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Getting 9800 pro to... Work right

R

RS3RS

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 10, 2003
Messages
8,197
Well, I finally gave in and ordered a Sapphire 9800 pro 128 mb card from newegg to replace my old ti4200.

I got it today. Before I even put the card in, I uninstalled all of my nvidia drivers, rebooted, then ran Driver Cleaner 3 to wipe out all of the old drivers. Then I put the 9800 pro in, booted up, and installed the newest drivers off of the ATI website.

At this point, any window I dragged around the screen was choppy, none of the games would load, and I checked, and direct X and hardware acceleration were disabled. So, I dug out the Sapphire driver CD that came with it, installed everything on it, and it worked like a champ.

However... I'm getting about 40 FPS in UT2k4. I was getting about 30 with my ti4200... Farcry is quite a bit better, got about 30 FPS before, now getting about 60... Both games are being run at 1024x768, default settings.

But still, what should I be doing to make this thing work better on my system? Or is this just as good as the 9800 pro gets? Maybe was expecting too much, but I figured frame rates would be a bit better than this...

Oh well. If not, I'll just eat the 15% restocking fee and return the thing to newegg and go back to my ti4200... But it just seems like the card should be doing better.

Edit: Forgot to add, I have since updated to the newest drivers off of ATI's website (over the ones on the Sapphire CD), and frame rates are still about the same...
 
Yep sounds about right, but how well the 9800pro does greatly depends on the rest of your system and with your system, the yields sound about right in those games. The only other possiblity is completely wipe the system to MAKE SURE that now Nvidia drivers are not interfearing with the ATI.

Case in point, I upgraded from a 4200 to a 9800pro and I got a major increase in framerate stability in Vice City, UT23 and BF1942. UT2k3 didn't yield as impressive results as I wanted, no matter what I did. I got mine before Far Cry, Max Payne 2 or Kotor when I bought it, so I can't compare those.

If you wanna bigger increase, better get yourself a 6800 Ultra.
 
I guess I just expect too much out of stuff :)

Oh well, I'll just wipe my system clean tonight, overclock the thing until it bleeds and then see how it does :)

I just tried it a little more after I posted, and I still get 40 fps in UT2K4 even at 640x480 with no AA or AF. Wowie

Originally posted by evilchris
Try the 3.7 ATI drivers. Every release after that sucks.
Click to expand...

Okay, I'll give it a shot!
 
just tried it a little more after I posted, and I still get 40 fps in UT2K4 even at 640x480 with no AA or AF. Wowie
Click to expand...

Something is NOT right with your system if thats the case. Wipe the system and try again. I was amazed how my little problems and graphical glitches went away when I wiped my system.
 
Atleast yours works, i'm still waiting on RMA number 2 from ATI.

Especially going from Nvidia to ATI, I vote reformat as well just to clean up the entire system and make sure there are no Nvidia drivers interfearing.

do a bunch of 3dmark tests with your ti4200 stock and the 9800 pro stock, and see if there is much difference, the frame rates on 1 specific game isn't all that accurate.
 
Yeah, there's definitely something wrong there...do a reformat and get back to us on this. :)
 
Okay, did a full format, complete reinstall, installed ut2k4, and... 29 FPS idle, 1024x768, default settings, no AA or AF.

WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?! :confused:
 
Run 3DMark03 and check your scores, let me know what you get.
 
Make sure you have chipset drivers for your motherboard installed. Make sure you have the power cable to the 9800 plugged in and it's getting adequate power. I've heard that if they don't get enough power they still work but don't perform well. How big is your PSU? Just a shot in the dark.

You should be getting well over 40fps in ut2k4. When you get it working right you will see a HUGE improvement over that GF4.

EDIT: ^^ Beat me to it :D
 
Ok, there is something definitely wrong there. I can get minimums of 30FPS at 1024x768x32 default in UT2004 using a Radeon 8500...

It does sound sort of like a V synch issue, but unlike anything I've ever heard of (It should not be halving the FPS from the standard 60, 75 or 85 hz)

Yeah, try some other game or benchmark to see if it happens there too.
 
