New 6950, two small problems.

[Haxomatic]

So I recently purchased a XFX 6950 after seeing the article for flashing them into a 6970. I was stocked to find the UPS box was not half destroyed from them usually playing a round of soccer with it pre-delivery.

TL: DR - Question 1: Artifacts show up in 1 single game in 1 scenario is it a driver issue or can it be a hardware issue. (See Video Link Below)
TL: DR - Question 2: My video card doesn't sit right in the slot, the pci-e clip will not hook properly if I screw it down it pulls to the left from it naturally being seated away from the back slot of the case.

My post has 2 questions but I'll start with the more applicable one first since the second one seems to pose no future threat (Unless stated otherwise).

I installed the card and had 1 issue (This will be covered in the second question. Installed the new drivers, booted up fine, played some games, and all went perfectly well. I know you're expecting a "But" coming but there really isn't one. I played WoW and got great frames on ultra (minus the cpu cap since my crappy 965BE is holding WoW back). I played Bioshock 2 all the way through and had no issue. All max settings, max resolution (1680x1050, my monitor sucks :P). Played Black Ops and still no issue. Then I played Red Faction: Guerrilla and noticed something that made my blood run cold. Watch the video below for a narrated video of gameplay of me showing what stopped me dead in my tracks.

(EDIT: The video looks odd for 10 seconds, for some reason youtube doesn't like my encoding scheme with H.264 with 2-pass 2500 Bitrate)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeXGaNygpi8

After watching this video does this look like a video card hardware issue or perhaps driver issue or the ever harmless and expected game sided issue. As I've said I experience this no where else. I've used Furmark and saw no problem, also I used 3DMark11 and it ran smooth without any noticeable artifacts.

My second question is can cards sometimes fit snug in the pci-e slot? My prior card was flush with the slot and my case but this big beast of a card was a bit pulled away from the back of the case. I applied some pressure (not too much but i got nervous) to get it to align with the screwholes so I could tighten it down. Unscrewed it kinda tilts to the right away from the back slot when the case is on its side. I also must state the fact that the pci-e clip cannot clip for me to tighten it down properly... if I dont screw it in it clips in but its about half a cm from the case near the screwed clip. I know it isnt a motherboard mounting issue because my last card fit perfectly in there and didn't tilt away. I could post some picks describing the issue if this doesn't seem clear enough. Tightening it down is putting a bit of pressure on the pci-e slot. Could this be an issue later or can the mobo take that type of applied pressure? Also is sitting just offset by a fraction of a millimeter cause any damage to the card due to this issue?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I hope I was descriptive enough to give a pretty clear picture of my 2 issues. I can attach pictures if it can help with question 2.

[wolf]

I just checked out your youtube vid, given what you've said I think it's just the game itself and your specific hardware combo. you stated it's fine in everything else, furmark inclusive, up to 87 Degrees C.... Don't sweat it.

have you actually performed the 6950 to 6970 flash yet?

I'd like for a pic or maybe a video showing how the card doesn't seat itself properly either, I think I can imagine what you describe but pic's tell a thousand words

I also commented on the youtibe vid.

[Haxomatic]

I'm currently uploading a video shot from my droid (not amazing quality but I describe and show the card.) Sorry for the uhh's and umm's during the video I don't record myself well but I think I got the gist of my problem here.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3fcRSJBT9Y

turn up the quality if you can to max because the quality blows. The camera I was gonna use currently has a dead battery and is charging. Hope this explains it.

When I said the bracket is bent, I meant the bracket of the video card the top one is slightly bent inward towards the case but its a minor bend and it should actually bend it "away" from the current problem then worsen it. My hand went off camera when I said its going "This way" but its leaning back away from the back of the case slightly and the right side of the card is lifted up a smidge and by a smidge i mean like 1-2mm more then it should. I know minor issues like this can cause catastrophic problems though so I wanted some feedback on if this is an issue.

I can get a better video or picture in a few hours once the camera is charged if the video is unclear.

EDIT: I also did not flash it to 6970 yet! Just FYI.

