Camaron

I've been having problems with my Sapphire 3850. To simplify the explaining process, I'll let this screenshot do the talking (taken after a canyourunit test for COD4):



Specs:

Intel Xeon Dual 2.8GHz
IBM Intellistation Z Pro
2.0GB RAM
425w PSU
30GB HDD

Any help/suggestions/ideas are welcome. I've installed, uninstalled, and reinstalled the drivers a bazillion times with no luck.

Thanks in advance

stressfreesoul

You are 100% positive you have the correct drivers? As this is a Sapphire card and as such you need their catalyst driver hotfix to make it completely compatible with thier card.
What operating system do you use? (Windows XP, Linux, etc)

Camaron

Yes, I'm positive. I just reinstalled the 8.6 hotifx for the quadriillionth time. I'm also getting a DirectX error whenever I try to run COD4.

Also, running XPSP2

I got this card yesterday and have yet to get it to work. I'm very disappointed with ATi at the moment. What pisses me off the most about the above screenie is the shader model. This card supports 4.0 and it shows up as 0.0. *** right?

Also, this is the message in the catalyst control panel:

Graphics software:

Driver Packaging Version Not Available
Provider ATI Technologies Inc.
2D Driver Version 6.14.10.6822
2D Driver File Path System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Video/{4ABB3F42-3601-447B-856B-9DCF424CC544}/0000
Direct3D Version 6.14.10.0590
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.7659
Catalyst® Control Center Version 2008.0602.2243.38732
AIW/VIVO WDM Driver Version 6.14.10.6238
AIW/VIVO WDM SP Driver Version 6.14.10.6238

Graphics Hardware:

Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP
Device ID 9515
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 0028
Subsystem Vendor ID 174B

Graphics Bus Capability AGP
Maximum Bus Setting AGP 4X

BIOS Version Not Available
BIOS Part Number Not Available
BIOS Date Not Available

Memory Size 512 MB
Memory Type DDR3

Core Clock in MHz 669 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 829 MHz

Primary Display Yes

Perhaps you can help verify that I have the correct drivers?

stressfreesoul

So this problem only occurs when you try to play a 3D game? Do you know what type of AGP slot you have (4x or 8x)?
Looking at this...
You only7 have 4x AGP capabilities, so maybe the card cant run at full speed to render the 3D environment.

Camaron

Naw, I was messing around with the settings in CCC and changed it 4x on the very small likelihood that it would fix anything. It does run in 8x by default.

I also have a refresh problem with my screen, which forces me to turn hardware acceleration all the way off. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the whole point of having the card? For hardware acceleration, better graphics, etc?

COD4 is the only thing I've tested it with, but I'm sure it won't run other things due to the DirectX error I get.

As an example, I had a Nvidia Quadro 4 980XL card previously on the system and it didn't even have the refresh problem. And that card is about 4-5 years old. The only reason I got the new one, as you can imagine, is because it doesn't support current games.

I also wiped my system to clean any straggling nvidia drivers, and reinstalled the ATi drivers. Still didn't work.

This is a headache and a half to say the least.

Camaron

Anyone have any ideas? Before this falls to the bottom? :S

stressfreesoul

This is a difficult one, Im gonna pass this under the nose of someone way more experienced than me.

Machado

I have the exact 100% same problem - from the error to the refresh.

Camaron, I read on the Sapphire forums that 8.5 was better than 8.6 - it didn't work for me. If you search you can still find the older drivers, on another forum I read that 8.4 (for instance) works with some people but 8.5 and 8.6 don't, and for others its the same only with 8.5 or 8.6 - in other words it's a glorious bunch of uselessness but I'd say give it a try - it might work for you. Try both with and without the hotfix.

Other than that - make sure hardware acceleration is actually enabled, and also if you have an on-board gfx card make sure the drivers aren't still in use.

Well, I'm hoping someone can show us the way - I've had no more luck than Camaron so far :( ATI isn't helping one bit either with their discontinue of support for AGP cards...

Anyway, it's a well-known and very common problem.

some links on the subject:

http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=18193

http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=18262

Camaron

Well thank you for the reply, but I actually figured it out. I upgraded to Vista, problem solved.

It seems XP was the whole problem somehow, I'm now sure how it works, but I installed Vista, installed fresh 8.6 catalyst and it worked perfect the very first time, unlike XP.

Now I can run COD4, Rainbow Six Vegas, GRAW2, GMOD, etc on high settings.

Hope this helps :)

Machado

unfortunately vista is not an option for me (not yet, anyway)

I'm gonna try 8.3 which is widely recommended and see if it works - will let you know the result