Crazy Graphics Problem

[Mark.]

Ok i keep getting this crazy problem when playing live. First of all ill show a pic then give my specs etc.



See that is wat my screen ends up like after about 5 minutes of playing the game, it slowly starts just getting little flickers then it just reapidly multiplys.

My specs are:

Pentium 4 3.0GHz processor
120 gb SATA HDD
1024mb RAM
Raedon 9600XT 256mb Graphics Card.

Anything else???

I have the latest Ati drivers but not the latest Mobo drivers simply because they are quite big and ive only jst got the net set up in my room.

Im not too sure if it could be a damaged card problem since my card performed pretty well in a benchmark test I put it through.

Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks

[COOLmac©]

could be a graphics card problem...i heard poeple here complaining about the raedeon cards.....
well you can wait for a second opinion

[threatlockz]

the card is damaged, did you overclock it? looks like bad memory, or overheated memory on the card.

[Mark.]

Thanks for the quick replies dudes. Umm im pretty sure it hasnt been overclocked, ive never set it to be and I doubt the default bios would have ti overclocked.

What would cause such problems?? Because ill try and return it to the supplier for a Geforce in that case.

Once again thanks for the speedy reply, hopefully my quest for ultimate live satisfaction will be fullfilled soon

[COOLmac©]

reasons.................mmmmmmmmmmm...one is dust accumulation.two is the heating of your unit[if it's hot.it will fry].three is if you played too much like a whole day in a non airconditioned room.....and lastly a factory defect.....

you could return the card to the supplier if it still under warranty but if not then buy a new one

[Mark.]

Yeah, i deffinately havent played for a whole day, cos it was screwy from day one, machine is quite hot but its brand new some dust accumulation isnt a prob, I dont reall yhtin heat is a prob tho. Ill look into it and let you know of any advances, thanks for all the help.


Oh one thing more what would be a good replacement card of similar quality??

Peace

[The X]

gutted about the new pc

could be graphics card....although I'm not a tech expert, I solved a few of my graphics problems by rolling back drivers and re-installing....

sorry, but good luck with it....

[Mark.]

Ok heres a few more updates on my problem.

I swapped my graphics card with an identical one and the error still happens, and alos my card works fine im my mates machine.

So we have come to the conclusion that is must be a Motherboard or CPU error. I've meailed the Mobo supplier.

Here is another pic of errors I get, this time ingame:



So Im not too sure what my problem is, I suppose it could be a PSU problem as well, but I only get these problems when playing games (other games freeze mostly)

Thanks for the ehlp in advance.

[paradizecityz]

did you just buy this card or you had this for awhile?

[Mark.]

Well ive had it for about 2 months (whole system) but I got the errors as soon as I started playing live.

[paradizecityz]

hmm interesting, im not sure if 9600 series is compatible at all, i had 9600PRO before and that didnt work at all so i dont kno how 9600XT goes....so ur sayin u put it in ur friend's computer and did you run live on ur friend's computer???

[Mark.]

No but he played Need for Speed with it which is another game that has prblems. I think the card is compatible though. Anyway im having problmmes with other games as well (freezing etc) so I think ill send the Mobo back and see what happens.

[curious101]

What's your mate's specs, by the way? What graphics driver did you install in that machine? What games did you play in his machine?

Well, IMHO it seems that you have a graphics card driver problem. From the first screenshot you provided, your card may be having difficulties reading through the colors provided by the game. A Raedon 9600XT 256mb is a high-end graphics card and it should be able to handle DX9 games like NBA Live 2005 and NFSU (and other EA Sports/EA Games software for that matter) flawlessly.

The second screenshot you provided gives us an idea that artifacts are indeed present in your gaming experience. Artifacts are "extra" graphics that aren't really meant to, or unusually appear in the game. Several factors cause artifacts to appear. One factor is that you have a graphics card that is barely able to meet the requirements of the game. Another is that you have a misconfigured graphics card driver. Even at its default setting, an official release of a driver from a manufacturer isn't all that perfect. In fact, Radeon cards are very good performers beginning from the 9550 EE model. It's just a sad thing that they're drivers aren't that good. This has been a problem of Radeon users long ago. Additionally, these drivers aren't designed to focus on only a few games. Rather, they are designed to perform well universally- and games/apps have different system requirements, as we all know.

System freezes are caused by a SATA controller problem, grahics card, graphics card driver, low voltage from PSU, bad memory, bad mobo, high cpu load, and many others. However, you mentioned you have already benchmarked your graphics card and resulted to no problems. Also try to benchmark your CPU, HD, and memory and see if a crash occurs. There are many benchmarking software out there. One is SiSoft Sandra, try it out. It's free. Don't arrive at a conclusion yet that your PC parts are damaged without benchmarking.

