Doom3 Artifact Solution

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http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33774259
Worked for me, try it

Runar

 

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"Runar" <runarhalvorsen@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2nlp48F269hqU1@uni-berlin.de...

> http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33774259
> Worked for me, try it

Summary of the link:
The solution is _not_ to share the power cable to the card with _any_ other
peripherals.

I can confirm that this is important when games start to use the full power
of the cards.

As I have written earlier, I had the same problem with Far Cry on a 9700NP,
only here with artifacts showing up all over the place, looking like a dying
card. But all my other 3D games worked fine :-/
Even underclocking the card didn't help.

Only when I removed one HD and a fan from the cable, the artifacts went
away, and the card has performed flawlessly since.

/Henrik

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

On 8/8/2004 2:53 AM Henrik Stavnshøj brightened our day with:

>"Runar" <runarhalvorsen@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:2nlp48F269hqU1@uni-berlin.de...
>
>
>
>>http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33774259
>>Worked for me, try it
>>
>>
>
>Summary of the link:
>The solution is _not_ to share the power cable to the card with _any_ other
>peripherals.
>
>I can confirm that this is important when games start to use the full power
>of the cards.
>
>As I have written earlier, I had the same problem with Far Cry on a 9700NP,
>only here with artifacts showing up all over the place, looking like a dying
>card. But all my other 3D games worked fine :-/
>Even underclocking the card didn't help.
>
>Only when I removed one HD and a fan from the cable, the artifacts went
>away, and the card has performed flawlessly since.
>
> /Henrik
>
>
>
>
Where you had a problem with it, what kind of power supply were you
using? I have not seen this artifact problem with my card though my
9800 Pro is sharing a power feed with my HDD (though not using the
included in the box splitter.)
I've got an Antec 430W True Power PSU, which is a quality component.


--
The Brain From Planet Arous (1958):
"Bad alien Gor takes over scientist Steve's brain; good alien Vol takes over Steve's dog's brain."

Steve [Inglo]

 

[Qv]

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"Runar" <runarhalvorsen@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2nlp48F269hqU1@uni-berlin.de...
> http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33774259
> Worked for me, try it
>
> Runar
>
>

It's probably a good idea to give the video card an unshared power
connector, but unfortunately, this doesn't work for me. I even tried
increasing the AGP voltage a bit (to 1.6v) in the BIOS but it only made
things worse.

What did work is that I aimed a big 16" fan at my open case and the dots
went away. I then took the fan away and within 30 seconds the dots were
back. Underclocking by 20MHz also works. I also found that enabling
fast-writes removes the dots but this causes my PC to occasionally crash
while using the TV functionality (it's an All-In-Wonder 9800).

I suppose there's a chance that some terribly inefficient driver/firmware
code is working the card much harder that it was designed for, so perhaps
this problem can be solved with updated software from ATI, but I'm leaning
to a hardware problem (i.e. inefficient cooling and/or marginal chips).

 

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On 8/8/2004 9:10 AM QV brightened our day with:

>"Runar" <runarhalvorsen@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:2nlp48F269hqU1@uni-berlin.de...
>
>
>>http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33774259
>>Worked for me, try it
>>
>>Runar
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>It's probably a good idea to give the video card an unshared power
>connector, but unfortunately, this doesn't work for me. I even tried
>increasing the AGP voltage a bit (to 1.6v) in the BIOS but it only made
>things worse.
>
>What did work is that I aimed a big 16" fan at my open case and the dots
>went away. I then took the fan away and within 30 seconds the dots were
>back. Underclocking by 20MHz also works. I also found that enabling
>fast-writes removes the dots but this causes my PC to occasionally crash
>while using the TV functionality (it's an All-In-Wonder 9800).
>
>I suppose there's a chance that some terribly inefficient driver/firmware
>code is working the card much harder that it was designed for, so perhaps
>this problem can be solved with updated software from ATI, but I'm leaning
>to a hardware problem (i.e. inefficient cooling and/or marginal chips).
>
>
>
>
Do you know what kind of RAM (brand, Hynix or Samsung) is on your 9800
Pro? Is it a BBA or oem?
Are you using stock cooling? How long does it take for the artifacts to
show up?

Since I haven't seen them here's all the possible pertinent info I can
think of about how my card/system is set up.

