Experiencing strange visual glitches, or "artifacting," specifically within the Chrome browser and other Chromium-based applications like Steam and Discord? You're not alone! Many NVIDIA users have reported this frustrating issue, and it might not be a hardware problem as first suspected. This article delves into a potential solution and workaround for this annoying Chrome artifacting issue.
According to a Reddit user, Speriatdemoarte, the issue seems to stem from a conflict between NVIDIA drivers and Chrome or Chromium-based applications. Before rushing to replace your graphics card, consider this software-level solution.
The suggested fix involves tweaking Chrome's rendering settings. Here's how:
chrome://flags into your Chrome address bar and press Enter. This will open Chrome's experimental features page.What is ANGLE? ANGLE (Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine) translates OpenGL ES API calls to other hardware-specific APIs. Changing the ANGLE backend forces Chrome to use a different method for rendering graphics, potentially bypassing the conflict with the NVIDIA drivers.
If OpenGL doesn't resolve the artifacting, experiment with the other available options in the ANGLE graphics backend dropdown menu. Different hardware configurations may respond better to alternative rendering engines.
Another potential solution mentioned is reverting to an older version of the NVIDIA drivers. This could be a viable option if the issue arose after a recent driver update. You can download older drivers from the NVIDIA website archive.
This workaround suggests the artifacting is caused by a specific interaction between recent NVIDIA drivers and Chrome's default rendering settings. By forcing Chrome to use OpenGL, or an alternative rendering method, the conflict is bypassed.
chrome://flags contains experimental features. Changing these settings can sometimes lead to other unexpected behavior.By adjusting Chrome's rendering settings, you might be able to resolve the artifacting issue and avoid unnecessary hardware replacements. Remember to test each setting individually and restart Chrome after each change.
