nVidia and Hammer

I've just got a GeForce FX 5950 Ultra and it runs great... only when I
use hammer the 3d texture window really gets screwed up. I mean
hammer lagged alot before... but now its insane, it locks up for
seconds at a time and is just slow. The more I use it the more
texture errors I get (like flickering, color/size change, etc.)

any one know of any problems there are with this card? I think my Drivers are up to date, I installed them about a week ago.

I just switched over from a Radeon 9600 pro, could the ATI to Nvidia switch be to blame?

Explain to me exactly why you stepped down from a 9600 again?

Seriously though, In spite of Crono's claim that TOTALLY removing the drivers in not a necessity, I am still convinced that this is however the case. I have had nothing but horrible results because I failed to remove them completely.

There are programs that seek out these driver extensions, google search for them and use them, tis why they were created.

When it is all done, use "regclean" to remove any residual registration crap. I can get you the last known version if you like. Its freeware, so there will be no issues with its authenticity.

and

explain exactly how a 5950 is soooo much better than the crappy 5900?

whispers

put the damned 9600 back in till you can get a decent card silly. :/

[edit] I was thinking of the 5200.. but my first theory is still essentially correct.

also..

do not chance generic drivers. get the newest official ones from nVidia.

Lastly, since I now have my numbers corrected, tell me why you purchased a 5950? you could have had a card better than a 9600 and retained your ATI drivers by purchasing another ATI card.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

ive only got a 5200 but im wanting to upgrade but im low budget any suggestions

(i know this had nothing to do with the topic but id thought id ask...)

rival said:
ive only got a 5200 but im wanting to upgrade but im low budget any suggestions

(i know this had nothing to do with the topic but id thought id ask...)

you live in the US?

try here, I fully support this site.
A 9800 pro 256 megs card is fairly powerful and low priced now that the X-??? series is out.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I uninstalled all the drivers, I didin't clear the reg... so I'll try that.

As for the card and quality, the 5950 runs great the only problem is with hammer...

Also, I figured that this was a good deal. My 9600 was getting
old and I was stuck with really old drivers because if I installed any
other driver the card would crash my whole system if I did anything
with it.

I got it from a friend for $100, it was a 5900 that was some how bumped
up to 5950 power (the nvidia window thing lables it as a 5950) so I'm
very very happy with it.

Is it possible that the error is comming from my mobo, processor. or
RAM? It seems like a texture based error and from what I know
textures have to be put on RAM, dunno...

DrGlass said:
I got it from a friend for $100, it was a 5900 that was some how bumped up to 5950 power (the nvidia window thing lables it as a 5950) so I'm very very happy with it.

Is it possible that the error is comming from my mobo, processor. or RAM? It seems like a texture based error and from what I know textures have to be put on RAM, dunno...

Is it possible that it was poorly modded?

and

what are your plans for the 9600? I could use it.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

orpheus said:
poorly modded?

and

what are your plans for the 9600? I could use it.

It is possible, but it runs great with other programs. I'll get another friend of mine to run some tests on it.

Yeah, I dont think I'm going to use it anymore. I'll look at
e-bay and PM you a price, or you can just tell me how much you want to
pay.

lol my raedon 9200 can cope with hammer!

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I need a new sig

lol my raedon 9200 can cope with hammer!

thats the thing, apart from the driver problem, my radeon 9600 pro ran hammer fine.

ok heres a suggestion

http://www.drivercleaner.net

this is a little tool that should be used if your going to switch between ati and nvidia cards

btw i have a geforce 6800 ultra and while playing i would get occasional moments where the game would lock up for a minute and the sound would loop insainly but then it would all of a sudden kick right back and play normally

that rarly happens now im supposin because of the updates steam puts out every week

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the only problem with steam updating things every week is it doesent give the developers an incentive to playtest thier work, so we do it for them

DrGlass said:
Yeah, I dont think I'm going to use it anymore. I'll look at e-bay and PM you a price, or you can just tell me how much you want to pay.

You look, you decide. I could use it sure, but I would rather you felt good about the price since I can get along without it if you decided to sell it elsewhere first. :smile:

I would like first crack at it though. It would be a step up from a 9000 which is running perfectly fine in my old PC.

/me will search pricewatch to determine some value for a 9600 pro.. I assume this is a 128 meg card?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

The geforce5 FX series is a load of crap... outpreformed by the geforce 4 series

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Signature? What signature!?

My fx 5200 runs fine.

Though i got a personal cinema edition with al sorts of fancy software
and some sort of box in wich i can link up all sorts of media equipment.

And i got it free, after they lost my last card that disappeard in the factory for repairs.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

The geforce5 FX series is a load of crap... outpreformed by the geforce 4 series

This is only true of the GF4 Ti 4200 outperforming the GF5 FX 5200.
It's untrue for any other cards in the GF4 and GF5 FX series. Look it
up sometime.