1) I have an Arctic Cooler on it (but that doesn't cool the memory,
which I'd think those artifacts would be a sign of the memory getting
too hot). I suppose this may be the most important thing, I wonder if
anyone with an arctic cooler has seen these artifacts. The memory on my
BBA Radeon 9800 Pro is made by Hynix, which is supposed to be the "cheap
stuff", no RAMsinks.
2) Bios settings: AGP Aperture 256 Mb, AGP V 1.6v, AGP transfer 8x
enabled, Fastwrites Enabled.
3) CPU/Chipset/Memory: Athlon XP 2500 @ 12x185/nForce2 (non-ultra MSI
K7N2-L, extra fan on northbridge)/1 Gb Corsair XMS dual channel PC2700 @
DDR370. VCore 1.65v DRAM 2.7v.
3) Case/CPU Cooling: (took the side panel off a couple weeks ago, prior
to D3, just cause it's been really hot around here): Vantec Aeroflow
CPU HSF, 2 rear exhaust fans and one blowhole fan, the PSU has an intake
and output fan. (My feeling has been since I got my 9800 a couple
months ago that it has made the inside of my case too hot, so I have
heat worries, though no issues evident so far)
4) Antec 430W True Power PSU, Radeon on an unshared connection.
5) 4.9b Catalyst drivers; SmartGART 8x AGP, fastwrites off; DirextX
9.0c Windows XP SP1
6) Radlinker (tweak tool) settings: openGL default or application
preference, core clock MHz: 391, memory clock 364 MHz.
7) Game settings: 1024x768 High with no AA
8) Autoexec.cfg:

//autoexec
seta com_allowConsole "1"
seta image_useCache "1"
seta image_cacheMegs "256"
seta image_cacheMinK "2048"
seta com_videoRam "128"
seta r_multiSamples "0"
seta r_lightscale "2.1"
seta image_lodbias "-2"

The ambient temps around here haven't been that hot lately, mid-day
around 85 degrees (no AC for me), but Doom 3 (besides the heat issues)
is a game best played in the dark of night , so I haven't really
played it when the room temps were really high. I'll fire it up in the
middle of the day today when its as hot as its going to get and see if I
can generate some snow.
Hope the above proves useful to someone.

--
The Brain From Planet Arous (1958):
"Bad alien Gor takes over scientist Steve's brain; good alien Vol takes over Steve's dog's brain."

Steve [Inglo]

 

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Inglo wrote:

[snipped]

> The ambient temps around here haven't been that hot lately, mid-day
> around 85 degrees (no AC for me), but Doom 3 (besides the heat issues)
> is a game best played in the dark of night , so I haven't really
> played it when the room temps were really high. I'll fire it up in
> the middle of the day today when its as hot as its going to get and
> see if I can generate some snow.
> Hope the above proves useful to someone.

Where are you?

--
Derek

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

On 8/8/2004 12:05 PM Derek Baker brightened our day with:

>Inglo wrote:
>
>[snipped]
>
>
>
>>The ambient temps around here haven't been that hot lately, mid-day
>>around 85 degrees (no AC for me), but Doom 3 (besides the heat issues)
>>is a game best played in the dark of night , so I haven't really
>>played it when the room temps were really high. I'll fire it up in
>>the middle of the day today when its as hot as its going to get and
>>see if I can generate some snow.
>>Hope the above proves useful to someone.
>>
>>
>
>Where are you?
>
>
>
Northern California. I played for 2½ hours today, from noon on, ambient
case temp 29°C(84F), CPU max @ 50°C(122F), mobo temp max @ 44(111F)° C.
No artifacts.

--
The Brain From Planet Arous (1958):
"Bad alien Gor takes over scientist Steve's brain; good alien Vol takes over Steve's dog's brain."

Steve [Inglo]

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

Inglo wrote:
> On 8/8/2004 12:05 PM Derek Baker brightened our day with:
>
>> Inglo wrote:
>>
>> [snipped]
>>
>>
>>
>>> The ambient temps around here haven't been that hot lately, mid-day
>>> around 85 degrees (no AC for me), but Doom 3 (besides the heat
>>> issues) is a game best played in the dark of night , so I
>>> haven't really played it when the room temps were really high.
>>> I'll fire it up in the middle of the day today when its as hot as
>>> its going to get and see if I can generate some snow.
>>> Hope the above proves useful to someone.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Where are you?
>>
>>
>>
> Northern California. I played for 2½ hours today, from noon on,
> ambient case temp 29°C(84F), CPU max @ 50°C(122F), mobo temp max @
> 44(111F)° C. No artifacts.

I'm in south-east England. It's half-past midnight, and the temperature in
my room is more than 30 C (86 F).

