Gforce Ti4200 help needed (I think)

[Clique]

Current System Spec:

Gigabyte KT400 Mainboard
Amd 1800 XP Cpu
1024 MB DDR Ram
Msi Gforce Ti4200 128MB
400w System Fan
Windows XP Pro
512k Cable Connection

This setup is approximately 6 months old (except for the Hard Drive) and has been working like a dream up until recently. I started playing Planetside Beta when it was released and this seemed to coincide with my PC not restarting properly (restart resulted in shutdown), not a major problem so I put up with it. Finally about a week ago my Hard Drive packed up as I was expecting, so I bought a new one and reinstalled windows and Planetside. Now when I play I'm lucky if I get 15 minutes into a game without horrendous FPS spikes, the performance is awful.

Driver details:

Before the reinstall I was running Detonator 41 with DirectX 9

After the reinstall I installed the latest Detonator 45 driver and Direct X 9 again.

Since the reinstall I have tried every Detonator from 45 to 40 plus 2 more reinstalls of windows to no avail.

Additional Info:

I have swapped the memory sticks in every possible combination and I'm pretty sure they are not the problem.

My system seems to be running at quite a high temperature.

I can still play games normally for about 10 to 30 minutes before it becomes unplayable.


So, is my Graphics Card broken? Any information would be greatly appreciated as I really can't afford to replace the card at the moment. It's still under warranty but I don't want to go through the trouble of posting it back to the manufacturer unless I know it's definately faulty.

Thanks in advance

Frustrated Gamer

 

[Embattle]

Does it happen in other games?

 

[Teh Krypt]

Im sorry I don't know the answer, but I have similar problems

I played PS beta, all was well after I got an extra 512mb ram, so have 640 now.

I bought the retail game. After a while it would randomly get VERY VERY bad fps, unplayable. Sony as good as they are compared with a lto of online game companys, could only suggest drivers for me, it never worked. The fps still randomly went VERY low. Eventualy I started getting problems with BT also, disconnecting me everytime I played PS so I quit

Im using..
amd 2000 xp+
640mb ram
gf4 ti4200 (64mb )
broadband connection (well was that, puttig up with aol 56k till I get BB in new house )

 

[Clique]

I installed Warcraft 3 and I'm having the same problems with that. I had 768 Mb of Ram for a while and installed another 256mb chip about 2 months before I reinstalled (1X512 and 2x256 in total)

Anyone else out there had problems with a Ti4200?

 

[WPKenny]

Have you checked if anything's over heating? Have you checked if the fans are still spinning on your CPU's HSf and the graphics' card's?

 

[Clique]

System Fan, GFX Board Fan and CPU fan are all still running. My PC is open at the moment. If I leave it on for a while running a GFX intensive game and I put my finger on the underside of the GForce Card (opposite side to the fan) After 10 seconds or so I have to take my finger off because it's too hot.

What I don't understand though, if overheating is the problem, why has it taken 2 to 3 months to surface and cause trouble?

One other thing, I'm not 100% sure whether I was running DirectX 8.1 or 9 before the reinstall, just checking the Gforce manual now and the Ti4200 doesn't actually support DirectX 9, only 8.1 or lower.

P.S This setup quite happily coped with large battles in DAoC for hours on end as well as some other RTS titles before the reinstall.

 

[WPKenny]

With regards to direct X...it won't support the Direct X 9 features but it will be fine with Direct X 9 running on your system it just won't be able to do the fancy stuff with grahpics that the newer cards can like the Radeon 9800 Pro.