a little disappointed with my new 6800gt

[sinixy]

hi there

A few months ago i got myself a new gainward geforce 6800gt agp graphics card. i've had a
few issues with the card which i can not seem to resolve and would like your guys input
in my concerns as i am thinking the card might be suspect at this point.Either that or I am disappointed
with it's performance...

My system:

amd64 3200+ (2.2GHz)
1024mb ddr400 Memory
EPOx 8KDA31+ motherboard (5.10 chipset drivers)
80GB hdd (7200rpm)
Gainward Geforce 6800gt AGP (2 x DVI) currently using 66.93
*nothing on my system is overclocked or has been overclocked*

ISSUE 1.

Chronicles of riddick: Escape from butcher's bay.

This game runs very nicely, but i have artifacts. These mostly occur when riddick is in hand to hand combat and
blocks. While blocking there would be black blotches appearing and dissapearing continuously in various places on
his arms.
I have tried formatting windows several times installing various display drivers each time afresh. These
included 61.77, 61.81, 66.93, 71.20, 71.25, and various other. Artifacts appeared with every try. Also, i am under
the impression that the more settings i increased (resolution, AA, AF) the more frequent the artifacting would be.
But nonetheless, with each setting, each shader option, the would always be artifacting while blocking in any
part of the game.
Also, this artifacting would sometimes (depending on how long you wait) occur on the other models (characters) as
well.

*with this issue i also put in my old radeon 9700nonpro and there was no artifacting.*
*3dmark2005 and 2003 do not display any artifacts.*

ISSUE 2.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory "DEMO"

Here I have similar problems as with Riddick in that i see artifacts on Sam Fisher. Using shader model 1.1 or 3.0,
these arfifacts are there. Once again, increasing the amount of AA or AF increase the amount of artifacts. This is
only present on the character and not on the environment at all. Drivers tested were 66.93 and 71.20.
Also, performance in this game is horrible, but i imagine that's just simply how the game runs.

ISSUE 3.

Far cry

I purchased myself Far Cry yesterday. Having downloaded the 1.3 patch before purchasing the game, i installed the
game and immediately patched it before running the game. I started up the game and it set all my settings as high,
res at 1024x768.It put water detail on high, not ultra by default.
I started the game and it looke real smooth, staying on 60fps (v-sync on). Then i was very surprised and
disappointed to see that when for thr first time i stepped out into the open and went down the hill my fps dropped
to about 30. i carried on playing and then also noticed when you get to the top off the carrier (just before you
shoot the chains to loosen the little orange boat) there was a lot of action, my frames would drop to 20fps at times.
This was without AA. I took off v-sync, confirmed it was off as i was getting over 60 indoors, then
would go outside where there would be a bit of action and my frames would drop again to in the 20's maybe 2 or 3 frames
higher than with v-sync on.


In your opinion based on the issues mentioned, should i be concerned about something?? Anybody have similar
issues?

Thanks for your input!!!

 

[Keysplayr]

Dude, I was getting similar low framerates with my 5900U. My frames would drop to about 24 at lowest at 1024x768 everything set to high 2xAA. I now have a 6800GT and those framerates are a thing of the past. I speak for FarCry only as I do not own Riddick or Splinter Cell. It would seem there is something not right with your card. I would try to RMA because you seem to have exhausted your troubleshooting efforts.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

i own all those games dude, and i havent noticed any of what your gettin. Riddick does have a few issues with character models though, where body features and folds of skin kinda clip each other you can see black triangles, but i only ever noticed it in the cut scenes.

im play SC right now, 12x10 8xAF with SM3 and HDR, Parallax Mapping, soft Shadows, the works.....lovely and smooth.

you have A64, if you have installed cool n quiet, make sure your power profile in the control panel is always set to minimal power management, else you'll be stuck running 1000mhz, its happend to me a few times, and i was like WTF is this sooo slow?

i played far cry first with 12x10 2xAA 8XAF and it was perfectly smooth, very rarely went sub 30FPS
then i played it again with HDR on 12x10 4xAF and that was suprisingly playable too.

is that gainward card overclocked out the box? i think they are, and in that case it should work flawlessly as it is. gainward hadn pick the chips for those things, maybes they slipped up.

