet would be to make sure everything is up to date and working, and if you still have a problem, contact the games' or your graphics card's support forums.

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Another possibility that seems to be mentioned a lot in relation to these sorts of issues: Is your graphics card overheating? – kalina Jun 25 '12 at 11:17
@ickleislands FWIW I've had quite a few issues with overheating (GeForce 8800 GT, the best-priced, worst-cooled GPU of all time), and I never had artifacts because of it. The card would just shut down. If overheating is causing something like that you should think about switching to a better-engineered GPU. – kotekzot Jun 25 '12 at 12:16
@kotekzot oh yeah it's not a guaranteed issue but in some cases can cause behaviour like this. I personally haven't experienced issues like this from overheating because I have a fear of setting fire to my house and thus keep everything very cool even under high load with lots of fans and good airflow :) – kalina Jun 25 '12 at 12:18

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