Vid Card

[dragonfly]

So for the past couple months my vid card has been giving me ANNOYING things in games. I dont konw the technical term, but it'll take a texture from a point and stretch it all the way accross the map in ut, so it looks like there's a huge streched wall in front of me. Makes it hard to shoot guys sometimes when I cant see them behind this imaginary wall.

 

Well, i loaded up cod4 a couple days ago, and it's fun. Good frames for the most part too. Anyway, it'll take shadows and stretch them to my crosshair as thick black lines, sometimes only display a huge wall of blue/brown infront of me, but it all depends on where I am pointing my gun. Like, if I move it, they might go away, move back, they're still not there, take a step, they're back.

 

I used to think it was heat, so when it started i cleaned out my card with air, still no go. Last night i monitored temps too and it never broke 70, which is good afaik. Is this my vid card slowly dying on me? It's a 7900gtx not overclocked at all. I already tried 5+different drivers for it, including beta drivers. Game doesnt matter either - does it for all of them - hl2, cod, ut, etc.

[Cujo]

So for the past couple months my vid card has been giving me ANNOYING things in games. I dont konw the technical term, but it'll take a texture from a point and stretch it all the way accross the map in ut, so it looks like there's a huge streched wall in front of me. Makes it hard to shoot guys sometimes when I cant see them behind this imaginary wall.

 

Well, i loaded up cod4 a couple days ago, and it's fun. Good frames for the most part too. Anyway, it'll take shadows and stretch them to my crosshair as thick black lines, sometimes only display a huge wall of blue/brown infront of me, but it all depends on where I am pointing my gun. Like, if I move it, they might go away, move back, they're still not there, take a step, they're back.

 

I used to think it was heat, so when it started i cleaned out my card with air, still no go. Last night i monitored temps too and it never broke 70, which is good afaik. Is this my vid card slowly dying on me? It's a 7900gtx not overclocked at all. I already tried 5+different drivers for it, including beta drivers. Game doesnt matter either - does it for all of them - hl2, cod, ut, etc.

 

i'd say it's dying. the 7900s, specifically the overclocked ones have a lot of issues like that. i'd contact the manufacturer tech support.

[dragonfly]

Dang, ok. I'll call tonight after Heroes. Just needs to last me another month or so...

[Tek-Almighty]

I had 6800 GT that did stuff like that...but once I switched monitors, it stopped.

 

Then it started again...so I reinstalled XP and it never did it again...

 

In fact, same vid card is now running in my wife's compy.

 

NVidia = quirky at times.

[[LaW]Maverick]

I have dual 7900 GS's in my laptop, and I've never got artifacts like that....

 

sounds to me like the card is dying, but it could just be some strange quirks popping up...I dunno

[bushwack]

You Dual booting Vista and XP right? Does it do it in both OS?

[dragonfly]

You Dual booting Vista and XP right? Does it do it in both OS?

 

I just put cod4 in vista and plan on playing tonight. I never played much tam in vista cause it was throwing off my aim... jsut didnt feel right. So I'll get back to you tonight. I sent an email to evga just to see if they'd respond, they havent in 24 hours.

[dragonfly]

Just tried it out while my pizza was cooking. Was fine for about 20 min, then hardcore flashing and some artifacting.

[HWarrior]

Just tried it out while my pizza was cooking. Was fine for about 20 min, then hardcore flashing and some artifacting.

 

Most likely possibilities...

1) slowly dying (Heat may have caused some damage to the gpu.)

these two not likely if your monitored temps are accurate.

2) loose heatsink. (If it is removable, try cleaning and reseating with new goop.)

3) fan not at full speed. (If the card's fan can be unplugged from the video card and run off of a 3-pin connector, then try that. It will run at 100%.)

[dragonfly]

I'm leaning towards 2 and 3. I'll take a look at it some saturday when I have time.

 

Update: I played another hour tonight and it got worse. It was flashing white and blue and red, VERY annoyingly. Basically unplayable when you have to snipe quickly

 

Hurry up new cards...

