Major Problems Please Help!!!!

[The boy 4rm oz]

Help. I just got a replacement GPU from my computers manufacturer. I had a Saphire Radeon 9950 with 256mb of ram at 256bit and i upgraded to a Leadtek A6600 GT TDH (20th year annerversary special edition) with 128mb at 128bit. My problem is that with my new card overclocked only very slightly my copy of BF2 will freeze and jump but with my old card (fully overclocked) I only got VPU recover on very rare occasions.With COD2 my old card worked almost perfect at 800x600 with most things on low (appart from corpses = insane lol). And with BOS i hed black horizontal lines. Oh and with BF2 i ran it at 800x600 with most things on normal and the new card will barely run at the same res with every thing on lol or turned off appart from texture filtering (low). Is my new card ****ed, or is it the fact that it has less ram. I had to pay an extra $200 AUS for this card and buy an new PSU and they wont let me swap it for the same 1 i had but i do have manufacturer warrenty.

Please help me!!

[monoflap]

Your new card only has 128mb of ram (a down grade from your 256mb) wich is definatley the culprit for your poor performance in games. I wouldn't be suprised if your game crashes were due to the drivers from your old card since you switched from an ati to a Nvidia card. If you didn't uninstall your old drivers yet or want to get rid of all the traces use a free ap called Driver Cleaner. Here is a link (http://drivercleaner.net). If fact, I would reccommend uninstalling both the old and new drivers completely and just downloading the most up to date ones on line.

[CanaBalistic]

I think you got ripped off. $200 is damn expencive for that card. I've got an x700 that cost about $150 new and i run bf2 on max settings (except dynamic light, and the anti-alliasing is at 8x insted of 16) works perfect at 1024x768.

You should be able to get a 9800 pro 256 for $200


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102669
SAPPHIRE 100132 Radeon 9800SE Advantage 256MB 128-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X

Cost: $72... You can download hacked drivers and open the other options to remove the SE... I'm not entirely sure but i think the hacked drivers give you 2 more pixel piplines.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Well it was either the 6600gt or a 7800 and dad sed no cos that was and extra $450 AUS and he wouldnt let me get it. Mind you this is only an agp card and i've tried to overclock it but i think i've pushed it to its limits. I tried to do the cool bits registry hack but when i get into the nvidia desktop manager it doesnt have the overclocking bar. Is this because of my card or does the latest drivers not support it. Oh and there is no problem with the old ATI drivers cos my old card fried itself and took the os with it so i was forced to reformat and re-install so thats not a problem.

[FyR]

To add, it really is luck of the draw when it comes to overclocking. What i mean is, although GPU's of the same model are similar in appearence they are made in different batches, some batches are better than others. Some GPU's you can push really far but others (even though they are the same model) you cant push far at all.

Think of it as tolerances similar to metal work, say a company makes a bar of metal thats 200mm in diameter with a tolerance of +/-0.1, the operator sets the lathe up and the bars come out at 200.1mm which is in tolerance so they pass, another operator makes another batch and sets the lathe up again and the bars come out a 199.9 still within tolerance and they also pass, its similar (although less complicated) to the way GPU's and CPU's are made, some are good others are perfect.

Also a lot of GPU's, although they go in different cards are they same, for instance a 6800 uses the same GPU as a 6800GT, in the 6800 its locked by the cards BIOS, they use the best 6800 chips of the batch for the GT's (closest to the tolerance) so they can operate stably and the ones that are at the edge of the tollerance they use in the standard 6800's. thats why a lot of standard 6800 cards with extra cooling will unlock to a 6800GT.

Its hit and miss with overclocking, maybe you just got an edge of tolerance chip.

Hope this helped

Paul

[CanaBalistic]

http://www.omegadrivers.net/ Find and download your drivers here. They are some of the best drivers for overclocking

[The boy 4rm oz]

I just thought that it would be a better card than my other. It is so much more powerfull with clocks but the lack of ram makes it ****. They wont take it back cos theirs nuthing wrong with it so i guess i'll have to wate another 18 months till the warrenty runs out and do a full system upgrade.

[EPYK]

ya dude you shoulda got the 9800 pro, i got one and it blows every game ive played away... i think its a 256mb ram set up.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I recen i'm just gonna wate and get a 7900GT or GTX when i upgrade. But i'll get it as a 512mb with 256 bit lol. That should be enough power. And while were discussing GPU's What would be better for a budget gamer. A 7900GT or an X1900XT. I would say the 7900GT cos its cheeper and got tons of power. What do u think.

[DaveW]

What would be better for a budget gamer. A 7900GT or an X1900XT.
Those aren't exactly Budget chips my friend...very high end more like...

-Dave

[The boy 4rm oz]

Well they are in my price range. I can get a Inno3D 7900GTX a $745 AUS wich is pretty cheep or i can get a 7900GT for around $500-650 AUS.

[EPYK]

go with one of these and save 100$ or so same card but a few brands..
7900gtx (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1305520548+1069909646+1067920130&Subcategory=48&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=)

[The boy 4rm oz]

I recon i will go for the Xpertvision 7900GT 512mb edition it's only gonna cost me $545 AUS.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Ok i found the problem with the card, i needed 2 switch it from agp 8x to 4x now all i need 2 do is overclock it. Dus anyone know how hard i can overclock it?

[simon275]

Just keep tweaking the gpu and ram freuqnecies up. And then stressing it in 3dmark and look for artifacts and other random stuff and rinse an repeat. Also watch the heat on it your drivers should have a thing that tell you how hot it is getting.

You can get more out of it using an aftermakert cooling solution like a cooling fan with gpu ram heatsinks from zalman. They are pretty cheap to like under $100 Aus mate.

Edit: Most retail for $80-$90 AUS

[The boy 4rm oz]

The cooler that ca,e with this is pretty good and it keeps the gpu around 32 degrees on idle. I'm using power strip to overclock.