My suggestion is that you try installing other games besides EA. Install games like Quake 3, Doom III, Counterstrike, Warcraft III, The Sims, etc. These are from different game developers. Roll back to previous drivers (such as the CD from the ATI Radeon 9600 XT box), as what others have suggested. Also, try the optimized drivers from Omega, etc. Ask threatlockz and paradizecityz for help in finding them. Try reintstalling Direct X 9. Try to see if the same problem occurs, then let us know here if you have any progress so we can troubleshoot further.

[Mark.]

Ok ill try all that thanks, one thing though, what do you mean by omega drivers? shouldnt i be using Raedon Drivers??

Im have tried ither games and I get freezing in those as well if that helps. The drivers on my friends comuter were the same as what I have on this one.

[curious101]

@match_66,

Omega drivers are tweaked or optimized drivers done by an independent person/organization. The drivers are actually based on an official release of a driver from ATI and nVidia. What the person/organization does is tweak these drivers through the different settings made available by the official drivers. The result is an optimized driver that caters to the needs of those having graphic driver problems. In other words, Omega is an alternative driver that you can use if the official release is not working for you. Omega is available both for nVidia and Radeon users for free. Just browse through the Omega website and look for your appropriate driver and download it. Just remember to uninstall your previous Radeon/nVidia driver before installing a new one.

[Mark.]

Ok I tried the Omega Drivers and that didnt work. I have tried games such as Morrowind, Freelancer and CM 03/04, they all eperienced crashed except for CM but that is not really a 3d application.

Also since I installed the Omega drivers I sometimes have a supposed power faliure when I turn the machine on causing it to restart again.

Also sometimes I get a CPU fan error at the startup screen, but all I have to do is press f1 and it continues on anyway.

So im wondering wether my problem could be a PSU error maybe, or the motherboard is fried somewhere.

[threatlockz]

return the card, it should have warranty on it if it's only 2 months old.

[curious101]

Ok. Now, maybe your graphics card might be defective. I had sudden reboots on my old PC and I suspected it was my built-in video. However, in my case sudden reboots were really unexpected. There were times when I was just surfing the Net and sudden reboots suddenly occured. Oftentimes, I had sudden reboots when playing games or benchmarking.

Try to install benchmarking software such as SiSoft Sandra, 3D Mark 03, and 3D Mark 05. Do a CPU Arithmetic Benchmark, CPU Multimedia Benhmark, and Memory Bandwidth Benchmark with SiSoft Sandra. Run the benchmarks 10 or more times and see if sudden reboots occur. Run the other 3D benchmarking software too and see if sudden reboots occur. If so, you might have memory problem. It's either video card memory or system RAM. But also consider other problems like the PSU or mobo.

The way to know the bottleneck of your PC is to isolate the problems that you have discovered and test the PC. So if you suspect a bad PSU, try to replace the PSU and run the benchmarks. If your graphics card's at fault, return your graphics card, as what threatlockz suggested, and run benchmarks again. Furthermore, you might wanna try booting with minimal components and benchmarking your system. i.e., boot only with a single hard drive, an optical drive, a graphics card, and all the basic components that are needed so that the PC can boot. In this way, the PSU isn't burdened with too much load from "extra" components.

[threatlockz]

judging by the screenshots you posted, it's 95% sure your graph.card memory. replace the graph card and you'll be fine. if it's other memory or faulty hardware, there wont be artifacts or scrambled lines on the image.

[Mark.]

Ok thanks for the tips, ill try them. Just one thing however. I have already tried swapping the graphics card with another one and I still get the error.

Also the sudden reeboots are only when I turn the computer one, it doesnt always make it to the windows XP load screen. Ill try rolling back to the default raedon drivers as ive inly started getting this error since I installed the omega ones.

[Mark.]

Ok i fixed the sudden reboots, it was just the Omega drivers causing it. Ive also done a lot of benchmarks and they all have gone fine.

Also I have been playing Warcraft 3 and havent had any problems with that. Im gonna send the Mobo back first since there is no cost if no errors are found as opposed to the Card supplier who charge $45 NZD if there are no errors found.

@threatlockz

Thats what I would have thought but my mates card is working fine but whne I used it on my machine I still got the errors. Well at least the ones from the second screen.

[Mark.]

Ok another update, I have fixed the artifacting problem (I think, havent seen it yet) we found that the tempeture inside my case was too high and we think it was overheating the Graphics Card Memory.

However, the game still randomly freezes, not just freezing the game but the whole system.

[The X]

I've heard Freelancer can cause problems in people's systems due to it playing around with windows files....not sure though, that's just what some guy at work told me....

but yep, I still get the random freezes since I got a new motherboard and graphics card....not as often now....

good luck....hope you sort out your issues soon

[Mark.]

So uninstalling freelancer could help??

Cheers for the pointer X

[paseo85]

its the drivers. i install the omega and i get the same problem but when i install other driver i didnt have that problem