Multiple problems with drivers and / or card

KShots · Nov 17, 2005, 07:18 PM

Hello... I have been running into a large array of problems with my Radeon 9800 Pro for the last year or so. Previously, I had been instead playing all my games on my laptop thinking the problems would all be resolved by a later driver update (I had purchased a rather large "desktop replacement" style custom laptop a year ago that to this day still plays the latest games well). Well, now I've started playing "Fear" and found my laptop won't cut it anymore... but my desktop should (haltingly).

However, let me give a description of what the card does in general. In games like Stronghold 2, Civ 4, and Black & White 2, where there is a sub-window showing a 3D cinemagraphic, it tends to become corrupt (random colors in the window) and things slow down until it goes away. Chance of this happening in Stronghold = only after playing for 20 minutes, then all the time. In Civ 4 and B&W2, it happens 70% of the time, regardless of how long I've been playing. In games like Painkiller, whenever there is a framebuffer effect, there is a 70% chance that the whole screen will freeze, and the game will play on at normal speed until the effect goes away (in other words, you play blindly). In Fear, I get the framebuffer problems (which grind the game to a near-halt) along with a weird lighting distortion problem I'd never seen before - wherever a specific lighting effect is being used (ie a flourescent lamp on the ceiling making a certain section of a wall brighter), the whole of the object being "illuminated" is distorted with random garbage. As far as I can tell, this does not slow the game down.

As I am having these problems on a broad range of games, I don't think it's the game's problem. On the other hand, I don't see people screaming about these unresolved problems on older games, so I don't think this is a common problem. Clearly, the card and/or drivers are not working right... but I really can't figure out why.

Another problem that has been plaguing me is that the machine reboots with no error report; I show up back on the desktop and Windows doesn't even know anything bad happened that caused a reboot (nothing in the event logger either). This usually happened about 10-15 minutes into nearly any game. After disabling fast writes at the BIOS level, this changed to only happen 2-3 hours into a game (tested with Chronicles of Riddic and B&W2, Civ4 seems to go on with no reboot... never tried it before disabling fast writes, though).

Below are my machine specs, as detailed as I can make them from work:

Mobo: MSI K7D Master
CPU: Dual Athlon MP 2000+ (1.66 GHz each)
RAM: 1G PC-2100 (Fastest RAM that Athlon MP-type CPUs know how to handle)
Front bus: 133 MHz
OS: Windows XP Pro
Chipset: AMD 762/768
AGP Speed: 4x
AGP Aperture: 128M
Fast Writes: disabled
Audio: Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
Video: Radeon 9800 Pro (128M) drivers: Omega 2.6.75a (I have tried official radeon drivers with identical results)
PSU: 550W monstrosity
HD1 (Windows 98 / XP): Samsung 120G
HD2 (Windows / Linux): Western Digital 60G
CD-ROM: Ancient Creative 6X DVD-ROM
Ethernet: Intel Ether Express Pro 100 + Atheros-chipset based wireless (dual 802.11G)

Now I ask another question: Due to the amount of inconsistent problems (70% mini-window corruption), I begin to wonder if there's an SMP issue with the windows drivers. I could find no BIOS option to disable SMP support. Is there a windows OS option that can be toggled to disable SMP support? I'd like to see if this solves the problem. Apparently, I can also physically remove one of the CPUs from the machine, and it will supposedly boot up without SMP support... but I'd rather avoid that. Another alternative I could think of is to attempt to boot up in '98 (which clearly does not support SMP), re-install all my drivers (I haven't booted that in years - many hardware changes), then install and test some games.

redsolar · Nov 18, 2005, 07:23 AM

SMP issues are possible (though unlikely), but can you make a screnshot and post it here for us to see the corruption? There are plenty other issues that can cause various degrees of graphical anomalies besides MP support.

What brand PSU is it ? Is it possible to pull one CPU and still be able to run the machine (to eliminate the unlikely SMP issue).

Don't bother with Win98 - it's a bad step to try, you will most likely just be wasting your time, since I doubt you would want to run it full time even if it works for some reason.

