SolidusFox

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Mar 19, 2004
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hi all

i just got my ati radeon 9800xt (club 3d) and my new PS , antec 430w , both are really cool. I installed the card and drivers (catalyst 4.3) , everything seems good , but, my FPS is lower then with my old graphic card :S
I went to BIOS and changed aperture size from 128 to 256 , changed agp volt from 1.5 to 1.7 and thought that might do the trick, but no , i still have weird fps. With old card (nvdia ge4) i had about 40-60 fps on ut2004 , like 130 fps on diablo2 , with new card, i have 40 max on ut2004 and like 25 on diablo 2 :S What else can I do ? Should i format c: and hope that things will get better ? oh yea , when i check graph card temprature , it shows 70 degrees o_O thats more then both my cpu and motherboard 2gheter ! any1 have had any simular problems and know how i can fix this ? i hope i didnt spend all my cash on something that doesnt seem to work :(
 

SolidusFox

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Mar 19, 2004
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oh yes , i have update all on my comp besides CPU , will buy a new cpu next week , can that be it ? radeon xt needs good cpu ?
 

Coyote

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You had an nVidia card in there b4 the ATI. You'll need to clean the remnants of the old drivers. (nVidia driver remnants crap up evrybody else's drivers)

Use Driver Cleaner a free d/l. here's a link to d/l it

<A HREF="http://www.driverheaven.net/" target="_new">http://www.driverheaven.net/</A>

Barton 2500+
Abit NF7-S v 2.0
Maxtor 60GB ATA 133 7200RPM
512MB Corsair Twinx 3200LL
9600 Pro
Enermax Noisetaker 420 watts
Win98SE
 

SolidusFox

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ok , ill try that , but doesnt all files go away when u use controll panel to remove drivers ? and what about my high gpu temprature ? is that normal ?
 

Coyote

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No, nVidia is well known for leaving behind little nasties that foul up other drivers and cause poor performance (if not much bigger probs).

Sorry, I don't know about the temps. One of the guru's around here will know though.

Barton 2500+
Abit NF7-S v 2.0
Maxtor 60GB ATA 133 7200RPM
512MB Corsair Twinx 3200LL
9600 Pro
Enermax Noisetaker 420 watts
Win98SE
 

SolidusFox

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Mar 19, 2004
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hmm i really didnt get the part were im supposed to go to device manager and something after that , i dont have english version :/
and cab cleaner fails every time :S
and when i do driver clean it doesnt find any files

ill try installing omega drivers , should i choose soft mod or not ? what is it ?
 

ytoledano

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Jan 16, 2003
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High temp could be because voltage bump, which is unneccessary.

Abit IS7 @ 275 FSB, VAGP @ 1.65, OCZ PC4200 RAM @ 550Mhz, P4 2.4 @ 3.3Ghz Vcore @ 1.625, GeXCube Radeon 9600P @ 450/626.
Thermalright SLK-947U, P3 HS @ NB.
 

onepremise

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Mar 25, 2004
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Recently me and a friend of mine decided to buy the radeon 9800 series cards. I bought the ASUS 9800xt and he bought the ASUS 9800 pro both 256 MB cards. I must say we both agree that neither one of these cards perform as mentioned in their reviews on Tomshardware. In fact I might say the perform the oposite of what he came up with. There are alot of severe issues with these cards and their drivers. Consumers' BEWARE!! Let me start by explaining the problems I have had with the 9800xt.

My Specs:

MotherBoard: ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe no OverClocking
Processor: AMD 3200+ no OverClocking
Memory: Geil DDR400(PC3200) no OverClocking
HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200 serial ata raid
GC: ASUS 9800 XT 256

My Friend's:

MotherBoard: ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe no OverClocking
Processor: AMD 2800+ no OverClocking
Memory: Corsair DDR400(PC3200) no OverClocking
HD: WD Raptor Drives serial ata raid
GC: ASUS 9800 Pro 256

Both of these systems were built recently so their were no old drivers laying around on the Filesystem.

The first thing that came across so obvious is that SmartDoctor is crap. This program is a joke; it is littered with all sorts of bugs. The program crashes constantly even when you try to overclock slightly. SmartDoctor has a difficult time processing mouse events. It looks as if the programmer knew nothing of multithreaded applications. You try to drag and drop it around and it will only move a little at a time then stop. You have to click on it a million times to drag it across the desktop. My friend has the exact same problem using the program. None of the new releases fix anything. The program doesnt seem to help any on performance. In fact when I have it up and running with games it will cause things to freeze and lockup. I finally ended up removing it all together. I tried using ATITool and I had no problems at all overclocking and testing. I advise not running this software.

I guess now I should mention the benchmark results. We ran both 3DMark03 and AquaMark3. Granted Tom's didnt test with 3dmark, but he scored a 47,620 with AquaMark3 (http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030930/radeon_9800-20.html)!! Neither one of us can even get half that using AquaMark's scoring system. I think both of us scored somewhere in the higher 20 thousands! I tried everything from tweeking the drivers to overclocking and the 9800xt still couldnt touch that score. What gives?? We also couldnt touch any of the scores listed on http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/xt59/index3.htm or http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/hardware-reviews/1273_1.html with AquaMark3 and 3Dmark03. We matched the benchmark settings exactly and nothing seemed to help. Both cards also experienced artifacting. Especially in the pixel shading tests.

None of the games we run seem to like these cards either. Textures would come out degraded and crappy looking in BattleField Vietnam. Homeworld2 ran with alot of lag using this card and sometimes VPU, on the 9800xt, would kickin and restart, oh and thats a whole new issue on its own. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 ran slower FPS than listed on Toms Review and VPU would kickin. It seemed to stay around 38 FPS for 1024x768 32 Bit 60 Hz. He reached 48.6? I also could spot artifacting in the trees when looking down from the plane. We ran several other games and none of the Benchmarks seemed to matchup even close. This card seems to artifact bad in general. I assure you we tried to match to test settings as close as possible.

