Hi, today I decided to treat myself to a new graphics card. Last night I was talking to a few people on LFS about graphics cards and it turned out I had the worst. In work today I noticed we had a fx 5500 instock, so I thought why not...
My boss usually complains about Nvidia's drivers, although I didn't have any problems with my previous card (fx5200 128mb) and the original drivers, I would like to update them anyway.
So, what do you guys suggest?

Usually the latest drivers are the best, but I dont know if this is also true for rather old cards. You must decide whether you want compatibility with the new games, or best performance in older games and no compatibility with the new ones...

And actually nvidia drivers are better than ati ones... just look at the new 5.12 or whatever... they work neither with LFS (for many people, just look around in the forum) nor with my notebook...

Go with the latest drivers Cropsy. When I had the FX5500, it was still classed as an 'older' card then, and I kept it up-to-date everytime there was a new set of nVidia Drivers, no problems atall..untill I treated myself to a 6800GT Then I saw a difference

i suggest getting one, thats what i have now from .. well same thing that you had before lol, and its a HUUUGE improvement from the 5200.. for LFS obviously i cant run any AA and whatnot (not that anyone honestly needs it) but it doubled my FPS from what it was with the 5200

I played LFS with my 9200, it looked okay, but the gameplay is what got me addicted. But now with my Nvidia6600GTAGP, I can basically drive 40 MPH around the track looking at the surroundings. It's simply amazing.

I've got the latest 8.0 drivers, but sadly I haven't really been able to test the card, because the day I got it I also decided to open up my pedals and fix them, which I shouldn't have done.
I managed to get in a couple of races before I f***** my pedals, it was quite an improvement. I did have one problem though, the game froze for several seconds, twice. One time in the pits and another going up the hill of Ashton, causing one or two people to crash. This never happened when I had the 5200 installed. I was told that it could have been caused by still having the 5200 drivers installed, hopefully that was the case...

I'm having a problem with my graphics card (I think). This has happened before and it's just happened again. Both times it's happened while playing operation flashpoint, just after a map has loaded and the game is about to start,it freezes for about 1 minute then closes.
Last time it happened I just reinstalled the graphics card drivers, it's simple to fix but damn annoying, is it down to a faulty graphics card, bad drivers or something else?

Anyone?

If it is faulty I could return it and get a replacement, but I'm tempted to get a different, newer card...

i have the same card but havent had any problems
im still using the nvidia Version:81.95 gfx drivers
which version you using?
if you try older drivers and still have the same problem its more than likely to be bad installation or faulty card

Quote from FRED :

i have the same card but havent had any problems
im still using the nvidia Version:81.95 gfx drivers
which version you using?
if you try older drivers and still have the same problem its more than likely to be faulty card

I think I have the latest drivers 8.something. I'll try the 81.95 drivers when I get home if I don't already have them.

Hi Again Cropsy

I have the same card, and I must say, no problems here atm, but I did have problems with certain drivers from Nvidia. LFS actually done this once.

Usually find this happened when I didn't use driver cleaner when changing Forceware drivers.

Also, another thing. You didn't say which brand of card it is. I have the BFG 5500 256mb O/C version, and the stock h/s and fan is to be honest, totally naff. It got to hot, and crashed. I replaced this with a Copper base Thermaltake H/S and fan unit, and it works a treat. Obviously your card is alot newer then mine, but this was easy to test. Get PC running for a few minutes, start your game, and then feeling the H/S ( NOT THE CARD ) if it burns you, then its to hot

Fordie

Quote from Fordman :

Hi Again Cropsy

I have the same card, and I must say, no problems here atm, but I did have problems with certain drivers from Nvidia. LFS actually done this once.

Usually find this happened when I didn't use driver cleaner when changing Forceware drivers.