[Goodman]

You could try lower your Ram speed on the card by 10-20mhz & try the game again if no artifacts anymore then you'll know it's the card

You could also see if there is a patch for the game that may fix this issue?

As for the card not seated properly not sure that could be it but you could always test without screwing the card & push it all the way down & try the game once more?

[Haxomatic]

Originally Posted by Goodman

You could try lower your Ram speed on the card by 10-20mhz & try the game again if no artifacts anymore then you,ll know it,s the card

You could also see if there is a patch for the game that may fix this issue?

As for the card not seated properly not sure that could be it but you could always test without screwing the card & push it all the way down & try the game once more?

It's running at stock, I can try that however I didn't flash it so it isn't OC to its 6970 counterpart.

The patch cannot be an issue I use steam and steam updates all their games to their most recent patches automatically for the most part.

I may try unscrewing it and making sure its flush then running, I just don't like it just barely hanging on in the slot while its running...that worries me.

[Goodman]

Originally Posted by Haxomatic

I may try unscrewing it and making sure its flush then running, I just don't like it just barely hanging on in the slot while its running...that worries me.

Leave the case side way while testing , the card won't move at all

[Haxomatic]

Originally Posted by Goodman

Leave the case side way while testing , the card won't move at all

That'll work.. It's a Thermaltake Armor Series B, it weighs like 45 pounds with my current rig. I guess that's that I'll have to do though.

[Haxomatic]

Any other feedback would always be appreciated. If the slot problem is unchanged could it damage the card? If I get no problems otherwise is it safe to keep it the way it is?

Conversely if the card being tilted by a degree or two is bad is there any ways to fix this problem? Could my case somehow be crooked or the card be warped if it naturally tilts?

Like I said my last card slid in properly and wasn't tilted and my motherboard has been mounted this way for quite some time.

[sliderider]

965BE and 6950 holding WoW back? That's the first time I ever heard that complaint. The minimum spec to run WoW at all is a 1.3ghz P4 or Athlon 1500+ and a GeForce FX or Radeon 9500/9700 and the minimum recommended is a Pentium D dual core or Athlon 64 x2 with a GF8600 or Radeon HD2600. Those aren't heavy specs at all so you shouldnt be having any issues in WoW with a 965BE and a 6950. We're talking WoW here, not Crysis or Metro 2033. You should be flying through that game without so much as a hiccup.

[Haxomatic]

Originally Posted by sliderider

965BE and 6950 holding WoW back? That's the first time I ever heard that complaint. The minimum spec to run WoW at all is a 1.3ghz P4 or Athlon 1500+ and a GeForce FX or Radeon 9500/9700 and the minimum recommended is a Pentium D dual core or Athlon 64 x2 with a GF8600 or Radeon HD2600. Those aren't heavy specs at all so you shouldnt be having any issues in WoW with a 965BE and a 6950. We're talking WoW here, not Crysis or Metro 2033. You should be flying through that game without so much as a hiccup.

I figured I'd get a comment on that, lol. Well standing in the middle of trade district in a heavily saturated server blows my fps down to 30-40 (By my standards not flying frames here).

When I turn down a lot of settings I still get 30-40 but when I turn them to low I get 140 fps.

I assume my video card is fine as its blowing away my previous video settings on every game I play. TF2 is running at 300 FPS (Capped out by the frame limiter). Black Ops runs at max everything with 60+ FPS on 1680x1050. WoW is a massive cpu hog and isn't properly multithreaded to really utilize a quad core. I get the same performance if I disable 2 cores as I do with 4 on.

The game only uses 30-40% cpu usage when ran on max settings and I still have headroom in my RAM as well which is running at the highest it can go.

The funny part is If i turn on MSAA to 8x and down to 1x the fps wont change at all it stays around 40~ fps in trade district...of course its 140 FPS in dungeons with max settings.

[overclocking101]

it sounds like your case is bent a tiny amount causing the card to pull a bit, you can try and locate the bend but if it is bent the tiniest bit towards the back t can cause this. its no big deal. and your first video, thats not artifacts that is driver problems, now isnt it true the 69XX drivers still arent officially out yet?? as of now its a leaked patch correct?? <<< that is why I no longer early adopt

[Over50]

after my unresolved issues with the MSI R6870 Twin Frozr II Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5.

