First my system specs:
WinXP 32bit SP2
Phenom II X2 550@X4 "B50" 3.11 GHz
2 GBs RAM Kingston 1333 MHz
Chieftec APS-500S 36A per 12V rails
191.07 drivers
Videocard is running at BFG stock speeds (590/1296/1998)
I got the videocard on friday and since then I'm experiencing weird problems. Note that previously I had 4850 in this very system (except PSU was even worse) and the system was running superstable even with 4850 running very hot (82 for GPU, 88 C for memory)
ArmA2. I've tried running it with 197.13 (it has a nasty memory leak affecting nearly every geforce owner in this game so I won't count it), 196.21 and 191.07 drivers. I've experienced weird colours and blocky text, game going into something like software mode with weird glitches all over 2D things while not crashing and then just showing white screen whereever 2D must be - but what's worse is that this is accompanied by constant "receiving..." screens (when flying an aircraft) which shouldn't happen but according to developers happens when the video memory runs out. This is followed by an inevitable halt of the video with the game still going in the background and an eventual driver crash. One time it crashed so hard that it locked back my 2 CPU cores. (I also had triangle artifacts extending from the center of the screen once but after "receiving..." screen they were gone)
However later I've tried running the game with both cores locked and unlocked and the result was the same - so at least CPU is filtered out. And it ran perfectly fine with 4850 even handling a 10v10 (that's ~240 units in the field) warfare server for 11 hours - this is very quadcore intense.
"Receiving..." screen issue with crashlogs very similar to mine was also reported by quite a number of other players - so that's the first "I don't know who to blame" thing.
World In Conflict Soviet Assault.
I had it black screen on me and crash the first time in the first 5 minutes. Then in 5-10 minutes it greeted me with weird triangle artifacts extending from the center of the screen.
I've tried looking on the internet for the roots of it and it appears to be an issue acknowledged by WiC's developers for 8800 cards (crashing/artifacting in first 5 minutes) - the solution proposed is to turn off antialiasing. As GTX260 is similar to 8800s I've tried the same and WiC worked flawlessly for 3 hours, including the missions where it had bugs - then I just got tired of playing it. I've completed 7 missions in WiC without any problems during other shorter playing sessions.
So that's the second "I don't know who to blame"
GTA4
Now this one's tough. First it crashed on me with RESC10 error (Out of video memory) - however I had lots of these even on my 4670 in my HTPC when it comes to GTA4 and it seems to be a common problem for many people. However some time later when the first cutscene in the Roman's house was playing I got those weird triangles extending from the center of the screen again. I didn't test it again trying to replicate though.
So here's the third "I don't know who to blame" because GTA4 is well-known for video glitches of various kinds.
3D Mark 06
I have a weird glitchy text when credits come in the end of the demo. The running text appears to be white and messed up while the framerate remains unchanged and 3D works fine.
I've replicated the glitch a second time. Note that I ran all 3D tests with FSAA turned on for 3 times and every single one of them worked perfectly smooth without a single problem.
So that's another weird thing.
Also note that I've completed Mirror's Edge without any problems on 197.13 and later played with "rolled back" 191.07 again without any problems with full detail and 4x FSAA.
I've also tried playing Crysis Warhead for almost an hour at everything maxed out - and it was running smooth at a 40+ framerate even with a leaky 197.13
I don't think this is overheating because in ArmA2 I had 71-80 GPU temperature with memory and PCB staying in 65-69 range and in Warhead it was higher - 82 GPU, ~70-71 memory - yet I encounter problems in ArmA2 almost immediately.
I also ran Furmark with postfx, displacement, 8x msaa for 10 minutes and then with 16x msaa and same settings for 20 minutes. It ran with 31 FPS average in both cases and no problems. Temperatures went as high as 86 GPU, 72 everything else during the 20 minutes test - so that's noticeably higher than what I get in games. However Furmark doesn't overload videocard memory so... At least this isn't GPU's fault or so it seems.
I also did a thorough clean of my system both manually and with Driver Cleaner in safe mode from ATi drivers when switching cards but not before forgeting about that and launching GTX260 with ATi drivers still being active to meet a black screen when OS was loading - could it mess something in OS even with drivers being cleaned out?
Apart from this I have following suspects:
- GTA4 and ArmA2 are just buggy when it comes to handling memory (and they are)
- faulty videomemory or bad nVidia driver (they have enough of these lately)
- insufficient PSU (although when this is the case usually the system will just BSOD/reset in any 3D game, I already had a chance of having two insufficient PSUs over my life with both being like that - and as I take it nVidia has some tools that tell you when the videocard doesn't have enough power). But note that this PSU can churn out up to ~550W (500 are just guaranteed) and on tests people successfully ran GTX285 with it and even 2x 4870s.
The voltage on 12V rails is also always stable (12.28-12.32)
So after this wall of text what's your take on my problem?
It would be a pity if this is a videocard's fault as I'm quite happy with its level of performance and RMA'ing it will be not too comfortable as I'm pretty far away from the destination.
Also which software will you recommend to test the videocard's memory? I've tried VMT but it can't test with relatively new nVidia drivers - according to the dev nVidia messed something up.