Indeed - two of my flatmates have 5900's and they get significantly
better performance than my ti4200. It is true that the FX series is
rather poor at running DX9 based games, and HL2 in particular though,
hence why it is suggested that you run it with only 8.1 effects.

Best bargain card at the moment, in the UK at least, is the Geforce
6600GT. You can currently pick them up between ?100-?140, depending on
the shop and manufacturer.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/6600AGP_Series.html

http://www.dabs.com/uk/Search2/results.htm?searchPhrase=6600gt

Cheapest I've seen is the DabsValue one at ?100 (PCI-E) or ?110 (AGP),
but I'd probably go for the Gainward PowerPack! AGP Ultra/1960XP 128mb
"Golden Sample" at ?135.

If those are a little too pricey, then the 9800pro is still a good buy and you can normally pick them up around ?80-100.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

ATi and nVidia are bitter rivals. Make sure to get rid of all that ATi crap outta your system. Then reinstall the nVidia drivers. I use the Omega drivers with my nvidia card and not the manufactures drivers. I get better ping rates, better FPS, and I have no problems in Hammer, well unless I am useing the displacement tool.. the program will lock up my system, but thats not a video card issue thats a Hammer issue.

I take it Orpheus does nto like nVidia.. and prefers ATi.. we all have our faults and we spotted one of Oprhs big ones.. lol

I have noticed that ATi seems to run on Steam better than nVidia, but I think thats because it was tweeked to run better on thier hardware. ( hince the little ATi logo on the box )

I have a 5950 Ultra and love it. I used to dislike ATi a bunch because they never supported there hardware, drivers would take years to update, and the quality of there stuff was way below par.. but they have really stepped up some and given nVidia a true rival in the vid card business, heck I have even debated getting a new ATi card over nVidia, but I think I may stay loyal to my lean green vid card machine.m =)

http://www.omegadrivers.net/ ( the omega Drivers I use )

ATi were by far the best in the last generation, while for most part,
nVidia rule this one. I don't get people having blind loyalty to the
different companies - just buy the card that is suits your needs the
best.

ATi have generally got much better DirectX support, while nVidia rule
on OpenGL. The biggest engines on each are source for DirectX, and Doom
3 for OpenGL. So if you like playing source engine games the most, then
you are best off with an ATi card (particularly if you are buying a
last gen card), while if you like Doom 3 engine games (such as the
upcoming Quake 4) then you will be better off wth nVidia.

Moneyshot - ping shouldn't have anything to do with your graphics card
drivers. The gfx card is just churning through vertices and textures,
it has nothing to do with your networking stuff.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I do NOT have blind loyalties thank you.. I like both cards equally. I was just curious as to why he would more/less step laterally instead of going up markedly.. I do not feel that a 5950 is far enough better than a 9600 pro to warrant it.

If he had a 9000 like mine, or even a crappy 5200 he would be moving up several levels, but I do not think there is a wide gap between a 9600 pro and a 5950.

I would get a 6800GT almost if not as fast as an X-800 so do not think me blindly faithful.

I have however had better luck with ATI drivers and editing than nVidia ones, course they were older cards. My 9000 did a far better job and my 440 did. (I think thats my nVidia card) both were 64 meg cards.

Anywho's.. I prefer my 9800 pro. I would chose it over a 5950, but that doesn't make it a bad card.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I would take a 9800 pro over a 5950 as well, but a 5950 is nVidia's top
of the range last generation card, while a 9600 pro is smack bang mid
range of ATi's last gen. Take a look at these benchmarks to see that
the 9600 pro is really quite far below the 5950...

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-04.html

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Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Some of those scores look funny. They scored a 9500 better than the 9600. :/

For all we know, Docs motherboard may either not support they card or the bios needs updated to do so.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Thats because in some regards, the 9500 was a better card than the 9600
that replaced it. Look at some of the benchmarks in this article about
the 9600 to see that the 9500 outclasses it quite often.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDU4LDQ=

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Some of those scores look funny. They scored a 9500 better than the 9600. :/
For all we know, Docs motherboard may either not support they card or the bios needs updated to do so.

I updated my mobo, my bios, my everything. I spent weeks trying
to get my 9600 to run on my computer with the latest drivers but when
ever I tryed anything it never worked. I think my computer just
didn't like the card.

now the Nvidia works great, except in hammer.

[edit] I've installed the omega drivers, Does my card not suppport Dx
9? fired up hl2 and looked in my options to see hardware Dx was
at 8.1!

Click start, click run, type in dxdiag hit enter.

