|
|
|
The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread
|
|
AfterDawn Addict
15 product reviews
|
26. March 2009 @ 13:54 |
Link to this message
|
Well, I'm not hurting. My cards still blow away any of those. But only because I have crossfire XD It really doesn't make me want to go out and upgrade though. It's nice to see a refresh, but the 4890 is no upgrade if you already have a 4870.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 4GHz(20 x 200) 1.5v 3000NB 2000HT, Corsair Hydro H110 w/ 4 x 140mm 1500RPM fans Push/Pull, Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 @ 1600MHz CL9 1.55v, Gigabyte GTX760 OC 4GB(1170/1700), Corsair 750HX
Detailed PC Specs: http://my.afterdawn.com/estuansis/blog_entry.cfm/11388This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 26. March 2009 @ 13:59
|
|
Advertisement
|
 |
|
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
26. March 2009 @ 18:36 |
Link to this message
|
Agreed, and at current prices, it's still good value to buy a 4870 anyway. Now I have finally sorted crossfire out on my system, it runs beautifully. I finally have a Quad CF PC I can start up, run a game, play it for hours, do some work, log off and go to bed happy. It's only taken me what, two months? The sad thing is that latterly it's not even ATI's drivers to blame I don't think, it's buggy Skype!
|
|
harvrdguy
Senior Member
|
29. March 2009 @ 02:01 |
Link to this message
|
What are you saying Sam - skype???
Originally posted by sam:
Now I have finally sorted crossfire out on my system, it runs beautifully. I finally have a Quad CF PC I can start up, run a game, play it for hours, do some work, log off and go to bed happy.
Let me get this straight. (...Because the real estate deal actually closed and I can start thinking about spending money I'll get in about 15-30 days maybe, if I get all my paperwork in by then.)
You upgraded to shaff's old extreme mobo, and even though you're at 8x pci-e on both boards, you found that his board was stable running with quad crossfire - even when you left the side intake fan turned off on your Lexa and northbridge temps were 20 degrees above normal. Then, you upgraded to the HAF case, and your gpu temps dropped 20 degrees. The last I heard after that was that you said things were pretty smooth, not perfect, (not like the quote above) but the problems you were experiencing were only those that you felt were catalyst related, hopefully to be solved by future catalyst upgrades. You didn't exactly clarify what the problems were.
But now it sounds like you are saying that there ARE NO CATALYST ISSUES, and everything is smooth - and it sounds like you figured out that you had some buggy skype software that was the source of those last few problems you had been having???
If you are really running problem free - then I am ecstatic!!
Would you be so kind as to itemize a short list of the gotchas to avoid - in other words - the things you have learned in the two months of hard work and frustration you just went through? I would think that #1 on the list would be - "get a high-end motherboard with superior chip cooling - expect to pay $300 and up." But correct me if I am wrong about that.
Estuansis - back to your testing laboratory. Your testing led you to conclude that Sam's experience of not being able to see any difference running the cards on 16x versus 8x (whereas you saw a very distinct difference) meant to you that his Q9550 was a 4gpu cf bottleneck on the 775 platform (meaning 775 + quad cf, that's what I meant when I referred to the 775.)
As fast as the Q9550 is, Sam indicated that he thought he might actually have to agree with your conclusion.
Since I am shortly going to have a little pile of cash coming up, and I will be diving into 1366 with that DFI board with the 4 slot spacing between the two 16x CF boards, then learning from your impressive testing, Jeff, I want to try to avoid bottlenecking my quad CF.
Which makes me think I should seriously consider springing for the 940, not the 920, for that extra 10% of overclocking that Sam was mentioning - 4.4 versus 4.0 - if I can figure out the DFI bios and keep my case cool. What do you guys think?
One last thought - I have been away from the forum for about a week, and now there's a new chip out I see, the 4890. I presume the 4890x2 is on its way. I haven't bought zip yet, and I won't have any cash for 15-30 days anyway - should I wait for the 4890x2?
