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Hi All,
Just a heads-up to let you know that we will be sampling the major publications with AGP versions of the X800XL card VERY SOON
If the pricing from our partners on this product is as competitive as the PCI-Express variant...
...then it should make the choice of card for gamers who want 'plenty of 1600x1200 bangs for not so many bucks' on existing AGP kit much easier
:devilish:
I've got one :)
It's t3h pr0n (scuse my l337 ;) )
HL2 all detail settings maxed with 6xAA and 16xAF no problem w00t
I got the Connect3D X800XL the other day in my new system (see sig). She's a beaut, runs HL2 on full settings at 1280x1024 quite nicely :)
im getting a club 3d one nexty week as they seem to be overclocking better with the extra power connecter. ty to komplett for getting them in.
Neo
andrzej, is there a known issue with the official Catalyst drivers from ati.com with the AGP versions of X800XL? I find they don't work right (refusing to use AA/AF/VSync even tho they forced on in the Control Panel, corrupt/flashing/missing textures, general poor fps etc) in games with my Sapphire X800XL 256Mb AGP card. Only the 5.1 version drivers that came with the card seem to work right and I do NOT want to be stuck using whatever out of date versions Sapphire supply.
I did post in another thread where someone else is having similar problems but I wanted to post here cause I knew you'd get the topic update notification and if possible I'd like to hear the official line on this as it sounds like there are a number of people with the same issue.
Please help! I want my nice new card to kick a55! :)
Very unusual - and not part of the experienceQuote:
Originally Posted by 8bit
As far as I am aware - none of these are issues that you should encounter at all
You should get 'perfect' results with the latest Catalyst driver
Have you tried completely uninstalling all previous graphics drivers (us and the other guys), as well as .NET, before putting the latest .NET Framework version on and then the latest Catalyst driver ?
My suggestion would be to check with Sapphire's tech sup first to ensure that there is not an issue - then try the complete clean-out/re-install - and see if that makes a difference
Just so you know, I put my present PCI-Express and AGP rigs together about 6 months ago and I am constantly swapping cards in and out
I had a similar experience to you only twice:-
1) When I had been looking at 'other cards' and then - using DriverCleaner - discovered that some of them had been less than 'tidy' when uninstalling themselves... talk about shrapnelware !
2) When a card had a memory issue - but only in a specific location - so that many tests did not reveal the issue - but when playing games at high resolution the issue could be profound
The first was solved by cleaning out old (opposition non-WHQL !) drivers and the second required a card-swap by the manufacturer
Hi,
WOW, thanks for the fast reply!
OK, the reason I want to use the ATI drivers is mainly out of principal, I wanted a 100% ATI certified compatible card from a board partner. That and because I find the Sapphire site *painfully* slow and they have the 5.3 drivers at present, not 5.5.
I will have a rifle through their tech support stuff when I can face 5 minute page loading times :)
Incidentally, the last card from the "other" GPU company I had was the original GF3 Ti200 that came in the machine when I bought it 2nd hand. Since then, the only part from that machine I still have is the DVD ROM drive :) and its had about 4 reinstalls of windows since then, including when I replaced the GF3 with a Radeon 9800 Pro :) so i doubt it's because of old forceware junk lying around on the system...
Given that this X800XL card is a ViVo model I've been trying the following:
- completely uninstall ALL Ati stuff using Add/Remove programs CPL
- reboot into safe mode once above all done and remove ATi stuff with driver cleaner pro
- reboot into normal mode and install:
> Catalyst driver 5.5
> Catalyst WDM driver (latest version)
> Control Panel applet (NOT the .NET thing, it's too big and personally I don't like it
- then reboot again.
Is there some reason I must use the .NET thing instead of the CPL with this card? Is there perhaps (as suggested in another thread on this card) something in the installer for the ATi released drivers which does not correctly identify the Sapphire board as being a card that it supports? When I got the card at first I didn't bother with the drivers on the CD as they are 5.1 and 5.4 was available. They didn't work at all. Installed, rebooted then XP still wanted to look for and install the drivers :( Should I have forced XP to use the drivers I'd just installed?
The thing that makes me think maybe the sapphire card isn't correctly identified is that even when the Sapphire drivers are installed it tells me the card is "X800 Series", I thought it would be identified as "X800 XL" or similar. Am I reading too much into that?
Sorry Andrzej I realise you're not a tech support person over there. I have heard of a few people at least with this issue on this forum alone so without any definitive answers I'm assuming responsibility for trying to find a solution on behalf of anyone still forced to use old old Sapphire provided drivers with this card.
