konai_konai666

Suprisingly, as the performance of new games keeps degrading, I've come to enjoy even higher settings in older ones to help balance my perception levels (perhaps due to my gain in tollerance for lower framerates since games like BF2 or F.E.A.R have given lower performance for me), so today I was enjoying some Far Cry @ 1280 maxed and I noticed, occasionally, the game just literally PAUSES (sound keeps going fine, no stutter/skip), but the game LOCKS up, waits about five to ten seconds, then the monitor sync light flashes, the screen goes black for a second or two, then i'm back in the game like nothing ever happened! -The only other place I've had anything simmilar occur would probably be GTA: SA, but that game is notorious for accidentally setting off the VPU recover in Radeons.. Anyway, any ideas? X800XL isn't even ordered yet (as I have to wait for stepdad to get back to town, which'll probably be a few more days, so I probably won't order 'till the 3rd or so..) but just wondering why this started all of a sudden.. Also I've noticed the artifacts I was gettign before kinda subsided after replacing the AC rev. 2 VGA cooler with the stock HSF (one used on 9700/9500's), but I get more black screens (at startup/ when tampering with display settings). Anyway, I don't really care what it is, because for all I cared, this thing could burn up today and my sister would probably be willing to lend me her Matrox G400 (or something of the like).. Ehh..

konai_konai666

Turned it off (VPU recover) and now Its just completely locking up (besides the music which still runs in the background) in Far Cry. I really hope this isn't going to start happening in all games for me now, this card just has to have another week or two of life in it.. Maybe I should replace the compound with a fresh layer of AS5 (I didn't do when putting the old HSF back on) and maybe just put that Arctic VGA cooler back in?

konai_konai666

Ok, now I've upgraded to softmod Catalyst 5.8 (using Techpowerup instead of Omega's now), image quality looks sharper now , framerate is HIGHER!? And after a few hours of Far Cry, still no lockups/ VPU recovers.. Strange..
The only thing I notice different is with the 5.7 Omega's I was using before, I was at 70Hz refresh rate, but i'm now at 60Hz.. Also, WMV acceleration is by default enabled instead of disabled like before. Very strange behavior indeed. Haven't had it OC'ed since it got a bit burned sometime (I think) in May...

Ator

Lwrs has the same problem in BF2 and we can't figure out why it's doing it. Glad to see that Catalyst 5.8 fixed it.

konai_konai666

I wish there was such a thing as a perfect driver.. Uhhg. Now my GTA installations (both Vice City and SA) appear to be corrupted, they won't boot at all.. WTH. Trying t reinstall GTA right now, definately staying away from SP2 permanently when I upgrade videocard/ clean-install...

konai_konai666

Ok.. Reinstalled San Andreas and nothing's changed. Don't understand this, I jus' know it has to have something to do with SP2.. I guess no GTA until X800 or rollback, damnit bad MS/ATi bug combo..

ED: Just uninstalled SP2.. Still GTA SA & Vice City won't work. Atleast the rest of teh PC seems some %15 faster now though. Anyone else having any similar Catalyst 5.8 issue?

konai_konai666

Tuh-duuuhhhhhh!!! -Finally, some good reading knock the sense into me to go delete my settings files (after numerous un/reinstalls, registry cleanings and driver switches). I'm running Catalyst 5.8 and GTA games are working excellent! The fix: Going into My Doccuments, finding the games, then deleting the .set files! Can't believe it was this easy afterall.. Uhh. It's qaurter after three (AM) now, so I'm gonna postpone my (yesterday afternoon-planned) GTA gaming session for a good ten or so hours of shuteye.. Thanks for lookin' though, this could verywell be helpful to others experiencing similar problems with any 3D GTA games after making any major hardware/ software switches..

ED: I believe this is my first tripple-post! Ohh, I feel so tired. Need rest. -Good notes..