Rich
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 10:54 |
Link to this message
|
Right, well, with Catalyst 9.1 and 9.2 there were serious bugs that made the PC unusable, in 9.1 you would get games randomly crashing to desktop, faulting atiumdag.dll, whenever they tried to save/load. In 9.2, you would randomly get VPU recovers as if your graphics card was overclocked. In 9.3, the only bug that's a problem is the lack of Powerplay until you open and close a game (9.2 had this as well), except, if you use the new skype, games won't open, they just minimise to desktop as soon as they're launched as if you had pressed Alt-tab. Skype are meant to have made a patch for this, but you can fix it by using 'old windows mode' which looks the same, and doesn't randomly put the minimise, restore and Close buttons on their own at the bottom left corner of the screen for no apparent reason. That I assume, is part of the bug.
As I mentioned, Quad CF certainly works now, no blackscreens after changing to the Asus, and no crashes or silliness with 9.3, but P45 is still apparently holding me back in certain games, primarily Mirrors Edge. Ultimately, apart from performance being lacklustre in Far Cry 2 and Mirrors Edge (and Far Cry 2 doesn't really support Quad CF at all anyway), the actual function of the system is perfect, no hiccups all week. Crysis Warhead runs badly, but it always did, so no surprises. CW is still the only game that's CPU bottlenecked by my Quad though, now I have Quad CF, a few games I thought were CPU-bound, turns out are less affected than I thought.
To help you out, here's what not to do to have a relatively trouble-free Quad CF system?
1. Don't use a Gigabyte board (at least, not for S775)
2. Use a good PSU (preferably Zalman ZM850-HP or ZM1000-HP)
3. Have a well-cooled case (big front, rear, side fan)
4. Use 9.3 drivers, no earlier
5. Install the drivers with one card installed, add the second and bridge afterwards
6. Don't use an Engineering sample card with a DFI motherboard
7. Don't mess with any PCI express settings in the BIOS, they aren't needed, voltages included
As for the 4890X2, can you wait that long? It'll be at least a month...
Specs now updated with new image.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. March 2009 @ 15:12
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 17:42 |
Link to this message
|
|
Hey sam or anyone. Are you running Vista, and running RivaTuner? Because, the program itself seems to be fine on windows 7, but during the install it said something like Driver not digitally signed. And now I dont get those driver level settings in riva tuner! The settings THAT I WANT! Is there any way to turn off this function in windows vista, 7, etc? The function that warns about digital signature! I dont download stupid ...STUFF, so im not worried about digital sigs. Any help MUCH appreciated! Thanks in advance :)
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 17:43 |
Link to this message
|
|
Yeah, it was hard to install, I forget how I did it, I'll try and find out for you.
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 17:55 |
Link to this message
|
Originally posted by sammorris:
Yeah, it was hard to install, I forget how I did it, I'll try and find out for you.
Appreciate that buddy! :) The 8600GT is the lowest score in my windows 7 experience. Im just curious how much I can raise it. While learning a bit at the same time :D
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 18:04 |
Link to this message
|
During install this is the message it gives me.
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 18:42 |
Link to this message
|
Well...I found the way to deactivate the Nasty "digital signature required" bugger, in windows 7!
1. Start --->> Run ---> GPEdit.msc
2. Enable and Ignore Code signing for drivers policy under User Configuration --->>
Administrative Templates ---->> System ---->> Driver Installation --->> Code signing for drivers
Worked like a charm!
However, I still cannot enter driver level settings. :(
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 18:44 |
Link to this message
|
|
Correct. The program doesn't work as the driver isn't installed, You need to reinstall the program. The unsigned driver block works at install level.
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 18:55 |
Link to this message
|
Wow man. Im really at a loss here. I restarted windows, attempted reinstall, and the damn window came up again. About the driver signing. UNBELIEVABLE!!! I did NOT have a problem on XP. This is really beginning to anger me!
I'm running 64bit! Man...if this OS is gonna have issues like this, im not even gonna bother. I was planning on going linux anyway. This just pushed me even more!
