I have a REALLY BIG PROBLEM.

It started while I was playing Half-Life 2 yesterday.

I was in the buggy driving along (although that bits not really important) when suddenly the entire everything freaks out and distorts itself beyond all belief. It reminded me of an old GTA 3 bug, only this is different. It didn't freeze, and it didn't stop when I went to the main menu. The menu was also horrible warped. I exited and found that some of my desktop icons didn't look right, and some were missing.

I went to the start menu (set in classic style) and found that all of the things in it had 'blended in with each other.'

Logging off didn't help. All the user names were warped, and some were missing until you put the mouse over them.

The 'shut down your computer' words were missing until you put the mouse over them. The icon remained.

Restarting the computer, and shutting down and leaving it for an hour before switching it back on didn't help.


NOW: You ask, How is he posting on this forum. Well, my Dad discovered that lowering the 'Hardware Acceleration' on the troubleshoot section of the graphics card made the desktop understandable. (EDIT: although just now I saw the window of firefox jump. I don't think that the desktop is fixed at all. I just checked, moving windows around is just about okay if I don't drag them too fast).

However, no videos will work (distorted and warped) and mini games (eg, rainy day) SOMETIMES work for a bit, then freak out.

I think its the graphics card, but whats gone wrong? It happened without warning, I hadn't done anything, downloaded anything, and was not connected to the internet.


Other things that might be of use to fixing this:

I installed the demo of Quake 4 that I got, and told it to 'optomise settings for my computer.' The result when I was playing it was white dots (I know, artifacts) all over the screen (think a very, VERY bad blizzard). Doom 3 had artifacts, but nothing like this on MAX SETTINGS. I had to run Quake 4 on lowest settings with everything turned off just to see where I was going. It looked almost like Quake 2 the settings were so low. AND THERE WAS STILL A SEA OF ARTIFACTS.

Also, Half-Life 2 had started to show up artifacts more and more. I thought it might be something to do with it being updated and more advanced. However, even with the settings turned down, the artifacts still increased slowly.


I think someone told me some time back that artifacts were due to a graphics card overclocking itself. I have not dared to do this and would not think of trying.

However, I think that what has happened is that my graphics card has heated up too much and harmed itself in some way.

This is most annoying, as its Christmas today, and I got games mostly. Games that I am unable to play. To me, this looks like a terminal problem that may (God forbid) need a new CHEAP AND LESS POWERFUL graphics card to be purchassed.

I have brought this to the collective mind of the forum because I believe that this is the only place where I can get answers to this BAD problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions to help? Please.

Oh dear.

Firstly, try installing some new drivers (removing the old ones first). This may fix the problem.

Don't hold out hope, though. This sounds like the card is actually damaged. And contrary to popular belief, this isn't caused by overclocking alone. Pushing the card too much can also cause this. Please don't tell me you pushed the card too much (i.e. high/max settings). If you have done this it may have broken itself (this is possible).

Unfortunately, there is no fix for this.

The (relatively) good news is you can get a card that is more powerful and supports more modern DirectX for about ?100-130. This card is called the 6600GT, just make sure it is the GT and it is the AGP version.

Well, good luck.

Both me and my Dad agree that I hadn't pushed the card too hard.

My Dad agrees with you that the card is actually damaged.

Thanks for the info on the 6600. It's an N-Vidia card isn't it.

I can hope though that reinstalling drivers will help, although we have the latest drivers installed anyway.

And I thought that Microsoft were not bringing out any more Direct X versions.

Well, it was just a thought, I know you like running in high detail. Then again, it may just be one of those errors, or possibly something phyically damaging the card (conductive dust, i dunno?)

Yes, the 6600[b:41e21e2d87]GT[/b:41e21e2d87] is a nVidia card. The GT version is quite a bit faster than the vanilla, so make sure you get that. And make sure it DOESNT have SLI (if it does, it's the PCI-E version and won't run in your mobo).

The drivers may have become corrupted, it's a long shot, but worth a try.

They haven't but th nVidia 6-series and up have hardware support for 9c. Your card only has support for 9b (it was released before 9c). There are no "affordable" ATI cads that support 9c (another thing nVidia beat them to).

P.S. If you do get the nVidia card, make sure you completely remove the Catalyst drivers, or there could be problems.

Not work on 9 c?

I've been using Direct X 9C on my computer for ages.


Oh, and its not a driver problem. Removing drivers and reinstalling them had NO effect.

Videos run okay if the Hardware Acceleration is lowered to zero.

However, games wont work.

cards definetly the problem
what gr means is that the card isnt designed to use the full potential of the directx 9c, my geforce 2 that was designed for directx 6 can still use dx9c but it doesnt run as good as a card designed for 9c

because the card dosnot run the processes for the graphic and makes the cpu do it for instead and when it reaches a point the hole thing can go and reject the graphics processes

Damn, looks like a new card for you, then.

A graphics card is always compatable with any DirectX verson, just they may not have hardware support for it, meaning ATI cards won't be able to take advantage of the latest shaders (9c), as has already been said.

acturly in processes terms it is inconpatable but the cpu give it them in terms it understands

I was saying the CPU may do this, but the terms it gives the GPU may be unrecognised or something. Well, I'm not DX expert, all I know is nVidia=good.

N-Vidia is the type of card I'm looking at.

I have been tempted by this card: Inno3D GeForce 6800

It costs ?141

Is it any good?

The website description says this:

NVidia's GeForce 6800 processor runs at a slower clock speed than the 6600GT but has 12 pixel pipelines instead of eight. This allows it to process more information per cycle, giving it a slight performance advantage over the GeForce 6600GT-based AGP cards.

Inno3D's GeForce 6800 is one of the fastest AGP cards in this test. Its score of 9,261 in 3DMark03 was the best in the group, and it was also the fastest AGP card in both Doom 3 benchmarks. It ran our standard Doom 3 test at an impressive 84.9fps. Sapphire's more expensive X800 card was significantly faster in Chaos Theory. However, the 6800 is compatible with Shader Model 3.0 and is slightly cheaper.



The website is Computer Shopper.

That's the 6800LE. It's somewhere between the 6600GT and the 6800GS (they have replaced the GT with the GS, think it's slightly slower). It is a very good card. Though remember, you want a card with 256MB GDDR3 nowadays (you didn't say what that one is).

A new card has been ordered.

The card is: PowerColor X850 XT Platinum Edition VIVO AGP

Nice. But it's ATI.

Isn't that more expensive than what you said your price range was?

he must like ATI, or believes those games that say 'we run better on ati'

[quote:98cdb4038a="Species"]N-Vidia is the type of card I'm looking at.[/quote:98cdb4038a]
You sure Con?

Oh, BTW, they get paid to put that "runs better on" adverts in. They're not true. HL2 runs better on nVidia and I saw B&W2 has a "runs better on Pentium 4". WRONG!

well i could be wrong, probabily am, probabily his dad said 'ati are better than nvidia, lets get an ati card' or something along those lines