Ok. Ima try to make this short. So I used to have this Nvidia GeForce fx5700 LE PCI card. i didnt have an agp slot at the time, so i could only use pci. it ran fine, but i needed a better comp for gaming. so i got a new mobo and proc, a p4 1.9 ghz, which did indeed have an agp slot, albeit 4x. ive heard it wasnt a big deal, and the mobo and proc were free from my friend, so hey. i also got a gig of pc133 ram, cause the mobo used SDRAM.
so, i had:
Intel Pentium 4 1.9 ghz
1 GB (2x512) pc133 SDRAM
120 BG hardrive
550W "A Power Supply". yes, as far as i can tell, the company is called 'A'. no i dont understand. maybe i shouldnt have gotten it, just because it was $28
Sapphire Radeon x850 XT AGP
with my pci card, i could easily run games like Counterstrike CZ, Halo, AvP2, Tribes 2, Painkiller, and Americas Army at good settings at a good framerate. but, when i got into stuff like Riddick EFBB, hl2, and css, they only ran ok. and doom3 and the F.E.A.R. beta were pretty much out of the question.
so, i was savin up for a new gfx card, and i had a birthday and stuff, so i had a ton of cash... and i decided to blow it all on an x850, cause i expected the thing to eat these games whole with no problem. well hmph.
i get my x850 and put it in. the cd with the drivers refused to work, it kept complaining about needing standard VGA drivers before i could use it... the disk with the drivers... yeah...
so im like 'whatever' and i go to the ati site and i download the drivers, and the catalyst version 5.7 . i ran into some trouble during the installation. when it wanted me to reset the computer, i said yes, and then my computer stopped at the blue "windows shutting down" screen for like the 20 minutes i gave it. its not supposed to do that, so after that time it was safe to assume it wasnt going to shut down, so i was forced to hold down the power button. i started my computer again, and it seemed to have worked fine. the card was recognized, nothing seemed out of place, no error messages. after i install the catalyst control center, just for kicks, i try the disk, which still doesnt work. ive pretty much given up on the cd that came with it.
so i try to run the FEAR beta, to see what happens. it auto detects at good settings, 1024x760, everything on medium or max, and it runs at a great framerate. so, thats not bad. i try to run doom3... and at medium detail, 800x600, no AA, everything else high, it lagged a lot. if i was in a corridor with nothing happening, it would run fine. but if anything was going on, the framerate dropped, and battles were unplayable. so yeah, i was irked to say the least. i try hl2 , which at same settings (800x600, 6x AA, everything high but no shader detail) runs worse than before. i try CS CZ, and at same settings (everything high, 1920x1440) and after running it for a few minutes, the framerate deteriorated to way too much noticable lag, whereas with my fx5700 i got none at all, ever. wolfenstein still ran awesome, no trouble. Americas Army ran like crap with everything turned up (1600x1200 tho) and before, it ran great. We ran riddick So. thus begins the quest to find the problem
i messed around with catalyst control center, and eventually ended up turning off the catalyst AI and telling it to let the application decide for what it could, and i turned up the overdrive as much as it would go.
We first think it was a driver problem because of the trouble during the installation. so i uninstall the drivers and reinstall them, and this time it works. unfortunately, the games do not. the games still run badly, no change.
So, i let my friend take the wheel. i completely forgot that i had the old pci card in. we took out the old card and removed those drivers. still no change in performance. So, we uninstall the ati drivers again, use Driver Cleaner Pro to remove everything ATI and NVIDIA, and re-download and re-install the ati drivers.
We then played riddick, which ran awesome, at 1600x1200 everything at max settings at a good framerate. THATS more like it. but, we had to leave, so we shut down the computer and left. when i came back a while later, everything had returned to the way is was before the cleanup, and riddick was unplayable at the same settings as before.
so, we decided to juggle gfx cards. We took my x850 xt and replaced my friends Radeon 9600 xt, and tested it on his computer. he has a 3.0 ghz P4 with 8x agp, pc 3200 ram, and 300W PSU. We ran Doom3, HL2, Riddick, and FEAR at max settings while running fraps at never less than 40 fps. usually between 60 and 150. theres something weird about running HL2 with reflect world water effects on, with a giant lake, at 100 fps. so yeah. thats how the x850 is SUPPOSED to work. even with the barely barely adequate PSU (i believe the card wants 300W).
