TROUBLE with Radeon 9600 Pro

[DeniseNY1]

I recently updated my Radeon 9000 (Evil Commando) with an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (Built by ATI). I updated it because I was trying to play Tombraider Angel of Darkness and the image was rather choppy. I thought that could be because the 9000 is only DirectX 8 compliant. The 9600 supports DX 9.0, so I gave it a shot. Well, the image is WORSE! Everything is completely garbled, stretched and fractured! My DirectX tests are equally as horrible. The cube, while intact, even jumps on DirectX 7 tests. DX8 and 9 are horrible! I put up a post on the Tombraiderforums.com website with images. Please take a look so you can see what I am talking about by going to the following link: http://www.tombraiderforums.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=17;t=005283 (you'll have to copy and paste). Incidentally, that first image is taken from the Radeon's Ark demo which I downloaded from ATI's home page.

I have written to ATI, but haven't heard anything. I have played with the settings in the video card including switching on/off the "Wait for Vertical Synch", "Anti-aliasing", speeding up and slowing down refresh rates, etc..etc... Same problems. Can anyone offer some advice? Below is my system setup:

Motherboard: ECS K7S5A Bios Version 1.00
CPU Athlon XP 2100+ (1.7Ghz)
RAM 512MB PC 2100
Sound: C-Media AC97 Sound (on board)
Graphics ATI Radeon 9600 Pro - latest driver
Network 10/100 on board
O/S Windows XP Professional - Service Pack 1
Direct X 9.0b

If anyone can offer some advice, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks!

Denise

DeniseNY1
denise@pioneeris.net
http://www.geocities.com/deniseny

 

[coolsquirtle]

u tried reinstalling/reformating ur OS?

RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy
bring it fanATics~~ nVidia PWNS all!
SCREW aBOX! LONG LIVE nBOX!!

 

[DeniseNY1]

I don't believe that would solve the problem. I think this is more of a hardware/configuration problem more than anything else and I would rather exhaust any of those routes before I go through an entire reformat process just to have the same problem all over. Know what I mean?

Thank you for help though!

Denise

DeniseNY1
denise@pioneeris.net
http://www.geocities.com/deniseny

 

[coolsquirtle]

not really.... the OS/ drivers can cause the problem u stated above. I'd say try reinstalling.....

RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy
bring it fanATics~~ nVidia PWNS all!
SCREW aBOX! LONG LIVE nBOX!!

 

[GeneticWeapon]

Hi,
I have the same motherboard as you, the same cpu as you, the same type of memory as you, and the same operating system as you.
Tell me....do you have all of your SiS735 chipset drivers installed? If you do, are they current? There is a new AGP driver on the SiS website(ver.116) and a new IDE driver also. What bios settings are you using?...anything abnormal?

<b>I help because you suck</b>

 

[DeniseNY1]

Thank you! I didn't know about the new AGP and IDE drivers! I went to the ECS website and did not see any new drivers and I have the most current bios (10/29/02). I didn't change anything drastically in the settings and I'm not overclocking. I will download the drivers direct from SIS and hopefully that will solve the problems.

BTW, which video card are you using? Did you ever experience these problems before you updated your drivers?

DeniseNY1
denise@pioneeris.net
http://www.geocities.com/deniseny

 

[cleeve]

Wow. Those screenies look horrible.

Well... hmmm. First off, I'd have to say I disagree with Coolsquirtle, I've yet to come across a graphics problem that couldn't be fixed without reinstalling windows. It's overkill.

From the screenies. it looks to me like your card is borked. And if older titles play fine, just not Tomb Raider AOD, it might be that the pixel/vertex shaders have the problem... and you don't run into it unless you're running a DX8/9 game? Is it possible to disable pixel shading in AOD and try it again? If it looks OK, then it's probably your card.

What other games have you tried on your system? Do they work fine?

My advice to you is to try the card on someone else's machine and run TR:AOD on it. If it works, it's not the card.
If it doesn't, it's time to RMA the beast.

------------------
Radeon 9500 (hardmodded to PRO, o/c to 322/322)
AMD AthlonXP 2400+ (o/c to 2600+ with 143 fsb)
3dMark03: 4055

 

[DeniseNY1]

Hi Cleeve! I agree with you about reinstalling the O/S. I doubt it will have an effect. Anyway, the problem seems to occur in DirectX 8 and 9 games. You should have seen my DX Diag tests! The cube jumped a little under 7, but 8 and 9 were a wreck! Interestingly, I did better with the Radeon 9000. I was able to play TRAOD, but I had to run it in Fixed Function Hardware instead of the Shader Hardware option, so I would get a lot of fragmenting, but nothing like what you're seeing here. I assumed this was because the game is DX9 and the card is DX8. So I upgraded to a DX9 card. Makes sense, right? Unfortunately, now the problem is 10 times worse.

I have played with a lot of settings both within the game and in the ATI card itself and nothing works for the DX8 or 9 games or programs, but I was able to improve the video for older versions of Tombraider like TR III. This also required me to disable Z-buffering within the game itself.

I'm going to try GeneticWeapon's suggestion and attempt to update the AGP and IDE drivers direct from the SIS website. I also wrote to ATI and sent them the screenshots. I'm still waiting for a reply, but I'll see what they have to say before I pull the card and go back to the 9000.

Thanks for all your help!

Denise

DeniseNY1
denise@pioneeris.net
http://www.geocities.com/deniseny

 

[TKS]

I had a problem when migrating vid cards as well. For some unknown reason, I had to reinstall DirectX. Dunno why...didn't care...cuz it worked and I had less choppy stuffs from that point on. I'd give this problem a shot in the arm by reinstalling DX9 to see if it works first...then if that doesn't, reinstalling the O/S.

----------
<b>I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman! </b> <i>Homer Simpson</i>

 

[DeniseNY1]

Sadly, the new Sis drivers didn't work. I will try reinstalling DX again just to see if it makes a difference. I will also swap out the card with the 9000 and see if the 9000 is improved at all. Maybe I just have a bad card.

Still haven't heard a thing from ATI.

Thanks again!

DeniseNY1
denise@pioneeris.net
http://www.geocities.com/deniseny

 

[cleeve]

Try the card in someone else's machine!

------------------
Radeon 9500 (hardmodded to PRO, o/c to 322/322)
AMD AthlonXP 2400+ (o/c to 2600+ with 143 fsb)
3dMark03: 4055