Skyrim runs, but it's covered in black bars

[shtanto]

I'm having trouble playing skyrim.

System is:
GA-P35C-DS3r
BFG 8800GTS 640mb
U3011 (yes, it's a big screen)
WinXP 32bit

Every time I launch the game, I get huge black streaks across the screen. I crunched the res down as low as it'll go, but still same problem. Are my card and monitor compatible? I'm able to run my desktop at 2560x1600.

Also, driver updates don't install. Nvidia are working on that end of things. The newer installer has a lot of problems for me. Safe mode/regular mode, no joy. Cross cleaning with driver cleaner.net is still no dice.

BFG company died a while ago. No firmware updates for me.

Sincerest thanks,
Shtanto

 

[Helltech]

Try the newest beta drivers, they are optimized for Skryim.

 

[shtanto]

Thanks Helltech,

like I said though, the installer won't work on this machine. Not sure why. Every tyime I try to update drivers, the process fails about halfway through.

 

[hang-the-9]

This the only game that does this? 8800s are very unreliable cards, check it with other games.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This the only game that does this? 8800s are very unreliable cards, check it with other games.

Excuse me, what?

 

[hang-the-9]

Excuse me, what?

Have you noticed that most posts about bad cards have 8800s in them?

 

[Helltech]

I think that's just because the 8800s were popular are now getting old.

Bad example, but think of it this way. If 60 percent of every person has a 8800, then even if its a good card most posts looking for help would be about it. I know that's totally embellished, but you get it?

To the OP, maybe completely removing your drivers with driver sweeper might help. Make a system restore before hand though, because if you can't get your drivers to install after that then you would be screwed.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Have you noticed that most posts about bad cards have 8800s in them?

Considering how long the G80 and G92 cards have been around and how popular they appear to have been it's no wonder a few are dying off, I do see a lot of 6xxx series cards featuring in problem threads though so does that mean they are crap or just popular?

 

[hang-the-9]

I think that's just because the 8800s were popular are now getting old.

Bad example, but think of it this way. If 60 percent of every person has a 8800, then even if its a good card most posts looking for help would be about it. I know that's totally embellished, but you get it?

It's not that, they have issues with the cooling design, or the chip itself. It's gotten so when someone posts about a bad video card first thing I do is ask if it's an 8800. They did not dominate the market that much so almost every post about graphic issues is either a laptop or an 8800, and for some reason other cards from that era and older run fine after many years.

Not just from the posts on here, I had one that died, would crash in any 3D application, sent it back to the vendor. Got a new one, did the same thing out of the box almost immediately. A second person I knew had one that also went bad. Only 8800s, I bought a used 9800GT, running fine for years even with a slight overclock. The 8800 was all stock speeds. No model I can think of had as many issues as the 8800.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I'm still using one of my 8800GT's and the other is keeping a teenager happy in his gaming.

 

[shtanto]

Many thanks for all the replies. I think the various merits and foibles of the G80 series ought to be discussed elsewhere. Over a long enough time-scale, everything will break down.

Things I've tried:
Driver update: Fail, installer seems to be bugged - nvidia support are stumped.
Driver cleaner.net edition: fail, even after I updated it.
Beta drivers, 290 version: Fail, same installer bug as before.
Bug report to nvidia: Awaiting response
Driver sweeper: Same as driver cleaner.net (right?)
BFG v-bios update: fail, company out of business. No V-bios firmware updates were released anyway.

Yes, this is the only game I've seen this on so far, however it's worth mentioning that I got my U3011 about 2 weeks ago. Time to test this with other games hasn't been available.

I any case, an 8800 won't do too well running skyrim at 2560x1600. On a budget of €400, upgrade suggestions welcome

 

[shtanto]

Here's an interesting forum post: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=202626

Near the bottom of the thread, a user named tixiv mentions registry permissions. It seems the installer for the nvidia driver isn't setting permissions right. Any thoughts?

 

[shtanto]

Hi all,

Good news: I've gotten all the 16:9 resolutions working. I did so by turning on FXAA. Now the funny thing is this: In 16:10 resolutions, the black triangles covering the screen do not occur in areas covered by loading screen graphics. So if the loading screen has a mage picture on it, the area covered by the mage picture will display just fine. But the rest of the screen will be covered in black triangles.

I'll need to keep tweaking and testing, but at 2560x1440, the game is certainly playable. The next thing to work on is use of regmon to trace the driver installer error. Other install log file locations would be a help - do you happen to know where log files live? XP 32bit btw I figured a rather vanilla system would be the way to go.