9800 Pro and Asus=Choppiness?

Vyper51 · Apr 19, 2004, 01:55 PM

So I just broke down and finally put together my new computer. It has the following parts:

An Asus a7n8x-e Deluxe Mobo
Athlon XP 2500 Processor
1 gig of Dual Channeled PC-3000 Kingston HyperX Ram
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB AGP Video
Seagate 120 GB 7200 rpm harddrive
Sony CDRW Drive
350w Power Supply
Two Case Fans

Everything has run great from the beginning, I OC'ed the processor to a 3200+, no problems with overheating, no lockups,
nothing glaring at all. I've got a motherboard program watching my temps. Almsot never going over 111 F for the processor.

Anyhow, my problems started when I went to run one of my favorite games, Dark Age of Camelot. I went in, expecting to have wonderful graphics and got them, except there was a large amount of choppiness, kind of like it was loading textures, but it occured when looking at the same items or directions after a second pass. It was really random. It's not real video "lag".

So I loaded up another game, Battlefield Vietnam. It's BEAUTIFUL, except the choppiness is here, too. Hmm, somethings up.

I opened my case up and put a box fan near it to cool down the 9800 Pro. No dice. Same issue. Let the comp cool down four an hour or so. Still choppiness. With the box fan blowing air, my case is at 68 degress F, chilly!

I've installed quite a few different drivers, making sure to purge the old ones, not that that is the problem since this was a clean install to begin with.

I've tried setting the AGP Aperture to every size. I've shut off Fast Write. I've made sure that the Default card is set to AGP in the Bios. I've tried both 4X and 8X AGP, with various of these options enabled or disabled.

I made sure my processor and ram freq's are the same, they're at 166mhz, when they can do more. It gives me the same problem when I OC it or not. I did not OC the 9800 pro at all. I actually tried downing the clock speeds on it just to see, nothing.

The only thing I can think of is some issue between Asus boards and ATI. Anyone come across this and/or fixed it? Everything looks beautiful, just doesn't run like it's supposed to.

Thanks in advance!

PolygonParadox · Apr 19, 2004, 05:18 PM

Other than latest BIOS, Drivers, Windows Updates, etc. there isn't anything I can tell ya'.

pr0digal jenius · Apr 19, 2004, 06:00 PM

mine did that for a while in Soldier of Fortune 2...I also have a 9800 pro adn an Asus Mobo....i turned off fastwrites, got the newest omega's, and updated the BIOS and it's all better now...just for reference my AGP aperturte is set @ 64 now

Vyper51 · Apr 19, 2004, 11:32 PM

The only thing I haven't done, it seems, is update the BIOS, I'll do that shortly.

bluestar88 · Apr 20, 2004, 02:30 AM

Take a screenshot of the "choppiness" you're talking about, I have no imagination.

Vyper51 · Apr 20, 2004, 03:07 AM

You can't exactly screenshot a large drop in framerate for a few seconds.

Vyper51 · Apr 20, 2004, 01:20 PM

Alrighty, I switched out to a Radeon 9600 pro 128, and the same issues are present. Choppy framerate. So it's a motherboard/OS issue. I've tried both ATI release and Omega drivers. Any ideas?

bluestar88 · Apr 20, 2004, 06:04 PM

Turn off fastwrite and turn agp speed down to 4x.

blade5545 · Apr 20, 2004, 06:26 PM

This issue has been fixed before but i just got off work so forgive me for not remembering, but i gurantee you will find the answer at www.nforcershq.com in Asus forums. Trust me on this, this issue if fixable check my sig I have Asus board with an ATI card and it runs great.

Vyper51 · Apr 21, 2004, 12:03 AM

So far everything everyone is saying I've tried, fastwrite and AGPX4 included. Will check that site. Anything mundane, I have done.

bluestar88 · Apr 21, 2004, 12:20 AM

Sorry but I just had to make sure... Did you try driver cleaner 3.0 and reinstalling the drivers? Do you have the lastest drivers for the mobo? Do you have the agp drivers installed? Do a drriver clean using Driver cleaner 3.0.

Vyper51 · Apr 21, 2004, 12:23 AM

Yes, AGP drivers installed off ASUS website, ditto on the rest, only thing I can't get installed is the Gigabit, Win 2000 isn't letting it go through, but no big loss, not using it anyway. I cleaned the drivers after I tried the Omega drivers. I've done three sets of drivers, stock, Omega and another tweaked set. All the same. The only thing I don't think I've done is use the driver disk that came with the video card!

Think I'll give that a shot now....

I can't find many references to Radeon's on the ASUS forum, not any with my problem yet. I've not had many random crashes, a couple, but not many. That seems to be most of the posts.