Help me with some drivers...

[Orsorum]

I'm about to reinstall Win2k... I've been having graphics issues, so I want to make sure I don't install anything that's not critical.

Specs: Athlon 1.4Ghz
Epox 8k7a
Radeon 9500 (Sapphire)

and various other things.

I'm looking at installing the newest drivers from Radeon (directly, not through Sapphire), and the newest drivers from Epox's website... I am NOT installing DX9 this time, I'm trying DirectX 8.1a before anything else.

Any other thoughts? Should I be looking at the VIA Hyperion drivers as well for the motherboard?

 

[Willoughbyva]

Try the Hyperion drivers before you reinstall. it can't hurt nothing and might fix your problems. Also try the ATI Powered by drivers and see if they are any better. You might want to check out www.rage3d.com. They sometimes have drivers by video driver programmer wizards that might fix the problem. I have tried the Omega drivers before and they solved my issues before ATI released their drivers. What kind of video problems are you having?

 

[Orsorum]

Mostly issues with textures in various video games - most everything would work correctly, except for some landscapes; there were issues with 007: Nightfire, battle scenes in Medieval: Total War... BF1942 and C&C: Generals wouldn't run at all, the video itself goes through, but the landscapes are unstable. Don't really know how else to describe it.

 

[Willoughbyva]

I'm not sure about the powered by drivers from ATI, but I know the Built By ATI drivers are released about a month apart. The last ones were released on the 10 of Feb. So it might be about time for some new drivers from them. However if you have everything backedup and everything a good reformat every once and a while might be good too. Make sure you check out the rage3d site because they have a lot of info there and some of the ati guys post there sometimes (used to anyways).

Good luck with it. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

 

[Orsorum]

I reformatted about three weeks ago, but am still having graphics issues. I think it might be solely related to Direct X, so I figured I would try reinstalling with as minimal of an install as possible.

Thank you for your help! If this reinstall doesn't work as hoped, I'll try the different drivers versions.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Edit: Hey Zak I ran across This thread just now as I'm looking to buy a 9500 series soon myself.

 

[Orsorum]

Good thread... I'm right in the middle of reinstalling everything... if I go back to DX8.1 and the bare minimum of drivers, and the problems are still occurring, I'm going to look at my BIOS settings, as that would be the only remaining factor I could think of that would be causing problems.

Thanks!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

While in those forums I found another thread that mentioned radeons don't support with fast writes and that it causes problems so definitely make sure it turned off.

 

[Orsorum]

Hmm, I turned off Fast Write... DirectX diagnostics still has issues, as far as I know, with rendering the cubes in the Direct3D test, but I don't know if that translates directly over into the issues I'm having in Total War and 007: Nightfire.

I'll be back.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I think the suggestion about trying the Omega tweaked drivers is a good one, also flash the latest bios to your mobo. If the problems continue I'd start thinkin' it's either a compatability issue between the card and chipset or the core on that 9500 is defective perhaps.