Then if you need to get DirectX 9.0c

omega drivers seriously F**ked my computer, I'm going back to the
offical drivers and I'm going to clean out my reg and everything...
what a pain

Im sorry man, they work for me. Im bummed about that, because I recommended them and you got burned. Im really sorry. Running DXDIAG wont do anything but give you info on your machine dxdrivers and video drivers and what not.

Sorry to hear about what happened. In MoneyShot's defense I've been
using OmegaDrivers for quite a while now because neither ATI nor DELL
support driver updates for their laptops... so Omega saved me and these
drivers are the only reason I can run new games. I haven't had
any problems in the year or so I've used them.

Anyway, I hope you can get it all sorted out.

Yeah, its not a problem, I may have installed them wrong.

anyways, it seems to be working now and I'm going to test hammer now.

I was an Omegadriver fan till I got my new comp. It royally screwed the pooch for me. I can only run the official drivers.

I have great results however, so I am not complaining.

Doc, if you need regclean go to my briefcase

click "show all" at the bottom, then look inside the regclean folder.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Well I re-installed and used http://www.drivercleaner.net

looks like its working well, used hammer for a few hours and it ran
fine. about 2 hours into it though the textures flickered a bit,
but no crashing and abnoraml slow down.

games run fine, etc.

Doom 3 runs DirectX by the way. All those fancy effects in all the games that everyone hypes up are DX effects. And both companies run DX about the same. There's not much of a difference. However, nVidia is just easier to work with other operating systems and Ati still has pretty bad drivers. It's sad when the official drivers are worse then 3rd party drivers.

You don't have to whipe your system of the Ati drivers. That isn't the issue and it's obviously not the issue because the problem is with only one program. I don't know what the issue is, but a driver conflict is rediculous. (Taking that, as far as I know, Windows just loads one file for each driver. That file is the current driver everything else is ignored. If it isn't, that shows how crappy Windows is.)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Doom 3 only uses DirectX for DirectInput and DirectSound. It doesn't
use Direct3D - it uses OpenGL for its 3D rendering. The "DX effects"
you talk about are, I assume, just the shader effects.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Why doesn't my Geforce 5950 ultra use Dx 9 in HL2? I have 9.0c
installed and all the new drivers and crap... arg! hl2 looks like crap
with out shaders! I want my reflective water!

It still uses shaders - it just doesn't use shader model 2.0 effects
(such as the highest quality water). As I mentioned before, last
generation nVidia cards (such as yours) get pretty poor performance in
HL2 under DX9, so it uses 8.1 instead. You miss out on some of the top
effects but it apparently improves performance significantly. I think
you can force it on by using "-dxlevel 9" on your HL2/CSS or whatever
launch options. There is plenty info on this around, have a search on
the steam forums or something and you should get the info easy enough.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

make a shortcut to HL2dm

right click on it and scroll down to properties..

out this line, or make sure its in there

"C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 320 -dxlevel 90 -game "hl2mp"

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I have never had any driver issue with my Radeon 9800Pro. I did, however, have an in-game stall once. I am suspecting that it's induced by a Steam update.

Nothing ever crashed, but the stalled did worry me briefly. Everything just froze, with the sound looping in the background for about five seconds. After it came out of the seizure spell, everything worked perfectly. It only happened once in the entire game.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

warlord said:
ok heres a suggestion

http://www.drivercleaner.net

this is a little tool that should be used if your going to switch between ati and nvidia cards

Oh yes.. Thanx for suggesting this program.. /me likes.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Ok here is the problem, the textures that are displayed in the 3d view
of my hammer get really f**ked up and my computer runs very slow.

Then if I switch my 3D view to flat, everything is ok again!...

I'm so stumpted.

DrGlass said:
Ok here is the problem, the textures that are displayed in the 3d view of my hammer get really f**ked up and my computer runs very slow.

Then if I switch my 3D view to flat, everything is ok again!...

I'm so stumpted.

Starts chanting.. "DRIVERS,DRIVERS,DRIVERS"

in case you missed it.. DRIVERS.

/runs

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I have the new driver, I cant seem to find old drivers... and the 3rd party drivers killed my computer.

need something else! arg!

nVidia keeps all drivers on file at the home site Doc.. Somehow I doubt that they are unavailable, but tis a funny thing that no one with a 5950 has had issues so far. You did use the driver cleaner and all that jazz I mentioned before.. Right?

I wasn't kidding about driver clashes.. They do exist.

[edit] Archived drivers

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yeah I cleaned out everything, well not my .cab but I did use driver clean.

well... now that I think about it, I do have an "ATI control panel" in
my add/remove list but when I try to uninstall it gives me an
error. "Error extracting support files: ...can not find file"

I maybe didn't clean out my reg well though. bah I dont know