[[LaW]Maverick]

I'm not dual-booting into Vista, no

 

Also, if your heatsink is loose it might not even be monitoring the temperature right, it depends on where the thermocouple is.

 

That being said, check it out, see if it's seated securely.

 

 

I'm leaning toward the "it was damaged at one point by heat" theory at the moment--maybe it was left on overnight and the fan temporarily failed for some reason, I dunno, but it certainly sounds like heat-related damage. I had a card cook itself on my wife's old laptop, and it did similar things right before it went.

 

Good luck!

[Laz.e.rus]

I get that occasionally. (7900gt heavily OCd)

If I remember right, I narrowed it down to a certain graphics option. Disabling it fixed the occasional corruption.

Cant remember which tho. May have even been my monitors refresh rate, or shadows, AA or AF...Hmm.

 

Been playing timeshift. Had it . Changed some in-game graphics settings. Problem is gone. Sorry I cant remember what it was tho...

No heat issues here

When they happened it didnt matter if I played for 2 mins or 2 hours.

[dragonfly]

Hmmm, Ima try to turn off texture clamp in my global settings. I also run 2k4 with custom settings usually of 16 and 8 aa and af

 

Edit: changed to 4x and 8x aa and af, turned off clamp, didnt do jack

 

If I have time tomorrow I'll look at the card itself. Exam time is fast approaching :S

Edited November 17, 2007 by DarkArchon

[Xoul]

So for the past couple months my vid card has been giving me ANNOYING things in games. I dont konw the technical term, but it'll take a texture from a point and stretch it all the way accross the map in ut, so it looks like there's a huge streched wall in front of me. Makes it hard to shoot guys sometimes when I cant see them behind this imaginary wall.

 

Well, i loaded up cod4 a couple days ago, and it's fun. Good frames for the most part too. Anyway, it'll take shadows and stretch them to my crosshair as thick black lines, sometimes only display a huge wall of blue/brown infront of me, but it all depends on where I am pointing my gun. Like, if I move it, they might go away, move back, they're still not there, take a step, they're back.

 

I used to think it was heat, so when it started i cleaned out my card with air, still no go. Last night i monitored temps too and it never broke 70, which is good afaik. Is this my vid card slowly dying on me? It's a 7900gtx not overclocked at all. I already tried 5+different drivers for it, including beta drivers. Game doesnt matter either - does it for all of them - hl2, cod, ut, etc.

The term is artifact I believe.

[dragonfly]

Took the card out, took the heatsink off, cleaned the baby out with rubbing alc, applied paste, popped it back together, same dealio. Nothing was loose, my card is crapping out. Oh well, new cards are out in december I do believe and I've been saving a while for one anyway.

[bushwack]

Just call tech support and get that baby RMA'ed. What brand is it? I had my BFG back to me 7 days after I shipped it off, they shipped it back next day air.

Find an old PCI card to do 2D duties while its off and play some good ol' Quake or some flash games.

[Cujo]

new cards are out already on newegg. shouldn't be long before they're in canada. you going with an hd 3870? dirtybird will be getting his on tuesday and i should have some results from him.

[dragonfly]

I really have nothing against ATI, and wouldnt mind trying out their product. My friend has owned a card by them (9800 or 9600 or something like that) and it was a good card I thought. Thing is, I read this review and it seems like the 8800gt was still beating out the 3870 a little to a fair amount. Makes me want an 8800gt instead.

 

Isn't nVidia making a new card that's dropping soon too? Like, around the start of December? I know they're updating their old 8800gts's a little bit to have 96+ stream processors, but I dont mean that. I thought there was something else coming up soon... ?

 

Edit: and maybe I'll try to rma it tomorrow. It's eVGA and they're supposed to be nice people

Edited November 18, 2007 by DarkArchon

[Laz.e.rus]

can anyone give me the current short summary version?

Is the upgraded 8800gt out yet? If not, when? How can we tel the diff when purchasing?

It seems the 8800gt (older version) is roughly equal or better than the new 3000 series from amd/ati so far. Is this what others see as well? If not, why?

