3870 woes

[AKA_RA]

I got Diamonds 3870 recently, and im having one of the most unexpected, but prolly the least troublesome, issues. I cant watch youtube videos full screen...

Anyone wanna tell me how that works? Cutting edge graphics card, tears ass, but no full screen flash? This is more funny than anything, but any insight would be much appreciated.

[xRyokenx]

Was it this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103050

I just ordered that a few days ago and get it in today... I'm thinking it might be the drivers or something though. Is your flash updated all the way? Just check stupid little things like that first.

[AKA_RA]

Yup, thats the one, though my pic showed no sticker on the card, i got the one pictured there now.

And yeah, sadly i've done every stupid little thing i can think of, other than reinstall vista itself, which i dont want to do unless i have to.

Of course, adobes site blames the drivers and pretty much just the drivers, god forbid the possibility its their fault. *gasp*

i couldn't find any other cases like this. youd figure if it was a big thing(like a widespread driver issue), at least a few other people would notice that not one flash app works full screen.

so...if its not my drivers, not adobes flash software, and my computer isnt shooting green vomit while speaking in tongues...there arent many options left... where do dumb problems like this come from? ive had at least one lame as hell thing wrong with every computer ive ever assembled, almost every time it seems harmless, just annoying for months its simply baffling to me...

its like a yet undocumented law of physics: for every new computer, there is a newer and more annoying bug present than the computer before.

(BTW: youll have to let me know how that card works for you, so far i love mine...im thinking red and black case mod time!)

[xRyokenx]

The drivers seem buggy to me too... I've got XP though. I haven't had too many problems (yet)... there have been glitches where stuff messes up in games but nothing too annoying. I love this thing so far. Crysis on all high and 8x AA? HOLY CRAP THIS IS BEAUTIFUL! Another thing to appreciate, the time put into the card itself, the game, etc.

[NightrainSrt4]

How is Crysis playable at the framerate you must be getting?

3870 Benchmark - Crysis (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/02/28/mainstream_graphics_performance_1q08/2)

The top benchmark is in what I am assuming your resolution is. High Detail, medium physics, medium PP and 2xAA and they are averaging 22-23fps with drops down to 12fps. This is on a faster system as well, although your card may be clocked a bit higher than the reference card, but the difference should probably be made up with the rest of their system. Also the 2x to 8x jump would be quite a bit of a drop, as it is on any other game I've played, though not on that card.

Don't get me wrong, the 3870 is an amazing card, better than mine and for quite a lot less than what I payed for mine, but I don't see how that can be a bearable framerate. I don't need crazy framerates, but anything less than 28 or so just looks jumpy to me.

I bet every other game runs b*tchin though. :D

As for the flash, I had something similar happen to me before on my old ATi card but I have no clue how I fixed it...:(

[xRyokenx]

Everything is on high at 1280x1024 with 8x AA, that's the max I can go with this monitor, OS, and for osme reason I can't go to 16x AA... but I get like 20-30fps and that is godly compared to the 12 I was getting before.

EDIT: And I'm willing to bet they did that benchmark before the patch for Crysis, which improves performance by at least 50%.

[AKA_RA]

Read the rest of that review, their test setup sucks. Know your source and more important, know their testing methods. When it comes to benchmarks, whether it be canned or in-game, I take it with a grain of salt.

Anyways, high-jacking aside...

You said you fixed it, but don't know how, eh? This sounds like a job for...

Making stuff up!

I think I'll just mess with the card and drivers on another PC and see if I can't duplicate the results. I don't think I'm going to be keeping this install of Vista, as i have the option for a RAID setup now. Though it won't help if its more than just a bad install/file somewhere.

[NightrainSrt4]

I wasn't writing that to be rude or mean or anything. I was simply curious that the card was doing that well (what I would consider Holy crap beautiful 30fps+) while others I have seen weren't doing as well as he alluded to. I read the whole review and didn't see anything wrong with their setup, if anything the system appeared to be a faster system/similar enough, except for the lower amount of ram and possibly reference card (perhaps vista). He said himself 20-30fps, which isn't within my thresh-hold of being playable as it seems jumpy to me. He made it seem as if the card was acting godly and I was curious because if it was I would go get one to replace mine if it was doing as well as it sounded. Sorry, was tired and that was the phrase that stuck out to me and grabbed my attention. I won't mention it again as to not detract from your thread any farther.



