Doom 3

[Kevin Beall]

I have a Radeon 9800XT and am having problems playing Doom3. The whole
screen is full of static. It seems to be in a checkerboard pattern, but I
am unable to clear it up. I am also running: AMD FX-51 with WinXP and have
two Raptor HD's in a Raid 0 array... Really bumming me out. Any ideas? I
have downloaded all of the latest drivers, but with no difference.

 

[Pete D]

Are you overclocking anything?

 

[Conor]

I have a Radeon 9800XT and am having problems playing Doom3. The whole
screen is full of static. It seems to be in a checkerboard pattern, but I
am unable to clear it up. I am also running: AMD FX-51 with WinXP and have
two Raptor HD's in a Raid 0 array... Really bumming me out. Any ideas? I
have downloaded all of the latest drivers, but with no difference.

Does it do it in any other game? Are you using latest drivers?

 

[Kevin Beall]

Does it do it in any other game? Are you using latest drivers?

Negative on the overclocking. Currently, I am playing Call of Duty, Halo,
and City of Heroes. They all play fine. In fact, they all play
exceptionally well (as I would expect). And yes on the latest drivers.

 

[Nathan]

Last time that happened to me my video memory was bad.

 

[Tom Brown]

I have a Radeon 9800XT and am having problems playing Doom3. The whole
screen is full of static. It seems to be in a checkerboard pattern, but I
am unable to clear it up. I am also running: AMD FX-51 with WinXP and have
two Raptor HD's in a Raid 0 array... Really bumming me out. Any ideas? I
have downloaded all of the latest drivers, but with no difference.

That problem has been identified as overheating. Doom 3 is working your
9800XT harder than any other game has, and the ventilation in your PC is
insufficient to keep it cool. I played all the way through Doom 3 on my
9800XT with no problem, but I choose to leave my PC case wide open (no sides
or top at all) at all times, so I personally never experienced the problem.

Open up your case... get more fans... your choice...

 

[Conor]

Negative on the overclocking. Currently, I am playing Call of Duty, Halo,
and City of Heroes. They all play fine. In fact, they all play
exceptionally well (as I would expect). And yes on the latest drivers.

DEfinitely driver related then if all the others are fine.

 

[fish]

I agree.

That problem has been identified as overheating. Doom 3 is working your
9800XT harder than any other game has, and the ventilation in your PC is
insufficient to keep it cool. I played all the way through Doom 3 on my
9800XT with no problem, but I choose to leave my PC case wide open (no
sides
or top at all) at all times, so I personally never experienced the
problem.

Open up your case... get more fans... your choice...

 

[Pete D]

Do you have fast writes turned off? Try the Omega drivers.

 

[NightSky 421]

I have a Radeon 9800XT and am having problems playing Doom3. The whole
screen is full of static. It seems to be in a checkerboard pattern, but I
am unable to clear it up. I am also running: AMD FX-51 with WinXP and have
two Raptor HD's in a Raid 0 array... Really bumming me out. Any ideas? I
have downloaded all of the latest drivers, but with no difference.

Possible spoiler...


Well, I have a built-by-ATI 9800 Pro 128MB and when I played Doom 3 back in
August, I started getting speckles on the screen starting in the Hell
levels. It continued until the end of the game, but was not as bad after I
got out of the Hell levels. I have never overclocked my system in any way
and this problem has never occurred in any games before or since. I played
Doom 3 with the ATI Catalyst 4.7 drivers, which were current at that point
in time.

 

[Blaedmon]

....as suggested you could add more fans or simply underclock your card a
little. Less strain=less heat=no artifacts. Use something like ATiTool to
underclock.
Thats the simplest way to fix the problem, at no sacrifice to framerate (a
few mhz only). OR, you could also try out the custom D3 drivers released
either from ATI itself or 3rd-party such as Omegas - including the D3
optimised interaction file.

 

[johns]

I'm going to keep posting on this until somebody believes
me. Under SmartGart ... turn fast writes off, and set
AGP to 4x. In Far Cry video settings on high ... in
Doom3, the video settings pretty much mean nothing.
Screen 1024 x 768. Every single 9800 and 9600, I
have had to do that, or I get weird screens and lockups.
Run Catalyst 4.8 .. clean install.

johns

 

[Airman Thunderbird]

Well, I've killed two 9600XTs playing Doom3. No problems playing the
game, but leaving the machine for an hour or two afterward, on
returning, the video was dead. Newegg replaced both and I'm now on my
third one.

Finished Doom3 so don't think I'll go there anymore, tired of changing
out cards. No excessive heat levels on the GPU or CPU, by the way. No
overclocking, either. No "speckles", just dead cards. Is this the future
of gaming on PC, or just a Doom aberration?

