Member Avatar for jpt62089

Hey I bought an ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB graphics card back in November... I installed it on my moms PC and it worked just fine... I could run HL2 on halfway-full almost no problems (when I got another 512MB RAM it worked with no problems just a lil slow on loading screens)

THen I bought my own PC:

  • AMD Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.0GHz not OC and Socket 754
  • 200 GB HDD
  • 1 Gig RAM (one stick is PNY idk what the other is) PC 2700 333 MHz
  • Biostar K8VGA-M Mother board
  • 500Watt PSU
  • and more

I installed the card and the latest drivers just fine... but when I ran Half Life 2 and played it for a few minutes a TON of artifacts (dots all over which appear to use some lighting effects) appeared... they disappear every time the game loads a new level or I change any settings...

I also noticed UT04 did the same in lighted area... I contacted ATI and they told me to change a few settings in BIOS but didnt help... then they told me to send it in for repairs.... when I got it back I still had the same problem... Then I contacted Biostar and they told me to try a different card but I cant because of finacual problems and no other friends have cards i can borrow...

Then they told me to do a BIOS update and I had to go buy/install a floppy drive to do this.... but it didnt work....

also a while ago after I got my card back from ATI just for the heck of it I tried changing AGP 8x to AGP 4x and HL2 ran just fine.... but I want to run it on 8x for hte full HL2 experience!

Is there anything else I can try? I am desperate for an end to this battle....

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Member Avatar for jpt62089

bump! *sry if this isnt allowed....*

Member Avatar for Coconut Monkey

also a while ago after I got my card back from ATI just for the heck of it I tried changing AGP 8x to AGP 4x and HL2 ran just fine.... but I want to run it on 8x for hte full HL2 experience!

That's a common fix, along with disabling fast-writes. Performance difference? Hardly any!

When you sent the card back for repairs, were you actually told it was replaced/repaired?

Is the card running rather warm at all? Try a quick thermal test using an open case and a deskfan blowing right on the video card (unless you happen to have thermal monitoring on the card and a readout in the control panel).

Member Avatar for Catweazle

Agreed. Some ATi Radeon cards do not handle running at AGP 8X very well in some motherboards. Stick to AGP 4X

Performance difference? A few percentage points at best ;) For a 'full HL2 experience' you would need to replace the card with a considerably more capable one!

Member Avatar for jpt62089

oh well I was planning on getting a socket 939 with PCI-E in the next year anyway :p

thanks for trying to help!

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