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. March 2009 @ 19:02
|
Senior Member
|
29. March 2009 @ 19:21 |
Link to this message
|
You will have problems disabling the driver signature in 64bit windows. You could do it for a while but then they released a security update to stop that. It is to stop viruses from installing drivers for itself on your system. I had a similar problem when I was running 64bit server 2008. What you need to do is just find a program that does the same thing. For my graphics card I am using evga precision to control fan and clock speed.
GAMING COMPUTER - Intel q9550 @ 3.4ghz | EVGA GTX 260 core 216 | Gigabyte ds3l | 6gb Gskill DDR2 800 ram | Silverstone 700 watt psu | WD 640gb hdd | Seagate 300gb hdd | LG dvd burner | Samsung dvd burner | Antec p182 case | logitech 2.1 speakers | logitech g11 keyboard | Samsung 25.5in 1900x1200 monitor | 19in 1440x900 secondary monitor | Windows 7 64bit | SERVER - Gigabyte 785g motherboard | AMD Phenom 9650 | 6gb ram | three 1.5tb hdd | Seagate 1tb hdd | WD 750gb hdd | two 300gb hdd | Maxtor 200gb hdd | Ark rackmount case | CentOS 5.5
Steam name = "krj15489" alias = Jordan-k
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 19:26 |
Link to this message
|
|
Well...thats pretty fricken funny! I just did a windows update early this morning too. See...I was having an error running the performance index test. Updating windows did the trick! Looks like the security update is what screwed me huh! WONDERFUL!!! You know...its hardly windows fault though. Riva tuner simply needs to sign their software...right?
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. March 2009 @ 19:27
|
Senior Member
|
29. March 2009 @ 19:31 |
Link to this message
|
|
The update that took out disabling driver signing was a while ago and was most likely built into windows 7. But you can still disable it temporarily buy going into safe mode. Unfortunately it is expensive to have the driver signed. I think it is about $500 a year. So they would need to come up with a way to make money using a free program or pay out of their own pockets every year.
GAMING COMPUTER - Intel q9550 @ 3.4ghz | EVGA GTX 260 core 216 | Gigabyte ds3l | 6gb Gskill DDR2 800 ram | Silverstone 700 watt psu | WD 640gb hdd | Seagate 300gb hdd | LG dvd burner | Samsung dvd burner | Antec p182 case | logitech 2.1 speakers | logitech g11 keyboard | Samsung 25.5in 1900x1200 monitor | 19in 1440x900 secondary monitor | Windows 7 64bit | SERVER - Gigabyte 785g motherboard | AMD Phenom 9650 | 6gb ram | three 1.5tb hdd | Seagate 1tb hdd | WD 750gb hdd | two 300gb hdd | Maxtor 200gb hdd | Ark rackmount case | CentOS 5.5
Steam name = "krj15489" alias = Jordan-k
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 19:36 |
Link to this message
|
hmmmff. That is too bad. I liked the look of Riva Tuner. Gonna have to give Evga precision a chance then. Thanks for your help buddy :)
Kevin
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 21:33 |
Link to this message
|
|
Well...an update to 182.08 forceware is ultimately what did it! The digital signing was negligible! Because now it is running! It may not be stable, due to not being officially supported yet but...ITS RUNNING LOL!!!
Kevin
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. March 2009 @ 21:34
|
|
harvrdguy
Senior Member
|
29. March 2009 @ 22:03 |
Link to this message
|
Sam, thanks for that list about making quad cf work. Fabulous information - goes right in front of the new build text reference file.
And yes, I think I can wait a month or two for the 4890x2s. No problem. That's probably about the time I'll get my check with the normal trouble I have at making sure my real estate files are in order. And game-wise, although I just bought GTA4 for $20, and already have ebay-bought Far Cry 2, Crysis, Warhead, and COD5, they can all wait a while.
I'm playing back through the first Brothers in Arms which has a 2560x1600 setting (Road to Hill 30) on the big Dell, and getting 32-40 fps all settings high. It's much more immersive - I know, I know, I keep saying that. (Most of the Germans I am fighting look like teenagers - I never really saw them that closely before!)
I am playing at the hard setting - but not the authentic setting.
