Help! ATI graphic problems in SH4

[chowderhead62]

Hopefully someone can help me. I'm using an ATI x850 card in Silent Hunter 4 with the latest (and last) drivers from ATI. When I come into the 3D parts of the game the game starts look bad. It starts out fine but then the screen starts to get all jaggedy, with what look like folded over triangles.

I tried using Omega drivers and those seemed to help, but they don't work for other games I have so was hoping to find a fix for the latest ATI drivers. Does anyone know how to set the drivers so that this doesn't happen?

thanks in advance!
David

[WernherVonTrapp]

Wow, an X850 card, huh?:hmmm: Now that's an old card, 256MB right? I think those were equivalent to a GeForce 6800. I think you need a newer card. I'm surprised you got the game to run at all. How old is your PC? You need to upgrade to a card that'll work on your particular PC.
Welcome abroad.:D:salute:

[commandosolo2009]

You need a better card. I suggest if you're using an AGP port, to get this card.

http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Radeon-HD4650-Video-GV-R465D2-1GI/dp/B002B9F7RY/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1291212950&sr=8-5

I've had it on my old system and it supports shader model 3.0, direct X 11.

I'm selling it btw, but I guess a new one from Amazon is much better (factory sealed).

[Jan Kyster]

... It starts out fine but then the screen starts to get all jaggedy, with what look like folded over triangles. To me this sounds more like a heat issue?! Starts fine and then... :hmmm:

Have a look at your GPU fan. Is it running - and is it clean?

[Fish40]

I'm leaning towards a heat issue myself. If the game looks fine in the beginning, and after some time the "corruption" appears, heat would be my #1 suspect. I've had the exact pattern happen to me in the past, and ended up replacing the GC. How long dose it take before the problem happens? Dose it happen with other games?

[analogoldguy]

chowderhead62,

I have never seen any of those folded-over triangles. but those could be a sign of heat or something flaky in the video card.

But I can tell you that I use an "old" X800 XT AGP card and have no problems like that. I know that I am using the drivers sold originally with the card, I think it is Catalyst 7.7 or some such thing, I'll go search for the disk and tell you exactly which later..

Are you using Windows XP? That's what I have. I also always leave one side of the case open. The card does not get too hot.

Do you have this type of problem with other games?

Best wishes to you!

I know the card will play SH4 pretty well at 1024x768 and looks pretty good!

Oops, I just realized that you could be talking about the X850 PCI Express version .....

[chowderhead62]

Thanks all for the replies. I would think it was a heat issue as well, except it ONLY happens in SH4 and one other game. I run IL2 with no issues, Company of Heroes with no issues, etc. I'm thinking I should run it with older drivers maybe?

And yeah I need a new computer...this one is a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 with 2MB of ram and AGP video. But it still does "OK". Probably will upgrade sometime next year.

[chowderhead62]

Oh and yes I'm running it with Windows XP and it is the AGP version of the card.

[chowderhead62]

One last thing, when I say starts off fine...I mean within the first few seconds, but it rapidly starts the jaggies. So I don't think it's a heat issue especially since it doesn't do it in other games.

[Hylander_1314]

My old ATI on my old P3 rig, would do that depending on what drivers I had. The drivers I used for B17 would cause triangle anomolies in the Battle of Britain, and vice versa.

So I had to change drivers depending on what game I wanted to fly.

[Mescator]

I've had it on my old system and it supports shader model 3.0, direct X 11.

I'm selling it btw, but I guess a new one from Amazon is much better (factory sealed).

That card doesn't support DX11 Solo. Only the newer 5 and 6 Series ATI cards or the 4 and 5 Series Nvidea do.

[chowderhead62]

Well I've found that if I use the Omega drivers this whole issue goes away, but that's pretty frustrating as I have other software that doesn't seem to play nice with the Omega drivers. Grrrr. I guess it's time to tuck SH4 away until I get a new computer...it'll probably run better on it anyway.

[Jan Kyster]

Since you have nothing to loose, you might as well try out the new 11.4 RC :D

It's being highly praised and have been completely overhauled from older drivers.
Probably the fastest from ATI/AMD to date...

Grab it here: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142463

[chowderhead62]

hey why not! I'll give it a whirl and see what happens. Thanks for the link!

[chowderhead62]

Jan, I'm a little confused. I downloaded that driver kit and installed it, but it didn't seem to change anything. Still the same driver version included in the legacy drivers 10.2. Then thinking I did something wrong I uninstalled all of the ATI software including drivers, and then reinstalled the 11.4 program but it didn't install any drivers...just the control center stuff. Am I missing something?

thanks!

[Jan Kyster]

Sounds like a typical ATI mod soup... :hmmm:


Have a look in this thread for a thorough clean-up and tips http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52502