Okay, just spent some more time playing with it.

Motherboard chipset drivers are installed. Double checked, Vsync, TruForm and all of that is off. There's a little slider somewhere in the ATi settings that that has modes for "Quality" and "Performance", it's set all the way to Performance.

Double checked Radeon 9800 pro power cable, completely seated and plugged in at both ends.

Now, the weird thing is, in UT whenever I hit the ESC key and it pauses the game, the FPS thing shows about 80 FPS. Then when I hit the ESC key to go back into the game, it sort of slowly drops from 80 FPS to about 29-30 fps over about a 5 or 6 second period. I find that really odd, seems like it should drop straight back to 29-30 fps right away, eh?

All of this is being run off of a Fortrton 300 watt PSU, could this be a problem at all? I don't have any instability or anything weird besides frame rates... Any way to test it out?

Also, UT2k4 isn't the only game I'm testing it out with. FarCry IS a little better than the ti4200 was, not by tons, but a little.

I tried Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield on it. Before on the ti4200 I could get 60 FPS at 1600x1200. Now on the 9800 pro, I'm getting 50 FPS at 1600x1200.

I think this deserves another WTF?!? :confused:

Edit: Tried a little overclocking just to see what would happen. Set the core to 420.75 and the ram to 366.75, got a few more fps, but only about 8 or 10 more. Haven't tried higher, kind of getting too frustrated to care. Any ideas? Is it possible to have a bad video card that runs at full speed but just doesn't work as fast as it should?
 
Question, could the fact that I only have 512 MB or RAM affect anything? When I play games, it hits around 600 megs, so it does swap sometimes which makes the game a little jaggedy, however when I went from 768 (ram usage never goes as high as 768 megs anyway) to 512 dual channel, I never noticed a difference in FPS, just became a little more jaggedy, so I doubt it... I dunno, just out of ideas :(

Edit: Nope, borrowed a few sticks of RAM from my dad and ran my rig at 3.2 ghZ (not 100% prime stable, but just for testing), 1.5 GB of dual channel RAM, this Radeon 9800 pro at 429/364, and got about 55 FPS in an idle corner with no one around, which is better, but still got about 30 fps when I was around bots, etc. (Other games didn't really change either). I'm lost.
 
i just bought a sapphire 9800pro off newegg yesterday, and i will be going from a GF4 MX420 to that...i hope i don't have the same problems :(
 
Originally posted by 133
i just bought a sapphire 9800pro off newegg yesterday, and i will be going from a GF4 MX420 to that...i hope i don't have the same problems :(
Click to expand...

Hopefully not... But from a GF4 MX420, I don't know how a 9800 pro could be worse :p
 
something seems wrong, I get average of 60 FPS or higher when hosting 8 bot deathmatch.
UT2k4 1024 direct3d 32 bit, options at default or higher, windowed
athon 2100, 1024 mb ram, gf4 ti 4200.
 
Try a different PSU as well...a 300W should be able to run it, but I've had my 9800P drag down and kill a 350W before. Use FRAPS to determine frames and try a few different games. Check DXDiag and again, run 3DMark03 please.
 
someone said they go 60FPS in UT2K4 with a Ti 4200? I had one, and there is no way @ 1024x768, you got 60fps....with other players.

i could be wrong. but we sport the same ram, same os, hell, i was even running a sb audigy 2 zs.
 
sorry, I cant help it. I have direct 3d, 1024x768, running windowed mode, all settings on default (medium) except for 1 or 2 which are on high or highest. Tested FPS on various DM maps I was hosting with 7 bots. OS is windows server 2003 (I do app and website development), and SATA raid 0 for the data. I can post screenshot of it.

EDIT: oops, with trilinear off.
 
Well, I checked DXDiag. Not quite sure what I'm looking for, but I ran the DirectDraw and Direct3d tests. The Direct Draw seemed fine, but on Direct3D where it normally shows a spinning black cube with the DirectX logo on each side, that part was odd... The cube was there, but instead of just kind of slowly spinning like normal, it was moving at light speed. You couldn't even make out that it was a cube it was moving so fast. This happened in the Direct X 7, 8 and 9 tests. Odd..
 
