Tired of having to water down my experience

[Xander Carlson]

Been having trouble with my card for awhile and always found that setting the graphics lower on my games (Fallout 3 and Oblivion) to fix it. But now it's time to overcome the problems and not waterdown my gameplay experience.

Heres my build to start this out:
Motherboard: MSI Military Class II 990fxa-gd80
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 975 (3.6ghz)
GPU: XFX R9 280x (Black Edition Double D)
PSU: Rosewill 1300 Watt

Running one monitor off of a DVI-to-VGA (1680x1050) cable and one off of HDMI (1600x900) both of which are the reccomended resolutions.

Now for the problems I have been having:
Right when i got the new GPU I had wicked screen flickering from the monitor connected with HDMI (I found out later that upping the core clock to solve that issue; currently running at 1152mhz)
Before fixing the flickering issue I randomly had a "screen crash" of sorts. The screen would go to a gray and white line screen and need a restart to get working again. I havent had that problem to an extent. The screen will sometimes go to a gray/blue/rainbow screen and then return to normal after a few seconds.

The main reason Im writing this now Is that i tried playing TESIV: Oblivion and had to tone down the graphics for it not to crash on start. Played through that and am now on the Fallout 3, stated having the same problem and got fed up with it

 

[Guest]

Fallout and Elder Scrolls games tend to be a bit CPU-Intensive. Your GPU is more than adequate to play at the resolutions you are listing. The CPU should work for both games though.

The flickering issues... are they happening in game or on the desktop too? Could be a failing PSU or GPU or both really. I'd look into potential GPU or PSU problems. RMA the GPU and test the voltages on the PSU.

 

[Xander Carlson]

Fallout and Elder Scrolls games tend to be a bit CPU-Intensive. Your GPU is more than adequate to play at the resolutions you are listing. The CPU should work for both games though.

The flickering issues... are they happening in game or on the desktop too? Could be a failing PSU or GPU or both really. I'd look into potential GPU or PSU problems. RMA the GPU and test the voltages on the PSU.

Flickering was happening both in game and just on the desktop/browsing internet/what have you. And it just wasnt a little flicker it was a total screen crash almost.

In addition to those problems when i start a game (through steam) for example Oblivion, both screens go black, then my secondary monitor flickers back to desktop goes black again then the game crashes.

 

[Guest]

The secondary screen going black when opening a full screen application on the primary screen is normal. The crash not so much. Like I said, look into RMAing your GPU and/or testing your PSU.

 

[InfernalSurge]

The 280x is a very capable 1080p GPU, especially on those older titles. I would suggest you upgrade to a FX 6300 or 8320 CPU. I can't think of a solution to your flickering issue though 🙁