Problems with your ATI Radeon card?

[jorrit]

Originally posted by DaveG
Two people complained about ATI junk in one day, so I figure a nicely labeled \"Important\" sticky...... would probably be ignored...... but it\'s the thought that counts.  

Radeon 9700, 9600, 9200, 7500, and all mobile versions have reported issues.  And those are just the ones I found quickly.  I\'ve lost track of the ATI cards that don\'t work with PS...  :rolleyes:  After searching around the forums a bit, I found it\'s not just Windows either... there\'s a few Linux complaints, too.  

My Radeon worked just fine, till I updated the drivers.  (Ironic that the #1 troubleshooting tip backfired.)  The 3rd party ones from Omega work better than the old ones that came with the card, and they don\'t crash... which is always good.  If you\'re iffy about 3rd party drivers, you can try downgrading to the 2002 drivers if you can get them.  Unfortunately, I can\'t take Xordan\'s advice, because I\'m using a laptop... not that upgradeable...

With a bit of luck (and if I get sufficient donations (hint hint :-) ) I\'ll get a computer with an ATI video card myself. That would be a splendid opportunity to finetune Crystal Space and PlaneShift on ATI cards.

Greetings,

[DaveG]

Originally posted by Pip
So I scrapped those and downloaded the latest official ATI Radeon drivers (mobility) and everything is now working perfectly.

And do you know why that is?...  ATI has posted new drivers (version 5.9) since this thread was created.    (And, so have Omega Drivers)  So, that very specific statement on the first line (which I wrote, but told Moogie would be too specific, as some cards did work at the time and others most certainly did not) is no longer applicable.  \"Latest version\" should\'a had a number, I guess.  

So, just to make sure it\'s known:

ATI updated their drivers at the end of September.  These new ones do work correctly, as far as I know.

If you\'re not having any problems, stick with whatever you have, and only upgrade occasionally.  If Omega stops putting out ones that work for you, get ATI\'s or vica versa.

[verideon]

I currently run a ATI Radeon Card version 9600. While I have trouble with Planeshift and any game like Planeshift it find that the easiet way for me to fix it is to Re-install my cards components from the CD or dowload the latest update to it from the site. Over a certain period I have the same problem even when i\'m not using Planeshift and I re-install my driver and it works perfectly again.

[Allan Wegan]

I\'m proud to own an Ati too. And the game does not even start in full screen mode (the system hangs complete on the world load screen). But the windowed mode works.
Arx Fatalis, Gothic 1 and 2, Myst 5, Vampire Bloodlines, Doom3, HL2 and Thief deadly shadows work fine with this card on my system (AMD Athlon XP 2GH, 1GB ram, Ati Radeon 9600 with 256 MB ram, SBLive 5.1, NForce chipset).
The Graphics Driver is the 8.162.0.0 (it\'s the one signed by M$ - not a tweeked one).

[graigsmith]

i have a radeon 9200, and i am using the open source drivers.  Planeshift started to start up but diddn\'t use 3d acceleration.  Though im not having problems with 3d.  I can even play neverwinter nights just fine.

[karl]

I also have big problems with my ATI All-in-Wonder 128 under linux (with driver r128)
When i run PS a white window appears, with a blue bar of progress at the bottom : i.e. like the usual screen of loading of planeshift but without  pictures
And then when the bar is full there\'s a huge bug, the stronger bug i\'ve ever seen on a linux system for ten years : no way to do another thing than pushing the poweroff button.
And in the background i see in the virtual console i used to run PS an error message repeated in a loop, which is something like \"r128UploadTexImages : Upload Texture Failure in Local Texture Heaps, sz=\" and a number
Actually i also have the same message with all 3D applications, but PS is the only one which freezes.
I\'m going to look for other versions of the rage 128 drivers to try, but i don\'t even know if such other version do exist.
Any suggestion to solve my problem ?

[karl]

I\'ve found the \"solution\" (should I really call this a solution ? ) :
I have to desactivate the hardware acceleration, which is buggy.
And I\'ve also found that other games have the same problem with ATI Rage 128, it is not a planeshift problem.
But now the problem is that with no acceleration, i just cannot play ! the rendering is incredibly slow !
Maybe I can desactivate only one part of the hardware acceleration, i\'m still searching...

[scar_freewill]

i have a radeon 9200, and i am using the open source drivers. Planeshift started to start up but diddn\'t use 3d acceleration. Though im not having problems with 3d. I can even play neverwinter nights just fine.

graigsmith: Where do you get the drivers? Is it mesa? Because I use linux fglrx-rpm. If i use mesa my 3d acceleration is super crap.

[verideon]

from the previous posts i\'m assuming that people\'s ATI Radeon cards are not working. What people never know about Graphics cards are that it DOES matter wether you update it or not. Any newer games released from the point of when your graphic cards updates were released may or may not work on these games, if they do then it is usually to a reduced graphics rating or an inability to see the appropriate things. If you update your graphics cards as much as possible you reduce the risk of any of this. here is a link of where driver updates can be obtained from; http://www.ati.com and by searching for your appropriate driver updates. At the moment I am using ATI CATALYST on my Radeon 9200 Excalibur card and it has improved almost all the aspects of what a graphics card is needed for.

[DaveG]

This thread really should be de-stickified.  To my knowledge, it\'s no longer applicable.  (the main tagline was already stated to be misleading, and no one ever seems to read the whole thread)

At the time I asked Moogie to post this thing, the most recent ATI drivers for certain cards were completely incompatible with PS.  (or rather, CS most likely)  The biggest culprit was the Radeon Mobility, which was the only card that seemed to fail reliably.  As you can see in one of my posts here, in big letters, ATI released drivers in September that worked again.  And, in fact, the alternative drivers that were recommended started having issues for some.  So, contrary to popular belief, upgrading frequently isn\'t always best for everything and you need to be prepared to downgrade or switch to an alternative if needed.

In general, yes, you should upgrade your graphics drivers from time to time.  But, it\'s not a magic bullet, and it\'s not always going to fix everything.