WinXP 32bit SP2
Phenom II X2 550@X4 "B50" 3.11 GHz
2 GBs RAM Kingston 1333 MHz
Chieftec APS-500S 36A per 12V rails
191.07 drivers
Videocard is running at BFG stock speeds (590/1296/1998)
I got the videocard on friday and since then I'm experiencing weird problems. Note that previously I had 4850 in this very system (except PSU was even worse) and the system was running superstable even with 4850 running very hot (82 for GPU, 88 C for memory)
ArmA2. I've tried running it with 197.13 (it has a nasty memory leak affecting nearly every geforce owner in this game so I won't count it), 196.21 and 191.07 drivers. I've experienced weird colours and blocky text, game going into something like software mode with weird glitches all over 2D things while not crashing and then just showing white screen whereever 2D must be - but what's worse is that this is accompanied by constant "receiving..." screens (when flying an aircraft) which shouldn't happen but according to developers happens when the video memory runs out. This is followed by an inevitable halt of the video with the game still going in the background and an eventual driver crash. One time it crashed so hard that it locked back my 2 CPU cores. (I also had triangle artifacts extending from the center of the screen once but after "receiving..." screen they were gone)
However later I've tried running the game with both cores locked and unlocked and the result was the same - so at least CPU is filtered out. And it ran perfectly fine with 4850 even handling a 10v10 (that's ~240 units in the field) warfare server for 11 hours - this is very quadcore intense.
"Receiving..." screen issue with crashlogs very similar to mine was also reported by quite a number of other players - so that's the first "I don't know who to blame" thing.
World In Conflict Soviet Assault.
I had it black screen on me and crash the first time in the first 5 minutes. Then in 5-10 minutes it greeted me with weird triangle artifacts extending from the center of the screen.
I've tried looking on the internet for the roots of it and it appears to be an issue acknowledged by WiC's developers for 8800 cards (crashing/artifacting in first 5 minutes) - the solution proposed is to turn off antialiasing. As GTX260 is similar to 8800s I've tried the same and WiC worked flawlessly for 3 hours, including the missions where it had bugs - then I just got tired of playing it. I've completed 7 missions in WiC without any problems during other shorter playing sessions.
So that's the second "I don't know who to blame"
GTA4
Now this one's tough. First it crashed on me with RESC10 error (Out of video memory) - however I had lots of these even on my 4670 in my HTPC when it comes to GTA4 and it seems to be a common problem for many people. However some time later when the first cutscene in the Roman's house was playing I got those weird triangles extending from the center of the screen again. I didn't test it again trying to replicate though.
So here's the third "I don't know who to blame" because GTA4 is well-known for video glitches of various kinds.
3D Mark 06
I have a weird glitchy text when credits come in the end of the demo. The running text appears to be white and messed up while the framerate remains unchanged and 3D works fine.
I've replicated the glitch a second time. Note that I ran all 3D tests with FSAA turned on for 3 times and every single one of them worked perfectly smooth without a single problem.
So that's another weird thing.
Also note that I've completed Mirror's Edge without any problems on 197.13 and later played with "rolled back" 191.07 again without any problems with full detail and 4x FSAA.
I've also tried playing Crysis Warhead for almost an hour at everything maxed out - and it was running smooth at a 40+ framerate even with a leaky 197.13
I don't think this is overheating because in ArmA2 I had 71-80 GPU temperature with memory and PCB staying in 65-69 range and in Warhead it was higher - 82 GPU, ~70-71 memory - yet I encounter problems in ArmA2 almost immediately.
I also ran Furmark with postfx, displacement, 8x msaa for 10 minutes and then with 16x msaa and same settings for 20 minutes. It ran with 31 FPS average in both cases and no problems. Temperatures went as high as 86 GPU, 72 everything else during the 20 minutes test - so that's noticeably higher than what I get in games. However Furmark doesn't overload videocard memory so... At least this isn't GPU's fault or so it seems.
I also did a thorough clean of my system both manually and with Driver Cleaner in safe mode from ATi drivers when switching cards but not before forgeting about that and launching GTX260 with ATi drivers still being active to meet a black screen when OS was loading - could it mess something in OS even with drivers being cleaned out?
Apart from this I have following suspects:
- GTA4 and ArmA2 are just buggy when it comes to handling memory (and they are)
- faulty videomemory or bad nVidia driver (they have enough of these lately)
- insufficient PSU (although when this is the case usually the system will just BSOD/reset in any 3D game, I already had a chance of having two insufficient PSUs over my life with both being like that - and as I take it nVidia has some tools that tell you when the videocard doesn't have enough power). But note that this PSU can churn out up to ~550W (500 are just guaranteed) and on tests people successfully ran GTX285 with it and even 2x 4870s.
The voltage on 12V rails is also always stable (12.28-12.32)
So after this wall of text what's your take on my problem?
It would be a pity if this is a videocard's fault as I'm quite happy with its level of performance and RMA'ing it will be not too comfortable as I'm pretty far away from the destination.
Also which software will you recommend to test the videocard's memory? I've tried VMT but it can't test with relatively new nVidia drivers - according to the dev nVidia messed something up.
