Radeon AIW and CS, Deadly Combo.

[saintwrath]

Hi,
I know this isn't a problem solving forum. But since no one can answer my question, I am hoping any anandtech video guru reader can unlock the mystery. I bought a Radeon AIW 32Mb DDR awhile back, and I was very happy with it, until I couldn't play CS(counter strike), when I try to connect to a server, and the server accepted the request, and start precaching the resources, and once it finish precaching, the mon'd suddenly go blank, no video signal at all, then freeze, nothign works, esc....Alt-ctrl-del...nothing. I tried several combination with the video OpenGL setting, and once, only once, I got it right. I played half-life single, hitman codename 47 and others, none have this problem. And then I reformat my HDD, and fresh WINME, then I remember I FORGOT THE DAMN SETTING for the OpenGL. Sh*t..I thought, now I've been out of Counter Strike for two week, and starting to look pale ( or more healthy to others)....
PLEASE, anyone out there with a Radeon AIW, or general knowledge of OpenGL out there HELP. Desperate!!!

I need my Daily Dosage of CS

Thanks in Advance.

(P.S. ATI DRIVES SUX)

 

[saintwrath]

Oh, and here is a link to the OpenGL stting box.
http://images.honesty.com/imagedata/h/384/53/23845332.jpg

 

[Hawk]

Is it a refresh rate problem? Try using a utility and setting the refresh rate lower for whatever res. and API you are running Half-Life with.

 

[Davegod75]

i play cd with my aiw and it works fine

 

[Finality]

Try running in D3D granted its not pretty but at least it should work.

 

[oldfart]

I dont play CS (I should try it), but try running it in 32 bit color mode. Add -32bpp to the shortcut that launches CS.

 

[duragezic]

Hmm it should work on basically every settings. I've played it on Performance, Quality, and many different custom ones. I don't see any specific option in there that would only affect Half-life. The only thing that may be it is the 'Enable page flipping' or 'Disable dithering while alpha blending'. Possibly the latter though I have played with it disabled and enabled. When it draws the smoke for a smoke grenade, that's alpha blending I think...

edit: Not sure about trying 32bit color. All the textures in Half-life are 16bit color so you would see very little difference. The explosions and sparks might look a little different though. Not sure, I'll have to try it when I play CS later today.

 

[FarENheiT]

What drivers are you using also? If you arent already, upgrade to the latest beta drivers.

 

[saintwrath]

Thank you all for helping newbies like me man, it's ppl like you that make forums a worthwihle place to go.
But I didn't have much luck with the card.Having tried CD in D3D, and discovered D3D is the biggest hoax M$ ever made, bigger than that Channel bar or that "for netscape users" button in IE. Ever have a 850 intel machine with Radeon running latest beta driver, 192ram and fresh WINME and getting 17fps in 800X600? Well, I've been there, and it ain't pretty.
Granted sierra didn't put much effort in doing D3D, but 17fps with a next gen card in the best selling game of all time. That ain't right man. Anyway, I'll try to do diff. combo with this card's openGL, and pretend I dun see that "D3D" tab in the setting box.Hopefully after I crash my sys enough time, the card would give in. hehe

Thanks
Saint_wrath@yahoo.com

 

[oldfart]

You've got me curious now. I'm going to DL Counterstrike and give it a whirl. What version of Radeon drivers are you using? I assume your Half Life Version is 1104. I see you're running ME. I'm running SE, but that should be close enough. I don't doubt the HL D3D is bad since the game is based (loosely) on the Quake 1 engine.

Yikes! 80 meg download! I'll do this at work tomorrow where I have some bandwidth, and try it tomorrow evening.

 

[saintwrath]

I'm using latest beta drive from ati, which is 3063, WHQL is 3056.
They haven't been update since Sept. *SLOW = ATI->DriverUpdate();

I tried it tonite with 640X480 OpenGL, with ONLY "Enable KTX buffer ext" and "Convert 30 bit to 16" enabled, and it worked, but the graphic is crappy as hell. But at least I'm getting warm to the right combo. Hehe, kind of like Openning a safe, or score on first date...

I'm gonna try out the TV capability too this weekend, got someone to install a new cable jack, then a black box(discambler), and then...we shall see the true light of this card.

saint_wrath@yahoo.com

 

[duragezic]

At 640x480 it will look kind of ugly.

