Alright, It seems like I've been having some problems with my graphics lately. I was running an AGP ATI x800xl, and I was having a lot of problems, ones that I did not have for the one and half years I had it. In particular it seemed like I was getting artifacts and games were crashing often. The game I play the most, Enemy Territory, in particular was giving me error messages likes "Bad Triangles Indexed" and corrupted memory messages. Quake IV and the Quake Wars beta wouldn't load and there were graphics errors in the console, which I don't remember. DX games (FEAR, HL2: Ep 1, Far Cry) were also crashing habitually.

To test if my graphics were going bad I replaced my video card with the one in my bedroom PC for watching movies, a MSI FX 5900. When I was using this card my games were loads more stable, but of course the image quality and performance were a step back from the ATI.

So... I decide to get my dad's old 6800 GT from him to replace the FX5900 with something more on par with my x800 (and ok maybe faster too). The problem is that the 6800 GT does not play any Direct X 9 games correctly. Artifacts appear and everything is super choppy and flashy. Call of Duty 2, however, seems to work fine in DX 7 mode. My opengl games don't have any problems either. In fact, this card plays and displays Quake IV, Quake Wars beta, Prey, and ET all beautifully. The card also passed the dx diag tests. I googled the problem and didn't find anything that helped.

So am I likely dealing with 2 bad cards here? Any ideas or suggestions on things to try?
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BTW, The 6800 GT is using Forceware driver 94.24. The ATI was last used with catalyst 7.6.

I'm using an nForce 3 MSI K8 Neo motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 4000+
1 gb Ballistix Memory
400W Bestbuy (not sure the brand name and not feeling like pulling case ope atm) Power supply
CD Rom
Memorex 16x DVD-R/RW
160 GB hard drive + 500 GB hard drive

It's either a driver problem or that 400W psu you didn't explain. More than likely it doesn't have enough amperage to handle high usage on either card. You're going to have to tell us the brand name and specs in order to come to a real conclusion.

It sounds like either you're overclocking to high (heat issues) or your vid slot whether AGP or PCIE is goin south. Also could be power supply issues. Chack all voltages and your temp readings. If you don't overclock and voltages and temps are fine, I would swap the power supply out to see if the issue goes away. If not you may be looking at a MB issue... Just my 2 cents

I have found your problem. Do you really want to run those things and those cards especially the 6800gt on that power supply?
Change the power supply and see what happens.

Ok, first off thanks for the responses. Sorry I didn't include what kind of PSU I had, I didn't feel like opening up my case last night. The PSU is a Dynex PS400W.

Oddly enough, last night I was able to play Direct X 9 games and play them well. This was the first time I've seen this 6800GT do that. So, I'm kind of thinking that there is a good chance the problem for this card is lack of power (does opengl draw less power than dx 9?). It seems like my PSU is on the cusp of enough power since it did play all my direct x games last night, although when I tried today the choppiness and flashing artifacts returned. The other PSU I have is my dad's old Raid Max KY-480ATX, which is 380W. I tried this PSU out with the x800xl a couple weeks ago, but there was a few times while gaming that my pc rebooted and came up with a message saying that it the power connector from the PSU wasn't connected. After cooling down for like ten minutes, it would work right again. I went back to the Dynex after a few times of that happening. The Raid Max is also what my dad used to drive it, and while he used it Direct x games would lock up worse than what I'm getting (he just never cared since he only played Enemy Territory).

When my roommate gets home I'm going to see if I can try his 480W Thermaltake PSU.

Btw, how strong of a PSU would be recommended for the 6800 GT?

Yes use his power supply and see what happnes i am prety shure it's the power supply.

I'd consider getting something that's at least in the 450W-500W range. And, I'd probably go higher than that, to be honest...that computer's starting to look a little long in the tooth, and when you eventually upgrade everything, considering the way some companies <cough cough GRAPHICS CARDS cough cough> are sucking power right now, you're gonna need a lot of power. But if you're not looking at upgrading for a good while, something in the 450-500 range should be ok.

I ran on a no-name 430Watt supply with a 6800GT, P4E 3.2, 1gig DDR400, 2 HDs, and 2 DVDs for about 2 years befor the power supply gave out. But as chedrz said, I'd go with something larger for upgradability. If you get a good 600 - 700 Watt high efficiency supply, you will be ready for you're next upgrade and won't have to worry about voltage drops taking out any other components.

Yes, my system is starting to get long in the tooth, but atm I'm broke, so no C2Q and 8800... yet... I'm not so sure anymore if the problem is only the power supply. I hooked my roommates 480W power supply and loaded up FEAR. At first I there was all kinds of artifacting and choppiness, but after I go to the main menu and back to the game, everything starts being rendered normal. So I load up COD 2 to try and see if everything is honky dory there, at first I thought so, but then I noticed more strange rendering. In the screen below, you'll notice you can see the dude's head, but not his body. This was happening to axis soldiers and their bodies would flash back so you could see them.


So, at this point I'm starting to think its not totally my PSU, though, Oblivion and HL:2 both seemed to run without anything weird. Anyway, I hooked my PSU back up and loaded up FEAR. Once again everything looks messed up, so I try going to the menu and back to the game, but it doesn't work this time. I load up COD 2 next and it starts out wacky but after 30 of playing, performance goes back to normal. However, there was some artifacting very similar to what I seen with thermaltake PSU as can be seen when I was shooting in this screen:


After a little while I quit the game to see if FEAR now would run properly. Once I started it up I could tell that it was working correctly, leaving me with the impression that something isn't quite right with the card. It almost seems like it starts off out of sync or something and then somehow gets back in to sync. Very weird to me. Oh yeah, and once it seems to click in DX games it doesn't have any more problems with them until the computer is rebooted. I can probably live with this, though, I wish I could my finger on what the problem is.

did you completely clean out the old ATI drivers??

Have you updated your directx files?

Try this (which will probably cause a loss in some performance):

go to your desktop, right click, properties, settings, advanced, then pick trouble shoot. Untick enable write combining and see if that does anything.

Have you tried enabling vertical sync?
But i would sugest something else try out your monitor on someones else computer.

blade 85 is probably right. Try with driver cleaner to clean all remainings of ati drivers, update your dx, or reinstall windows if that doesn't help. This will work for sure.