here it comes: why is my new GPU rubbish?

hinch · Post by **hinch** » 13 Dec 2006, 21:52

i see this question pop-up occasionally aand now it's my time to suffer

i ridded my computer of all the old drivers (safe mode, control panel, system, hardware, device manager, display adapater, 5500, driver uninstall.) and ran the nvidia nasty files remover. i shut off, put my new card in - checked it was running - started up the pc fully and installed the latest drivers from the website - checked it was all ok with the nvidia panel - good fine, running nice and cool all tests went well. i set up the card in the nvidia control panel exactly the same as my old card (2xAA quality = performance) to test it up against the old.

i went to the fs9.cfg and deleted the display device entry.

loaded up flight sim, all good no worries and i loaded up my test of london city airport with default fine weather in the default cessna.

60fps

good, more than twice as high than before (around 24fps)

i load up the captain sim 707 - i got about 14fps in it last night from the outside.

9fps.

what?!

i've tried the saab safir, cs yak-3, cs 707, flight replicas me262...all pretty rubbish and absolutely no better than before.

i've read BIOS and things can be stuck in the past, but this thing is meant to run games quite well and it's exactly the same as a (knackered!) fs5500...

(the screen has also started a terrible flicker so if i load up anything in full screen mode it shifts side to side - eg flight sim main menu, flight sim load menu, flight sim in flight menu...)

help please!

Post by **Garry Russell** » 13 Dec 2006, 22:16

Are you refresh screen rates set correctly andy other monitor settings?

Garry

speedbird591 · Post by **speedbird591** » 13 Dec 2006, 22:37

I'm sure you know this already - but just to make sure....

I seem to remember several people complaining of this effect with the latest nVidia driver (9.1.4.7) if you controlled the AA from the nVdia driver software. If you select 'Application Controlled' and set the AA in FS you don't get the distortion. I suffered the same thing and now run perfectly OK as I've stated. I think a lot of people reverted to the old driver because of this.

Ian

hinch · Post by **hinch** » 13 Dec 2006, 23:36

yeh, on my old card when i installed this driver i got distortion - but that was the screen stretching, this is just a flicker before resetting: annoying but i'm not concerned - it's the underperforming card i'm thinking of!

i'm going to install the drivers that come on cd, but i'm also concerned it's not connected to the power correctly and thus under-performing. my friend came over to do it, but it's certainly not done as advised elsewhere :think:

this is from directx as it's the only place i know you can see the settings:

hinch · Post by **hinch** » 14 Dec 2006, 00:23

4xAA
4xAnisotropic filtering
1280x1024
70hz refresh rate
MSN, PSP running also

weird!

well, maybe...i installed the manufacturers software which allows you to do some things. i overclocked the card a few mhz and it's woken it up no end! i didn't set my FPS to unlimited to see what it could do but i don't think it dropped below 23 with 50% 3D clouds and pretty high settings

it also reached a top temperature of 48degrees which amazed me, my old card was usually about 65! hehe.

we'll see how it goes...

ianhind · Post by **ianhind** » 14 Dec 2006, 00:29

Seems to be fixed now but for information.

A quick Google indicates that if the power wasn't connected to the card properly, the Nvidia control panel would pop up and tell you. Then it would make the card operate in safe mode to prevent a power problem.

On the 3-way connector, the black one goes to the video card, and one of the white ones to a spare hard disk power cable.

Kevin Farnell · Post by **Kevin Farnell** » 14 Dec 2006, 00:45

Hi Hinch

Just a thought, is your power supply sufficient for the new card?

Regards

Kevin

hinch · Post by **hinch** » 14 Dec 2006, 00:59

Kevin Farnell wrote:Hi Hinch

Just a thought, is your power supply sufficient for the new card?

Regards

Kevin

apparently so - i wouldn't know myself, fortunately there are places like here to help and i also study digital media - which has a few converts from computer programming and other assorted who know about hardware things. for now the woes are over but we'll see what it's like when i turn it on again tomorrow eep.

Kevin Farnell · Post by **Kevin Farnell** » 15 Dec 2006, 00:45

As I said, it was just a thought.
Hope it keeps firing on all cylinders.

Regards

Kevin

hinch · Post by **hinch** » 15 Dec 2006, 01:02

i've settled on my favourite setting, 4xAA is very nice, i take out the autogen because it's just too patchy and fill my skies with clouds - everything is looking nice and a good improvement.

next on the agenda is a soundcard to replace the onboard crackly lark