Both of those options you have enabled have nothing to do with Half-life. The KTX is something abotu 3dsman I believe and convert 32 to 16bit textures doesn't do anything because the textures aren't 32bit to begin with.

For me, I just run 1152x768, texture compression, LOD 6, subpixel precision 2, accelerate page flipping. I dont have that anisotropic filterting on but turning that on makes it look a little better.

BTW, you are using the latest ATI drivers, not beta. The latest ati drivers are 3056, the WHQL are 7041, and the latest beta drivers are 7068. I have ran Half-life fine in all three of those versions btw.

 

[oldfart]

Ok, I downloaded the CS ver 1.0, installed it, set it up for 1024 x 768. Launched a game, works fine. No problems at all. Took all of a few minutes to install and start playing. No tweaking needed at all It just used my regular HL settings. I'm using the WHQL 7041 Radeon drivers drivers. Don't know what to tell ya.

(P.S.S). ATI DRIVERS DO NOT SUX.

 

[saintwrath]

Well, I guess there are some errata in my system, lurking around, maybe my mobo or something else. Anyway, I'll have to rely on other sources to fuel my addiction Thanks for the advices, I guess I'll wait abit, to buy an ABIT, get a KT133A mobo w/athlon, and try again.

BTW does anyone know when teh KT7a coming out?
And what about the IBM 60GXP???

Thanks

 

[oldfart]

I wish I could tell you more to help you fix it. HL has always been a "buggy" game. How about uninstall it, reinstall it from CD, update it to 1104, then install CS?? It was very simple to get it to work for me. Install, launch the game, connect to a server, play (get my ass shot off since I didn't know what I was doing). Im my Radeon OpenGL, I have only "enable page flipping", enable ktx region..." and enable texture compression" checked. FSAA and anistrpic are disable, LOD is "sharp".

 

[pamchenko]

try disabling agp 4x and bring it down to 2x in the bios

 

[NicColt]

reinstall everything like this.

1. If you have an Asus board, update your bios to 1005C or latest
(Important, follow update instructions) on first boot go into bios and restore defaults.
HARD Reboot and go into bios again and re-set your settings to whatever you want.
2. re-Download DX8, VIA 4-1 v4.28 (if you have a VIA chipset) and the 4.13.7068 or later ATI drivers.
3. Uninstall all ATI components using Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel
4. Locate the ATI Multimedia folder in C:\Program Files, and remove it
5. Do a Find Files and delete any ATI*.* files that you think should not be there.
6. Restart Windows (in VGA mode)
7. Install the Via 4-in-1 v4.28 drivers from http://www.viatech.com/drivers
IMPORTANT: make sur AGP support is loaded in Standard mode (not turbo)
8. Install (or re-install) the latest version of DirectX (8.0) even if you already have it installed.
9. Install the 7068 or later ATI display drivers, AND do not restart or reboot.
10.Search and locate ATIGART.exe (in the ATI dir) and rename it to OLDGART.exe
11.From the CD - Install the ATI Multimedia Centre ONLY, no drivers or VGART.
12.Restart the system and redo your settings.

 

[NicColt]

I cap my CS at 72 and have a ping of 45
also in cs in console type: gamma and select 3.0

I play for hours with no problems. Good luck.

 

[saintwrath]

OMFG, "It's working, it's working!" (like starwar racer when push repair button, for those who never play that game, man....(teardrop)) The probelm is that I'm a complete idiot. Running my PCI in 50mhz and AGP at 100 (yeah, that's right). And I never realized it. Thanks for pamchenko and NocColt, I realized it might be something in Bio. I forgot to change it back after I upgrade the Bios, and OC my celeron to 100 FSB. Wired thing is all other games worked but CS, so I never realized. Sh*t on me and call me a Sunday....

Anyway, thanks NicColt pamchenko oldfart eagle__2 for your helps
ANd especially oldfart, thanks for confirming it's not teh card, it's me. And play more CS....



Thanks
Saint_wrath@yahoo.com

 

[oldfart]

Glad to see you got it working. Have fun!! Now that I have it I'll have to start getting into it. Not much time for games these days. I'm currently playing NOLF. Maybe next week I'll give CS a serious try.