Technical card question.

Don't laugh, cause i am not in the mood presently, later might be better.

I bought this card last night, yup its basic bottom rung i know, but it is a DX9 card.

why does HL2 refuse to acknowledge this? is there something i am overlooking?

Did you get PCI or AGP? Dunno if HL2 likes PCI...

agp..

It's HL2 that causes this. I think Valve set it to run the 5000 series as DX8 rather than 9 due to better performance. I have the 5900 and it does the same. There was a console command to change to DX9 in the CS:S Beta but I don't know if that still exists.

geforceFX cards are totally crap with dx9

thats why they are set to dx8 as default.

add -dxlevel 90 to the launch options for it to work. But you'll have like ~10fps then

Radeon all the way! But at least yours is AGP orph.

sighs

thanx guys, i will work on this. its more powerful than my 9000, but its not doing its job. i must have something setup wrong.

checking drivers now..

thanx again.

this is bulls**t. a substantially bigger card and its worse than my 9000 was/is

is everyone having trouble with Nvidia and HL2?

screw it, i am not going to argue with a damned video card..

/me reckons i'll just send out for one instead of buying local.

thanx guys.. goes to show you, convenience is not always best :sad:

sure would have liked to use those 256 megs of ram though :/

Ahah! The fx5200! Even though it has 256mb, this will only run HL2 on
directx 8. Valve made an announcement before HL2's release that the
fx5200 was set to run on directx 8 on HL2 because of "problems" and the
card would bearly run the game at all. Some community site (can't
remember which) then investigated this, forcing the directx level to 9,
and discovered weird glitches like the water not rendering at all etc.

Interestingly, I had a quick look through some files for Dawn of War,
which included two text files. ati.txt was blank, but nvidia.txt
contained soem commands and a comment to the effect of "Nvidia cards
report they can't handle something-or-other, they certainly can! This command forces them to". Looks like the GeForces are perfectly capable, it's just the drivers.

yeah i have a geforceFX5600 and i found a tool somewhere that made hl2
think my card was an ati9800, which resulted at everything rendered
perfectly in directx9, although at slower fps than dx8 would have.

I dunno but i have this idea ati has been giving valve some monies to make geforce cards seem less good :razz:

conspiracy!!

is everyone having trouble with Nvidia and HL2?

Well... I have an Nvidia Geforce 6600GT (only 128mb of memory), it
didnt give me any problems in HL2 so far - but it's not a FX5xxx like
yours...

Whats the difference in HL2 between dx8 and 9.

There are some articles out there doing comparisons, you should look them up. Search the news archives on PHL for example.

You could'nt of picked a worse new to card to run HL2. nVidia cards are slower at running HL2 anyway, but the 5200 is a pile of s**t. Its the kind of card they bundle with most computers these days.

I recommend getting a refund on this card and then get a nVidia 6600GT (?130 or $240, probably cheaper in USA) This would be ideal but if you don't want to spend that much don't go below say and ATI 9700 / 9700pro (?90 - $167)

The XFX 6600GT(AGP) is a good buy if you have a little bit extra cash. Plus the latest nVidia drivers has produced a significant improvement in framerate 4 HL2, so i'm told.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_6600_GT.html

this is bulls**t. a substantially bigger card and its worse than my 9000 was/is

is everyone having trouble with Nvidia and HL2?

No, mine runes great. I've got a GF4. It just doesn't support all the effects, so it doesn't render them.

Ive got a GF2. It runs fine - I actually get good fps - but all the bells and whistles are off.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting mazemaster</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Ive got a GF2. It runs fine - I actually get good fps - but all the bells and whistles are off. </DIV></DIV>

i loaded the map that agent smith sent me, because i knew how it ran on my 9000.

it ran worse.

i turned everything on low, or off. and it still ran like crap. from the corners i never got over 7fps.

i dunno what was the issue, but its now back at the store.

in low traffic areas, it never got over 30fps, and thats ridiculous with nothing at all on.

i also tried 3 different sets of drivers all to no avail.

i did manage to get it to see it as a DX9 card with that commandline that pericolo posted, and the good news is, no bad effects were present, at least none worse than already.
i am at a loss as to how come this card failed me so badly. even assuming the 5200 is not great, it is markedly bigger than a 9000ATI.

HL2 runs all nvidia cards of the gforce5 series in DX8. TO get it to run DX9. go to the startup options and type -dxlevel9 (i think thats the command)

You got good drivers Orph? Try some different suites and see which is good.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting rs6</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>HL2 runs all nvidia cards of the gforce5 series in DX8. TO get it to run DX9. go to the startup options and type -dxlevel9 (i think thats the command) </DIV></DIV>
allow me to reiterate, the card run like crap in either DX8 or DX9.. i tried them both.

mine runs really smooth in dx8

but i really ahte how valve has turned of normal mapped models and
reflective water there. Those effects should work perfectly in dx8
(atleast they did in the alpha :razz: )

mine runs really smooth in dx8

but i really ahte how valve has turned of normal mapped models and
reflective water there. Those effects should work perfectly in dx8
(atleast they did in the alpha :razz: )

They do. They run on mine, which is
a "DX8 Card".

Although, this entire process of "DX
version cards" is ridiculous and annoying. I f**king hate
DirectX

The XFX 6600GT(AGP) is a good buy if you have a little bit extra
cash. Plus the latest nVidia drivers has produced a significant
improvement in framerate 4 HL2, so i'm told.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_6600_GT.html

That's my card - runs HL2 nicely, got it for $220 or so from newegg.com

A friend of mine came across this a while back:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=838630

Sounds pretty fishy. Anyway, I have a mediocre 5700LE and HL2 runs fine on it. I just had to turn the shader detail to 'low'. I have the config set for dx9, seem to be getting dx9 effects (like warping) with no real performance hit. Like that article says, it's the shaders.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
i am at a loss as to how come this card failed me so badly. even assuming the 5200 is not great, it is markedly bigger than a 9000ATI.

</DIV></DIV>

Like i said before the 5200 is probably the worst card in the world, ok there are worse, but Valve said that you should use at least a 5600 (4 running HL2 in DX9). Get an old ATI 9700 upwards for DX9, otherwise nVidia 6600 GT agp is the way to go.
All 5200's should be put on a big bonfire and melted.

well the the fx5200 is like the MX to the ti ..its a low end card ..not to be rude ;P but what makes them worse is thay have dx9 h/w what that cant handle at all its like giving a minni , Bigfoot tires .........;P