Black/random color screen except for UI

Technical Support
1

5m

Pictures will be at the bottom. This is an issue I’ve been having for a while, at least a year. I was able to mitigate it by turning my graphics settings way down to medium or low so it doesn’t happen very often. I figured at some point an overwatch or graphics driver update would fix it but that hasn’t happened. I was reading that sometimes it is caused my a program overlaying on the game, such as discord or geforce experience but i ensured none of these programs were running and it still happens. It also doesn’t happen on my laptop where I have the same programs.

It often starts as a small area a few pixels big and then grows to the size of the whole screen. I can “erase” the black before it covers the whole screen by moving the camera away from it, by shooting over it or basically anything that covers the black area, even briefly. This only works when the screen is turning black, it will sometimes turn other colors immediately.

I’m kind of tired of having to play on low with a GTX 1080 in order to reliably play and its super annoying when it happens in comp. I am able to fix it by changing from fullscreen to windowed mode or vice versa so i don’t have to leave the match but I can’t exactly do that in the middle of a team fight.

The screenshots only show it turning 3 different shades of blue and black but it will also sometimes turn orange or red.

Pictures on imgur: /a/ouhDpxW

2

Drew,

I’m sorry to say that that sounds quite a lot like your graphics card is overheating or dying. :< Generally if you get the wrong colors, or the picture slowly bleeds out, it’s because the GPU is giving up due to a critical error. It’s possibly a driver problem, which you can attempt to fix with these steps:

  1. Download, but do not install the most recent driver for your graphics card from Nvidia
  2. Download Display Driver Uninstaller from The Wagnard Mobile Forum (Click Official Download Here near the bottom of Wagnard’s first post. It will automatically download)
  3. Run the Display Driver Uninstaller file you downloaded and extract it to desktop
  4. On your desktop, click Display Driver Uninstaller and run it. You usually don’t need to run it in safe mode, but you’re welcome to if you’re familiar with safe mode.
  5. Click Clean and Restart
  6. After restart, install the driver that we downloaded above in step 1.

If that doesn’t work though, I’d take the PC to a PC tech to test the card. I’d wager if they swap for another card it’ll fix. If the card’s relatively new/under warranty, you may be able to RMA it as well if you reach out to Nvidia.

3

Definitely trying those steps. My temps stay below 70c even at max setings so it’s not overheating (the chip itself at least) and it’s been doing this since the card was brand new (its about 2 years old now) and this is the only game anything like this happens in. If this doesn’t fix it I’ll reach out to asus but I’m not looking forward to 6+ weeks without a graphics card :confused:

4

Understood. The information here is not only for you, but also for anybody else who stumbles across this thread in the future and wonders why I recommended this. Apologies if I tell you some stuff you already know.

I hear “it only happens in Overwatch” a lot when it comes to this kind of problem. Ultimately, different games are going to use different drivers and different parts of the chips in your graphics cards. Without tooting our horn too hard, Overwatch is a pretty unique game artistically, so the software/hardware we use are likely less common.

For instance, in addition to what you’re seeing, I’ve seen other Overwatch-only situations:

  1. Certain map textures would instead be drawn as placeholders (checkered squares)
  2. Zenyatta’s orbs would have geometrical, unnatural flickering
  3. Certain characters’ body parts or guns would artifact out into space somewhere
  4. Characters would be drawn without any flesh textures* so you’d only get floating eyes and guns instead of skin

*Side note - Torbjorn is terrifying without a face.

In each of these cases it ended up being a GPU chip defect or overheat. Swap the card; everything’s fixed. Whatever it ends up being, definitely best of luck. If for some weird reason another card doesn’t fix it, please do report back, I’d be very interested in what’s going on in that case.

5

I’ve played 5 or 6 games now on epic settings with no issues where as before It would usually happen every 1 or 2 games at these settings. Hopefully it stays this way, thank you!