Artifact or no artifact.

[AMDFTW]

do it the same as you would with a CPU,up the clocks then when you hit apply if it hangs or you get that little yellow triangle in the taskbar (uasualy after a hang) then add more volts,but keep your clocks the same

just keep going like that,if you can play a game fine (intensive one) then it should be ok.

as far as icrements go voltage just bump it by 1 slide,i usauly bump the core,mem by 5mhz but you could use 10mhz

ATI tool is a good tester but its not without its flaws.

also when do the artifacts show I.E after 30secs or 5 min?,a good thing to notice when playing with clocks is how many artficats you see or how many its counts up,as the less you see the more stable you are getting,yes you should see no artifacts but only run it for about 15-30min.

and what are your temps and fan speed,try wacking the fan to 100% and see if you get artifacts then

 

[I Hunta x]

Ive been using furmark with 16x msaa and the extreme box ticked and just left it running for a while with ati tool open and the 3d view showing to test my clocks on my 8800gt, if you see any yellow dots showing on the 3d view screens its fairly likely your going to be getting artifacts in games but they would vary in severity/size ect depending on the game tbh.

I ended up finiding the max shader clock then max core then max mem and then putting it all together at the max stable that i found of all 3 and then lowering them all by 5 at a time till there isnt any artifacting in in the 3d view using the above method.

What are you using to clock the card? it may have already been said but im a bit tired and realy cba to double check these few pages again lol, msi afterburner is a nice and simple (reskined riva tuner if i remember right).

Edit, now i think about it msi after burner supports 4xxx series cards but im not sure about 5xxx series cards and that kicks the crap out of like every other clocking tool for simplicity, drag > aply > test > drag again > aply ect

 

[Br1t1shB33f]

Thanks for the overnight imput guys. to answer some questions.

1. When i say i get artifacts at certain clocks i get like 1-3 yellow pixels every 5 seconds in ATi Tools 3d window but it never says an error occured.

2. I use smart doctor to OC my voltage clock and mem. This is because even after changing all the config options and also ticking the option in afterburner it still wont allow me to use the voltage slider.

3. My fan settings are run through Smart Doctor and its a custom setting set to 50/55/60/65 and at 65celcius it hits 84% and keeps it there.

4. I cant access the shader clock either as i dont know how and have absolutly no knowledge on this aspect of overclocking.

5. My method of Overclocking is as follows. I use smart doctor to add 10Mhz core to a stable clock i have. Then i run ATi Tool and see if it artifacts. if i only get like 1-3 artifacts i then run a Unigine Heaven 2.1 run at default settings with tesselation off and 1920x1080 res also 2xAA. Then i'll game on GTA IV The ballad of gay tony on Maximum settings 1920x1080 and 25 view distance 50 vehicle density and 40 detail distance.

6. The only settigns on OC i get absolutly no artifacts on is an overclock from 850/1200/1.212v default to 929/1249/1.237 and this is stable. anything above even with increses of 0.006 v of power i still get artifacts. im not sure if after a certain level u will always get them but not enough to worry about. Is this a true analogy ?

If you guys need any more info plz let me know.

Thanks in advance and kind regards, Sean.

**EDIT** after much more tweaking today i have decided to stay with the only one true stable overclock i get. I am sticking with 929Mhz Clock 1.237v and 4996Mhz Mem. I am a little disappointed that i cant get more from this card as iv seen everyone achieve more. I guess i got a not so good GPU pick in mine but a 79mhz clock increase and 49mhz ram isnt so bad. And a plus side is if i get smooth frames on max settings on GTA then other game will run smoother due to this game poor optimisation.

 

[AMDFTW]

ATI cards dont have shader clocks fella,thats why you cant see the slider

you may just have a bad card,or atitool might not see the voltage bump,use msi kombustor and look in the top right corner and see if it matches your volts.

what i did was play a few games with afterburner in the taskbar then look at the max temps,whatever it was i set my fan to it for 24/7.

if you have found a stabe clock and are happy with it then all is good fella,you may just be unlucky.

 

[Br1t1shB33f]

ATI cards dont have shader clocks fella,thats why you cant see the slider

you may just have a bad card,or atitool might not see the voltage bump,use msi kombustor and look in the top right corner and see if it matches your volts.

what i did was play a few games with afterburner in the taskbar then look at the max temps,whatever it was i set my fan to it for 24/7.

if you have found a stabe clock and are happy with it then all is good fella,you may just be unlucky.

I'll give msi kombuster a shot, also is iv explained on many occation Afterburner never works for me i dont know why.. iv done all the cfg this ppl tell me and ticked the box in the options... but i never get it to open the voltage bar. also afterburner and Smart doctor dont save my settings properly lol.