Weird glitches when I was playing games

Hello Nathan177,

Thanks for your patience.

Based on the description and the photos you just sent, this is most likely a GPU hardware issue rather than software. This only happens in game because browser and Discord don't use that much of GPU. This can tell that 3D rendering of your CPU might be failing.

Additionally, the 3 failed tests in your photo are all direct GPU tests. And the Event viewer also point to the NVIDIA driver.

In this case, if you still want to make sure, you can try to go to Settings > System > Display > Graphics and change the games GPU to your Intel GPU and try to launch them again to see if the issue persist.

I'm waiting for your reply.

Hello Nathan177,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Before we proceed, may I have a photo of the error message to check for you? Please remember to remove all personal information before posting.

Disclaimer: By any means, reinstalling Windows is a good step that we should try. So first of all, let’s try performing an in-place install or in-place upgrade which will refresh your Windows files and operating system without removing files or applications. That being said, we always recommend that if you have important data, you should back it up before making large system changes. If you want to back up your data first, please do so. Once you are done backing up, you can follow the steps in the following guides:

How to run In-place upgrade in Windows 11 - Microsoft Community.

Additionally, I see an arrow in your photo, I might not play Minecraft that much, but as I know is wasn't a part of the game. Can you please help me clarify that as well?

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

The symptoms (stretched polygons, random colored pixels, crashes in multiple 3D games while normal desktop apps remain fine) point to a graphics issue rather than general Windows or storage problems.

Based on the context, the most likely causes are:

1. Display/GPU driver problems
2. An incompatible or misbehaving app that hooks into graphics (overlays, tuning tools, etc.)

Recommended steps:

1. Reset the graphics driver
   • Press Windows logo key + Ctrl + Shift + B.
   • This resets the graphics driver and can clear temporary glitches.
2. Check whether the issue is driver or app related
   • Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and open Task Manager.
   • While a game is running and the screen is glitching, see whether Task Manager also flickers or shows artifacts.
     • If Task Manager flickers or shows glitches, the display driver is probably the problem.
     • If Task Manager looks normal while the game window is corrupted, an incompatible app (overlay, mod, recording/monitoring tool) is likely involved.
3. If the driver is the problem
   • Use Device Manager to completely remove the current display driver and then install a stable version from the GPU or PC manufacturer.
   • If the issue started after a recent driver update, roll back to the previous version.
4. If an app is the problem
   • Uninstall or update apps that interact with games (overlays, tuning utilities, recording tools, etc.).
   • To uninstall:
     1. Select Start > Settings > Apps > Installed apps.
     2. Find the suspect app.
     3. Select it, then Uninstall > Uninstall and confirm.
   • Restart the device and test the games again.
5. If the screen itself starts flickering or becomes scrambled even outside games
   • Follow the full screen‑flicker troubleshooting steps for Windows 11, which focus on updating/rolling back the display driver or removing incompatible apps.

If, after clean driver reinstall and removal of any gaming utilities/overlays, 3D games still show heavy artifacts while normal 2D apps remain fine, this strongly suggests a failing GPU. In that case, hardware service or replacement would be required.

References:

• Troubleshoot screen flickering in Windows
• My Windows 11 PC Hard Freezes for about 30 seconds to a minute when I play certain games. - Microsoft Q&A
• Minecraft for windows is crashing - Microsoft Q&A