Originally posted by RS3RS
Balrog: P4 2.66B @ 3.0 ghZ, 1.44 volts, 512 MB DC, ti4200 (9800pro on the way), Seagate 120GB DVD+RW, Triple monitors
Click to expand...

video cards with multiple moniters have always given me problems with gaming (i believe i talked briefly about that in this thread here ) try playing with one moniter, and one graphics card in the box. unless you are doing that now and you are still enountering problems, then i'm afraid i can't be of any more assistance.
 
Run 3dmark01 and 03

If your scores in 01 are low than something is wrong with your system.

If your 03 scores are low, something is wrong with your video card.
 
Just tried yanking the PCI card and running with just one monitor, no difference.

I'll download the 3d mark programs, connection has been horribly slow today though :(

Thanks
 
Originally posted by RS3RS
Just tried yanking the PCI card and running with just one monitor, no difference.

I'll download the 3d mark programs, connection has been horribly slow today though :(

Thanks
Click to expand...

Be sure to give us an update.

Also, these Fortron 300 watters have been known to pull 380w+, Fortron horribly under-rates their psu's (A good thing), so it cant be the PSU.
 
Originally posted by dohcmark8
Be sure to give us an update.

Also, these Fortron 300 watters have been known to pull 380w+, Fortron horribly under-rates their psu's (A good thing), so it cant be the PSU.
Click to expand...

Will do. My cable connection is horribly slow today for some reason, so 3d mark is STILL downloading :eek:. But it's almost done, so I'll post my score soon.

Yeah, these Fortrons are great PSU's. Dead silent too :D
 
Originally posted by RS3RS
Will do. My cable connection is horribly slow today for some reason, so 3d mark is STILL downloading :eek:. But it's almost done, so I'll post my score soon.

Yeah, these Fortrons are great PSU's. Dead silent too :D
Click to expand...

Best of luck. :)

Hmmmmmm........

You did a Fresh install with all drivers installed, did you check for hardware conflicts? Have u tried running @ AGP 4x? Try disabling VPU recover?

Try this: VPU recover off, hardware acceleration full on, Hit default on the 3d tab, then try and run dxdiag to see if everything is normal, maybe it was really fast because you disabled v-sync in the control panel.

This might sound really stupid, but have you checked the card itself to see if the fan is running and the heatsink attached properly?.

Have you done all the windows updates especially SP!a?.

Check your AGP aperature in the bios, and make sure AGP is enabled in the bios.

If all else fails, set everything in the bios back to defaults and see what happens.

Is the 9800 on its own power line? Meaning nothing else is connected on the same 12v line as the 9800.

Try installing the drivers with only 1 monitor hooked up.

Also, is the card running "stuttering slow" or "smooth slow"?

Thats all I can think of for now.
 
3d mark 03 downloaded and ran. 5527 3D marks.

... I have no idea if this is good or bad, I'm guessing it's about right for my system. Going download 3d mark 2001 and see what it has to say.

Originally posted by dohcmark8
Best of luck. :)

Hmmmmmm........

You did a Fresh install with all drivers installed, did you check for hardware conflicts? Have u tried running @ AGP 4x? Try disabling VPU recover?

Try this: VPU recover off, hardware acceleration full on, Hit default on the 3d tab, then try and run dxdiag to see if everything is normal, maybe it was really fast because you disabled v-sync in the control panel.

This might sound really stupid, but have you checked the card itself to see if the fan is running and the heatsink attached properly?.

Have you done all the windows updates especially SP!a?.

Check your AGP aperature in the bios, and make sure AGP is enabled in the bios.

If all else fails, set everything in the bios back to defaults and see what happens.

Is the 9800 on its own power line? Meaning nothing else is connected on the same 12v line as the 9800.

Try installing the drivers with only 1 monitor hooked up.

Also, is the card running "stuttering slow" or "smooth slow"?