Then reading from Anandtec, Guru3D, MSI and here at techpowerup Forums...

This will be the last AMD/ATI card I'll ever own. Previous were HD 3870's in CF bought in May 2008 but the Sapphire Toxic (failed Vapor-X cooling technology) always ran hot from day one .. made it to 119*c a few days before Xmas 2010 and unable to handle a load... so had to buy a replacement. I have a nice cool and quiet running MSI Twin Frozr card but with
krazy issues.

AMD/ATI releasing the 6xxx series was one hugh mistake ... as said ..just read Forum after Forum. I doubt its hardware causing problems ... more like software, bios and most of all ATI Drivers.

Please buy nVidia. for my next rig will only be nVidia.

True there is no perfect GPU out there but at least with nVidia there are way less headaches to deal with.

[AsRock]

It's probably the game that games so buggy it has more bugs than a sewer pipe in downtown.

I have that issue to with my case with some cards and typically ATI cards. I made mine better by loosening the mobo and pushing the mobo towards the back of the case and keeping it that way while tightening the screws.

[Retrodrift]

I've never seen a 'skybox' bug do this before but it could be just that. The fact it only occurs in one section of that level, especially close to your cross-hair as you look up to me raises a flag. Would have to test it with a similar GPU, same place, same level. Fastest test would be goodman's advice of tuning the clock down to see if it re-occurs. Is that snow falling in that level?

[sliderider]

Originally Posted by Haxomatic

I figured I'd get a comment on that, lol. Well standing in the middle of trade district in a heavily saturated server blows my fps down to 30-40 (By my standards not flying frames here).

When I turn down a lot of settings I still get 30-40 but when I turn them to low I get 140 fps.

I assume my video card is fine as its blowing away my previous video settings on every game I play. TF2 is running at 300 FPS (Capped out by the frame limiter). Black Ops runs at max everything with 60+ FPS on 1680x1050. WoW is a massive cpu hog and isn't properly multithreaded to really utilize a quad core. I get the same performance if I disable 2 cores as I do with 4 on.

The game only uses 30-40% cpu usage when ran on max settings and I still have headroom in my RAM as well which is running at the highest it can go.

The funny part is If i turn on MSAA to 8x and down to 1x the fps wont change at all it stays around 40~ fps in trade district...of course its 140 FPS in dungeons with max settings.

That's probably lag from the WoW server's internet connection more than anything else. When you get into a big city with hundreds of people hanging around things slow down in any online game. I can still remember back in the early days of Everquest lag was common in all the popular camping spots even when your computer exceeded the minimum specs to play the game by a wide margin. Whole zones would even crash when there were too many people trying to connect to them at the same time. Nowadays even a very basic computer with integrated graphics can handle EQ with the highest graphics settings easily. Having a faster computer doesn't help much when the game server is bottlenecked by too many incoming connections. It's like trying to drive a car with a 500hp engine in bumper to bumper traffic. All that extra power is useless because you don't have enough room to really open it up.

[Haxomatic]

Originally Posted by sliderider

That's probably lag from the WoW server's internet connection more than anything else. When you get into a big city with hundreds of people hanging around things slow down in any online game. I can still remember back in the early days of Everquest lag was common in all the popular camping spots even when your computer exceeded the minimum specs to play the game by a wide margin. Whole zones would even crash when there were too many people trying to connect to them at the same time. Nowadays even a very basic computer with integrated graphics can handle EQ with the highest graphics settings easily. Having a faster computer doesn't help much when the game server is bottlenecked by too many incoming connections. It's like trying to drive a car with a 500hp engine in bumper to bumper traffic. All that extra power is useless because you don't have enough room to really open it up.

I'm pretty sure their networking code isn't purely optimized. I doubt it is my connection or theirs as I have a 12mb connection and WoW may have hiccups but for the most part their servers are (now a days) well equiped for a punishing amount of connections. WoW is just insanely inefficient at using multithreading from what I hear. It only uses 2 cores and the 3rd it offloads addon usage onto occasionally of course most addons barely touch 1/16th of a core's power so essentially we're talking about 2 cores on a game that tracks a lot of information at once.