--
Derek

 

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"Inglo" <ingloogoo@zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.xcc> skrev i en
meddelelse news:1cnRc.2363$te6.1484@newssvr27.news.prodigy.com...
> On 8/8/2004 2:53 AM Henrik Stavnshøj brightened our day with:

> >As I have written earlier, I had the same problem with Far Cry on a
9700NP,
> >only here with artifacts showing up all over the place, looking like a
dying
> >card. But all my other 3D games worked fine :-/
> >Even underclocking the card didn't help.
> >
> >Only when I removed one HD and a fan from the cable, the artifacts went
> >away, and the card has performed flawlessly since.

> Where you had a problem with it, what kind of power supply were you
> using? I have not seen this artifact problem with my card though my
> 9800 Pro is sharing a power feed with my HDD (though not using the
> included in the box splitter.)
> I've got an Antec 430W True Power PSU, which is a quality component.

As I wrote, the problem was heavy artifacting in Far Cry, with coloured
"spikes" all over the place, as you would see it on a dying card, a card
with inadequate cooling or too much OC.

My PSU is a Chieftek 365W that hasn't been given me trouble. Voltages look
good enough.

In my troubleshooting I tried everything I could think of, including
underclocking the card. Nothing helped, and I started to consider a RMA.

The weird thing was that all my other games, MOHAA, Call of Duty, Max P.
1+2, Hidden & Dangerous 2, BF 1942 etc. had none of these artifacts.

Finally I tried pulling the fan, and the HD from the cable to the card, and
place them on another cable, leaving the card with its own. And lo and
behold , all artifacting was gone.

I have seen in Rage3D's forums, that others have had similar problems when
sharing the cards powercable with other perihps.

But the point is, as one can see on your configuration, that not all have
the problem. And even I didn't get the problem untill I played a new game
that demanded more of the card.

So I would say, as long as it works, you are safe to use that config.
But, if a new game suddenly gives you artifacting, you should consider this
as a possible cause when troubleshooting.

/Henrik

 

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On 8/9/2004 12:00 AM Henrik Stavnshøj brightened our day with:

>So I would say, as long as it works, you are safe to use that config.
>But, if a new game suddenly gives you artifacting, you should consider this
>as a possible cause when troubleshooting.
>
> /Henrik
>
>
>
>
I knew that is was not a good idea not to share a connector and meant to
set it that way, I had one free so I went and corrected the situation.
Didn't need it to fix anything but the reminder was useful, one less
thing to worry about.

--
The Brain From Planet Arous (1958):
"Bad alien Gor takes over scientist Steve's brain; good alien Vol takes over Steve's dog's brain."

Steve [Inglo]

 