Thats all I can think of for now.
Click to expand...


Just tried some of the things you mentioned. No hardware conflicts, I just tried running at AGP 4x with VPU recover disabled, and all of that you listed, just about the same thing...

Fan is spinning away, and the heatsink looks like it's on there just fine...

I just downloaded SP1 and other updates today, it got me a few more FPS, but still not what I should be getting...

AGP is enabled in BIOS, and the aperature seems to be fine.

Just tried it with the 9800 on its own power line, same thing...

Already tried BIOS defaults...

And I'll try reinstalling the drivers tomorrow. I have a download going now that I don't want to mess up, but I'll give it a shot later.

The card is running sort of studdering slow at this point, BUT... I know it's due to the fact that I'm out of RAM and games are using a paging file, because when I tried it with 1.5 gigs of ram (borrowed some from my dads system) it went perfectly smooth (but still slow). So I'm going to answer "smooth slow".

I'll play with the drivers and stuff a little more...
 
Wierd, I have almost the exact same rig.

the fps I get in UT2k4 are sweet, even with AA.

I'll check out my stuff when I get home, but I didn't do anything special to install it, I didn't even 'clean' the old nvidia drivers off. I turned off the PC, unplug, plug, turn on, install latest catalysts (4.3 at the time)
 
Originally posted by marmite_lovah
Wierd, I have almost the exact same rig.

the fps I get in UT2k4 are sweet, even with AA.

I'll check out my stuff when I get home, but I didn't do anything special to install it, I didn't even 'clean' the old nvidia drivers off. I turned off the PC, unplug, plug, turn on, install latest catalysts (4.3 at the time)
Click to expand...

Weird... Just wondering, what FPS average do you usually get in UT2k4? Single or multi monitor(s)?

Just trying to figure this thing out... Thanks :)
 
Okay, so, I took out my PCI card, unplugged the second monitor on my 9800, then uninstalled the drivers, ran driver cleaner, installed the 3.7's, left all the other monitors unplugged, and tried some of my games again.

FRAPS reports my FPS average in UT to be about 40 now. At times if I'm standing in a lone corner it will spike up to 55 FPS. During big "battles" with lots of people around, it still drops to about 25 fps, but before it was dropping to 12 fps at times, so this is better...

I don't know if this is about right for this card/system or not... But I have a feeling it's closer.

Now to get it to stay this way as I try to get multi monitors back... :rolleyes:

Thanks :)
 
Originally posted by RS3RS
Now to get it to stay this way as I try to get multi monitors back... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

thats literally like trying to learn how to walk again, good luck!
 
Hmm your 3dmark's look fine.

I dont think its your ram, I only got 256MB and UT2k4 runs fine with everything at max. You do have DX9b intalled right?

Have you tried the ut2004 benchmark utility to give us some hard numbers to compare off?. You can find it here: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24793

Are you absolutly sure none of your drivers are loading up a bunch of extra apps with them?. Whats your PF usage as your just sitting in windows right after boot?.

Have you tried any other games?.

Hit Details in the Options tab in the Catalyst Control Panel and tell us what your "current bus speed" is.
 
Okay, so, I installed the 3.7's with just one monitor like I said, then put each monitor back in one at a time, and now it's working like a champ :)

Should have seen the look on my face when I booted up with 3 monitors, and looked at FRAPs telling my my FPS was 85 in UT :eek:

Thanks to everyone for putting up with my noobishness to ATi, and especially to dohcmark8 for the suggestion that fixed it

Thanks guys :D
 
Originally posted by RS3RS
Okay, so, I installed the 3.7's with just one monitor like I said, then put each monitor back in one at a time, and now it's working like a champ :)

Should have seen the look on my face when I booted up with 3 monitors, and looked at FRAPs telling my my FPS was 85 in UT :eek:

Thanks to everyone for putting up with my noobishness to ATi, and especially to dohcmark8 for the suggestion that fixed it

Thanks guys :D
Click to expand...

No problem.

Enjoy the 9800! :D
 
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