VisionTek HD4850 series flawed?

[Cerulean]

I RMA'd my card for showing some pretty bad anomalies when playing demoscenes, anti-aliasing 8x doesn't work in some games (like TrackMania -- my very first HD4850 supported the 8x! >=[ But now I can't even select 8x, as if it doesn't exist/isn't supported by the card), and some other nasty stuff. I made some recordings and screenies.

Got my replacement...same problems (I am wondering if it is the drivers??).

http://www.hlrse.net/Qwerty/hd4850-artifacts/

Video @ http://www.hlrse.net/Qwerty/HD4850-1440-DemosceneArtifacts.avi.

EDIT :: I know that my brother's NVIDIA 9600GT can render these demoscenes problem-free. Perhaps I should try his card in my machine to possibly narrow it down to the video card itself?

 

[soulesschild]

power supply issue? heat issues? try it in another computer?

 

[Cerulean]

I reinstalled the 8.12 using the individual packages (previously used full package). For some reason the Avivo Video Converter doesn't come with 8.12 -- or so it seems, because it doesn't install for me. =(

I remembered I had another PCI-E 16x slot on my mobo, so I'm trying that slot to see if it makes a difference. Applied manual unlock to fan speed too (I personally don't mind the extra noise).

If this doesn't work, I'll have to try it in my brother's computer and see if problems are the same. :S

I would much rather find out it would be my motherboard, PSU, CPU, or RAM than the video card (and put the blame on ATI/VisionTek), as I think everything is still under warranty. All the parts in this machine are no more than 5 months old!


EDIT :: The way I am uninstalling the ATI drivers is by using Driver Cleaner.NET, and I'm making sure the program clears ALL ATI-ware (I'm not using ATI chipset or CPU or anything, so that makes it easier).

I make sure to reboot after each cleaning from Driver Cleaner.NET, and I also reboot when I get any popup that asks me to reboot.

EDIT2 :: Tried second PCI-E 16x slot, no different.

 

[-=PESTILENCE=-]

Avivo is a separate download underneath the drivers. look down the page a little further.

 

[lepard2k1]

I have that same card and have not experienced the issues you are referring to.

 

[Cerulean]

I have that same card and have not experienced the issues you are referring to.

Just to verify -- you tried watching the same demoscenes, right?

Because this card works fine in Far Cry 2, for example. But these 'minor' problems REALLY bug me.

EDIT :: The Avivo installer thing thinks I don't have a legitimate ATI driver disk. wt?

EDIT2 :: Finally got Avivo Video Converter installed. But the time it takes to convert videos is just about as long as it takes my CPU to convert videos! WT?? Does this video card have no juice for these things?!?

EDIT3 :: Switched to another PCI-E power plug. No cigar.

 

[lepard2k1]

Just to verify -- you tried watching the same demoscenes, right?

Because this card works fine in Far Cry 2, for example. But these 'minor' problems REALLY bug me.

That is correct. Try it on your brothers computer and report back, it may be an issue with your power supply.

 

[Cerulean]

Haven't tried brothers computer yet, but I am about to. Here is one thing I noticed though. When running the Brain Control MCP demo in windowed mode, the user has the ability to resize the window by click at one of the corners.

Those "squares" that make up the graphical anomalies look to be approximately 32x32 pixels in dimension...all the squares. When resizing the window, the size of those "squares" does not seem to change. I read in the ATI help documents for CCC that when running cross-fire, there is a super-tile mode in which 32x32/16x16 pixel blocks make up the rendering field, with each alternate block being handled by the other card or something.

First of all, I am not crossfired, nor do I have another video card to crossfire with. Do you suppose this might be some weird glitch in that regards? D:

EDIT :: Well well, look what we have here -- a BSOD on my brother's computer after installing ATI drivers and rebooting. The 9600GT passed the swap test, but the HD4850 did not. Popped both cards in (already had NVIDIA drivers installed on my computer), installed ATI drivers on my brother's computer, rebooted, tested some demoscenes on the 9600GT, and also found my brother's machine with the HD4850 hanging on a BSOD.

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

The problem seems to be caused by the following file: ati2dvag

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:


The device driver got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly.

Please check with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000EA (0x89067DA8, 0x87796808, 0xBA4EBCBC, 0x00000001)

ati2dvag

Anyone think that the card/drivers want to think the card is in Crossfire/Mode even though it isn't?

EDIT2 :: Forced shutdown, booted in VGA mode (F8 at boot), verified NVIDIA drivers were halted, changed resolution to 1024x768 (which is supposed to activate ATI drivers -- but I got a popup from ATI CCC complaining about the card not being found or whatever before I changed resolution; however it appeared the ATI driver was functional when moving a window around to see whether the CPU or GPU was rendering it). Rebooted computer to see if it can properly loadup ATI drivers...wait for results here.

EDIT3 :: Has problems trying to boot into Windows with ATI drivers. Monitor goes on standby mode.

EDIT4 :: Repeated procedure with VGA mode, but this time I set it to 1024x768 and then 800x600 -- the lowest resolution available. Then I rebooted in hopes that it would attempt to use a 800x600 resolution instead of 1024x768. Brb, checking results (computer is on other side of house).

EDIT5 :: I smell massive fail. I caught a glimpse of the monitor's LED go from green (active/working fine) to orange (standby), though the screen was black. I think it did this after the blue bar loading screen of Windows XP when the drivers were attempted to be initialized.

Massive fail...at something...maybe ATI? Maybe the card itself? Grr! >:[

Time to swap the cards back into their original machines.

EDIT6 :: Swapping went fine -- 9600GT is back in my brother's computer and the HD4850 back in mine, and as you can see, I was able to boot fine too.

My brother's computer is assembled with this parts: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1331854

EDIT7 :: Btw, also measured the size of those squares in the Memories from the MCP demoscene -- they all happen to be 16x16 (in pixels) no matter what resolution the demo is being played at. That's how the card is seeing each of those square "blocks" anyway.

 

[-=PESTILENCE=-]

EDIT2 :: Forced shutdown, booted in VGA mode (F8 at boot), verified NVIDIA drivers were halted

The only safe way to do a card swap from nvidia to ati, or vice versa, is to completely remove the old drivers first. uninstall the nvidia drivers, boot into safe mode, use driver cleaner to get everything else out, reboot and install ati drivers.

Also, why are you hung up on these demos? Just curious as you say Far Cry 2 plays just fine. I had something similar with my 4870X2. It has terrible graphical corruption in 3DMark Vantage when I benched it for the first time, but its just a bug with Vantage. All my games play amazing, so I just forget about it.

 

[Cerulean]

All my games play amazing, so I just forget about it.

That's probably what I will do.

I don't have a right to be frustrated, and to me, having this kind of equipment is a priviledge (even though I bought it with my own money). Ought to thank God more often. :|

 

[-=PESTILENCE=-]

Think you kind of took what I said out of context. I'm not saying you don't have a right to be pissed off, I'm just saying it may be a specific problem to these demos, and not the hardware itself. Then again, it could be. You need to do more troubleshooting before you can know.