Defective 9500 Pro ?

[Luna64]

I got this card a few days ago, but after installing it I have been having some problems.


I have the following

Soyo P4 - 645DX Dragon Ultra MB
1.6ghz P4
512MB PC3000
Geforce 2 MX , but replaced it with the 9500 Pro
120Gig IBM HD
Onboard Sound

The Geforce 2 MX 32mb card would run the games Freespace 2, and Planetside at medium to low detail, but I would get very playable framerates.

The problem is that with the 9500 Pro I get very bad framerates in both games, even on the lowest detail settings.

I have tried every driver out there and still get the same results. I have also done a format and reinstall of XP and tried again.


With my system running at normal clock speeds I only get 7500 3d marks in 2001 SE. But if I overclock my P4 to 1.8ghz and my Memmory and 3d card also I can just get over 10,000 3d maks.


I am thinking about sending the card back for a new one because it should be able to run the same games as my Gefoce 2 MX at the same detail level but with higher framerates. But it does not, I usually get worse game play.


So does it sound like a bad card ? I can't think of anything else to do.

 

[Sazar]

what is your power supply unit rated...

 

[Luna64]

300w


but I also have 3 Hard drives, CD burner, and overclocked everything with increased voltage to everything.

I don't know if 300w would be enough.

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Luna64
300w


but I also have 3 Hard drives, CD burner, and overclocked everything with increased voltage to everything.

I don't know if 300w would be enough.

what brand is it as well ? sry..


ati recommends a 300w power supply with their r300 based cards... though this generally applies to the 9700 series...

it may be either your card is not getting enough juice or you may in fact have a defective card..

I recommend you try out the card on a friends pc... make sure it is a good pc if possible.. and then check back here with results to see if it works... that will save you the time and effort and money (possibly) of shipping your card back

also... try using the card w/o overclocking...

overclocking a rig can throw things slightly out of synch

just use stock voltages et al... and go from there....

 

[Luna64]

I have tried it with stock speeds on everything, and I got the same bad gameplay and only 7000 3d marks in 2001SE.

 

[Taurus]

what brand?

try it in another comp.

 

[Luna64]

Antec,

Came with my case.


I actually tried using some new drivers (Omega) and I have gotten a big fps boost.

There is still get some bad moments like when looking at a new world for the first time in some games, but that usually goes away after a few seconds.


At the moment I don't have any other PC to try it in so I am just going to return it for a new one and see what happens.

 

[LeeJend]

I'm running the antec 300w supply with a 9500 pro and a similar loadout.

By anychance is the bad gameplay tearing of the display as opposed to slow frame rate?

BTW I bench at 10,500 ro so with madonion 2001 ver330 and the system below.


If it is display tearing welcome to my nightmare. It turns out that the latest radeon driver defaults the vsync signal to OFF at the default performance/detail settings. TURN it ON! Vsync OFF screws up some games (like mechwar) but not others. The 6.13 driver from last fall defaults the vsync ON.

The Vsync setting is on a slider bar at the bottom of the D3d and OpenGl tabs.

It's a cheap attempt o raise benchmarks by a hair. Unappreciated by ATI customers.

 

[Luna64]

The only game i play at the moment is Planetside.

The frames per second have gone way up after installing the latest Omega drivers for ATI.


But the only problem i have is that when i am looking at something for the first time, it has to load it off the hard drive first.

So if I am running into a base for the first time, or going through a door to the outside, it gets really choppy while I walk around for like 10 seconds untill it all loads into my RAM ( i think thats what it's doing)


Like it's storing things in VM.

 

[LeeJend]

I get the same thing in mechwar. Rest of the games I play don't do it. Once a texture is loaded everything is smooth. It looks like this is an ATI feature.

The new Radeon driver, Catalyst 3.4, is supposed to be out today. Maybe that'll help.

UPDATE:
Just tried the Catalyst 3.4 drivers and got:

about the same madonion 2001 Ver 330 benchmark (actually a few hundred points less but thats within normal variations).
the madonion 2003 got about a 25% rating increase 2850-3560. There was a noticeable frame rate improvement.

No change to the jerkiness when loading new textures. Of well.

Link is:
http://mirror.ati.com/support/drive...DEON+9500+PRO&eula=&choice=agree&cmdNext=Next

 

[Crave]

The brand new ATI drivers have been released today might be best if you go and download those fromt he ATI web site.
Catalyst 3.4 Driver Suite Version: 6.14.10.6343 and the new control pannel Version: 6.14.10.5006
Might work after the update!!

 

[Luna64]

From the above post I have gatherd that they probably wont work.


I still might give it a try though.