[Qv]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

"Inglo" <ingloogoo@zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.xcc> wrote in message
news:1HuRc.4551$LA4.696@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com...
> On 8/8/2004 9:10 AM QV brightened our day with:
>
> >"Runar" <runarhalvorsen@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:2nlp48F269hqU1@uni-berlin.de...
> >
> >
> >>http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33774259
> >>Worked for me, try it
> >>
> >>Runar
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >It's probably a good idea to give the video card an unshared power
> >connector, but unfortunately, this doesn't work for me. I even tried
> >increasing the AGP voltage a bit (to 1.6v) in the BIOS but it only made
> >things worse.
> >
> >What did work is that I aimed a big 16" fan at my open case and the dots
> >went away. I then took the fan away and within 30 seconds the dots were
> >back. Underclocking by 20MHz also works. I also found that enabling
> >fast-writes removes the dots but this causes my PC to occasionally crash
> >while using the TV functionality (it's an All-In-Wonder 9800).
> >
> >I suppose there's a chance that some terribly inefficient driver/firmware
> >code is working the card much harder that it was designed for, so perhaps
> >this problem can be solved with updated software from ATI, but I'm
leaning
> >to a hardware problem (i.e. inefficient cooling and/or marginal chips).
> >
> >
> >
> >
> Do you know what kind of RAM (brand, Hynix or Samsung) is on your 9800
> Pro? Is it a BBA or oem?
> Are you using stock cooling? How long does it take for the artifacts to
> show up?
>
> Since I haven't seen them here's all the possible pertinent info I can
> think of about how my card/system is set up.
>
> 1) I have an Arctic Cooler on it (but that doesn't cool the memory,
> which I'd think those artifacts would be a sign of the memory getting
> too hot). I suppose this may be the most important thing, I wonder if
> anyone with an arctic cooler has seen these artifacts. The memory on my
> BBA Radeon 9800 Pro is made by Hynix, which is supposed to be the "cheap
> stuff", no RAMsinks.
> 2) Bios settings: AGP Aperture 256 Mb, AGP V 1.6v, AGP transfer 8x
> enabled, Fastwrites Enabled.
> 3) CPU/Chipset/Memory: Athlon XP 2500 @ 12x185/nForce2 (non-ultra MSI
> K7N2-L, extra fan on northbridge)/1 Gb Corsair XMS dual channel PC2700 @
> DDR370. VCore 1.65v DRAM 2.7v.
> 3) Case/CPU Cooling: (took the side panel off a couple weeks ago, prior
> to D3, just cause it's been really hot around here): Vantec Aeroflow
> CPU HSF, 2 rear exhaust fans and one blowhole fan, the PSU has an intake
> and output fan. (My feeling has been since I got my 9800 a couple
> months ago that it has made the inside of my case too hot, so I have
> heat worries, though no issues evident so far)
> 4) Antec 430W True Power PSU, Radeon on an unshared connection.
> 5) 4.9b Catalyst drivers; SmartGART 8x AGP, fastwrites off; DirextX
> 9.0c Windows XP SP1
> 6) Radlinker (tweak tool) settings: openGL default or application
> preference, core clock MHz: 391, memory clock 364 MHz.
> 7) Game settings: 1024x768 High with no AA
> 8) Autoexec.cfg:
>
> //autoexec
> seta com_allowConsole "1"
> seta image_useCache "1"
> seta image_cacheMegs "256"
> seta image_cacheMinK "2048"
> seta com_videoRam "128"
> seta r_multiSamples "0"
> seta r_lightscale "2.1"
> seta image_lodbias "-2"
>
> The ambient temps around here haven't been that hot lately, mid-day
> around 85 degrees (no AC for me), but Doom 3 (besides the heat issues)
> is a game best played in the dark of night , so I haven't really
> played it when the room temps were really high. I'll fire it up in the
> middle of the day today when its as hot as its going to get and see if I
> can generate some snow.
> Hope the above proves useful to someone.
>
> --
> The Brain From Planet Arous (1958):
> "Bad alien Gor takes over scientist Steve's brain; good alien Vol takes
over Steve's dog's brain."
>
> Steve [Inglo]


Thanks for the info. The dots show up almost immediately (within 5 seconds)
and it has no special cooling. I left it stock since I had no intention of
overclocking and I didn't want to take the chance of voiding my warranty. I
don't recall what kind of RAM the card has (is it under the little
heatsinks?) but I did notice that the main heatsink felt loose. It appears
to be held on by two wimpy plastic connectors and has quite a bit of play.
Should it be glued on (i.e. solid)?

 

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"Henrik Stavnshøj" <hesta@nospam.dk> wrote in message
news:4115f817$0$301$edfadb0f@dread12.news.tele.dk...

> Summary of the link:
> The solution is _not_ to share the power cable to the card with _any_
other
> peripherals.
>
> I can confirm that this is important when games start to use the full
power
> of the cards.

This is not the solution for everyone's artifact problem, it certainly
wasn't for me. I'm using an Enermax 550 watt PSU with plenty of headroom and
dedicated power rails for the GPU. Once again a proposed "solution" isn't
really that at all. The one thing that people keep forgetting about all the
various "fixes" and "solutions" that have been tried, is that the problem is
somewhat erratic and sometimes when it appears to have "disappeared", it's
really just exhibiting the erratic property and hasn't been fixed at all and
comes back. This happened to me with every one of the reported fixes that I
tried. Some of them actually looked like fixes (I even prematurely posted my
"fix" in another thread after confirming that it "worked" initially, only to
see it return shortly after my post lol). This one is pretty baffling, it
doesn't sound like hardware (hard to reconcile failed firmware with an
erratic problem), I'm more inclined to believe it's a software issue.

I can, however, report one "fix" that worked 100% for me. I took out my
9800XT and put it in my 2nd machine, and got a 6800 Ultra for my main
machine. No more artifacts to worry about in Doom3. The 2nd machine plays
everything else just fine, it was only with Doom3 that the problem occurred.