im sure theres a problem with a setting somewhere, i read it, it cuts your fps in half or something coz its a bug, but it may only be relavent to SLI setups.

and certainly if u experience more artifacts with increased AA and AF something isnt right, get on the dog n bone for an RMA

 

[sinixy]

hi

thanks for the replies so far...,

otispunkmeyer, you mention cool and quiet... i currently do not have that installed.
Also, regarding the " somewhere, i read it, it cuts your fps in half or something coz its a bug," i think i know what you are referring to... i also read somewhere that when v-sync is enabled with nvidia cards, and the framerate drops it will run it at 30fps and nowhere in between, reasons to complicated to rememeber, as with ATI it would firstly drop to 45fps and then to 30fps.., something like that..., either way, i took that into account therefore disabled v-sync which should make that not occur.., my 24fps was without v-sync, 1024x768, no aa, all settings highest. i also read that some guy was happy with his 6800 cause exactly at the place where i am getting 20-30 fps (just before you drop the orange little boat by shooting the chains) he was saying that his card did not drop under 60fps while there were explosions.....

regarding the card, it is running at 350;1000. standard gt speeds so not overclocked at all.

also, i forgot to mention that i do have a 400w power supply so i do not think the psu could be the problem, also evident as my older card does not display any artifacts in the other games mentioned...,

thanks again

 

[Acanthus]

What brand is your power supply?

How many amps on the 12v rail?

 

[MonkeyWrench4000]

I was under the impression that frame rates in the 30's on a huge out door scene in Far Cry is quite normal with his system specs.

 

[sinixy]

Acanthus, i would have to check for you which brand the psu is. where would i check the amps on the 12v rail? what kind of numbers am i looking for and which would i not want to see? how many amps would be optimal? Thanks.

monkeywrench4000, are you getting 30fps in far cry with similar specs? according to "keysplayr2003" (1st reply, 2nd post) he says that he was getting that fps with a 5900 with aa enabled (2x). i have no aa enabled and am running a 6800gt which he says those fps are now a thing a the past..., assuming 30fps does not occur anymore...

Keysplayr2003, could you possibly confirm what fps you are currently getting in far cry in the large open areas. also what other system specs do you have???

thanks ALL

 

[sinixy]

hi again

one or two more things to mention......,

doom 3 timedemo demo1 score is about 72.6fps with the 66.93 driver.
this was 1024x768, no aa, high detail. a friend of mine scores 68fps with a 6600gt with those settings. but possibly cranking up the aa would make the difference between the cards apparent.

3dmark2003 i score generally about 10200, with the 71.20 driver that was installed the last time i ran that and 3dmark2005 i got 4400. expected a little bit more in terms of the 3dmark scores but accept that these are synthetic benchmarks...,
other gt scores i've compared to are in the 12000's with 3dmark03 and over 5000 with 3dmark05... this with similar cpu's etc.

 

[Sexy D]

i got crap score until i disabled fast write in the bios, was gettin 4k on 3dmark05, now i get 6k

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: sinixy

3dmark2003 i score generally about 10200, with the 71.20 driver that was installed the last time i ran that and 3dmark2005 i got 4400. expected a little bit more in terms of the 3dmark scores but accept that these are synthetic benchmarks...,
other gt scores i've compared to are in the 12000's with 3dmark03 and over 5000 with 3dmark05... this with similar cpu's etc.

See rig in my sig - I've got a socket A not as good as your 64bit chip. Last night I downclocked my CPU to AXP 3200+ speeds (2200mhz) and got about 5300-5400 in 3Dmark05. And I had my 6800GT set for "Quality" not "Performance".

You should have a higher score than I, if only because of your CPU.

I'm using the 71.84 drivers

Fern

 

[imported_g33k]

Hi, your 6800gt sounds like its running a tad slow. I score 11xxx in 3dmark03 and 5,xxx in 3dmark05. I wrote down all my benchmark scores if you need anymore comparisons, I'll be happy to post them when I get home. While your performance doesnt seem too far off compared to the norm, if your getting artifacting in games, I would RMA.