I did something smart for the first time - I created a new profile call Rich-hard, and started the game with that new profile. I already had played through the game on hard a year or so ago, so any chapter that I like, I can take a break, switch to the other "Matt Baker" default profile, and then try to get through it on authentic. So I have two different profiles playing the game at the same time - I never did that before. After I succeed on Authentic, or just give up having lost my patience, I can change back to the Rich-hard profile, and just resume the game.
The "authentic" setting requires the patience of god (the kind of patience you would have to have if your life were really on the line.) What makes it much harder is that there are no save points - you have to play virtually the whole chapter without one damn major mistake. It's painstakingly slow - like the original Far Cry on hardest setting. I am proud of myself - I did go back and play the first few chapters on authentic - over several different Wednesdays. I saved up some grenades for the chapter that finishes with the shootout in front of the barracks where two of the guys use a bazooka to take out a machine gunner. Just before that part of the courtyard is a room with 4 germans - and I knew that without the grenades I wouldn't make it in authentic mode - and I would have at least a half hour to an hour invested in the chapter up to that point. I threw one grenade and beat it the hell out of there - I had been playing so well I was green-yellow in color - lots of health. I crawled back into the building - no sound - I threw another grenade. Went back in again - all the germans were dead. I think actually the first grenade got them all. Out in the courtyard with the big shootout I stayed in a corner of part of the barn - no hero moves when you're playing authentic unless you want to repeat the whole goddamn chapter!! Hahahaha!
Anyway, the big Dell is like I never played the game before - there is such a difference! After this I have the second Brothers in Arms, Earned in Blood, which should play just as well (but not the third, Hells Highway - the P4 won't handle the rain halfway through the game.) I also have Far Cry 1, and Half Life 2 and the episodes. I think I have enough to keep me busy for 60 days, gaming only on Wednesday (all day - about 12 hours lol.)
First I'll pick up the Zalman 1000, test that with a small test computer to make sure it's not DOA, then put that in the spedo and mod the bottom intake fan. Next step will be the DFI, cpu and memory. I can test with an old pci video card from the little pre-agp 10-year old 200mhz test computer. Hahaha. So I can run some system tests and memory tests and maybe do some overclocking before picking up any high end graphics. That should all keep me busy enough to be able to wait a bit for the 4890x2 cards.
Man, Kevin, Krj and Sam - what a pain with this windows 7 signed driver issue! I'll be setting up vista and windows 7 partitions - I can't wait for the new headaches, lol.
Rich
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 22:15 |
Link to this message
|
|
Actually my headaches have been pretty minimal! Some installs are a pain, but the overall OS experience has been better than I expected. Windows 7 still remains the best OS they've released. At beta stage anyway LOL!
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
Senior Member
|
29. March 2009 @ 22:18 |
Link to this message
|
Originally posted by harvrdguy:
Man, Kevin, Krj and Sam - what a pain with this windows 7 signed driver issue! I'll be setting up vista and windows 7 partitions - I can't wait for the new headaches, lol.
Rich
So far I am liking windows 7. The only things that still bother me are the driver signing and some issues resuming from sleep. But other than that windows 7 runs everything and performs great.
GAMING COMPUTER - Intel q9550 @ 3.4ghz | EVGA GTX 260 core 216 | Gigabyte ds3l | 6gb Gskill DDR2 800 ram | Silverstone 700 watt psu | WD 640gb hdd | Seagate 300gb hdd | LG dvd burner | Samsung dvd burner | Antec p182 case | logitech 2.1 speakers | logitech g11 keyboard | Samsung 25.5in 1900x1200 monitor | 19in 1440x900 secondary monitor | Windows 7 64bit | SERVER - Gigabyte 785g motherboard | AMD Phenom 9650 | 6gb ram | three 1.5tb hdd | Seagate 1tb hdd | WD 750gb hdd | two 300gb hdd | Maxtor 200gb hdd | Ark rackmount case | CentOS 5.5
Steam name = "krj15489" alias = Jordan-k
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 22:26 |
Link to this message
|
|
Yah...I was QUITE alarmed, when the first time after install, it didnt resume from sleep mode. I was like, "ok, lets turn this OFF right now!" I ended up having to shut it off, because it wouldnt respond from the sleep mode! There was either a driver or hardware issue that caused it I think!
