Author Topic: ATI Radeon gurus (Read 407 times)

ra · « **on:** January 25, 2003, 10:09:11 PM »

Here's what happened. My Radeon 8500 was working OK, but it had a few stutters here and there with the drivers that came with it. I noticed new Catalyst drivers on the ATI webpage so I tried to install them. The installation said it would run a system test after reboot, and then the installation would be complete. After reboot no test was run, and I noticed I didn't have any OpenGL or Direct3D setting tabs. Framerate was mediocre, too. The Catalyst install didn't take. So I uninstalled it and tried to re-install the original drivers. Now they wouldn't install either, the install froze half way through.

Six hours of headbanging later, my computer won't take the card at all. It will display in Safe Mode, but if I try to get into Windows, even with the display adapter set to Standard VGA, all I get is a scrambled screen. So now I'm back to using my old Geforce2 MX.

The ATI webpage is useless for help. Any gurus out there know how I can get my Win98 to accept this card again? I don't think the card itself is porked, I think all of the aborted installs of the ATI drivers have left some residual driver info somewhere in the deep recesses of Windows and now it can't take the card. I've already uninstalled and deleted everything related to ATI I can find, but my computer just won't accept this card any more.

ra (will never buy ATI again)

lord dolf vader · « **Reply #1 on:** January 25, 2003, 11:14:16 PM »

sounds like windows 98 to me.

hint format c:

Skuzzy · « **Reply #2 on:** January 26, 2003, 07:21:35 AM »

The Cat drivers do not come with the ATI control panel. You have to download and install it after your install the Cat drivers.

They did that so you would not have to download the control panel with every driver, which reduces the download size considerably.

If you look at the download page, you will see the Cat driver, then below that is the control panel.

The test done at boot time is the Smargart utility. It checks your AGP bus out and sets up the driver config according to the actual abilities of the AGP bus.
You can disable this feature if it causes problems. On some VIA chipsets (not sure which ones) the control bits in the AGP settings register are not set/used correctly and may cause problems.
You boot fine, but get graphic errors in 3D games, so just disable the Smartgart in the control panel.

ra · « **Reply #3 on:** January 26, 2003, 09:26:42 AM »

Skuzzy,

I wish I had realized that I had to download the control panel separately.

I already disabled ATISMART, it didn't help. The problem isn't with 3d games, it's with Windows. It only displays a scrambled screen when I put the card in, even with Standard VGA drivers running. Safe Model works, though.

ra

Skuzzy · « **Reply #4 on:** January 26, 2003, 10:58:24 AM »

I know what the problem is. You need to purge the NVidia drivers from the system. NVidia's de-installer does not remove the driver files and leaves a bunch of registry entries around.

I have seen this whenever you switch from NVidia to ATI or vice-versa.

Basically, you are at a point where you need to remove all ATI and NVidia drivers from the system. Get the system running in SVGA mode on the card you really want to use, then install the drivers for that card.

ra · « **Reply #5 on:** January 26, 2003, 11:21:07 AM »

Thanks Skuzzy, I'll try again. I already went through this when I first installed the Radeon, so maybe I missed a step this time around.

ra

PSYKO · « **Reply #6 on:** January 26, 2003, 05:05:24 PM »

im running a 7000 but when ever i shoot it jumps wen i stop fireing any help???

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** January 26, 2003, 07:54:34 PM »

My bet is your sound card is running at full hardware acceleration, knock it down a notch in DXDIAG.

Failing that, the other bet is your video card is sharing an interrupt with the sound card.

PSYKO · « **Reply #8 on:** January 27, 2003, 12:02:07 AM »

thanks