Perfect example is sitting in SW my cpu usage on 2 cores caps out while the other two idle at 20%~. They just didn't build the game for quad core systems, only two. In fact I'd assume WoW runs better on a nice overclocked Q9550 then my 965 just due to the fact that those 2 extra cores do absolutely nothing in return no matter how high they are clocked. Maybe AMD Turbo would come in handy for a game like this...too bad I don't have a thuban-type processor.

Anyways a bit of a derailment on my part I'm still trying to solve the case problem otherwise all other games run smooth even the ever buggy fallout: new vegas (despite the terrible Z-buffing/clipping) issues that arise due to the LoD limitations...

[f0d]

after googling "6950 red faction guerilla artifacts" for a while i did a 180 and ended up here again lol

i get exactly the same problem as the OP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z4_KLbGyh8
i wish i had a spare 6970 or virgin (never modified) 6950 to test out to see if they have the same problems

[BababooeyHTJ]

I couldn't make much from the video and my 6950 seems to seat fine but the right side of the card did sag quite a bit from being so long.

Originally Posted by f0d

after googling "6950 red faction guerilla artifacts" for a while i did a 180 and ended up here again lol

i get exactly the same problem as the OP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z4_KLbGyh8
i wish i had a spare 6970 or virgin (never modified) 6950 to test out to see if they have the same problems

It's a driver bug and quite frankly there are a lot of games artifacting due to drivers with what seems like most ATI cards at the moment.

Check out this thread. I know that Crysis artifacts with AA for a lot of people and was mentioned in an XS thread. Much like a lot of people I see artifacting in Heaven. I had a problem with artifacts on Super Meat Boy on two ATI cards. I saw artifacts on Dead Rising 2 with a 6870. On both games I've seen complaints from other people.

Some of you guys need to stop blaming driver bugs on flashing your cards.

[Haxomatic]

I actually wanted to make sure my card is stable not 'borked' and the wierd pci-e seating issue is resolved before i flash it. Don't want to call down hellfire when its already raining acid if you get my drift.

I also noticed my driver version says its 10.11 despite being 10.12a (I did not install the wrong one and I had no prior Catalyst Drivers installed as I've had a 9600GT installed before this).

I'm glad it appears to just be a driver issue for the most part. I've noticed a few oddball things that aren't clearly artifacting but just things that don't add up (Like terrible clipping in Fallout: New Vegas) and I didn't notice these on my old card.

[Haxomatic]

Originally Posted by overclocking101

it sounds like your case is bent a tiny amount causing the card to pull a bit, you can try and locate the bend but if it is bent the tiniest bit towards the back t can cause this. its no big deal. and your first video, thats not artifacts that is driver problems, now isnt it true the 69XX drivers still arent officially out yet?? as of now its a leaked patch correct?? <<< that is why I no longer early adopt

I rarely consider getting "new tech" because drivers always blow on both ends for months but seeing how it could be modded enticed me to strike early just in case they change the way they make the cards (not sure if this ever happened before) so they cannot be modded.

Either ways I'm pretty impressed either ways with the performance of the unmodded 9650 let alone what it could do with 20% power and a simple bios flash.

[EiSFX]

not sure about the artifact problem but i have the exact same problem with the card sitting funny in the slot with my Card it is also a dual slot card (HD4870 Toxic) my other card before was a single slot and it sat perfectly in my case (antec 900) but with this card it sits the same as your but i have no problems with eather the card or mother board and i have had it sitting like that for over a year now so i would say i woulden't worry about the card sitting a little off kilter

[f0d]

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

Some of you guys need to stop blaming driver bugs on flashing your cards.

the problem is that we dont know what is a driver bug and what is a faulty card until other people have the same problems

we can only ask others and see what problems other people have and then try to figure out if its the card or the drivers

and also i have NEVER had such problems with drivers on my gtx260 - even when it first came out, the only time i would get artifacts was when i OC'd too much