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
Senior Member
|
29. March 2009 @ 22:35 |
Link to this message
|
|
I didn't realize other people were having this problem too. I have been thinking that I set it up wrong but now I know others are experiencing this also. I have been thinking about trying to upgrade to the newer versions to fix the problem but I'm not sure of the easiest way to do it. I am running version 7000 and I have seen downloads for the newer 7068, but i dont want to have to reinstall.
GAMING COMPUTER - Intel q9550 @ 3.4ghz | EVGA GTX 260 core 216 | Gigabyte ds3l | 6gb Gskill DDR2 800 ram | Silverstone 700 watt psu | WD 640gb hdd | Seagate 300gb hdd | LG dvd burner | Samsung dvd burner | Antec p182 case | logitech 2.1 speakers | logitech g11 keyboard | Samsung 25.5in 1900x1200 monitor | 19in 1440x900 secondary monitor | Windows 7 64bit | SERVER - Gigabyte 785g motherboard | AMD Phenom 9650 | 6gb ram | three 1.5tb hdd | Seagate 1tb hdd | WD 750gb hdd | two 300gb hdd | Maxtor 200gb hdd | Ark rackmount case | CentOS 5.5
Steam name = "krj15489" alias = Jordan-k
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 22:42 |
Link to this message
|
Worked on my MSI board I believe. Not sure what to think at this point. Since I dont believe in shutting off my equipment...
See...much like a light bulb, hot cold, hot cold, hot cold, POP!!! My HP is 8 yrs old. I never shut it off when I was running it. However the PSU gave out due to the area Im living in now. Unstable voltage in my area!
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. March 2009 @ 22:42
|
|
harvrdguy
Senior Member
|
29. March 2009 @ 23:30 |
Link to this message
|
|
Well if you guys like it, maybe Windows 7 won't be as bad as all that. I have already downloaded the beta, along with vista, so I'll be ready to march forward with them for the new build.
Never turning off equipment, hmmm. I know our friend Sam would not approve of the wasted electricity, lol.
I know what you mean about light bulbs, hot cold hot cold pop! But keep in mind that a light bulb is an actual tungsten filament, and a mechanical engineering phenomenon called metal fatigue - the same thing that plagues airplane wings - comes into play I imagine. Are silicon chips affected the same way? - I am not sure if they are or not. I too have some old equipment, but I have always turned my equipment off every night. I guess I would say that most silicon runs warm - not really hot - certainly not white hot like a light bulb filament. If you don't overly stress the component, as opposed to overclocking a cpu without adequate cooling and with unsafe voltages, then the piece of silicon that never gets above its normal working temperature, in my experience and to my knowledge, should last indefinitely. Those transistors, with their little npn junctions and tunneling theory and whatnot - they friggin last forever!
But let me ask you this - surely, at the very least, you have your hard drive set to turn off after a certain period of time, don't you. I mean, I know those bearings are well made and self-lubricated, but how many billions of revolutions can they take? You don't keep that little guy spinning 24/7 for years on end do you? Hahaha. (I know some who do.)
Rich
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 23:34 |
Link to this message
|
Well...I tried raising the main Core clock to 600(602) from 540, it just about locked up windows during a performance test. Had to enter task manager to end the process! If I cant get a significant increase in performance, than this really is a lost cause. But then I did learn a few things anyway. Sooo...it wasnt a complete loss. And in a few weeks I can purchase a new card, and be happy. But then, if this card can run GTA IV without too many hiccups, I may still be happy for a little while anyway! Ultimately, I'm gonna upgrade sooooon!!! GTA IV is DEFINITELY in the near future! Possibly tonight :D
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
|
Advertisement
|
|
|
AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
|
29. March 2009 @ 23:43 |
Link to this message
|
|
I've owned my AAKS drive for a little over a year, and its showing 9700hrs. Still seems good too.
Your probably right about the harddrives. I think im gonna start turning them off. Especially considering the POOR veloci hitting 10,000 rpms!
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
|
