8600GT Problems

xenoblitz · Mar 6, 2008, 06:32 AM

Hi guys

First post. This seems like a pretty respectable forum and I was wondering if anyone of you guys could help me.

I recently bought a Gigabyte 8600GT 256MB PCI-E cause my old Gigabyte 7800GT PCI-E went dead overnight. I know its not the best but I need it for 1 year or so until I have some time and money to spend on a new pc. In the mean time I'll make do with good graphics on oldish games and medium graphics on new games. So, I put it in. Install the new drivers and start up WoW. At first I thought... ok seems good. But after a few seconds of play I realized that although the fps were decent at almost max settings from time to the game skipped some frames and there is a noticeable amount of stuttering. I tried to fix it using many ways:
1. vSync - works but quick turning in game world still results in stuttering.
2. motherboard bios upgrade/drivers update - no effect
3. Installing newest drivers from nvidia - no effect
4. Re-installing an older version of the nvidia drivers which is mentioned on the gigabyte website for this card - no effect, perhaps slightly better.
5. Checking voltages and temperatures - seem to be at normal values.
6. Lowering res/details - no effect.

I don't know what's going on. So far I'm thinking of doing 2 things (as soon as i get home :P):
1. Try the Omega drivers (hope they work)
2. Install Vista once i get it. Is it true that nvidia drivers give more priority to Vista support than XP (forgot to mention I'm still on XP SP2). I got this idea googling the problem but I wanted to ask if anyone knew about it.

If you guys have any other suggestion which does not involve installing Vista and/or going to the store to replace the card plz let me know. I'd be grateful. Just in case:

My system: NOTE!: I am not sure about all specs, I'll post more details later when home... but to get a general idea:

2GB RAM
500W PSU
MSI MicroATX ATI Motherboard RS482M2 with on board sound/video and lan
AMD Athlon 3700+ CPU
2 Sata HD 250GB
1 IDE HD 80GB
No over/clocking whatsovever.

Pls let me know of any quick suggestions you can think of. I'd be most grateful since I've been having some sleepless nights trying to fix it.

Thanks

xenoblitz

MicahSJ · Mar 22, 2008, 07:21 AM

Hello,

Firstly, use the drivers from Gigabytes website. Second, in your Control Panel advanced settings try enabling the "enhance the application setting" for anti-aliasing and using 8x instead of 16x.
Also, try turning on the "texture filtering - anistropic sample optimization" option and using 8x instead of 16x.

I have the same chipset, except mine's an MSI card.

tcman · Mar 23, 2008, 05:18 PM

Try enabling triple buffering in the application setting or install rivatuner and use the direct3d-overrider that comes with the rivatuner to force the triple buffering when you turn the vsync on.

Also I would just turn the anti-aliasing and anistrophic filtering off.

By the way, did you uninstalled the old drivers and use drivercleaner pro to cleanup the old driver files that got stuck in the system before installing newer ones?

Good luck!

BlueMak · Mar 23, 2008, 05:38 PM

Is the problem only with one game?

MicahSJ · Mar 24, 2008, 05:51 AM

I wouldn't suggest turning off the anti-aliasing and anistropic flitering as these give you better image quality. But as for as the V-Sync you might want to try turning this off.
Your problem probably has something to do with the v-sync being enabled. Like tcman suggested you could try Rivatuner and using the direct3d overrider.