--
Bob Perez

"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they
quit playing."
- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

[NaDa]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

Inglo <ingloogoo@zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.xcc> wrote:
> On 8/8/2004 9:10 AM QV brightened our day with:
>
> >"Runar" <runarhalvorsen@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33774259
> >>Worked for me, try it
> >>
> >>Runar
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >It's probably a good idea to give the video card an unshared power
> >connector, but unfortunately, this doesn't work for me. I even tried
> >increasing the AGP voltage a bit (to 1.6v) in the BIOS but it only made
> >things worse.
> >
> >What did work is that I aimed a big 16" fan at my open case and the dots
> >went away. I then took the fan away and within 30 seconds the dots were
> >back. Underclocking by 20MHz also works. I also found that enabling
> >fast-writes removes the dots but this causes my PC to occasionally crash
> >while using the TV functionality (it's an All-In-Wonder 9800).
> >
> >I suppose there's a chance that some terribly inefficient driver/firmware
> >code is working the card much harder that it was designed for, so perhaps
> >this problem can be solved with updated software from ATI, but I'm leaning
> >to a hardware problem (i.e. inefficient cooling and/or marginal chips).
> >
> >
> >
> >
> Do you know what kind of RAM (brand, Hynix or Samsung) is on your 9800
> Pro? Is it a BBA or oem?
> Are you using stock cooling? How long does it take for the artifacts to
> show up?
>
> Since I haven't seen them here's all the possible pertinent info I can
> think of about how my card/system is set up.
>
> 1) I have an Arctic Cooler on it (but that doesn't cool the memory,
> which I'd think those artifacts would be a sign of the memory getting
> too hot). I suppose this may be the most important thing, I wonder if
> anyone with an arctic cooler has seen these artifacts. The memory on my
> BBA Radeon 9800 Pro is made by Hynix, which is supposed to be the "cheap
> stuff", no RAMsinks.
> 2) Bios settings: AGP Aperture 256 Mb, AGP V 1.6v, AGP transfer 8x
> enabled, Fastwrites Enabled.
> 3) CPU/Chipset/Memory: Athlon XP 2500 @ 12x185/nForce2 (non-ultra MSI
> K7N2-L, extra fan on northbridge)/1 Gb Corsair XMS dual channel PC2700 @
> DDR370. VCore 1.65v DRAM 2.7v.
> 3) Case/CPU Cooling: (took the side panel off a couple weeks ago, prior
> to D3, just cause it's been really hot around here): Vantec Aeroflow
> CPU HSF, 2 rear exhaust fans and one blowhole fan, the PSU has an intake
> and output fan. (My feeling has been since I got my 9800 a couple
> months ago that it has made the inside of my case too hot, so I have
> heat worries, though no issues evident so far)
> 4) Antec 430W True Power PSU, Radeon on an unshared connection.
> 5) 4.9b Catalyst drivers; SmartGART 8x AGP, fastwrites off; DirextX
> 9.0c Windows XP SP1
> 6) Radlinker (tweak tool) settings: openGL default or application
> preference, core clock MHz: 391, memory clock 364 MHz.
> 7) Game settings: 1024x768 High with no AA
> 8) Autoexec.cfg:
>
> //autoexec
> seta com_allowConsole "1"
> seta image_useCache "1"
> seta image_cacheMegs "256"
> seta image_cacheMinK "2048"
> seta com_videoRam "128"
> seta r_multiSamples "0"
> seta r_lightscale "2.1"
> seta image_lodbias "-2"
>
> The ambient temps around here haven't been that hot lately, mid-day
> around 85 degrees (no AC for me), but Doom 3 (besides the heat issues)
> is a game best played in the dark of night , so I haven't really
> played it when the room temps were really high. I'll fire it up in the
> middle of the day today when its as hot as its going to get and see if I
> can generate some snow.

There's not going to be any snow in Sahara any time soon, I'm sure.

My CPU reached at 73 Celsius (the real core temperature, not the fake
external) this summer when the temperature outside and at home was at
its peak, playing "Far Cry", "Halo" and "Thief 3". I would be able to
drop the temperatures by ten Celsius with Zalman's toughest fan, but
I'm not really planning on it. My case temperatures were over 40
Celsius. No lock-ups on the graphics card or the processor. My
friend's CPU was at 56 Celsius with Epox motherboard, and funny enough
it had lock-ups from hell, which we finally fixed by setting the CPU
fan properly, after pondering for hours what the hell was going on
since the temperature weren't even near what I had. I believe the
Epox's BIOS showed false reports on the true temperature -- possibly
the external readings taken from the socket that just stopped at 56C
and in reality had reached 80 Celsius, which locked-up the system. It
took us a whole week to figure out it really was the CPU overheating
like chimney from hell. My Radeon 9800 Pro has been acting very well
even with the very demanding gymnastics and aerobic exercises with
"Deus Ex 2" and "Far Cry". It's been hot every now and then, though,
but the autumn is already knocking on the door and managed to drop my
CPU temps from 73 to 68C.