the extra 1 ghz would not make that big of a difference. i should have at least been able to run an old game like CS CZ on my 1.9. the drastically different ram might be a problem, but again, i would still be able to run games i could run before, like CS CZ. Now, the AGP slot. we went into the catalyst control center and set the agp speed to 4x to see what effect it would have. we went back to Doom3, and *gasp* it went down to 35 to 40 fps in intense battles! and 50 to 130 in hallways and small battles! oh snap! So, the agp slot doesnt seem to make that big of a difference. we ran 3d mark 2002 with the card in his rig with 8x agp on, and it scored 18,000. his 9600 scored 13,000. im not sure what they're supposed to score, and 02 is out of date anyway. i just DLed 05, and im going to install it and run it with my comp soon.
So kinda as a thanks for his efforts i let him keep the card for a while. i went to put my good ol' fx 5700 back in. i boot the computer, i remove the ati drivers, and restart like it wants me to. when it reboot, and it gets to the desktop, my monitor stops showing the desktop and gives me this " 92k / 58 Hz Frequency out of Range" message. the 'frequency out of range' reminded me of the message you get when you set the resolution is too high for your monitor. i waited like 10 minutes to give it some time to recover, but nothing happened. the monitor was plugged in, the gfx card was running. i was sick of messing with my computer and played xbox for a couple of hours. when i came back, the monitor worked fine. yeah, whatever. i had no video drivers at all, so i downloaded the nvidia drivers and went to install them. in the middle of the installation menu, the part where you click next after the agreement, my monitor again goes black and gives me the same error message.
i give up on the pci card, and put in the x850 again. i remove the nvidia drivers, and install the ati drivers again. the games still run as crappy as ever. i uninstalled the drivers again, cleared them out with Driver Cleaner Pro, and re-installed them, with no effect. i was going to download the drivers from the sapphire site instead of ati, but i noticed they had catalyst 5.5 and ati had 5.7 i had thought at the time that the higher version would be better, but at this point i would try anything. i am going to run 3d mark 2005 with my current settings and 5.7 catalyst drivers from the ati site, and see what happens. then im going to try the 5.5 drivers from the sapphire site. ill post back with results.
so, i am DESPERATE! i just want to play my pc games, lol. this is so complicated, and the x850 wasnt cheap. i really feel i didnt get what i paid for. it might be other hardware problems. i dont know. if you have ANY thoughts, suggestions, personal expericences, questions, ANYTHING, i would appreciate it.
so, i had:
Intel Pentium 4 1.9 ghz
1 GB (2x512) pc133 SDRAM
120 BG hardrive
550W "A Power Supply". yes, as far as i can tell, the company is called 'A'. no i dont understand. maybe i shouldnt have gotten it, just because it was $28
Sapphire Radeon x850 XT AGP
with my pci card, i could easily run games like Counterstrike CZ, Halo, AvP2, Tribes 2, Painkiller, and Americas Army at good settings at a good framerate. but, when i got into stuff like Riddick EFBB, hl2, and css, they only ran ok. and doom3 and the F.E.A.R. beta were pretty much out of the question.
so, i was savin up for a new gfx card, and i had a birthday and stuff, so i had a ton of cash... and i decided to blow it all on an x850, cause i expected the thing to eat these games whole with no problem. well hmph.
i get my x850 and put it in. the cd with the drivers refused to work, it kept complaining about needing standard VGA drivers before i could use it... the disk with the drivers... yeah...
so im like 'whatever' and i go to the ati site and i download the drivers, and the catalyst version 5.7 . i ran into some trouble during the installation. when it wanted me to reset the computer, i said yes, and then my computer stopped at the blue "windows shutting down" screen for like the 20 minutes i gave it. its not supposed to do that, so after that time it was safe to assume it wasnt going to shut down, so i was forced to hold down the power button. i started my computer again, and it seemed to have worked fine. the card was recognized, nothing seemed out of place, no error messages. after i install the catalyst control center, just for kicks, i try the disk, which still doesnt work. ive pretty much given up on the cd that came with it.
