Strange graphical effects...!

[Fozzer]

Hello all... ...!

My GPU is no longer GPU'ing correctly... ...!

Here's a teaser for you......!

My present Graphics card is a BFG Nvdia 6600 GT 128 Mb 525 MHz AGP card.
I have had it for around two years with excellent results.......!
...BUT...
Over the past week or so, I have noticed a certain strange effect appearing during running the flight sim and other games......!

It appears in the form of groups of long, thin, white, oblong strips replacing certain special effects like certain wispy cloud types, and certain dust effects, etc...!

Its almost as though the GPU contains certain instructions, or special chips, to enable this particular effect, and now they no longer function correctly...!!

I have uninstalled, and re-installed, various drivers, from the original drivers supplied with the card, to the current (latest) drivers from Nvidia; (91.31)...
But none of them change the (faulty) effect......!

...and changing the preferred graphical instructions in the Nvidia Control Panel make no improvement.

I have also reinstalled all the Motherboard drivers.

The Power Supply Unit is a quality 550 Watt unit.

The Card is in good condition, running at normal temperatures, and the GPU cooling fan is always fanning, and the case is well ventilated with extra cooling fans... ...!

I tried to obtain some screen-shots illustrating the fault in 3D Mark 2001, (which illustrates the fault admirably), but Mad Onion's program doesn't allow screen shots, (probably because the "Print screen" program running in the background would affect the benchmark)...!

Does the sudden appearance of this annoying effect ring any bells with any of you lovely Lads......!

My overall 'puter details are shown in my signature below.

Cheers Lads... ...!

Paul... ... ...!

[Saitek]

It's a pity that it did not allow screenshots. Sounds like a classic case of a bad driver. But seeing you tried all that it appears a bit of a non-starter.

I had a look on the web and here it seems to be the same problem you had and was solved by changing the bios of the card.
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/in ... ?t948.html
Look and start reading from 2/3's of the way down.

[Fozzer]

Hi Ben... ...!

Ta for the link....interesting read.......!

I had no idea that it was possible/necessary to change the Bios on graphics cards...!!

(I always worry about fiddling about with Bios settings).......!

My BFG card is supplied overclocked by the manufacturers, from 500 to 525 MHz, as is the memory...
But for the past two years the card has worked faultlessly... ...!

It's just suddenly being afflicted with this particular fault for some unaccountable reason... ...!

I'll see if I can reproduce the effect in a FS 2004 screen shot here...(it affects only certain cloud types in FS 2004).......!

Any more suggestions anyone, before I trash my card by flashing its Bios.......?
LOL...!

(Screen shot to follow shortly)......!

Paul...not into "flashing"....trust me!... ...!
LOL...!

[Saitek]

I hope someone else can give you some tips Paul. The ctjoyce fellow is pretty smart on these things. I run to him with all my probs!
I don't blame you for not wanting to change it, I'd be reluctant to - especially if it has worked fine for ages anyway.
I'm no expert at these things.

[Sukhoi_37]

My guess is that it is overheating. Check the videocard fan for dust, and if there is dust, get rid of it using a can of compressed air.

[Boca]

All you have to do is follow the instructions for posting screenshots on this site.

Instruction 1 ..... NO IMAGES LINKED OUTSIDE OF SIMVIATION  ALL SHOTS MUST BE UPLOADED TO SIMV.!!!
Instruction 2 ..... IMAGES NO WIDER THAN 800 PIXELS!!!
Instruction 3 ..... IMAGES MUST BE UNDER 100KB!!!

[cheesegrater]

Try a different card on your comp. If there is no artifacts, make use of that BFG lifetime warranty.

[congo]

You can't use printscreen in 3Dmark Boca, it's locked.

Fozzer, it's a SP1 fault. Get SP2.

[Fozzer]

You can't use printscreen in 3Dmark Boca, it's locked.

Ta, for the tip Congo......!

***********************************
Maybe a possible clue to the graphical glitch...?

3D Mark 2001.
In the "Texture Format" option there are 4 choices:

16 Bit.
32 Bit.
Compressed.
DXT 1.

The program normally defaults to "Compressed", which worked fine before...!

But only the selection of 16 Bit prevented the fault from occurring in 3D Mark 2001... ...!

Spot anything strange/unusual there...?

Cheers all...!

Paul... ...!

P.S. I haven't tried it out in FS 2004 yet....Trouble is, there don't seem to be any options either in the Nvidia control panel, or in FS 2004, to change the "Texture Format"... ...!

[congo]

But only the selection of 16 Bit prevented the fault from occurring in 3D Mark 2001... ...!

Spot anything strange/unusual there...?

Well, yeah, kind of......

It's less likely to be a hardware fault if that's the case.

What if you change the color depth to 16bit in any application that the problem was occuring in? Does it still happen?

[cheesegrater]

I think you can change the texture quality in the drivers.



However, when I had it set to anything else than "Quality" on my Geforce MX I run into problems in some games.