 

[sinixy]

Thanks for the replies...,

last night i tried one or two more things.

put fast writes on in the bios, and ran games without aa, no difference in performance or the artifacting issue...

also, i slotted my 9700non pro back in the machine and installed cat 4.10. the artifacting in both splinter cell and riddick are not present at all with aa on and all setting up.
also, far cry actually performed a little better in the part where i was getting 24fps with my 6800gt. generally above 30 or just under......

i will be taking the card back today, and hopefully in about 10 days i should have another one...

 

[Killrose]

Before you return the card I would....

#1 remove 9700 and drivers using driver cleaner.

#2 install 6800gt (no drivers yet)

#3 re-install only motherboard chipset gart driver

#4 install DX9c

#5 install your favorite NV driver.


The low Q3 benches tell me that your gart driver does not recognise the hardware change.
Don't ask me why, but I have seen that happen too when changing from an Ati card to nVidia, and re-installin the gart driver took care of it.

 

[sinixy]

hi killrose

thanks for the input, but unfortuantely the card is already gone...
but i would mention that at first when i got my nv i would remove the ati card and format and re-install windows from scratch, hence the gart driver would be installed afresh. also formatted and re-installed xp with every change between different nv drivers.... performance still low, artifacts always present with the games mentioned........

 

[sinixy]

UPDATE

For those interested, in the end i got another card which is a Pixelview 6800gt. I installed this card and the artifacting in both Riddick and splinter cell is gone. Although now i have another problem..., i got the card 2 days ago. Upon initial instalation there were no problems. yesterday morning when i started my machine up i simply had no display. i reset and i saw the bios screen, but when getting close to windows it came up with multi-coloured blocks all over the screen, it then rebooted itself and started up normally after running a scandisk. i shut it off and a few times to test and it was fine. Then this morning it did the same, simply no visuals until i restarted about 3 times. then it was normal. no multicoloured blocks though this morning.
i will try it again as soon as i get home, but what do you guys reckon it could possibly be?
power supply? although these problems was not there once with my gainward 6800gt...,
motherboard bios?? have downloaded the latest bios will install that later as well (winflash safe when doing this???)

anyway, thanks for any input!!!!!

 

[BobDaMenkey]

Those multi colored blocks are artifacts. Not a good sign brutha. Something in your PC might be messing with your uber expensive video cards. I'd get a high quality power supply to be on the safe side if you don't have one already. But beyond that the problem gets a little harder to diagnose.

What are the running temps on the card? Get rlthdribl.exe and see how the card reacts to that. It might be something with the BIOS of your mainboard as well, or the mainboard itself.

 

[sinixy]

thanks for the reply...

i would have to check the make of the powersupply, but it's a 400w and the gainward had no problems in that regard.....,
also i have been running a 9500np >>9700 without any problems previously..,

the temps range obviously but the gpu is at about 40 when idle and 59 when coming out of doom3...

based on that i can only think it's the card or possibly the mb needing a bios flash..,

if the bios flash does not fix it up i will take it back again.., also what bothers me is that this card was not sealed in plastic when i got it. when i got to the shop he showed me the card but the plastic had been removed before that....

 

[CaiNaM]

the fact you have 400w ps means nothing (i have a 500w ps that can't handle the GT).. it's all about the consistency of the output on the rail. frankly, while it certainly could be something else, if you ck GT issues on this forum, the majority have all been solved with quality power supplies, so i would elimiate that possibility first before moving on to others...

 

[Plester]

artifacting on the arms and legs of Riddick is a sign of instablility - your old GT was borderline and on the wrong side of that borderline - i use the Riddick demo to test my 6800nu core overclocks - get in the game throw a punch so that the arms are visible and wait - downclock the card until there is no more artifacting.

 

[imported_humey]

If a GPU cant handle a game out the box, ie not overclocked and it gets artifacts, i would RMA it, even if you tried to play FarCry with HDR on on a 6200 ( for example), it shouldnt get artifacts just be slow, artifacts could be lack of volts or to much heat or both.

RMA is best bet, if you can prove your PSU is powerful enough on rails and case is cooling suffice.

Your 6800 GT should not do that, you can get a bad card from any manu's that downside of mass production.