 

[Noozer]

That problem has been identified as overheating. Doom 3 is working your
9800XT harder than any other game has, and the ventilation in your PC is
insufficient to keep it cool. I played all the way through Doom 3 on my
9800XT with no problem, but I choose to leave my PC case wide open (no sides
or top at all) at all times, so I personally never experienced the problem.

Open up your case... get more fans... your choice...

Or return in under warranty.

ANY card that is not overclocked should be able to perform at 100% load
indefinately as long as the case has adequate cooling. You shouldn't have to
add a bunch of crap just to keep a bum card working properly.

 

[NightSky 421]

Well, I've killed two 9600XTs playing Doom3. No problems playing the
game, but leaving the machine for an hour or two afterward, on
returning, the video was dead. Newegg replaced both and I'm now on my
third one.

Finished Doom3 so don't think I'll go there anymore, tired of changing
out cards. No excessive heat levels on the GPU or CPU, by the way. No
overclocking, either. No "speckles", just dead cards. Is this the future
of gaming on PC, or just a Doom aberration?

This is reminiscent of one guy who once posted to say that the Diablo 2
video test killed three of his monitors. I don't discount the possibility
of it, but there was a certain "wow" factor when I read it. I'd be spooked,
but my monitor never suffered from such problems.

 

[Mike Kirkland]

I'm going to keep posting on this until somebody believes
me. Under SmartGart ... turn fast writes off, and set
AGP to 4x. In Far Cry video settings on high ... in
Doom3, the video settings pretty much mean nothing.
Screen 1024 x 768. Every single 9800 and 9600, I
have had to do that, or I get weird screens and lockups.
Run Catalyst 4.8 .. clean install.

johns

Probably because you have a shitty mb. I can't even turn off
fastwrites using the latest beta drivers. I turn fastwrites off and
set AGP to 4X and then it tells me to reboot and then it retests my
system and automatically sets it back to AGP 8X and Fastwrites on.

 

[fish]

and 'his' motherboard is shitty?

LOL!!

Fastwrites are notorious for hampering overclocking results. It has NO
performance benefits whatsoever. I disable mine too.

I run my 9800Pro at 438/358 with the stock cooler. My system (P4c at 3.3ghz)
is water cooled and my case is properly ventilated although its not full of
fans howling like a pack of wolfs under a full moon. Doom3 never displays
any of the 'overheating' symptoms being mentioned here. I was considering
using a waterblock on my video card but quite frankly, its hasn't been
necessary.

BTW: Mike, try turning fastwrites off in the bios.

 

[QV]

ANY card that is not overclocked should be able to perform at 100% load
indefinately as long as the case has adequate cooling. You shouldn't have to
add a bunch of crap just to keep a bum card working properly.

I totally agree. If the card can't play Doom3, the card is DEFECTIVE.

I had the same issue as the original poster, and ATI exchanged my card
without reservations. The new one works fine and I didn't have to mess
around with more cooling fans or driver hacks. Some people may decide to
live with the sparkles, since other games work fine, but for how long?
Obviously the hardware is struggling and perhaps even being damaged further.
Also, there will be more Doom-engined games coming up and they might work
the card even harder for all we know. Don't get stuck with a POS.

 

[Kevin Beall]

and 'his' motherboard is shitty?

LOL!!

Fastwrites are notorious for hampering overclocking results. It has NO
performance benefits whatsoever. I disable mine too.

I run my 9800Pro at 438/358 with the stock cooler. My system (P4c at
3.3ghz) is water cooled and my case is properly ventilated although its
not full of fans howling like a pack of wolfs under a full moon. Doom3
never displays any of the 'overheating' symptoms being mentioned here. I
was considering using a waterblock on my video card but quite frankly, its
hasn't been necessary.

BTW: Mike, try turning fastwrites off in the bios.

Hmmm... it seems likely from this discussion that it actually is an
overheating problem. I placed an extra fan in the top of my computer to
help ventilate. Maybe I should consider using a watercooling device, too.
I know the computer is not getting excessively hot, though. I keep an eye
on my temps using SmartDoctor (for what it is worth). I have turned off
fastwrites, but still having the "speckling" problem...

 

[Shawk]

I totally agree. If the card can't play Doom3, the card is DEFECTIVE.

I had the same issue as the original poster, and ATI exchanged my card
without reservations. The new one works fine and I didn't have to mess
around with more cooling fans or driver hacks. Some people may decide to
live with the sparkles, since other games work fine, but for how long?
Obviously the hardware is struggling and perhaps even being damaged
further.
Also, there will be more Doom-engined games coming up and they might work
the card even harder for all we know. Don't get stuck with a POS.

Had the same issue with a Sapphire 9800Pro and Far Cry. RMA'd it back to
OC.uk and no probs with the replacement. Shaun