Geforce FX 5600

[Shockman]

I have installed a Sparkle Geforce 5600 graphics card.

It will not run half-Life or Mods and Battle Field 1942 or Mods.
It crashes both games.

Both games and mods latest version.

Latest Nvidia drivers 43.45 installed
Latest direct X 9.0a installed

All work fine with my old card GeForce 3 TI 200 ?

Perhaps the games need updating ?

Has anyone else fitted this card and found the same problem.

Any help please.

[confus-ed]

First rule with all Nvidia drivers & games problems ... try some older ones ....

[Zerotech]

Unfortunately the v43.45 detonators are the first and only drivers to support the FX series chips.

It could be the AGP slot on the motherboard, though the power connector on the video card should compensate for that (I'm assuming you have that plugged in).

How about posting some more system specs? Once we know the motherboard, OS, power supply rating, etc. we can be of more help to you.

[Shockman]

Here are my specs.

AMD Athlon 1200 Thunderbird
Asus A7V Motherboard with latest Bios
Window XP home edition
400 Watt power supply

Im starting to think I bought this card to early,should have waited for all the problems with direct X and Nvidia drivers to get sorted.

Also perhaps the games dont support the FX cards yet?
Good job I still have my previous card.

Dont get rid of old till ya no new one works.

[mrwilhelm]

Originally posted by Zerotech
Unfortunately the v43.45 detonators are the first and only drivers to support the FX series chips.

Actually v43.51 was just released. You can get it here. So that's one thing he can try.

As it turns out, I'm in the market for a new video card myself, so I've been pouring over tons of reviews and benchmark data. Since my motherboard's (Asus A7V8X) compatibility with the higher end boards ATI is currently offering has been problematic, and since I'm an nVidia guy anyway, I've had to pretty much dismiss ATI based cards as a possibility (even though all my research indicates that's the way to go right now).

My choice was narrowed down to a G4 Ti-4600 8X or GFX 5600 Ultra. After looking at the benchmarks there really wasn't a choice afterall. Not only was the GFX getting killed in the benchmarks by it's ATI counterparts, it was also getting creamed by a G4 Ti-4200! The bottom line is that the GFX 5600 is having all sorts of trouble running current games. Not to the point of crashing, but it's performance has been downright dismal. The gap between the 5600 and 5800 is just too big (in both price and performance). I'd really like to know what nVidia was thinking. Hopefully they'll come out with a 5700 and split the difference, otherwise ATI is going to kill them. Of course once the drivers have matured and DX9 games become available all this might change, but the fact that ATI's offerings aren't having any trouble running current games is very dissapointing to us nVidia loyalists.

[confus-ed]

Originally posted by Shockman
...Im starting to think I bought this card to early,should have waited for all the problems with direct X and Nvidia drivers to get sorted.

Also perhaps the games dont support the FX cards yet?
Good job I still have my previous card...

You may well have hit the nail on the head ! If Zerotech has this bit right "the v43.45 detonators are the first and only drivers to support the FX series chips" .... I dunno , seems plausible to me !

But reason for posting, besides to compliment you on your analysis of your own problem .... what kind of games ? Just those ? Half life is open GL, I think BF 1942 is too?? Is there a reason why you can't mix 'n' match the opengl ICD ? like you can with other versions of detonators ... ? So turning to my original somewhat 'glib' advice (so it seems) try an older ICD, so whatever the hey that particular dll is called for Geforce cards, fish it out of an 'earlier' driver and put it the games directory .... maybe's there no new enough open gl dll either ...?

[Zerotech]

I may have found something. The A7V uses a Via chipset, make sure you have the latest 4in1 drivers from www.viaarena.com . Lack of 4in1 drivers causes no end of problems with Via chipsets no matter what version of Windows you're running.

Also the Via chipset litany:

USB ports = enabled

video & BIOS shadowing = disabled

AGP aperature = 1/2 your system RAM

if present:
fast writes = disabled

if video is sharing IRQ with other device(s):
ACPI = disabled
and/or
Plug & Play OS = no

Hope one or more of these helps, I went through some video hell a few years back with the Via MVP3 chipset.