Dont let me forget this handy dandy VPU recovery system. This is rediculous. If there is something wrong with your graphics card just fix it, update the drivers, reboot into VGA mode, or RMA. This card will VPU just sitting at the desktop let alone while your playing a game. Its a convenient feature if ya need a reboot. If your lucky sometimes it will just lockup.

The SMART cooling system doesnt help at all. Let me tell you, the 9800xt runs flat out HOT no matter what. I had to take cover off my case it heated up the system soo bad. it runs 57-60 C regularly. I took the card out and replaced it with my old Graphics card and the whole system cools down by nearly 8 degrees. This is unacceptable.

Sorry guys, I need to vent. I have been so disappointed with this purchase. It doesnt perform at all like any of the reviews I have read. I dont know maybe its just the card I got, but Im reading similar on all the game forums, newegg.com, http://www.techsupportforum.com/computer/topic/11448-1.html, http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/17194/, http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=0bb20d0aaeb6cc0b803f33496b419bda&threadid=282960&highlight=9800xt,
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=0bb20d0aaeb6cc0b803f33496b419bda&threadid=276941&highlight=9800xt+problems,
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=0bb20d0aaeb6cc0b803f33496b419bda&threadid=275206&highlight=9800xt+problems,
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread/t-61933.html, http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/hardware-reviews/1273_1.html(mentions driver issues), and more. I tried old and the new drivers from ASUS and ATI. We also tried the Omega drivers. None of them seemed to help.

I finally RMAed my card; I really hope something good comes back from ASUS. I spent $460 on this card a while back, I would hate to be stuck with something bad.

Im also wondering if the nforce chipset could be influencing these scores in any way. Maybe the motherboard is interfering somehow??? If you guys can help in anyway, I would appreciate it. Feedback, experiences, opionions, fixes, and whatnot.. Thanks!
 
Did you install the VGA drivers for your motherboard. That really sounds like part of it. My scores with an R9600Pro on an XP2000+ all at stock are in the mid 20s, and overclocking takes me into the 30k mark. There's definitely something going on with your system.

Alot of people have had TERRIBLE results because they didn't download the VGA or 4n1 drivers for their mobo. Once they did that they had huge improvements. I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't something like that, because consideringthe number of POSITIVE reviews out there, it really does sound like it was something missed more than a problem endemic to the cards itself. But who knows, maybe it's just two bad cards.

At the moment though it sounds more like something missed during installation/setup.

BTW, don't post links to reviews and other forums' threads, post links to your results. That would help more than a bunch of posts from other people not getting their systems to work.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK :evil:
 

onepremise

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Mar 25, 2004
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"Did you install the VGA drivers for your motherboard."

yes. I even tried the latest version off ASUS download site and I also tried ATIs off their site.

"Alot of people have had TERRIBLE results because they didn't download the VGA or 4n1 drivers for their mobo."

4n1? Are you talking about the VIA chipset? I dont have VIA; my board came with the nForce chipset. I have also tried the nforce drivers off ASUS and nvida's as well.

I am now waiting on the status of my 9800XT. I sent it back the friday before last. Hopefully something good comes back. Who knows, maybe it is the drivers. I think I might try that driver cleaner off www.driverheaven.net when I get the card back. I have heard some pretty positive things about it.
 

pauldh

Illustrious
Yes, Grape was saying Nvidia Nforce drivers for you and Via 4-in-one for Via KTxxx owners. It's amzing how many people don't install those. It should be the first thing you do after installing Windows.

Something has got to be wrong with you current setups. Radeon 9800's can't be made to perform that bad otherwise. What are your drivers set to as far as performance/quality? I have had my Saphire 128MB R9800 Pro in 3 systems, 2 of which had NV cards in them before that, I get from 41K-45K in Aquamark, and 5700-6350 in 3DMark03. Yes use Detonator Destroyer/Detonator RIP before Installing the ATI drivers.

Again something is wrong to be getting 20K in Aquamark 3. Don't try overclocking as that won't help solve your problem, but might bring out others.



ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt
 

ecar016

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Mar 3, 2002
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I really hate sound like a pumper but the 9800XT is the 3rd generation card based on the 9700/9800 platform. There is tons of reviews and test system over the last 2 years validating these cards. All I can say is youve obviously missed something since you have 2 almost identical systems with trouble on both.

Reformat the drives and start again.

EC


<font color=red> Quantum Computers! - very interesting </font color=red>
 

onepremise

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Mar 25, 2004
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I just wanted to give a quick update. ASUS said there was something wrong with the card I got and so they swapped it out. This one runs ALOT better. It sounds and behaves much more like the card in Toms hardware review. All my benchmarks are higher and FPS. The card also runs alot cooler and no artifacting. THis is the card I should have got the first time. I am happy now :) ! Thanks for the input anyway guys. I must also add that ASUS followed through fairly well on the support behalf. It only took a week to diagnose the card and send me a new one. They deserve some credit for that.
 

onepremise

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Mar 25, 2004
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Hey all,

Well I thought things were good, but unfortunately new problems have arise. I am really dissappointed with this graphics card. I have never had so many problems with a computer component in my life. The artifacting in the card came back and now its even worse. I get crazy distorted verticle lines on the screen whenever my pc wakes from sleeping. Not only that, the damn VPU Recovery kicks in after the pc has been awake a while. What is up with ASUS??? They dont update their website. All the drivers out there are old and dont work. The ATI drivers dont work any better. I just want to get rid of this card now; it's the worst investment I have ever made for a pc.