New pc - worse than old one?!!!

Stumpy

Okay - possibly a bit of an exaggeration - but I've saved up all year (last year that is!!) for a decent computer to replace the one running on hamster power, spent the last two days setting it up, transferring e-mail/browser/office settings, finally got around to installing a few games on it ... and things have suddenly got rather depressing.

My old computer was an intel 1.6 celeron with 700 ish Meg memory,80 gig HD, onboard sound and graphics (basic stuff), CD-RW.

My new pc is an Athlon 3800+ with DVD-RW, 1gig memory, 250 gig HD, 512Mb ATI Radeon X1600 Pro (?!) graphics card and onboard sound.

Firstly, I can't get the DVD drive to autorun. I've tried right-clicking on it, going through to the autoplay option there, but can't seem to get it to happen - there isn't an option to "run", just to explore - and that doesn't seem to work either. I've tried setting it to "ask" but that doesn't work either.

I could cope with that though - the main problem is one of my favourite games at the moment - Dungeon Siege 2 - ran okay, if a bit slow, on the old computer - now it pops up with an error message saying my hardware is not compatible. If I ignore that and load the game, it runs okay for a while (although the screen is rather jerky at zoomed in view) but then it crashes. Sacred - seems to run okay, but there are weird "segment" lines running vertically and horizontally through the menu picture. Fate - I seem to be moving too fast for the screen, even when the character is just walking.

I'm assuming this is all pointing to a graphics problem, but Microsoft (makers of DS2) have no record on their site of problems with this particular card. I have done a search on various forums, again no other reports similar. I have upgraded the driver to the most recent (Catalyst 6.2) but still no change.

I have no idea what else to try - all I know about graphics cards is that if they work, leave them alone, if they don't, upgrade the driver! Have I ended up picking a rubbish card? I did try searching before buying, but there is so much out there ...

keithwjones

Is the game compatible with the new operating system - XP?

Keith

Toxteth_OGrady

Have you got the latest DirectX 9.0c installed?

Go to https://www.omegadrivers.net and use those - I always use them for ATI cards. When you install them select fastwrites to 'disabled.'

:cool:

TOG

wagster_2

If you think it is your graphics card causing problems try this link Tweaked ATI graphics driver.

Download the latest version and then uninstall your existing ATI drivers and software then install the new version.

I always use these for my laptop as i have the same problem with some games that don't run properly with the Offical ATI drivers but work fine with the tweaked version.

Hope it helps.

sellingmysoul666

My bf has the same game & it works okay we have
windows xp
AMD #20fb1, 2000 MHz
Memory 512MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 TurboCache(TM)

I dont know if it will help with your problem but this site has some useful tips

https://www.pcpitstop.com

Stumpy

My OS Is windows XP Home SP2 - and yes, the game is compatible - only came out a couple of months ago. Also made sure I had the latest DirectX. I've downloaded that other driver suggested (thanks for both links - both for the same driver, but in different places - although one wouldn't load because of some problem with "referrers?!" - god, things go from bad to worse!), uninstalled the ATI one and installed the suggested one - doesn't seem to make any difference - still get the error message anyway.

Had a look at the Pitstop site - very interesting - apparently I have a better than average system. Doesn't show any problems with video/graphics at all, or much of anything else, which is to be expected on a brand new pc. Although looking at the listing of various graphic card speeds, looks like I would have been better off going for a Geforce - damn.

I haven't mucked around with any settings with the new driver software - any suggestions, or do you think its one of those weird Windows errors that actually means something completely different to what it says?!

I've given up for the night. I'm depressed, and going to bed. grrr. :mad:

scheming_gypsy

try taking the graphics card out of your old machine and sticking it in the new one to see if that works ok

banger9365

might sound funny put what psu have you got ,(if updated drivers/pacthes are not working )
300/400 watt ,18amp on 12v , 40amp on 5v ect
the reason behind this that your 939 motherboard ,cpu,ram,and PCI Express card nead a lot off power,dvdr/rw hdd do not nead a lott off power
and some cheap one's cannot deliver the power needed

before i forget have you changed the screen resolution from 800by600 to 1280by1024 ,this might help

Stumpy

Its a 550 psu, and I don't want to start delving around into the innards of the machine just yet - I only got it a couple of days ago and I know companies are a bit funny about warranties, etc, when you open them up. And yes, screen resolution changed to match monitor (LCD 19" 1280x1024).

Little_John

A few things for you to try
install the latest verified drivers and the latest direct x

drop the in game resolution not the windows resolution, you card has plenty of memory and a fast GPU but it still may not be happy running it at such a high resolution it does alot more work during the game than it does in Windows.

if you want to retain the high resolution drop some of the detail settings personally I would drop the res first and see how things play out, maybe put everything to the bottom and work your way up to the best settings see where things start to go wrong

you do have a good card but there are better and usually to use everything on the highest setting you need to have the latest cards and using SLi (2 cards working together)

another thing would be to check the graphics card fan, this does require removing the side of te pc, if it is a branded pc it could have a case intrusion switch which will tell them you opened the case, if it is custom built then it is unlikley to have one.

it could be a heat issue, try the game after you first switch the pc on before things have got too hot if it is ok then you have a heat issue expect it to get worse the longer you play. again remove the side of the case and try things again make sure that the airflow arroud the pc is good

Stumpy

Little_John wrote:

A few things for you to try
install the latest verified drivers and the latest direct x

drop the in game resolution not the windows resolution, you card has plenty of memory and a fast GPU but it still may not be happy running it at such a high resolution it does alot more work during the game than it does in Windows.

if you want to retain the high resolution drop some of the detail settings personally I would drop the res first and see how things play out, maybe put everything to the bottom and work your way up to the best settings see where things start to go wrong

you do have a good card but there are better and usually to use everything on the highest setting you need to have the latest cards and usinf SLi (2 cards working together)

Tried all that. And the game worked okay on my previous bog-standard onboard 64mb graphics card - so the quality of the card isn't a problem - it's got to be either software, or some problem physically with the board (oh, and saying that - of course, when scheming_gypsy suggesting taking the card out of my old machine, of course, can't do that, as it was on-board!).
But if there was something physically wrong with the card, I would have thought the errors, etc, would be much more obvious?