[confus-ed]

Mmmm .... fastwrites off ? Surely on, if the card & board support it (I thought all geforce cards did) .... if you reckon the performance of this card is 'iffy' (I seem to remember that the equivalent ati card 'beats the pants off it') then we are robbing it of the best speed increase we can give it...

ACPI off ? Well its best on (almost essential) for xp/win 2000, but in 9x maybes yes maybes no .... depends just what is also present .... BUT you never ever want a video card sharing an irq, whether ACPI is on or off.

If windows works good, then just hang tight for some detonators that produce the required 'bang', they usually get to it eventually, shame it takes 6 revisions of evry driver to get one that works for every type of card ...

[NooNoo]

Omega anyone? This guy takes the stock drivers and then makes them work right

[confus-ed]

Was that 'Devine Insparation' that led you there ? As a 'bonus' you get this

MAY GOD BLESS ANYONE WHO ENTERS THIS PAGE

.... since he (God) is 'alpha & omega' I guess ....

I am blessed ! Wasn't I before ???

A widdy liitle note of caution ... again from the site "ALSO, YOU MUST HAVE THIS CLEAR IN YOUR MIND, I'M NOT A PROGRAMMER, I CAN'T FIX 3DFX ERRORS IN GAMES, THAT'S THE 3DFX ENGINEERS JOB, I DON'T HAVE THE DRIVERS SOURCE CODES, I JUST OPTIMIZE WHAT IS AVAILABLE, IF 3DFX RELEASES A DRIVER SET I IMPROVE IT, IF THEY DON'T I CAN'T DO A THING." (excuse caps ! I'm not shouting, its the bloke who does the 'blessing' ! )

I think this 'disclaimer' may well hold for all his 'improved' drivers.....

[GokuSS2]

The 44.03 drivers have been released and give a pretty nice performace boost.

[Shockman]

Downloaded and installed Latest drivers 44.03.
Now I got Bigger and better crashes.

Windows reports faulty hardware drivers and a message
Runtime error.Abnormal program termination.

Refitted old card (Geforce TI 200) all works fine.

As anyone installed an FX card without trouble playing games ? .

[Radical Dreamer]

sounds like a flakey card to me

[Zerotech]

Once again I am casting a wary eye in the direction of the motherboard.
The A7V uses on of the earlier Via-based Athlon compatible chipsets, these are known for strange (and annoying) incompatiblities.
The GF3 Ti200 is an AGP2.0/4X card, the FX5600 is AGP3.0/8X and could be incompatible (ie, too demanding power-wise) with the A7V's AGP slot.

This kind of incompatibility is what forces users of Via-based motherboards to shut off fast writes and throttle back the AGP slot to 2X or even 1X to stabilize their system.
Slot A motherboards were horrible for this, first-generation Socket A were nearly as bad.
It may be that the GF FX5xxx series of video cards simply aren't backward-compatible enough for that type of motherboard (which, as I read this over, vindicates several of the posts above). I just didn't want to place sole blame for the problem on the video card. I spent about a year trying to upgrade a Via-based motherboard that simply wouldn't accept anything more than a certain outdated grade of card (very frustrating! ). Via chipsets are always twitchy at roll-out, best to get the 'B' revision after the bugs are worked out.
//rant off

[mrwilhelm]

I have an Asus A7V8X which is a first generation KT-400 motherboard, and that's exactly why I'm going with a G4 Ti-4600 8X card even though I could get an ATI 9700 Pro for about the same price. Essentially I'm sacrificing slightly better performance and DX9 compatibility for stability. The incompatibility issues between the A7V8X and the 9700 Pro have almost become legendary (or perhaps infamous is a better word). From what I understand, almost no one has gotten that combo stable and performing the way it was meant to.

I strongly suspect it's the extra power requirements as well, which is why I think the A7V8X may have trouble with the GFX chipset too. It's absolutely killing me to have to make such compromises on a high-end system that was in theory supposed to be compromise free, but such are the hazards of going cutting edge I suppose.