Nov 17, 2005, 07:18 PM	#1
KShots DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Multiple problems with drivers and / or card Hello... I have been running into a large array of problems with my Radeon 9800 Pro for the last year or so. Previously, I had been instead playing all my games on my laptop thinking the problems would all be resolved by a later driver update (I had purchased a rather large "desktop replacement" style custom laptop a year ago that to this day still plays the latest games well). Well, now I've started playing "Fear" and found my laptop won't cut it anymore... but my desktop should (haltingly). However, let me give a description of what the card does in general. In games like Stronghold 2, Civ 4, and Black & White 2, where there is a sub-window showing a 3D cinemagraphic, it tends to become corrupt (random colors in the window) and things slow down until it goes away. Chance of this happening in Stronghold = only after playing for 20 minutes, then all the time. In Civ 4 and B&W2, it happens 70% of the time, regardless of how long I've been playing. In games like Painkiller, whenever there is a framebuffer effect, there is a 70% chance that the whole screen will freeze, and the game will play on at normal speed until the effect goes away (in other words, you play blindly). In Fear, I get the framebuffer problems (which grind the game to a near-halt) along with a weird lighting distortion problem I'd never seen before - wherever a specific lighting effect is being used (ie a flourescent lamp on the ceiling making a certain section of a wall brighter), the whole of the object being "illuminated" is distorted with random garbage. As far as I can tell, this does not slow the game down. As I am having these problems on a broad range of games, I don't think it's the game's problem. On the other hand, I don't see people screaming about these unresolved problems on older games, so I don't think this is a common problem. Clearly, the card and/or drivers are not working right... but I really can't figure out why. Another problem that has been plaguing me is that the machine reboots with no error report; I show up back on the desktop and Windows doesn't even know anything bad happened that caused a reboot (nothing in the event logger either). This usually happened about 10-15 minutes into nearly any game. After disabling fast writes at the BIOS level, this changed to only happen 2-3 hours into a game (tested with Chronicles of Riddic and B&W2, Civ4 seems to go on with no reboot... never tried it before disabling fast writes, though). Below are my machine specs, as detailed as I can make them from work: Mobo: MSI K7D Master CPU: Dual Athlon MP 2000+ (1.66 GHz each) RAM: 1G PC-2100 (Fastest RAM that Athlon MP-type CPUs know how to handle) Front bus: 133 MHz OS: Windows XP Pro Chipset: AMD 762/768 AGP Speed: 4x AGP Aperture: 128M Fast Writes: disabled Audio: Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Video: Radeon 9800 Pro (128M) drivers: Omega 2.6.75a (I have tried official radeon drivers with identical results) PSU: 550W monstrosity HD1 (Windows 98 / XP): Samsung 120G HD2 (Windows / Linux): Western Digital 60G CD-ROM: Ancient Creative 6X DVD-ROM Ethernet: Intel Ether Express Pro 100 + Atheros-chipset based wireless (dual 802.11G) Now I ask another question: Due to the amount of inconsistent problems (70% mini-window corruption), I begin to wonder if there's an SMP issue with the windows drivers. I could find no BIOS option to disable SMP support. Is there a windows OS option that can be toggled to disable SMP support? I'd like to see if this solves the problem. Apparently, I can also physically remove one of the CPUs from the machine, and it will supposedly boot up without SMP support... but I'd rather avoid that. Another alternative I could think of is to attempt to boot up in '98 (which clearly does not support SMP), re-install all my drivers (I haven't booted that in years - many hardware changes), then install and test some games.

Nov 18, 2005, 07:23 AM	#2
redsolar Off duty Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Las Vegas, USA Posts: 1,242 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	SMP issues are possible (though unlikely), but can you make a screnshot and post it here for us to see the corruption? There are plenty other issues that can cause various degrees of graphical anomalies besides MP support. What brand PSU is it ? Is it possible to pull one CPU and still be able to run the machine (to eliminate the unlikely SMP issue). Don't bother with Win98 - it's a bad step to try, you will most likely just be wasting your time, since I doubt you would want to run it full time even if it works for some reason. __________________ Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space_Bar Main rig: Intel Core i7 930 @ 4.0 Ghz \| Corsair H50 Push/Pull \| 12GB OCZ DDR3 \| ASUS Radeon HD 5850 \| 3x 1TB Samsung F3 RAID5 on Dell PERC 5i SAS + 1TB Hitachi \| MSI X58 Pro-e \| 850W Antec Truepower Quattro \| RocketFish by Lian Li Full Tower Case \| Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD \| Dell 2408WFP 24" LCD \| Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD \| Logitech Z-5500 Speakers \| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Laptop: Samsung x360-34P \| Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4 GHz \| 4GB DDR3 \| 128GB Samsung SSD \| Intel 4500M w/ HDMI \| WiFi \| Bluetooth \| 13.3" WLED 1280x800 \| Windows 7 Professional x64