Vid Cards

[Vae Victis]

I currently have a ATI rad x800 SE...
installed the latest drivers.. and Ive got directx9.0c offcourse...

Anyways.. I always had the x800 SE and the drivers, and no problems with ingame graphics of ANY game.
Now that Ive redownloaded NC, installed NC etc, all items are disappearing, graphics get fucked up every 10 mins (basically I gotta restart NC every 10 minutes).
That on the pvp server... it doesnt help me.
Ive tried BF2.. I get the same shit as in NC.
2 Days ago I reinstalled this "old" game I had. Vampires The Masquerade: Bloodlines (good game tbh, love it, although it's pretty easy).
It used to run fine on my PC, never had problems with it's FPS.
And now I can't even run around and punch other vampires without problems....

So my guess is... MY VID CARD IS FUCKED UP!

I heard some ATI cards give problems when running NC.
I tried to Omega Drivers... well things still disappeared on me, but now in 15 minutes in stead of 10...
Now Ive got 2 questions...

1) How can you tell your video card is like wrecked/something wrong with it ?

2) I was thinking of buying a 130euro NVIDIA card.. the GeForce 6600.
Does anyone have this card and if so, is it better than the ATI radeon 9800 series? (based on facts+personal experience)

I wanna buy it, my dad (hes anti-gaming, the freak) says Im stupid if I buy a card that costs that much money.
(the x800 SE Ive got was, at the time when I bought it) about 130 euros, so I don't think it's that expensive.
and I work like fulltime (at least 30 hours per week) and my monthly costs is 60 euros or something.
Plus I got a second job that prevents me from going out sometimes on saturday nights (I work at a bar/restaurant).

(but if I go out.. it costs me like 30-40 euros per night.. I drink alot tbh)

[Xeno LARD]

6600GT or 6800GT. Can't be arsed to read the rest of your thread, sorry.

[Vae Victis]

6600GT costs a bit more..
6600-GT 128 MB = 182 euro
6600 256 MB = 132 euro

Think im going for the last one :/

[Asurmen Spec Op]

I have never had any problems with my ATI cards, I hate Nvidia due to some bad experiences
Using a X850 XT, omega drivers
my old setup was a 9800pro, normal drivers

[Bishop Yutani]

I would first try a few things

First, did you do any tweaking to the BIOS between the time that you reinstalled? What DID you tweak? DirectX settings? Registry? What programs do you have on your computer to help you with your video card? Anything that tweaks settings or optimizes?

Check the fan on the video card. Is it still spinning?

Sometimes when computer stuff goes bad, you can see brown streaks coming from a chip or resistor showing that it blew up. Do you see any?

Try the card in someone else's computer. If it doesnt work in their machine, its definately the card. If it does work fine, there's nothing wrong with the card.

Go to the directX settings (dxdiag from the run menu) and try their graphics tests. Do they work?

That card is way too new to be junk. I would definately call ATI or the store that you bought it from to see what they can do for you.

I have a friend who has 1 year old hardware that isnt the best anymore. When something weird happens to it, instead of trying to find the solution, he runs out and buys the next big thing and justifies it by saying that the current component was "broken". Not a very economical route. Dont be that guy when you havent even tried the card on another computer. We're talkin 200$ here...

Good luck.

[Vae Victis]

Err.. Im not like a computer wizkid..

but I didnt tweak my BIOS or anything else.

I installed the normal drivers from the disk, 1 year ago.
then I went to driversheavendownload.net or something, downloaded ATI Catalyst 5.8 (classic)


Windows 2000/XP
that one...

Installed DirectX9.0c (before I installed the new drivers).

I always had this.. no problem when I played NC in like the beginning of the year. I deleted NC.
I downloaded and installed NC like a month ago, since then Ive had the problem. I reinstalled NC, same shit.
reinstalled all drivers.. same shit.
reinstalled DirectX9.0c.. same shit.

The story I bought it from is the same store where Maarten (from NLpro) works. Might go to the store and ask what's wrong with it.

[Bishop Yutani]

yeah i would definately have it checked out before you go buy something new. Ask him to pop it in another machine and see if it still happens.

[Vae Victis]

Should get some more Memory while Im there :D
(btw this happens in every game Ive got, not just NC. so the problem either lies at my vid card, or directx. tho I think its my card :(

... ah well if I gotta buy a new card.. it might as well be a 130 euro one.


yeah i would definately have it checked out before you go buy something new. Ask him to pop it in another machine and see if it still happens.Yeah I'll do that

[Bishop Yutani]

you can test out directX yourself by typing "dxdiag" in the run menu and donig the tests yourself. There's also a slider bar to turn down or off 3d acceleration. Run the tests and see how they look, then turn the acceleration down and try them agian.

[Tesee]

got X850XT platinum edition and no problem with it...

[Vae Victis]

3d acceleration.What does this do?

[Xeno LARD]

6600GT costs a bit more..
6600-GT 128 MB = 182 euro
6600 256 MB = 132 euro

Think im going for the last one :/

NONONO! GT, you need the GT. No GT = no schnappi.

[Vae Victis]

NONONO! GT, you need the GT. No GT = no schnappi.dont need schnappi, I got roger

[Bishop Yutani]

your ATI card is called a 3d accelerator. The CPU in your computer theoretically COULD do all the work to display great graphics, but its doing so much else, that ATI and NVidia, etc decided to dedicate a separate CPU just for graphics.

The graphics card accelerates the 3d calculations by providing its own brainpower. Using directX to turn it down may show that your video card or your video drivers are the problem.

and listen. google can tell you a lot. try typing "3d acceleration directx" and see what happens.

[Vae Victis]

I did the DxDiag thingy.

I saw 2 options.. DirectX-Draw and that 3d acceleration (I got the dutch version etc.. might be not 100% the same word)
turned the 2nd off.

(If I turn off the DirectX-Draw, it will disable both, so I left that one enabled)

Gonna try it now, see if anything has changed.



[edit] ... ok.. I tried starting NC.. and errr.. well.. it won't.. so Im rebooting see if it works then

[Skusty]

the prob is that it's a ATI card...

[Stryker198]

what temps is your card running at, what are the rails rated at on your powersuply, and can you measure your rails under idle and load with a DMM ?

the x800se is a good card no need to buy a new one. get an x800gt if your gunna get a new card they cost less than a 6600gt and perform better :D

[Bishop Yutani]

you probably cant play most games with the acceleration all the way down since most of them check for acceleration before starting.

just run the 2 tests for the Test DirectDraw and Test Direct3d.

[Darkana]

Stryker may have a point there. Overheating because of fans not working anymore can cause total freeze ups of computers out of the blue. I once had overheating problems just because the computer was filled with PCI cards and there was not enough air flow to keep the gfx card cool enough.

Anyway, do the DirectX tests, maybe get one of the 3dmark benchmark suits and run them just for the purpose of stressing your gfx card a bit. Btw. turning off 3D accel is not a good idea, every 3D game needs it (and certain 2D games do, too).

[Vae Victis]

Yeah, game didnt work without 3D..

Err how do I check all that? as said Im not a comp wizkid :lol:
can only do photoshop and games, thats it. :(

check the temp of the card etc..

I mean my card is like 1 yr old and I didnt have this problem back in march even (didnt play any games after march). it's way too new to be broken.

[Vae Victis]

the problem...

Catalyst 5.8 .. that doesnt with NC too well.

removed that and installed Catalyst 5.4, works like a charm now.
Hell, I never crashed since :D (only when alttabbing in wastelands to desktop, coz morons are talking to on msn they want to be my friend)