Geforce 6800 Ultra & Antialiasing problem

A

astondg

n00b
Joined
Jul 24, 2004
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33
I just got an XFX 6800 Ultra and after a troubled installation I am almost certain that it is now setup correctly but I am having problems with FarCry and 3DMark 2001.

FarCry seems to run ok until I enable Antialiasing in the options menu (within the game or the windows based FarCry config program) then the game does not start, the screen goes black for 5 seconds and then I am back at the desktop. Disabaling AA with the FarCry config program does not help and I have to reinstall the game.

In 3dMark 2001 when I select Antialiasing: 2 samples, 3 samples, or 4 samples and try to start the benchmark I get a message that says

"3DMark could not initialize your 3D accelerator.
Try to downgrade your display settings.

DirectX error message:
setFullScreen - creating the device failed : D3DERR_OUTOFVIDEOMEMORY"

Can anyone tell me what is going on? I presume this is not normal? I turned on AA in Doom 3 and it seemed to work ok.

Thank you,

Aston
 
make sure you are running latest drivers and also patch farcry to 1.2
 
Is your card/cpu overclocked? How big/who makes your power supply?
 
This may be a silly question but....
You do have 2 separate power leads plugged into the card and not plugged into anything else right?
 
Where do I get patch 1.2? I have 1.1 and the 61.77 drivers. I also finally got to play FarCry and with all the settings on their highest (minus AA) all the colours are very bright and washed out and there are patches of black just like on my Geforce 2 GTS (only with the settings on their highest). What is going on?

The card is a its default 425mhz core and 1.2ghz memory. I think this is slightly higher than others but it is the XFX default. My power supply is a Thermaltake 550W.

EDIT: Yes I am sure I connected up both the power connectors but I can check them again in the morning (after some sleep :) ) to be sure (it is after 12pm here).

Aston
 
Or the real obvious problem might be that YOUR VIDEO CARD ACCELERATOR IS NOT ENABLED?

Start -> Run -> Dxdiag -> Display Tab -> AGP Texture Acceleration -> On or Off?
 
AGP texture acceleration is enabled. Keep the ideas coming, thanks everyone.

Aston
 
Which ForceWare version are you using?

What's your motherboard brand, and manufacturer?

Check your BIOS to make sure default graphics port is AGP, not PCI.
 
Almost sounds like something still isn't set up right. Either directx and/or the driver for the video card and/or your chipset. What motherboard/CPU are you using? When you say troubled installation, what exactly happened? Need more details in order to offer good suggestions.

You mentioned your card is at 425/1.2. Just for testing sake, try 400/1.1 to see if it makes a difference.
 
I am using the 61.77 drivers from NVIDIA (is this forceware?).

My motherboard is an ASUS A8V Deluxe. CPU is AMD Athlon 64 3800+
I have checked and AGP is default.

Aston
 
astondg said:
I am using the 61.77 drivers from NVIDIA (is this forceware?).

My motherboard is an ASUS A8V Deluxe. CPU is AMD Athlon 64 3800+
I have checked and AGP is default.

Aston
Click to expand...

Reset your BIOS to default settings through the CMOS jumpers. Afterwards, reconfigure the BIOS but only touch the settings you know 100% what they are and do.


Uninstall your ForceWare (your nVidia drivers), install the VIA Hyperion 4--in-1 drivers (http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/4in1/VIA_Hyperion 4IN1_V451v.zip), then reinstall your ForceWare drivers.
 
I just set the card back to 399mhz core and 1.1ghz memory and it made no difference. I also removed and reinstalled patch 1.1 and now it seems that the graphics are no longer bright and washed out with textures missing, but it still won't start with AA enabled.

When I say troubled installation I mean:
- I had to install the video card drivers and DirectX 9 twice because it didn't seem to work the first time, only recognised the card as a generic vga adapter and games said directx was not installed
- I have a lot of wires in my case that got in the way
- I had to relocate the sound card from the PCI slot next to the AGP slot to fit the 6800 Ultra
- My case has a screw less card system that made it easy to remove PCI and AGP cards but it didn't fit with the 2 slot 6800 Ultra so I had to remove it and screw in all the cards
- I had to reinstall the sound card drivers for some reason (maybe because it changed PCI slots?) and also set up my 5.1 channel speakers again

I had a Geforce 2 GTS in this system before the 6800 Ultra.

EDIT: Thanks Unit-0, a lot of work but I will try it.

Aston
 
When all else fails, a reformat is your best bet.... it's the sledgehammer approach to nailing down little problems like this.... probably what I would do after a few of the previous suggestions didn't work....
 
I'll try these other ideas and then maybe I will have to format and start again. I hope not though, I have only just got this computer up and running. I installed Windows XP about 3 weeks ago :( .

Aston
 
As a personal rule, whenever I install some new bit of hardware (such as a video card, sound card, etc) I always format - it prevents most problems before they become problems....
 
astondg said:
I'll try these other ideas and then maybe I will have to format and start again. I hope not though, I have only just got this computer up and running. I installed Windows XP about 3 weeks ago :( .

Aston
Click to expand...
Yeah, it sucks but it's still better than going through the rma wringer and going without a card for a week or more.. Formatting should be the next to last resort.
 
I just noticed an option in the BIOS "AGP 3.0 Calibration Cycle" the default setting is disabled, is this correct for my card?

Aston
 
You said you just reinstalled XP a few weeks ago, did you remember to install your chipset drivers?

The AGP cal cycle allows the chipset to monitor the drive strength of the card periodically, while disabled sets the drive strength once at boot. The option doesn't make much sense to me as the drive level of a data bus should be fine at a constant voltage. Perhaps if the board was excessively noisy it would help, but it seems like a band-aid to me. Therefore I would leave it disabled as moving the drive level around may cause some instabilities I would imagine.
 
Well I think it is fixed! I followed Unit-0's advice and it seems to be working. Both FarCry and 3DMark 2001 can be run with AA. I will test it better after some sleep but for now it seems ok.

Thank you all very much!

Aston
 
astondg said:
Well I think it is fixed! I followed Unit-0's advice and it seems to be working. Both FarCry and 3DMark 2001 can be run with AA. I will test it better after some sleep but for now it seems ok.

Thank you all very much!

Aston
Click to expand...

Woot, that makes 2 out of every 3 person that has problems on this forum that I've helped having issues with their mobo chipset's drivers. =P


EDIT: I wish I have enough money to get your comp. /drool
 
jhtevans said:
As a personal rule, whenever I install some new bit of hardware (such as a video card, sound card, etc) I always format - it prevents most problems before they become problems....
Click to expand...

This is so true. It's why I set up two partitions--C: with the OS and Apps, D: with my personal data and files. I can always easily format the C partition (When I've gone and screwed something up :D ) without having to deal with backing up my D drive.
Z
 
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