Curse

sn0w1337 · Feb 05, 2006, 01:26 AM // 01:26

Anyone solve this problem?

fiery · Feb 05, 2006, 01:55 AM // 01:55

im thinking setting up for PVE weekend.

Nazo · Feb 08, 2006, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Just wanted to let you people know that there is a known problem that could cause this effect on certain combinations. Specifically, it's a bug in the nForce 3 that has been triggered with the latest video card drivers for nVidia video cards. However, the bug appears to be in the chipset as it does not occur on nForce 2 or VIA boards with the exact same video cards, drivers, etc. This bug almost exclusively occurs with nVidia video cards, but, supposedly it can rarely happen with other cards (ok, I should say ATI because I doubt anyone uses any other non-onboard besides nVidia and ATI for actual gaming.) Particularly with high end cards. The NV40 is the most common cause, but, rarely a NV43 will cause this (for those less in the know, 40 is the 6800 line of cards, and 43 is the 6600 line. It is not specific to the different makes in each of the lines -- an ultra isn't more or less likely to cause it than a vanilla 6800.) There are many tricks people have tried to solve it. No 100% solution, but, things that usually work for people would be to stop overclocking the video card (sometimes you have to underclock,) to disable fastwrites if they are enabled, and if all else fails, revert back to the 66.xx version drivers (this WILL cause problems in many games because they are outdated, but, nVidia is ignoring all the users complaining about the problem, so it's the closest to a 100% solution for nVidia video card users since it fixes the halting every time.)

I know so much about this because it directly happened to me personally. I have an unlocked and overclocked 6800nu which performed wonderfully, but, when I updated my video drivers something like a year ago it started to get really unpleasant for me. Nvidia's choice to ignore all the users complaining for over a year is the reason why when I had to upgrade I went with an ATI card.

Many of you are using P4 systems, so I'm not sure what could be causing it for you people, but, those of you with nForce3 systems who might just happen to have a nForce 3 chipset, you may wish to look into the possibility that it could be this particular issue. I have had issues similar to this on a nForce 2 board, but, it looks like that's very rare indeed. NForce 4 users should have no such troubles since that's all nVidia cares about anymore (even though they still make AGP cards and chipsets, they now refuse to support AGP specific problems.)

EDIT: If you want to know a few more details, you can look here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=938842&page=1
There are also a few threads buried somewhere in nVidia's forums dating back to a year or more ago complete with some users all but begging. Really, the main thing that just ticks me off isn't that nVidia refuses to fix the problem they introduced (something they changed in the 7x.xx drivers triggered the bug, so just correct that something and you're set.) What bugs me is they have refused to release any official response to anyone. In fact, they won't respond at all. People have managed to get official answers from companies like BFG in regards to this because nVidia will speak with those who manufacture cards based on their chips, but, the nvidia response basically 100% unofficially boils down to "we don't care about agp, go buy our latest $600 PCI-E card and shut up."

Mustache Mayhem · Feb 09, 2006, 01:20 AM // 01:20

nice nazo

Omega X · Feb 09, 2006, 05:20 AM // 05:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nazo

What bugs me is they have refused to release any official response to anyone. In fact, they won't respond at all. People have managed to get official answers from companies like BFG in regards to this because nVidia will speak with those who manufacture cards based on their chips, but, the nvidia response basically 100% unofficially boils down to "we don't care about agp, go buy our latest $600 PCI-E card and shut up."

That's called a cover up. That problem was probabaly already there and they decided not to fix it and relying on Game devs to work around it.

EternalTempest · Feb 09, 2006, 07:42 AM // 07:42

Also check this threed - Anets lag solution
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=118279

Covers everything from drivers, to spyware, to windows tweaking, to checking server lag via there utility and ping (to having ati laptop users using omega drivers to fix some issues with ATi drivers)

Good info on some of the chipset bugs too in this thread.

Nazo · Feb 09, 2006, 07:15 PM // 19:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omega X

That's called a cover up. That problem was probabaly already there and they decided not to fix it and relying on Game devs to work around it.

Could be. Thing is, nVidia makes the hardware and the drivers. Companies are simply expected to change the logo and bundle in extras (such as, in the past, WDM drivers for VIVO cards, though now nVidia even makes a standardized WDM for VIVO cards. I haven't seen any worthwhile bundled stuff in a while.) The manufacturers can't do anything, and game designers have nothing to do with it since it's a driver/hardware issue. Nvidia has refused to do so even when contacted by BFG and I think one or two others. Those companies can't do anything without reinventing the video card driver, which is a bad idea. Users grew rather annoyed a long time ago with the seperate video drivers. I do kind of wonder if seperate wouldn't be a bad idea now that unified drivers are getting to 30+MB, but, atm everyone still shows a preference for unified.

The way I see it, they just don't care. They see AGP as dying and have simply thrown all their R&D and support budgeting behind PCI-E -- their livlihood is probably in this now. If someone comes out with a new super-performance direct HTT to video card or something type bus, nVidia will be very badly hurt indeed. In the meantime, they just threw away all the money they spent on R&D to create the HSI bridge (the thing that lets them slap one extra chip on PCI-E cards to make them AGP so they don't have to make two GPUs to cover both PCI-E and AGP like ATI has to do.) Whoever is in charge of nVidia doesn't know anything about business clearly because any idiot knows that when you have an advantage over the competition you grab it, not throw it in the trash... As far as I can remember, they've made a grand total of two, maybe three cards using this and then made it very clear they have no intentions of doing so in the future with the 7800 series (though someone else just now did it with their own HSI bridge.)

That's why I say that AGP users who want to upgrade without getting a new motherboard (and possibly CPU) should stick with ATI. I currently know of no such problems with ATI AGP cards. Of course, they don't make AGP chipsets, so that may not really mean anything (both companies suck quite frankly, you just have to pick the lesser of two evils.)

BTW, I forgot to say before, but, try tweaking your PCI and AGP latencies. I've had stuttering in games when I had settings wrong before (particularly the video card usually needs to be raised a bit -- usually 128-160 or so.) It probably won't affect load times or anything like that, but, it can affect stuttering as I have seen first-hand. Sometimes the video card will end up really low (like 32) and grab resources before other things like the soundcard can, so when the game doesn't get a response it kind of pauses and waits, causing a sort of jerk (we're talking about a split second kind of thing, but, annoying.)