Evening everyone,

After taking a long pause, I decided to play Skyrim once again. The last time I actively played was during patch 1.1, without any problems, while we're on patch 1.4 at the moment. However, I'm suffering from several graphic errors, black gray and teal bars appearing all over my screen, first I suspected my graphics card was simply overheating. The GPU was solid at 55c though, which should be ok when it's stressed. I am wondering if it's simply my graphics card that is failing, which is a certain possibility. (which is a 250 GTS if you're wondering, it should run skyrim on medium) - it's running on the latest drivers, and I haven't had any problems with it before today.

http://i43.tinypic.com/hvq9l1.png
http://i44.tinypic.com/15mo0eq.png
http://i43.tinypic.com/vo3kte.png

It may be worth mentioning that at the start of the game the error NEVER occurs, the first 5-10 minutes are always completely stable (60 FPS). However, the longer I run the game (Doesn't matter if it's an old or new save) the more the problems start occuring, sometimes the game freezes completely. Minimizing the game and maximizing it again unfreezes it and kicks it back to 60 FPS. After 30-40 minutes of game time FPS usually hits rock bottom (3-4) especially around heavily populated areas, and the black stripes can be found everywhere (The first two screenies were after that much game time, the 3rd occured after about 15 minutes game time), usually the game CTDs before the game time hits an hour. Rebooting the game fixes some of the problems, rebooting the PC fixes all of the problems for a while. I've tried reinstalling the game several times, even going as far as to reinstall steam.. none of it fixed the problems I am having.

It seems very likely that the graphics card is the culprit, there is one minor problem though; other games run just fine..

Does anyone have an idea as to what could be causing this?

Thanks for your time and regards,
Eolath

Yes a hardware component is failing, possibly due to heat. Other games are not Skyrim so can't be used to inform anything as they'll put different loads on the system.

Ah, I think your GPU might be trying to quit on you. Have you played any other taxing games and seen if they had the same problem? (Not just like Sims or something...)

Forget it, thanks for the help lads. Think it's pretty much confirmed that it's my graphic card. Problems started today, since I had no problems playing anything yesterday. Once your hardware starts failing it's a good excuse to upgrade your PC...

It aint just you bro, 1.4 created an entirely NEW Texture Bug glitch.

Before with 1.2 it would just be your hands, weapons, and items in menu. Now? It's the entire environment surrounding you. From bushes to rocks, stairs to doors, houses to buildings. Everything has degraded and will not UPgrade back up.

I had no texture problems whatsoever before this new patch, hell my game looked AMAZING. Practically like the trailers at E3. But after I DLd this patch all my textures are crap now.

It's not affecting stuff like 1.2, just your surroundings. IE. EVERYTHING your looking at.

I'm on 360 though...

EDIT: WOWWWWW, I didn't even look at the screenies. Holy crap bro I feel bad for you. That's revolting...