I'm seeing graphics artifacts with my system. I'm running a GeForce 7800 GT on an Athlon 64 3400+ with 1 Gb RAM. I've got the card set up for DualView (1920x1080 + 1680x1050). I'm seeing artifacts. The autoX course is so bad I can't see anything if I'm pointed in a certain direction. The artifacts go away if I turn off the hardware vertex shader, but then the game runs for 20 seconds, freezes for a minute, runs for 20 seconds, etc... Is this a driver issue? Should I turn off dualview?

I'd recommend you to get a 3DMark06 and give it a spin or two. GF7800 and 7900(especially 79's) series are likely to screw up itselves because of some badly designed parts on PCB that control memory volatge. The "Deep Freeze" test should show up if your GFX is faulty or not(graphics should go mad and when the test finishes you might also see screen wierdly flashing and blinking). I happened to have this issue some time ago. BTW, do you experience artifacts in other games too? IS your GFX powered enough?

I've run 3DMark06 and never had any problems. I'm running a 500W power supply, so no issues there. I run everything in 1920x1080 and have never had any problems. I tried turning off the second monitor - no effect. The artifacts mostly went away when i turned off wheels, trees, etc. I haven't downloaded Patch W yet. I was just wondering if anyone else had seen this before.

Try Patch W, it has some graphical improvements. Can you take a screencapture of the artifacts?

What GFX drivers are you currently using? Trying some another might worth a try. Do you have AA or AF enabled?

I used to get random artifacts some months ago when I had older nvidia drivers, but around that time I also improved case airflow. Are you sure heat couldn't be the issue causing artifacts and possible freezes?

,,The autoX course is so bad I can't see anything if I'm pointed in a certain direction."

Those tracks with lots of objects stresses (heats up) most
the graphical processor unit's vertex (geometric) pipelines.

,,...The artifacts go away if I turn off the hardware vertex shader..."

Offloading the videocard's geometric pipelines reduces the temperature.

...,,the game runs for 20 seconds, freezes for a minute, runs for 20 seconds, etc..."

It's called ,,thermal throttling." The vga card stops responding and underclocks itself to prevent damage caused by overheating.

-Is the cooler OK?
-Are you overclocking the card? If yes, disable OC.
-Try to reduce the GPU's core clock for testing.
-Is there any PCI card in the closest slot next to the VGA card? If yes, place it to another slot.
-Dualview gaming used to cause problems for old cards (ATI 9800 Pro, NV FX5900) in stressful 3D games. I remember a HardOCP review, where those graphics processors were tested with Flight Simulator 2004.
The 9800 Pro started to produce graphics anomalies, the FX5900 simply fried. Try gaming in single display mode.

I don't believe that it is overheating issue since 3DMark06 which is about 5 times more GPU intensive runs fine to him. LFS doesn't load GPU intensive enough to make it producing artifacts due to overheating, if it at cooled at least a little. Definitely disable dualview and update your drivers. Do you have a screenshot of that artifacts? Does it happen on other tracks that AutoX?

I recently got a 7300 GT and I get flashing artifacts in my mirrors and above the windscreen occasionally even though the card is not overclocked (as far as I know). I use 93.71 forceware and have tried changing 32bit colours to 16bit, I have tried changing AA and AF settings and resolution as well but the problem is still there. Temperature is always below 45°C.
I had none of this with my previous card (fx5200)...
Is there an obvious solution to this?

hát persze hogy van megoldás. A kártya hibás, vidd vissza az üzletbe, ahol vetted. más játékokban is produkálja a hibát?

in english: I guess David's vga card is faulty, I recommended him to take it back to the shop where he bough it, and ask for a replacement.

Before sending your card to RMA try to test it using some synthetic test programmes like 3DMark and so. If GFX is faulty, it should produce artifacts whenever 3D image processing is being used.

the only strange thing i see here is that hes using dual monitor with that pc specs...

i mean ive got the same GFX card + better cpu etc. and i dont even think that my pc could handle LFS with dual view + this ultra high resolution oO

Well, I upgraded to the latest drivers and the artifacts went away. The system actually runs beautifully with that card and setup. I never drop below 40 fps.

Now I just need a racing wheel.

Quote from dannynet :

hát persze hogy van megoldás. A kártya hibás, vidd vissza az üzletbe, ahol vetted. más játékokban is produkálja a hibát?

in english: I guess David's vga card is faulty, I recommended him to take it back to the shop where he bough it, and ask for a replacement.

Quote from MadCatX :

Before sending your card to RMA try to test it using some synthetic test programmes like 3DMark and so. If GFX is faulty, it should produce artifacts whenever 3D image processing is being used.

I reinstalled windows because it needed one anyway and I was happy to see the mirrors not flashing so LFS is now perfect. However, in Sacred I see (texture?) squares in the main menu and ingame as well (attachment) and again, no problems with my previous card. When I had a glimpse at 3dmark working I couldn't see anything wrong so it might be one of Sacred's many bugs.
I don't mind if the card is faulty because I only got it like a week ago, I just need to know it for certain. And thanks for the hints

Those squares can be caused by improper Mipmapping settings. Check Sacred's graphics settings for MipMapping and enable at least trilinear filtering. Also check your GFX drivers settings for the same.

I played around with everything that had mip and trilinear in it at the GPU settings but no success. Sacred has very limited graphics settings and I couldn't find anything relevant.
It seems that these squares show up on object (rocks, houses, trees) only, the ground itself and the characters are fine. The squares even move when an object (flag blown by wind) is moving. Don't know if that means anything or not.