comeasyouare

Ok so my computer is a Compaq Presario desktop (a month old)
It has 1 GB of RAM
AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (at 2.4 GHz)
200 GB harddrive
(it came with SiS 760 integrated video)

i bought a Asus N6200 and now here are the problems i am getting:
- Edges looking very jagged and not smooth
- Unusual choppiness in some games even on lowest settings
- Certain things like shadows in battlefield 2 and trees in planetside not loading correctly or loading slowly.
- When i change the resolution in game or while in windows to some certain resolutions the screen shifts down and theres a big black portion ontop and a bit of the bottom part of my screen is cut off.

I think my SiS had some texture problems and some jagged areas in WoW before and i had to run it on low on my old SiS but i think that was because it's a very bad card. Although Planetside ran better on my old card (on low settings)

So Do you think the problem is the videocard?
or something else?
Keep in mind i have the latest Nvidia drivers, and i have tested my RAM sticks already just to be sure.

I have called the place i got the N6200 from and i'm getting a Radeon 9550 Game FX edition to replace it next week.
I hope it fixes it.
please help me get to the bottom of this problem, i don't want to get the 9550 game FX just to find out that that wasnt the issue.
I am frustrated and cannot find out what the problem is.

UncleMacro

Except for your video card you've got a very quick machine. Both a Radeon 9550 and a GeForce 6200 (assuming it's the faster variety) are very low-end video cards. If you want any kind of acceptable performance in games like BF2 then you're going to have to get a higher-end video card like a GeForce 6600GT or up. Those start at about $150.

comeasyouare

Well, before i go and spend 200 - 250$ on a new good card
I want to see if anyone knows if a new card will fix my issue?
or could it be something else.

UncleMacro

- Edges looking very jagged and not smooth:
That just sounds like your card is too slow to run with full screen anti aliasing enabled and you have to run at a low screen resolution. You need a much faster card than a GeForce 6200 to run higher res with FSAA turned on

- Unusual choppiness in some games even on lowest settings
That's just a slow video card.

- Certain things like shadows in battlefield 2 and trees in planetside not loading correctly or loading slowly.
Not sure about that one. BF2 seems to have had quite a few display problems.

- When i change the resolution in game or while in windows to some certain resolutions the screen shifts down and theres a big black portion ontop and a bit of the bottom part of my screen is cut off.
Have you made monitor adjustments for each resolution you're using? The initial screen settings are often way off for various resolutions. You have to adjust the size and position of the screen individually for each screen resolution/refresh rate. You can do that with the monitor controls or with NVIDIA's control panel.

By the way, the fastest version of the Radeon 9550 is actually slower than the fastest version of the GeForce 6200. Whether you're stepping up or down in performance depends on which versions of the card you're dealing with.

comeasyouare

Ok but its sad if planetside looked better on my SiS.

And im going from a low end N6200 to a high end 9550
I dont play games that new

Just battlefield as the newest game
I play World of warcraft, planetside and americas army and maybe CS only.
So i hope the 9550 FX will fix my problem
Theres no way the edges are THAT BAD on americas army even (old game).

UncleMacro

Well if you have the 64 bit memory version of the GeForce 6200 then that's actually slower in some respects than onboard video. The 128 bit memory version of a Radeon 9550 is almost twice as fast as the 64 bit 6200. You could post some screenshots of your jaggy edges so folks can see if they're jaggier than usual. But I wouldn't expect much from a video card with 64 bit RAM.

comeasyouare

I'm going to bed now i'll post some in the morning.

And this news about how the 9550's faster is good news.

ebackhus

If you really want better performance I still have an ATi 9700 Pro card for sale. It'll beat out both the 6200 and 9550 easily. $79 + shipping and it's yours.

comeasyouare

I Can't
I now have a credit at that store.

comeasyouare

how come in every world of warcraft screenshot on the site i see jagged edges hmmmmmm.

lol i guess i didnt notice them, but every shot has jagged edges

This is strange i didnt notice it i dont think console games have this

But mine are worse but evryone has jagged edges ohh.

ebackhus

Even console games have "jaggies." It's because FSAA is a rather costly enhancement. Today's cards can do it easily, but early cards really got slow when using it.

comeasyouare

So the higher my anti aliasing setting is, the less ill notice my edges?

ebackhus

Yes, and the lower your frame rate will go depending on the AA method. If you play at something like 1280x1024 then the jaggies are virtually gone.

comeasyouare

Ok so the powercolor Radeon 9550 Game FX board is better then the Asus N6200?

Compumaniac12

its the middle of the old instead of the low of the new, it will perform slightly better, but wont "run" the newer games for as long.
i get amazing performance out of my 6200, but i tweaked it abit.

hopefully the 9550 will solve the problem, im not sure where else to look, a new compaq shouldnt have agp or power problems

comeasyouare

Ok so how do i overclock it?
I have never overclocked a card before but i heard it can be clocked to a 9600 without a problem.
Tell me please how to clock it and whats the safe level thats not dangerous?
I want to get a bit better performance i don't want to risk it overheating or breaking.

comeasyouare

Ok i put the new card in and now the edges are completely the same.
How do i turn on anti aliasing on thew ATI card?
Also how do i overclock it

UncleMacro

You can either turn anti-aliasing on in the games or you can force all games to use it in ATI's driver. Just find the anti-aliasing option in the game and enable it. That's the easiest way to do it. It will probably be off by default for both a GeForce 6200 and a Radeon 9550. You can also use the ATI display driver to force all applications to use anti-aliasing independent of the game settings. This page shows how to do it if you're running the Catalyst Control Center. This page shows you how to do it if you're running the older (and smaller and more efficient) control panel. Basically, you select the "3D" window, go to "antialiasing" and then disable "'Let the application decide" or "application preference" and then set anti-aliasing to 4X.

You can overclock your 9550 using ATITool. Keep in mind that you void your warranty and can damage the card while doing this. This page shows you how to underclock with ATITool. Just follow the instructions there except you're going to overclock rather than underclock. Your current GPU clock rate is 250MHz. You can increase it by dragging the "Core" slider bar upwards to set your new clock rate and then click "Set Clock". Then you can run the artifact test to make sure the card can handle it. I'd increase slowly in 10MHz increments (250, 260, 270, etc.) until you hit 320 or 330 (if you get that far). If you go much above that you may overload your heatsink and cook the GPU. You can probably safely increase the GPU clock from 250MHz to 325MHz which will turn the 9550 into a 9600. I wouldn't mess with the memory clock rate because it's pretty easy to damage RAM by overclocking for too long. You can decrease the likelihood of damaging the card by running the case with the side off and rigging a desk fan to blow on the video card.

Keep in mind that a 9600 level card is still not going to be pretty slow on games like BF2. Enabling anti-aliasing will smooth up your jaggies but will slow the games down even more.

comeasyouare

Too late.
I messed the card somehow, big green lines on my screen now.
I was forced to remove it and am on my SiS for now.
It sucked anyways.
I e-mailed the guy and told him the card was like that when i installed it.
So he'll hopefully give me a refund