New video cards in friend's computer result in garbled look in games?

[Shinnokxz]

My friend recently bought GTA: SA for his Duron 1.3 Ghz, 768MB, GeForce
2 MX system. I told him that the system will probably barely play that,
and suggested to get a new video card if anything. He went and bought a
GeForce FX 5200 and installed it (I don't know if he correctly
removed/installed drivers) and said that Windows looks awesome, but the
game had lots of messed up colors- all extremely red and other random
colors, and extremely pixilated and overall garbled with a lot of
artifacts. Sometimes you can barely read out words in the menus and
sometimes you can't-- But the video card still functioned and worked
fine in Windows.

So upon closer inspection of his PC, I figured to format the drive and
put a fresh install of Windows on as there were a lot of other issues
with his current install of XP. Also, he returned the GeForce FX 5200
and got an Asus GeForce 6200. The card installed without hassle and
Windows looked nice and the drivers install without problem, but the
garbled video in GTA:SA still exists. Before he got the new 6200 he put
in his old GeForce 2 and it worked- the picture wasn't garbled, albeit
obviously slow due to the old video card and hardware.

His board is a AGP 4X board and the card supports it. Could it be that
he purchased to BAD video cards in a row that actually suffer from the
exact problem? He got the two cards from completely different places, by
the way- Wal-mart and Newegg. Thanks for any help

 

[johns]

He is buying nVidia garbage. The cards may be OK, but more
than likely the games have not a clue about the screwball
cards ... something I'm really tired of. You probably need
to patch the games to actually run on nVidia cards. That
has been true of a bunch of them ... like Far Cry.

johns

 

[SteveH]

He is buying nVidia garbage. The cards may be OK, but more
than likely the games have not a clue about the screwball
cards ... something I'm really tired of. You probably need
to patch the games to actually run on nVidia cards. That
has been true of a bunch of them ... like Far Cry.

johns

I've run FarCry on three different cards in the same PC with no problem
whatsoever. Come to think of it I can't think of the last time I had a
problem with a game and a Nvidia card.

SteveH

 

[johns]

Bullshit! Go to the Far Cry site and read 1000 posts
on it.

johns

 

[JAD]

My friend recently bought GTA: SA for his Duron 1.3 Ghz, 768MB, GeForce
2 MX system. I told him that the system will probably barely play that,
and suggested to get a new video card if anything. He went and bought a
GeForce FX 5200 and installed it (I don't know if he correctly
removed/installed drivers)

Bingo!



and said that Windows looks awesome, but the

game had lots of messed up colors- all extremely red and other random
colors, and extremely pixilated and overall garbled with a lot of
artifacts. Sometimes you can barely read out words in the menus and
sometimes you can't-- But the video card still functioned and worked
fine in Windows.

So upon closer inspection of his PC, I figured to format the drive and
put a fresh install of Windows on as there were a lot of other issues
with his current install of XP. Also, he returned the GeForce FX 5200
and got an Asus GeForce 6200. The card installed without hassle and
Windows looked nice and the drivers install without problem, but the
garbled video in GTA:SA still exists.

using directx or OGL? DX? reinstall directx9c also check that the nvid
driver is dx9c compatable
check aperture size in bios...maybe a reset cmos or at least an escd update


Before he got the new 6200 he put

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

His board is a AGP 4X board and the card supports it. Could it be that
he purchased to BAD video cards in a row that actually suffer from the
exact problem? He got the two cards from completely different places, by
the way- Wal-mart and Newegg. Thanks for any help

This is interesting. Just for shits & giggles, why don't you have him
send the second card back and try a radeon 9550? They sell those at
Wal Mart too, it seems to be their stock ATI offering.

I just put together a cheapie gaming system with an ATI card and I'm
getting good performance on everything.

Charlie

 

[Marcel Overweel]

Bullshit! Go to the Far Cry site and read 1000 posts
on it.

johns

If you think all of nVidia is garbage, then why are you reading this group?
You probably have had some bad luck with a card.
I've played a lot of games and my last four cards were nVidia.
No problems worth mentioning.
Can't say much about FarCry, I have played the game a few times at several
locations (friends and such), and I know some where using nvidia cards..
...no visual problems as far as I could see.


Marcel

 

[chrisv]

I've run FarCry on three different cards in the same PC with no problem
whatsoever. Come to think of it I can't think of the last time I had a
problem with a game and a Nvidia card.

Well, doesn't the DirectX layer and driver pretty-much isolate the
game from the hardware? If everything is installed correctly, the
game should not know or care what brand of video card is being used.

 

[chrisv]

Bullshit! Go to the Far Cry site and read 1000 posts
on it.

johns

Learn about quoting, little boy.

 

[jaster]

My friend recently bought GTA: SA for his Duron 1.3 Ghz, 768MB, GeForce 2
MX system. I told him that the system will probably barely play that, and
suggested to get a new video card if anything. He went and bought a
GeForce FX 5200 and installed it (I don't know if he correctly
removed/installed drivers) and said that Windows looks awesome, but the
game had lots of messed up colors- all extremely red and other random
colors, and extremely pixilated and overall garbled with a lot of
artifacts. Sometimes you can barely read out words in the menus and
sometimes you can't-- But the video card still functioned and worked fine
in Windows.

So upon closer inspection of his PC, I figured to format the drive and put
a fresh install of Windows on as there were a lot of other issues with his
current install of XP. Also, he returned the GeForce FX 5200 and got an
Asus GeForce 6200. The card installed without hassle and Windows looked
nice and the drivers install without problem, but the garbled video in
GTA:SA still exists. Before he got the new 6200 he put in his old GeForce
2 and it worked- the picture wasn't garbled, albeit obviously slow due to
the old video card and hardware.

His board is a AGP 4X board and the card supports it. Could it be that he
purchased to BAD video cards in a row that actually suffer from the exact
problem? He got the two cards from completely different places, by the
way- Wal-mart and Newegg. Thanks for any help

Check the GTA's video settings. Some games set their optimal settings
based upon the video card when installed. The new video card may be using
the old settings, refresh rate, colors.

 

[jas]

Turn off some advanced options in game like turn off or turn down dx 9
features so card can keep up inside game or lower settings through setup
before starting game. I used to run a GFTI4600 . That card has poor memory.
I would not go with anything under 6800 or 5900's other card good 9700 ati
see here is a site u can see bandwith of cards and choose a card to your
budget. http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/