help with ati drivers...

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BooGiTyBoY

The ImPaCt-DaMpeNeD BooGeRaToR
Hammer let me borrow his Atlantis Sapphire 9600xt 256mb fora lil while being he don't really need it at the moment.

Took out my geforce4, ran driver cleaner in safe mode to get all the nVidia stuff out, installed the card and the newest catalysts (5.2 I believe). I also made usre I had the most recent via hyperion drivers before doing all this.

I'm currently playing only 2 games.
1) ROSE Online beta - ran fine with no problems. Was able to pump up my display settings quite a bit.

2) UT2004 - I just can't get it to run "smoothly" with this thing...
Even at my current settings I had with my gf4 it seems to almost stutter along. Was not impressed. Took it out and put my gf4 back in and it ran fine once more.

Is this a card issue? I know lots of people who have had problems with the 9600xt cards, or is it a driver issue do ya think. Can anyone else with a similar card gimme some feedback here? Maybe a different set of drivers is in order?
 

hyrulian

Rainbow Brite
May 20, 2001
9,548
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hyru.ath.cx
It's not necessarily a graphics card issue. Before you give up, try newer and older video card drivers as well, since the newest drivers don't always give the best performance. For example, some of my systems with ATI cards still use Catalyst 3.10... :p
 

BooGiTyBoY

The ImPaCt-DaMpeNeD BooGeRaToR
I also noticed when uninstalling the drivers it shows a 9600xt then under it it also shows another one listed under it as "secondary"
What's that all about. It did this on the first driver install and I've never had an ati card in this system before.

I'm also bout' to try the 4.12 drivers and see if they are teh bettar.
 

BooGiTyBoY

The ImPaCt-DaMpeNeD BooGeRaToR
Fixed :) 4.12 drivers used, v-sync and triplebuffering set to true. Smooth and sexy at 85fps avg. (1024x768 most settings on normal and some goodies turned on as opposed to 800x600 all on low or off)

Hammer is the MAN for lettin' me borrow this for a while! Looks Like I'll be gettin' a lil' beefier vid card for this system in the meantime. Still holding off on a whole new compy cuz' while whats new in the field impresses the crap outta me (sli, pci-e) I still wanna see "what's around the corner."
At least this is giving me an idea of the boostie-size a new one will give me. Gonna get something good and cheap as a "carry-over" til' then. Probably a 6600gt as I'm kind of a nVidia fanboi vs. ATI. :)
 

MrMaddog

Flak Monkey
Jul 13, 2002
543
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You might want to remove your UT2004.ini file and make a new one from the game. I had to do that when I switched from a GeForce to the Radeon.

(And yes, due to driver issues my next card will definitely be a Nvidia...) :rolleyes:
 

hal

Dictator
Staff member
Nov 24, 1998
21,409
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It has nothing to do with bad ATI drivers. When you switch from one brand to the next like that, you really have to be thorough in cleaning anything from the other one out. I ended up doing a fresh install of Windows when I switched (way back when) from a Ti 4200 to an ATI card.

ATI generally has just as good of drivers as NVidia, and some say slightly better image quality.
 

BooGiTyBoY

The ImPaCt-DaMpeNeD BooGeRaToR
Well since I did the above steps it's been fine and a LOT better.
Plus I don't mind it limiting my framerates if the limit is 85 :)

I've also owned both nVidia and ATI cards and never had as many hassles/headaches with the the nvidia than the other. Not too mention how many people I've known personally that had to replace or RMA their ATI cards. (This particular card from Hammer being one of the many)
 

Raffi_B

Administrator
Oct 27, 2002
2,001
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Here's a quick analogy.

ATI cards are like SUVs. They perform much better all around with extreme conditions, albeit a tad slowly. Basically these cards perform much better with higher AA/AF settings and resolutions.

nVidia cards are like sports cars. They're great for basic needs, but are a tad worse for anything extreme. As resolution, AA, and AF are put at higher settings, ATI wins by a long shot. At lower settings, however, nVidia outperforms ATI.

Basically, if you want sheer performance, go with nVidia. If you're a fan of high visual settings and resolutions, go with ATI.
 