so i try to run the FEAR beta, to see what happens. it auto detects at good settings, 1024x760, everything on medium or max, and it runs at a great framerate. so, thats not bad. i try to run doom3... and at medium detail, 800x600, no AA, everything else high, it lagged a lot. if i was in a corridor with nothing happening, it would run fine. but if anything was going on, the framerate dropped, and battles were unplayable. so yeah, i was irked to say the least. i try hl2 , which at same settings (800x600, 6x AA, everything high but no shader detail) runs worse than before. i try CS CZ, and at same settings (everything high, 1920x1440) and after running it for a few minutes, the framerate deteriorated to way too much noticable lag, whereas with my fx5700 i got none at all, ever. wolfenstein still ran awesome, no trouble. Americas Army ran like crap with everything turned up (1600x1200 tho) and before, it ran great. We ran riddick So. thus begins the quest to find the problem
i messed around with catalyst control center, and eventually ended up turning off the catalyst AI and telling it to let the application decide for what it could, and i turned up the overdrive as much as it would go.
We first think it was a driver problem because of the trouble during the installation. so i uninstall the drivers and reinstall them, and this time it works. unfortunately, the games do not. the games still run badly, no change.
So, i let my friend take the wheel. i completely forgot that i had the old pci card in. we took out the old card and removed those drivers. still no change in performance. So, we uninstall the ati drivers again, use Driver Cleaner Pro to remove everything ATI and NVIDIA, and re-download and re-install the ati drivers.
We then played riddick, which ran awesome, at 1600x1200 everything at max settings at a good framerate. THATS more like it. but, we had to leave, so we shut down the computer and left. when i came back a while later, everything had returned to the way is was before the cleanup, and riddick was unplayable at the same settings as before.
so, we decided to juggle gfx cards. We took my x850 xt and replaced my friends Radeon 9600 xt, and tested it on his computer. he has a 3.0 ghz P4 with 8x agp, pc 3200 ram, and 300W PSU. We ran Doom3, HL2, Riddick, and FEAR at max settings while running fraps at never less than 40 fps. usually between 60 and 150. theres something weird about running HL2 with reflect world water effects on, with a giant lake, at 100 fps. so yeah. thats how the x850 is SUPPOSED to work. even with the barely barely adequate PSU (i believe the card wants 300W).
the extra 1 ghz would not make that big of a difference. i should have at least been able to run an old game like CS CZ on my 1.9. the drastically different ram might be a problem, but again, i would still be able to run games i could run before, like CS CZ. Now, the AGP slot. we went into the catalyst control center and set the agp speed to 4x to see what effect it would have. we went back to Doom3, and *gasp* it went down to 35 to 40 fps in intense battles! and 50 to 130 in hallways and small battles! oh snap! So, the agp slot doesnt seem to make that big of a difference. we ran 3d mark 2002 with the card in his rig with 8x agp on, and it scored 18,000. his 9600 scored 13,000. im not sure what they're supposed to score, and 02 is out of date anyway. i just DLed 05, and im going to install it and run it with my comp soon.
So kinda as a thanks for his efforts i let him keep the card for a while. i went to put my good ol' fx 5700 back in. i boot the computer, i remove the ati drivers, and restart like it wants me to. when it reboot, and it gets to the desktop, my monitor stops showing the desktop and gives me this " 92k / 58 Hz Frequency out of Range" message. the 'frequency out of range' reminded me of the message you get when you set the resolution is too high for your monitor. i waited like 10 minutes to give it some time to recover, but nothing happened. the monitor was plugged in, the gfx card was running. i was sick of messing with my computer and played xbox for a couple of hours. when i came back, the monitor worked fine. yeah, whatever. i had no video drivers at all, so i downloaded the nvidia drivers and went to install them. in the middle of the installation menu, the part where you click next after the agreement, my monitor again goes black and gives me the same error message.
i give up on the pci card, and put in the x850 again. i remove the nvidia drivers, and install the ati drivers again. the games still run as crappy as ever. i uninstalled the drivers again, cleared them out with Driver Cleaner Pro, and re-installed them, with no effect. i was going to download the drivers from the sapphire site instead of ati, but i noticed they had catalyst 5.5 and ati had 5.7 i had thought at the time that the higher version would be better, but at this point i would try anything. i am going to run 3d mark 2005 with my current settings and 5.7 catalyst drivers from the ati site, and see what happens. then im going to try the 5.5 drivers from the sapphire site. ill post back with results.
so, i am DESPERATE! i just want to play my pc games, lol. this is so complicated, and the x850 wasnt cheap. i really feel i didnt get what i paid for. it might be other hardware problems. i dont know. if you have ANY thoughts, suggestions, personal expericences, questions, ANYTHING, i would appreciate it.
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