ATI to nVidia.. woe is me ;) 8800 GTX help please..

So i've finally jumped to a 8800 GTX from a X1900XT and I can't say i'm too impressed thus far..

Lost Planet now isn't slow - oh no - it's loverly and smooth.. for about 30 seconds. Then it locks up. On both Vista and XP. Some i'm trying to pick through the minefield that is nVidia drivers - there's about eight million betas out there and the release drivers are junk (or so it seems). So what the heck do I use to get things stable on either OS?

Some notes:

-PC was rock solid prior to GTX
-GTX heat was reaching 83C in lost planet: i've now watercooled the card - load is now 43C. Full EK waterblock jobby.
-Sound under vista is stuttering - not had this before but this is the first time i've had Vista on my new rig - latest creative drivers.
-dropping back to stock (cpu) has no effect.
-C&C 3 is rock solid (interestingly load temps on air were 10C lower than lost planet).
-the fan never seems to ramp up or down appreciably and there's no monitor/override option in the nvidia control panel

So.. game, hardware or drivers? Any thoughts?

Sounds like drivers to me. I take you either did a clean Vista install or used a driver cleaner program when uninstalling the ati card?

Are there any patches out for this games yet?

What driver revisions are you using/have you tried?

Which driver versions have you tried for Lost Planet?

People seem to be using 158.45 vista without problems

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=2332729

Elite Bastards performance test with 158.45

Vista clean, XP cleaned out prior to nvidia.

No patches as of yet.

I've tried release versions (from nvidia's site for each).

Vista:
ForceWare Release 158
Version: 158.24
Release Date: June 1, 2007
WHQL Driver

XP:

ForceWare Release 158
Version: 158.22
Release Date: May 17, 2007
WHQL Certified

I've also tried *something like* the 168.15 or so for XP - can't confirm that from here.

Thanks for the 158.45 tip for vista - i'll try those tonight for a start!

Weird thing is the sound stutter - happens both via the X-FI and my USB sound card..

For what its worth, I have a few games that I can't play at all, all because of my 8800GTX.

I bought the card in December, aswell as a few games (like Company of Heroes etc..), and they don't work. So I have been waiting 7 months now for a fix and it hasn't come. Thats over £400 for something which is essentially broken. And waiting 7 months for a driver to fix it is just disgusting.

I'm just one of countless people with the exact same problem too.

p.s. If you're interested, someone made a movie of the problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO5he_Rzlk4

get the new beta drivers they run good.

omg.. this feels so much like my current 8800GTS..

CoH doesnt work, DiRT produces pretty mono coloured half-screen wide triangles randomly.. sometimes it works fine sometimes it just crashes..

Then I get back to the wonderful desktop all in its 256colour glory + saying nv4disp.dll has failed..

Its only until I disabled CoH intro videos, hacked the .lua file to display on my current dekstop res width 1680 height 1080 then only CoH works.. But only for 1 hr or so.. sometimes it goes within 15min.. jumped back to the desktop warning me.. 'there were not enough texture memory'...

Nvidia's drivers are officially poo..

First I thought i was my memory.. then i thought it was my overclock.. then I failed 3dMark as well.. well, not technically fail, I can complete the tests if I repeat them manually.. i.e. start one.. finish.. then start again.. but if I let it loop automatically, I get the very same thing.. either random wide triangles, or black screen or the message nv4disp.dll has failed.. I also get to hear plenty of wierd noise on my speakers while this happens..

Thanks a lot for the feeback guys - nice (or not) to know it ain't just me who's suffering.

Yep.

Very similar story here too, and there are countless other people on the internet with the same story. I spend the first month of owning my new PC, hassling the companies of every component. Like you, at first I thought it was my RAM. I spent weeks on the Corsair forum and the Corsair section of this forum, hassling them and getting help from them. Eventually they helped me get it all set up perfectly and yet the problem still persisted. (P.S. The corsair people where fantasticly helpful by the way. Both here and on the official forum).

I tried lots of other things, took the soundcard out etc... and eventually realised it was the 8800GTX. I took it back to where I bought it from, and got a replacement. Its exactly the same...

Such a pain in the bum. I don't particularly miss the games that crash because I am lucky to have several other games that do work. But it pi$$es me off to think that I've spent all this money for something that is basically faulty. I hate that... My dad works for a small company, and if they ever do anything that isn't 100% perfect... they get in all kinds of trouble. But fricken Nvidia sell me something that cost me a fortune, and it doesn't work... and nobody cares. Its terrible. Roarrr.

Mmmm..sorry to hear of your 8800 troubles...was going to buy one soon but I think I will stick with my X1900XT a while longer until things improve driver/hardware wise.

Hope you get the problems sorted anyway.

OK so last night I cleaned off the driver (uninstall, used XDC in safe mode) for XP and replaced it with the 162.18 beta. Patched Lost Planet... and.. it ran for 10 mins straight (this is a major achievement trust me - i get about a minute usually). I haven't tried GRAW2 yet but i've heard people say there are no shadows with the newer drivers.. Gah.

Cool. Congrats.

I've been playing GRAW2. Haven't noticed if there are shadows or not to be honest though. It has really nice graphics though. Unfortunately I find it a tad boring hehe. Its ok though.

dangel which versions of Vista/XP are you using 32 or 64 bit?

I have a BFG OC1 8800 GTX and an ExpertVision 8800GTX I have tried a number of different drivers all are working fine in whichever game I play. Dosent help you guys with problems I know, but to reassure you that the hardware does work.

The ExpertVision did fail after 4 months and I got it replaced since then no issues. Both are running on 700 watt plus PSU's.
Why people are having problems I dont know unless there are quality control issues at the manufacturing stage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by acrobat

Cool. Congrats.

I've been playing GRAW2. Haven't noticed if there are shadows or not to be honest though. It has really nice graphics though. Unfortunately I find it a tad boring hehe. Its ok though.

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The shadows are definitely missing - but it works, which is a step forward lol ;) GRAW2 is graphically a bit dull but the gameplay is pretty good - i love all that stealthy one-hit-kill stuff :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DratUK

dangel which versions of Vista/XP are you using 32 or 64 bit?

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32bit Vista Ult. at the moment - I think trying 64bit is likely to make life worse if anything..

I did have a lock-up (frozen screen etc) in C&C3 yesterday but i've played a lot of GRAW2 now without issues (aside from some of the graphics missing lol).

I've had a 8800GTX for about 2 months now and have had no issues at all. I have just kept installing the updates as Vista 64-bit (Home Prem) has been throwing them at me. I will try installing a new-ish game tomorrow and see what happens.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thoku

I've had a 8800GTX for about 2 months now and have had no issues at all. I have just kept installing the updates as Vista 64-bit (Home Prem) has been throwing them at me. I will try installing a new-ish game tomorrow and see what happens.

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Try "Company of Heroes" if you can. That seems to be the litmus test of gaming. If that works, then you will probably have no or very few problems. If that crashes though, then you will probably crash on all the other games I crash on too.