T2A`

I'm dead.
Jan 10, 2004
8,752
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Richmond, VA
Okay, now that we've got that all ironed out, let's get my problem under wraps. Around 55 FPS, it looks like crap and isn't smooth at all, just like what Boogs was talking about. I turned on triple buffering and all that jazz but that still didn't help. Is my monitor the culprit for this crap? I'm gonna test out another monitor tomorrow, but I'm impatient and want to know if anyone has any ideas.
 

T2A`

I'm dead.
Jan 10, 2004
8,752
0
36
Richmond, VA
Thank you for having faith in my basic knowledge as a human being who knows how to operate a computer. :rolleyes: Allow me to restate what I've already said in another manner with keywords bolded for emphasis.

At 55 FPS and similar framerates, it looks unsmooth. How unsmooth? Well, at lower framerates, it looks less smooth than in the 55 range. It's easier to play with 35 FPS than 55 due to the choppiness of the latter rate.

I will also add in this tidbit that Boogs told me on Xfire that he didn't put in here. He got the same FPS the whole time throughout this thread (70-85 in Rankin). It just didn't look smooth, but he found a way to make it look smooth with the same framerates. That is my very problem. When I have 55 FPS, it should look smooth, but it looks very, very choppy.

Changing refresh rates changes the range at which it looks choppy, but I can't seem to get it to go away completely. For example, at 75 Hz, 55 FPS looks choppy, while at 85 Hz, 55 and 75 FPS looks choppy. At 60 Hz, the choppiness of the 55 range is less noticeable, but down in the 40s it gets very choppy-looking again.

The only reason I even bothered posting in this thread is because I've seen other monitors perform at 55 FPS very, very smoothly, yet mine definitely is not. I cannot afford another monitor (nor anything) at the moment, so I want to know if there's any way I can make my should-be smooth framerates actually look smooth on this POS monitor.
 

T2A`

I'm dead.
Jan 10, 2004
8,752
0
36
Richmond, VA
Me said:
Around 55 FPS, it looks like crap and isn't smooth at all...
Actually, I did. I just didn't elaborate. Bold words are the key to understanding.

Yes, I always have v-sync on, because without it, maps like Rankin and Goliath blow past my refresh rate of 75 with blatant disregard and I get frame tearing like a mother. Now, I just found out about the whole triple buffering thing, and supposedly it shouldn't really matter if v-sync is on or not with it. Apparently, triple buffering keeps your video card from ever drawing an incomplete frame. I'll have to give it a try without v-sync with triple buffering, but not right now, because I'm in the middle of writing a report last-minute. :p

V-sync won't affect crappy framerates in the 50s anyhow. I guess my monitor just sucks humongous balls.
 
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edhe

..dadhe..
Jun 12, 2000
3,284
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www.clanci.net
Vsync should stop Frame 'tears' which can make it be choppy, basically when the monitor and fps produced are not in sync.

The 85 fps cap is the online limit, not a vsync limit.
 

T2A`

I'm dead.
Jan 10, 2004
8,752
0
36
Richmond, VA
I know, and as I said, that's not the problem. It looks choppy at 50-55 FPS, not 75 at my v-sync limit.
 
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Gumby

Pretty in Pink!
Feb 29, 2004
958
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A long long way from home...
Ok let's explain this as edhe briefly said, if you have a monitor that runs at 80Hz for example, and you have 40fps, the image displayed ont he screen will appear to be smooth. This is due to the fact that the monitor is refreshing the screen 80 times a second, and your PC is producing 40 images a second... so that fits nicely - The screen will refresh twice for every image :) so a 2:1 ratio

Problem starts when you get an awquard ratio, ie 75:55 (or 75:50 / 3:2) which means that the monitor is refreshing 1.364 times a for every frame produced. This will show on your screen as if it is skipping frames in a way... Or at least very jerky.

Best way to combat this is to either run your monitor at a lower refresh rate, or to go .ini hunting and find how to cap the fps at 40 :) Or increase the monitor refresh to 100 and cap it at 50... :)