8500DV and choppy game play?

[skotskmann]

Just got an ATI AIW Radeon 8500DV and using the CD-ROM supplied drivers, all games I play are choppy and low in frame-rate. Unreal Tournament is slow, maybe 5 FPS, Midtown Madness is the same, etc.

Anyone got any suggestions for me to try and speed things up?

I have an A7M266, BIOS 1005, Windows XP Pro, Athlon XP 1600+, 1GB DDR RAM, 90Gbs Ultra160 SCSI.

Thanks.

 

[epod]

Why not dl the newer drivers from their website?

 

[toadstool]

I have the Radeon 8500.....basically the same as the card you have.


My "Unreal Tournament" runs very smooth. I'm using the 7206 drivers for Windows 98. If your using the CD drivers , do what the guy above me said, and go to the ATI website and download another set of drivers. That should fix your problem.


Your card should not be choppy.

 

[Crusty]

I'm having the same problem you are having. At first I thought it was DirectX so I upgraded to 8.1, didn't help. So then I upgraded drivers, still didn't work. Then I upgraded 4in1 drivers, still didn't work. I have no idea what's going on, and I would like to get it running right. Any help would be appreciated.

Rig:
ASUS CUV4X-DLS
(2) pIII 733's
(4) Maxtor 7200 40.0gig drives
1024 mb Ram
SB Live! Value

 

[Menacer]

What kind of cards did you upgrade from?

Sounds like you have remnents of old drivers still on your system.

 

[Crusty]

.

<< Sounds like you have remnents of old drivers still on your system. >>



I know for sure that I don't have remnents of old drivers because I did a complete system format before putting the card in, anyways I did upgrade from a Creative Labs Annihilator 2 ( Geforce 2 GTS). But like I said I formatted and re-installed win2k.

 

[skotskmann]

Tried them. Anyway, they aren't much newer, they just enable smoothvision and a couple of other things. This is using Windows XP Pro.

 

[skotskmann]

I upgraded from an ATI AIW Radeon 32MB AGP. I had it working on Windows 2000 perfectly. Before I moved to Windows XP Pro, I tried my 8500DV on Windows 2000 also, same result. Choppy game play. I've unplugged my NIC and Audigy card, so all I have left is the 8500DV and my Adaptec 29160 SCSI. USB is disabled too.

 

[toadstool]

I saw a post on the "rage 3D" forums. Someone said that "Powerstrip" had an effect on the Radeon 8500, and locked it up.

I had tried a LOT of things prior to seeing that post. After i read it , I turned "Powerstrip" off on my computer.

Since I've done that, I've been able to play some games that wouldn't run before. They seem faster too.

From your posts, it doesn't seem as though you are having "lockups" like I was , but I thought I'd mention it anyhow, just in case. So, if you use Powerstrip, you might want to try removing it.


By the way, i was using Powerstip 3.0

 

[toadstool]

Oh yeah, what the guy a few posts above said.


If you used any brand of card besides an ATI card before you purchased the Radeon, there will be problems because the drivers from the other card will leave traces in your registry. (such as a card from Nvidia)


I went ahead and reformatted before I even used my new Radeon 8500..........upgraded from a Nvidia Geforce 2.......so i would avoid those problems. However , I could do that without a hassle since I have a second hard drive to backup any important info.

Not saying you should do that, but it does give you an idea of the problems the older drivers could cause. Those traces in your registry can mess things up pretty good.

 

[Crusty]

<< I went ahead and reformatted before I even used my new Radeon 8500..........upgraded from a Nvidia Geforce 2.......so i would avoid those problems. However , I could do that without a hassle since I have a second hard drive to backup any important info. >>



That is exactly what I did, but it still doesn't work. I'm about to give up. :disgust:

 

[Crusty]

Skotskmann, what is your 3dMark 2001 default benchmark score? Mine is horrible, 2543:| !!!!! I'm starting to get mad, i'm gonna try upgrading to WinXP pro today or tommorow, i'll post and tell you if it get's any better.

 

[*kjm]

It almost sounds like your AGP is set to 1X on your motherboards. Have you ran Dxdiag.exe to see if your AGP Texture Acceleration is enabled (its under the display tab)? My 8500 ran about like yours till I set My AGP to 2X on my motherboard. I cant set it to 4X because I'm running 3 sticks of ram and my Iwill KA266 dont like the 4X AGP setting with all the ram banks full. Anyway make sure your AGP is set to 2X or 4X and AGP texture acceleration is enabled.

My system is
KA266
1.2/1.4 Athlon
640meg DDR
8500DV

and I get around 6200 in 3Dmark 2001 with no tweeks to the video card.

 

[Crusty]

<< It almost sounds like your AGP is set to 1X on your motherboards. >>



It's set to 4x, and it is running at 4x(According to SiSoft Sandra).




<< Have you ran Dxdiag.exe to see if your AGP Texture Acceleration is enabled (its under the display tab)? >>



It's greyed out, I can't select it or anything.

 

[*kjm]

Reboot your system and go into the BIOS. What is your AGP memory set at(dont remember exact wording of setting... AGP Aperture???)? Make sure its at 128meg or more.

 

[Crusty]

<< What is your AGP memory set at? >>


Currently it's at 64, but I've read that it doesn't matter with this much video ram. I'll try it anyways though, can't hurt!

I'll post back when i've done it.

 

[Crusty]

Yay!!!!!!! It works now!!!!!! Thank you soooo much! I changed the Aperture to 256, the highest it will go. Im gonna try it at 128, but I think it'll will be worse! Thanks, you guys rock!

 

[*kjm]

No problem, for some reason AGP Texture Acceleration dont seem to get "turned on" till you tell your motherboard it can use more memory than what is on your video card. Glad you have it working.... have fun!