Please help -- jerkiness in all games with 8k7a

[tjdavis1138]

I am having a big problem with all games being very jerky or stuttering. Mechwarrior 4 is what I play the most and it does it constantly. Every few seconds the game just pauses or stutters. The hard drive light flashes sometimes when it does this, but not all the time. It also happens in Max Payne and Star Wars Battle of Naboo. Pretty much every game on my system. I'm running Win2k with the latest updates. AMD agp driver and usb filter. I have not installed the via bus master driver's. I had them installed once on a previous installation and it seemed to cause more problems. The via latency patch off of viahardware.com, this seemed to help at first and then the next time I loaded the game up it was right back to the way it was before.

I have had several different hardware configurations in the last few months and I always have this problem. My previous video card was a Radeon LE and it did the same thing. I reformated when I upgraded to the Geforce3. I also ran Windows XP for a while and it did the same thing. Please help, I've fought with this ever since I've had an AMD system. Current configuration is as follows:

Epox 8k7a
Duron 800
Gainward GeForce3 Ti200 (current drivers off of nvidia's website)
Soundblaster Live Value (I have tried taking the sound card out and using the built-in sound with the same results)
Linksys 10/100 nic
SMC 10/100 nic
512Mb DDR Crucial PC2100
Promise ATA/100 controller card
IBM 75gxp as master, Hitachi DVD on secondary mb controller, Plextor 24x on master mb controller.
Logitech USB optical mouse
Epson scanner USB
HP Deskjet 890c
Win2k (all the latest updates off of microsoft update)

Nothing is overclocked in the system.

 

[splice]

what apps do you have running in the background?

 

[murphy55d]

Don't use the 23.11's.... I have an 8k7a and the 23.11's were just brutal on my system.

21.83's are proven winners, and the newly released 27.10 have shown a small increase in performance on my system.

if neither of those work... I am not sure what to tell you.

 

[DARRIN]

No experiance with the Durons, but an 800MHz Duron might be a little weak for those games at a high resolution.

 

[Tanked]

Darrin, not trying to be rude in the least sense, but I thought that the CPU didn't care at all what resolution and color depth the game is running in, since it just runs the AI and some polygon transformations. This is also my experience with a K6-3 based system (Wolfenstein runs the same regardless if its 320x200x16 or 1600x1200x32 on a GeForce DDR).
Plz correct me if i'm mistaken...

 

[Tanked]

And another thing - I have a 8K7A+, and the 23.11's gave me some problems also. My 3DMark scores were raised a good 350 points, but 2D-Sprite based games suffered horribly on performance...Diablo2 was very choppy and Mechcommander couldn't even render the mouse cursor without hiccuping. The 21.xx series seems to be the best choice, although I haven't tried the new 27.10 drivers.

I'm not a networking expert, but is it ok to have two different network cards in the same system? Networking conflicts can cause extreme pain for the rest of the system, and my system had random lockup and boot errors when I had a Netgear NIC.

 

[PropNut]

Yes Dump the 23.11 drivers...I just fixed the same problem by reinstalling my older drivers...be sure to keep telling the comp to go ahead and take the older files when you install..reboot and try it .

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

DO a clean reformat. Install all SP updates. Install the AMD drivers, install the usb filter, DONT INSTALL ANY VIA CRAP. Install 21.83's. You are good to go.

 

[tjdavis1138]

I run icq and the cli seti client. I tried shutting everything off and the same thing happened.

I usually only run games at 800x600 and I used to have a Tbird 1.4g in this machine with the same results.

I've also reformated and left out every non essential pci card and still had the jerkiness. I have two network cards because one is hooked to my dsl and the other with a crossover cable to the other computer.

Going to the older nvidia drivers sounds like a promising idea. Where would I find the 21.83's?

Thanks guys, this has drove me nuts for months and the only reason I'm thinking of going back to Intel if I can't solve the problem somehow.

 

[tjdavis1138]

I had a CeleronII 900 with a Radeon LE before this machine and never had any problems.

 

[Maggotry]

<< I'm thinking of going back to Intel if I can't solve the problem somehow. >>


:Q :Q :Q :Q
My mother has the same mobo, processor, and sound card and plays UT in 1024x768 32-bit color with all the eye candy cranked up. She even has a lesser video card, a GeForce2 MX 200. The problem isn't your hardware combo. Curious....why do you have an ATA100 controller card? That mobo has ATA100 support built into it

 

[tjdavis1138]

<<

<< I'm thinking of going back to Intel if I can't solve the problem somehow. >>


:Q :Q :Q :Q
My mother has the same mobo, processor, and sound card and plays UT in 1024x768 32-bit color with all the eye candy cranked up. She even has a lesser video card, a GeForce2 MX 200. The problem isn't your hardware combo. Curious....why do you have an ATA100 controller card? That mobo has ATA100 support built into it >>




I have three IDE devices, HD, Burner and DVD. I like for each one to have it's own ide channel. That way one isn't waiting on the other at any given time.

I tried going to reactorcritical to download the older driver's and couldn't get into their download page. Their site seems to be hit and miss for me. Anyplace else?

Thanks,

 

[Maggotry]

<< I have three IDE devices, HD, Burner and DVD. I like for each one to have it's own ide channel. That way one isn't waiting on the other at any given time. >>


I'd be amazed of you can tell any discernable difference in performance.

Try this For 2K/XP. I know you're looking for older drivers, but since your having trouble anyway.......!

 

[tjdavis1138]

I just installed the 21.83's and still have the jerkiness. I downloaded and ran 3dmark 2001 and came up with 5089.

I didn't notice any of the stutters or jerkiness while running 3dmark.

I don't understand what's different about my system that would cause it to do this?

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi your my only hope.............:disgust:

 

[Maggotry]

I remember reading somewhere about re-installing the northbridge driver after installing a SBLive. That may have been for VIA chipsets, not hybrid mobo's like yours and mine. I guess it's worth a shot, though?

 

[tjdavis1138]

I'm going to try a few things when I get home tonight. If that doesn't work, I'm ordering an i845ddr mb and northwood. P!ss on it.