How are the diff versions of 8800gt somparing to each other? To 320/640 gts, etc?

 

I may be purchasing soon. Looking at the 8800gt. Looking for more info and imput for a more informed decision.

[boiler]

can anyone give me the current short summary version?

Is the upgraded 8800gt out yet? If not, when? How can we tel the diff when purchasing?

It seems the 8800gt (older version) is roughly equal or better than the new 3000 series from amd/ati so far. Is this what others see as well? If not, why?

How are the diff versions of 8800gt somparing to each other? To 320/640 gts, etc?

 

I may be purchasing soon. Looking at the 8800gt. Looking for more info and imput for a more informed decision.

There is no "upgraded" version of the 8800gt - it's a new model that currently has the best price/performance value in the high end cards. When purchasing, just look for the 8800GT, not the GTS. They are all 512MB I believe.

 

I can't speak as to the performance comparison with the new 3000 series from ATI. I'm an Nvidia guy myself, and they've been leading the pack with the 8800 series. If I find good benchmarks, I'll post back with them.

 

As of now, the 512MB 8800GT is they way to go, even over the 640MB 8800GTS, because of the newer architecture and other updates. Even Cujo and a few others have gone on record as saying the 8800GT is the way to go even over the GTX - the gives you ALMOST the same performance for almost half the price.

 

As for where to buy them, they're pretty scarce right now as companies are trying to fill the demand. If/when you do decide to make a purchase, I would recommend EVGA as the one to buy from. They usually have the highest factory overclocks for the price, and their service is outstanding from my experiences with them (owned 2 evga cards in the past).

 

Hopefully someone can give you a better run down regarding the new ATI cards, as I wasn't aware the 3000 was coming out this soon after the 2000 series flopped.

[Cujo]

right now from 179-219-299 price point the way to go is hd3850-hd3870-8800gt. the upgraded gts is not an option as the price will remain stupidly high.

 

nvidia is said to be releasing a dual 8800gt board in december. no word on naming but basically 2 8800gt on a single pcb. ati is also coming out with a dual gpu board that will feature dual 3870s in january. right now the choice really comes down to how much want to spend. don't go higher than the gt though as it's just not worth it unless getting one of these new dual boards.

 

keep in mind though, in order for the dual boards to function at 100% driver support is a must. this is where amd is much better than nvidia. people are still having mad problems in vista with nvidias last dual gpu board the 7950gx2. i just don't trust them right now.

[dragonfly]

Laz:

I read this review and it seems like the 8800gt was still beating out the 3870 a little to a fair amount. Makes me want an 8800gt instead.

 

8800GT > 8800GTS right now. It's also a fair amount better in the benchmarks than the 3870 (in above review anyway). Buy the overclocked version or dont if you will overclock. Also, buy eVGA (the SSc edition, 700mhz core). It's the best bang/buck right now, unless you want something cheaper. Then it's the 3850 instead of the 8600.

[Laz.e.rus]

Thx so far guys.

I read somewhere that the 8800gt is being updraded in the way it handles the transfers.

So that its 118 whatevers will be up to 124 whatevers....or whatever

If someone has anyidea what Im talking about...do you know if this was already done or will be?

[Cujo]

and now to confuse even more. there's ANOTHER 8800gts. this one has 512mb ram and specs like the gtx... i think this makes 7 versions of a card and they all have THE SAME NAME!!!!

 

http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=Mjky...HVzaWFzdCwsLDE=

 

edit - no idea how this will perform.

Edited November 19, 2007 by Cujo

[dragonfly]

Laz: shader processors?

 

Taken from cujo's link:

 

8800gts 640mb with 96 shader processors

8800gts 320mb with 96 shader processors

8800gts 640mb with 112 shader processors

8800gts 512mb with 128 shader processors

 

That's not including the 8800gt which has 112 SP's I do believe. Plus all the OC, OC2 and KO versions of the previously mentioned cards, as well as the gtx (OC, OC2, KO) and ultra.

 

Let's not even get into the 8600 crowd either!