My system is nearly 5 years old and I have been running an 8800GT the entire time. As of late, the following has been happening:
1. During one of 3D Mark's test, I noticed the graphics "skipping" abnormally then the program crashed.
2. At least once, perhaps twice, got a notice in my task bar that my video driver recovered.
3. Sims 3 won't run, graphics are a mess (missing text and images) and eventually crashes before can even play. The game also wants to keep defaulting to lowest resolution, 800x600
4. I was watching some flash videos online and the video started having odd issues (odd flashing/freezing, color changes, etc) and eventually got a notice that flash player crashed.
5. GTA IV acting a little odd... keeps wanting to default to lowest resolution, 800x600.
This is a fresh install of Sims 3... my system has always played sims 3 without any issue in the past, but this is the first time after a reinstall of windows. I updated my video drivers hoping it would fix the issue but of course it didn't.
Suggestions? Thanks in advance