Also, another thing. You didn't say which brand of card it is. I have the BFG 5500 256mb O/C version, and the stock h/s and fan is to be honest, totally naff. It got to hot, and crashed. I replaced this with a Copper base Thermaltake H/S and fan unit, and it works a treat. Obviously your card is alot newer then mine, but this was easy to test. Get PC running for a few minutes, start your game, and then feeling the H/S ( NOT THE CARD ) if it burns you, then its to hot

Fordie

Last time I uninstslled the driver through add/remove prgrams, this time I was too lazy and just installed the drivers again without uninstalling them first.
It's an Inno3D card, there is two computers in the shop now that are open with the same card (apart from they are 128mb, not 256mb), and both of them are very hot. Not exactly hot enough to burn me, but just about bearable. I will check mine tonight when I get home and have another session on OFP. I would change the fan, but when it comes to hardware, I just don't trust myself (and with good reason). If I have any more problems with it I can change it anyway.
Thanks yet again mate

OFP crashed again last night, I thought I sorted it by downloading the latest directx last night, but it has just crashed again, but this time with a new message:

CreateIndexBuffer failed 8876086a - out of memory?


I guess I'll pick up a new card tomorrow...

Quote from Cropsy :

OFP crashed again last night, I thought I sorted it by downloading the latest directx last night, but it has just crashed again, but this time with a new message:

CreateIndexBuffer failed 8876086a - out of memory?


I guess I'll pick up a new card tomorrow...

If you end up picking up a new card get something decent that way it will last longer and you wont have to upgrade as soon. I would reccomend nothing lower then a GF 6600GT they dont go for much now a days the price has dropped. If you really want to treat yourself grab a GF 6800GT or even a GF 7800GT of course the higher it goes the more money it is & my guess is you dont want to pay the price tag for the 7800GT its pretty high right now.

So if you can grab a 6600GT or 6800GT or something in the range. Just remember if you pick up a card for $100 or less you get what you paid for. So spend a little extra $$ and get something good

Keep us updated,

Ciao

I replaced my graphics card to (with the same card), and OFP just crashed again, same error messages. I'm going to try the DriverCleaner that Fordman mentioned before, and the 81.95 drivers Fred mentioned (I was using 81.98).

Well, that didn't work. I'm having problems with LFS too. Alot of objects disapear and parts of the track, also it becomes very laggy, the FPS drops very low. Any ideas what is wrong with it?

Quote from Cropsy :

Well, that didn't work. I'm having problems with LFS too. Alot of objects disapear and parts of the track, also it becomes very laggy, the FPS drops very low. Any ideas what is wrong with it?

Try with a different video card. Also try reinstalling LFS see if it helps.

Latz

I can't really get hold of another card until next week. I'm pretty sure it's not a graphics card problem, it's unlikely to have two cards that have the exact same problem. Plus I don't think reinstalling LFS will help really, as OFP is having problems too.

Try turning the Haze effect off then on, or on then off, or on even I have seen this before, I have had that before, and its a driver issue.

Just to let you know, that Cropsy's GFX problem in LFS is now Fixed. Spoke to him last night on MSN, and he did turn on/off Haze Effect.

I thought that had fixed it, but it has happened twice again today. This is so frustrating, after it happened earlier today I was just waiting for it to happen again, then when I thought the problem had gone away again, it happened again...when I was leading too

I just pulled out of the pits on Ashton Cadet, and I couldn't see the track, all I could see was random colours and shapes. First time this has happened, and the strange thing is when I am spectating someone else it is fine.

Hey Cropsy, how big is the power supply? Those are some ugly pictures that I just saw now coming here after seeing you last night. That is crap that the graphics would look like that, even saying it is an older outdated card. I would immediately say the card is damaged, but you said you took it back and got another of the same. Perhaps the power supply isn't big enough to run it?

I don't remember what you're all running in the PC. I don't thing the power supply was mentioned up there ^ yet, though. I ran LFS on 8 mb onboard, outdated Radeon 9250 PCI, now 256 mb onboard, and even on a very old, very used, very outdated ATI Raige 16 mb PCI card (could see fine on that one, just didn't have framerate.) I never saw the problem you are having on any of the gfx I was using. Or perhaps something happened to your AGP slot. Is there anyone you know that you could borrow a different card and try?

That's about all I can offer, sorry I'm not a whole lot of help.

Hi mate, I think it is a software problem, I downloaded the latest Nvidia omega drivers, and since then I haven't had any problems. I had a few races on LFS and a long session on OFP this morning, and everything has been fine.
I'm not too sure about the power supply, and I was told if there was problems with the AGP slot or the card itself, it wouldn't be found or work at all.
I'm going back on LFS in a bit, will let you know if I have any more problems.

What you had sounds a drivers problem. Use an older version. The latest drivers are built around the newest cards, as such have problems with the older ranges.