Weird glitch in a number of games

[nath]

Anyone got any ideas what this is about:

Incase you're wondering, I'm referring to the white dots. It's happened on a number of games and accross several different video card drivers (Radeon 9800 pro).


Ta in advance

 

[Moriath]

stuck pixels ?

 

[nath]

Well they flicker all the time, it's like tv static.

 

[KevinUK]

3d card overheating? Or if you are overclocking it too much?

 

[nath]

I worried that might be the case - I've not overclocked it at all though.

 

[smurkin]

I get that when my graphics card memory is overcleocked. Could be a sign of video memory overheating.

 

[Clown]

3d card overheating? Or if you are overclocking it too much?

What Kevin said. They're called sparklies and artifacts. They happen when you overclock too much or if the card is overheating.

 

[nath]

Well that sucks some arse - I've got totally factory standard kit in my PC, 0 overclocking on any device. What a pain :\

 

[Clown]

Check theres no dust in the heatsink/fan.
Check the fan is working.
Might be worth carefully removing the stock fan and trying a better 3rd-party cooler. I say carefully so you can put it back on and send it back if the 3rd party one doesn't help.

 

[nath]

Dunno if it's worth the effort for a 9800 pro - I was thinking of upgrading, but then I'm not sure I can (want to) afford a decent enough upgrade. I had my PC open a few weeks ago and gave it a thorough dusting so it should be ok on that front.

Are there any cards out there for absolute max 150 that are significantly better than the 9800 pro?

 

[Clown]

You might be able to source an ATI X800 GTO2. They overclock to X800XT PE speeds, which used to be one of the best AGP cards about.
The nVidia alternative is the 6800GS, might be a bit more expensive though.

Oh, I wouldn't bother though. AGP is on it's way out.

 

[nath]

Like this?

So that'd give me a significant improvement over my 9800 then?


edit: hmm, that's pci-e. /me looks for another.

 

[Clown]

Keep your 150 quid for when you can afford a motherboard. You can get a much better PCI-E graphics card for the money.

 

[nath]

Thought that might be the case. Sod it then, I guess I'll stick with this rig until it's totally out of date - HL2 used to perform *alright* and I think as a result of the latest drivers, now performs fantastically. HL2 Ep1 currently performs alrightish, perhaps they'll be able to squeeze a bit more performance out again.

 

[Sar]

Same here nath - I'm gonna go for a nice x1800 and a decent PCI-e mobo around September/October. Don't wanna get an x8XX as it doesn't do native SM 3.0, whereas the x1XXX cards do.

I'll be getting that new monitor within the next 3-4 weeks though

 

[nath]

The viewsonic?

 

[Louster]

For what it's worth, I've had almost nothing but problems with my radeon 9800 pro. These days I run it with a god-damned desk fan pointing into the side of the open case so that it actually functions at all - and this is after cleaning, replacing (and upgrading) the fan, adding heatsinks to the memory and all sorts of shit. Fucking thing.

 

[SheepCow]

I've never had a problem with my 9800 Pro, had it since they were first released a few years ago

 

[Sar]

The viewsonic?

If I can - gotta find somewhere that'll take paypal or get it off ebay

 

[Sar]

And I've had my Radeon 9800 pro for just under 2 years now - bit of a problem at first with a dodgy power lead, but replaced that and it's been pretty much ok since.

It's just starting to show its age now though

 

[nath]

If I can - gotta find somewhere that'll take paypal or get it off ebay

Good man!

 

[nath]

Right - sod it. Games aren't running quite well enough and there's a number of cards that look decent for ~100 quid - but I just need some help to find out what's the best.

There's the x1600 pro 512mbs, x1600xt, x1800, x800 gto and they all seem to be the sameish price. Anyone got any clue which is the one to go for?


I miss the days when it was simply the higher the number the better the card. I cannot be arsed to traul through page upon page of tomshardware to find out what's good. Any help greatly appreciated!



edit: man that's depressing. It appears you were right clown, if I went up to a PCI-e I could spend 90 quid on a card and get an uber performer. AGP you need to spend the big bucks to get the good stuff. Still, I'd need to replace CPU, motherboard and possibly RAM. Sod that :\

 

[throdgrain]

Nath , I got that on a 9800pro, it got worse quite suddenly into big distortions, then I had to get another card. On warranty though, thankfully

 

[nath]

The original post isn't such an issue really, it's just made me think maybe I should get a new one. What really fucks me off is that they now release new cards at reasonable prices that actually perform the same as much older ones. Why not just continue selling the older ones at cheaper prices! Grarrrrrrgh.

 

[xane]

I had problems with an 9800 Pro, it needed replacement but the company ran out of suitable stock, and I had the additional pain of finding an AGP card instead of a PCI-E, in the end I settled for a GeForce 6600 GT, which I suppose is slightly better, even though I did not want to go back to nVidia.

 

[nath]

How much better is slightly? It seems to be a pretty reasonable price at the moment.

 

[Sar]

Don't touch the x1600. They (and the x1300) are built on a different path to the x1800 & x1900.

Go for an x1800 if you can.

 

[old.user4556]

Nath,

I had the same problem with a 9800 Pro, RMA'd it and got another one. Only problem was that my new one was just as bad, used to artifact badly in 3D games and even windows started acting poop.

It turns out that some 9800 Pros were made with shitty memory chips, particularly cards made by Powercolor (which mine was).

That card now lives in my spare PC that's on loan to my parents, but I managed to fix it. It's not the best solution, but I had to downclock the memory speed on my 9800 Pro to prevent artifacting - it's worked for a good couple of years now with no problem.

I went back to nVidia after the shambles I had with ATi cards.

 

[Louster]

I went back to nVidia after the shambles I had with ATi cards.

Yep. Same here. And my 6800GT was working absolutely, wonderfully perfectly until I recently had to bring it 500 miles south. And something must have gone wrong, as it now idles at 70 degrees C and overheats if I do anything with it. Even underclocked it still goes well into the 100-110 degrees range. I'm afraid it might be static damage, but I took way more care than was really necessary in order to avoid shit like this happening.

In fact, this deserves multiple 's.

 

[old.user4556]

Louster, could be worth seeing if it's clogged up with fluff/dust acting like a blanket?

It's this time of year that i need to air duster / hoover my PC out and re-seat my CPU heatsink. I had to do it the other day because the CPU was at 65 degrees idle, it's not about 52 idle. My 6800 GT is the same, gets clogged with dust and needs a regular clean.