You said you fixed it, but don't know how, eh? This sounds like a job for...

Making stuff up!


No I wasn't making stuff up. It was a Diamond Viper 9250 Stealth that I had bought for a computer I was donating to a kid that needed a one. This was ~3 years ago. It had an issue playing video's in full screen. I don't know what I did to fix it as it was a long time ago, and that was when I went through my period of usually just reinstalling windows and reinstalling drivers to get things to work. I also said it was a similar problem and not the exact same thing.

[xRyokenx]

Just on a side note, I'm used to ****ty framerates and graphics... with typically about 10-15fps, and that's unplayable. I'm certain I get over 30 but cannot be sure. I'd run a benchmark on this thing but 3DMark '06 and Aquamark don't run properly.

...and just tried YouTube fullscreen and it works.

[NightrainSrt4]

Its cool. I was just thinking by the sound of it that it was like 30-40fps or something and was amazed. Thats why I looked up other cards. I figured I'd then post what I found. Was just curious as to what you had gotten. As I would go out and get a 3870 if it was. Anything under 30 tends to seem jumpy to me and hurts my eyes after a while, so I was thinking the card was something amazing thats why I looked it up and got confused. It was nothing against you Ryo, as you should know my posts well enough that I don't bash people or products, atleast not knowingly, and apologize if it came off that way.

As for you AKA_RA check out this link 3870 Vista flash issue (http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=90472). It seems quite a few people are having issues with 3870's(crossfire or not) as this was one of quite a few links I found googling. Seems if you turn off hardware acceleration for flash videos you will be able to watch them fullscreen. Not the best but a possible solution nonetheless.

[AKA_RA]

No I wasn't making stuff up.

Sry, I meant I would be making stuff up, while shamelessly making bad quotes no body would get, lol. Assuming it's fixable like you said, the only way to figure it out is just poking it randomly until it does what I want. Such as a full reinstall. -_-

Thanks for the link, I'll be looking into it ASAP to get this lame little issue fixed. I keep forgetting and hit full screen just to see a diagonally split gray and white screen.

EDIT: Slaps forehead... That was all to easy. My guess is its a 32-bit Vista 7.12 driver issue, as those seems to be the common factors. Thanks again for the link, my guess is I just missed it while browsing the billion and one sites that come up if the numbers 3870 are anywhere in the search parameters. Problem solved. ^_^

[NightrainSrt4]

No problem, glad that worked. It's not a permanent solution, but should help you a bit until they have a driver fix, or whatever is the issue.

Ya, I don't know, I usually just get pretty lucky with the right keywords. At least when I am looking for others :lick: . When I try to find something crucial for myself it seems to not work out the right way :(. But thats how it goes I guess hehe

[AKA_RA]

What exactly does it change? Does it run smoother with acceleration? Is it filtered?

It's an HD 3870 with a X4 9600 and 4gigs DDR-800, I doubt it really needs any extra acceleration to completely annihilate the software. Besides, the quality of most youtube videos is beyond suck, and its not like I'm watching full length movies.

Though it is nice when everything runs like it should. ^_^

[NightrainSrt4]

I have no clue. I just said its not a permanent solution as its something you shouldn't have to do, and that it should be able to run hardware accel on its own.

But if it works, it works.

Maybe Hi-def flash video's would have an issue fullscreen via software? Although with your rig I don't see how that would be possible. Hmmm...something for me to look into and learn, difference between software and hardware acceleration and consequences on modern hardware.

[xRyokenx]

Ugh, mine just started really ****ing up when I try to play Crysis. I'm thinking it's the fact that my PSU is 20W under the recommended (450W) so I just ordered a 500W PSU. Yay spending more money.

[AKA_RA]

It really doesn't matter so much whats recommended on the box, but what your system actually pulls from the PSU. you could have an 800w and still not get power to your video if you have a million other things plugged in. If it turns into a real issue, you could get one of those "kill-a-watt" things or something like it, though i know little about them myself.

You might just consider that Crysis is extremely demanding, and gets more so in later areas.

[xRyokenx]

My HDD spins up a few times before it boots up and it takes about 20 seconds for it to finally power on all the way so I'm really thinking it's the PSU. And by the way, I load up Crysis, load the mission, and it crashes after it starts to render everything.