Graphic Problem - What Causes This

I hope I'm explaining my problem understandably, here goes...

REF: nVidia GeForce 6600 256mb

This problem takes place in several games but I'm using FEAR as one
example.

The scene is I'm walking on a catwalk above a wherehouse floor. If I
angle my character's view slightly down I should see the cargo on the
floor. The problem, is that in a section of my view, what I see is a
strip of color from the bottom edge of the catwalk in front of me that
stretches out to the wherehouse wall on the left. What it looks (in
the game) like a 4ft strip of spilled streaked gray-brown paint.

If I angle my character's view slightly up, the strip goes away and I
see the wherehouse floor correctly.

Questions:

1) In graphics, is there a term/word for the problem?

2) Are there a graphics card settings that affect this?

3) Is there a WEB site, _with_screenshots_, that describes problems
like this and suggested solutions? nVidia's site is no help.

Thanks


--
==== Tecknomage ====
All technology which is sufficiently advanced becomes
indistinguishable from magic.