TIA for any help m8
8bit
Andrzej do you know if the Arctic Cooler VGA silencers work on the agp x800xl series (I ask because the AGP x800xls have a larger PCB than the pci-e ones)
I can't promise to be of any help :)Quote:
Originally Posted by 8bit
However, I can tell you that ATI's Catalyst drivers work properly for all of our cards
The difficulty is having a clean set-up on the box to see if - in a virgin environment - everything works perfectly...
...but that can be a pain
Please take the fact that this forum is not plastered with similar experiences to mean that you have been 'lucky'
You don't need to use CCC - but I only use it and have not had any issues - so I was looking to remove a 'variable' - the driver itself is the same
I really think you have tried everything
Is there a reason why you don't think that this could be caused by a high-end memory issue or problem with a pipeline ?
i.e. why you don't think it might be a hardware issue
Please check with Sapphire and see what they say :)
You would really need to contact your board supplier to see if they think it is coolQuote:
Originally Posted by YorkieBen
:cool:
The drivers from sapphires site and on the driver cd work fine? is it just the ati official ones that have problems?
ATI cards are usually identified buy their PCI device ID which is shown on boot up, check that it is correct for your card. There are sometimes several variations for nonpro/pro/xt etc..Quote:
Originally Posted by 8bit
Where it says "X800 Series" - that is normal and happens with all cards, atleast with the 5x r3x0 cards I had, and the x850xtpe I have now.
I have some unpartitioned hard disk space, I'll try and vanilla XP Pro install and see if that helps using the official ATI drivers. But as I said, I'd not only removed the stuff the ATI drivers put into the add/remove programs list, I'd also blasted the remaining traces out using Driver Cleaner Pro (which is bang up to date).Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrzej
I'm "lucky"? :) OK yes lucky enough to be able to buy myself a nice card I guess but... :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Andrzej
Sorry I perhaps didn't phrase my original question right - is there an advantage to using the CCC? I know that it's not possible to control Catalyst AI using the traditional Control Panel applet, is that in itself likely to make a big difference?Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrzej
Yes, the rest of the system works fine, my OEM (i.e. unbranded, sent in a plain brown box) 9800 Pro worked beautifully with the drivers from www.ati.com and all diagnostic tests run on my system check out just fine. It's only this particular card that I have problems with and it's ONLY when using the drivers from www.ati.com, it works fine using older ones from Sapphire (the 5.1's that came with the card, the 5.3's on their site at the time of writing this have issues - see below).Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrzej
:shocked2: you've obviously never had occasion to use their tech support site then :D OK, I'll try and raise it as a support issue with them although I don't hold out much hope.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrzej
Just done my usual uninstall, driver cleaner pro sweep and install of the Cat 5.3's from Sapphire's site. Seems to work better than the www.ati.com Cat5.5's but sometimes still refusing to use AA/AF/VSync even tho they're forced on with the control panel. Will fiddle some more and see what happens.
Basically tho Andrzej (and just want to say again, thanks for the help/suggestions/feedback/moral support!) using a clean XP Pro SP2 setup with other drivers up to date, I should be able to download the full install (i.e. all in one) package of the latest Cats from www.ati.com and they will work as intended on my card (sorry if that sounds like a silly question)? If so then either my card or my system has some sort of issue (unlikely that I'm aware of) OR I suspect there's a couple of slight issues with this GPU/Card and certain games that will hopefully be resolved in future Catalyst releases. I can accept if there's issues with the GPU and/or Rialto given it's quite a new part...
Cheers
8bit
I'm told they do work as the extra PCB length is just for the extra data paths for Rialto. You can email the Arctic Cooling team using the addresses found on their site, I've found them pretty good at getting back to requests for info such as this.Quote:
Originally Posted by YorkieBen
yeh but the thing is people... as they aint been out for long and are pretty pricy they should deliver as they are designed as a top card to do... for AGP anyway... seeing as HL2 was built for the 9600XT/9800PRO... as i got my HL2 free with my 9600XT. basically what i am saying is... you pay for the best AGP card or PCI-E then by all rights it should run the latest stuff on full if its claimed to be the best like the x800's are...Quote:
Originally Posted by 8bit
just use something decent in the way of drivers eg... i dont know OMEGA :rockon: problem sorted:DQuote:
Originally Posted by 8bit
here: http://www.omegadrivers.net/
^^^ not helpful, i want to run with the official drivers or I would be using OMEGA (i'm aware of them already).
Incidentally I've got the card working well with the latest ATI 5.5's albeit I have to use the CCC in the all in one drivers. Dunno why, the single driver plus wdm plus control panel applet wouldn't work. The all in one for 5.5 does work for me but neither the all in one nor the individual components above do. Oh well :)