Official GIGABYTE Forum
Questions about GIGABYTE products => Graphic cards => Topic started by: VenomX on September 06, 2011, 01:11:53 pm
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Hi!
A little over a year ago I bought a new computer, didnt have time to fuss with components so just grabbed a prepackaged Dell (Vostro) with an i7 2.8 Ghz processor and 6 GB ram. Bought Crysis and Modern Warfare 2 mostly just to test out performance and the internal GTS 240 card handled the games fine, got addicted to Crysis and have been playing it regularly ever since.
About a month ago the fan on the GTS 240, apparently of notoriously bad quality, started bonkering out, producing heavy and very random noise regardless of any cleanings I would do so I finally grabbed a new Gigabyte GTX 460 card to replace it. Turned it on and ahh, wonderful silence. However, as soon as I started up Crysis, something was terribly off with the graphics. I had previously played on Low/Medium settings so I cranked everything up to High/Highest instead to see if that would help. All the textures, shadings, water, particle effects etc suddenly turned stunningly beautiful, but something was still horribly off somehow.
Finally I realized it was the edges that seemed to not be antialiasing properly. I played around with the antialias setting a bit, but while it does seem to cause some minor changes between 0x and 16x, not even at the 16x settings do the edges look good. Still very jagged, crisp, sharp pixley edges along pretty much every line, especially where a dark object is rendered against a brighter one. Even the regular white chat text overlayed on the game background is hard to read because of the s***ty antialias. I noticed the nVidia control panels offer some options for manually enforcing antialias and override the settings of individual games, but upping that to the max didn't seem to change anything either.
I reinstalled Modern Warfare 2 just to see if it was specifically a Crysis issue but nope, MW2 looks just as horrible and un-antialiased as Crysis does, jagged crisp lines around everything even on the maximum (here 4x) antialias setting.
Now, I've read online that people have had issues with more recent settings on the GTX 460 card and since the driver that came with the card was (I think) 275.33, I decided to try with what seems to be regarded the "last safe bet" for the 460 cards - the 258.96 version. However, no change, still the horrible edges around everything in both games.
Has anybody else encountered this problem, or have any suggestions of something I could try? :(
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Do you have the entire Nvidia Driver Package installed.... some have said that the latest (280.26 I think) has issues......I have had none!......people are hard pressed when asked what the issues are..........more like a friend of a friends mothers,Brother told me!
When Nvidia drivers have had problems.........it quite often was not uninstalling the driver package completely before loading the newie .... try this first so we can rule out a driver issue
BESIDE THE POINT BUT
Dell make fair to good laptop for medium business use, but fail with towers except in the business class ..... if you had a one year warranty ..... the fan probably failed on day 366 ....Procured hardware quality controller of the hardware Dell use ...... is questionable at best in years of fixing many machines people put in front of me.
I resonantly put a machine together for a friend to a strict shopping list..........parts came to about 760 pounds......I added 200 on for the build labour and my time to load it up ...... he had a grin from ear to ear while handing me an even grand of fun tickets while telling me Dell wanted 2600 for the same spec...............Find a friend thats into computers for your next machine.
Aussie Allan
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Hi
A stab in the dark but what about updating the motherboard's BIOS version and of course there is also the GPU's firmware too.
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Do you have the entire Nvidia Driver Package installed.... some have said that the latest (280.26 I think) has issues......I have had none!......people are hard pressed when asked what the issues are..........more like a friend of a friends mothers,Brother told me!
When Nvidia drivers have had problems.........it quite often was not uninstalling the driver package completely before loading the newie .... try this first so we can rule out a driver issue
Thanks for your input! Just to be sure I'm not messing up here, how do you make absolutely sure you've uninstalled the entire old driver package and that none of it remains (running win7 here)?
Dell make fair to good laptop for medium business use, but fail with towers except in the business class ..... if you had a one year warranty ..... the fan probably failed on day 366
Haha, very good guess! Not exactly day 366 but I was maybe two months past the warranty time when the fan started failing.
And yeah I'm aware of the issues with brand name computers, this is actually the first computer I haven't built myself from scratch but last time I did so was 8 years ago and I just didn't have time to fuss with reading up on recent hardware specs - just wanted something that worked and price wasn't as important. Besides the graphics card I'm pretty happy with the rest of the can.
A stab in the dark but what about updating the motherboard's BIOS version and of course there is also the GPU's firmware too.
Thanks for your input as well, definitely something I might try when I get done ruling out driver issues.
As a sidenote and as an oldtimer who started my geeking days in the 80ies I must say I'm more than a little disturbed to notice that Gigabytes G logo is almost a complete ripoff from Commodores classic red and blue C. Is nothing sacred anymore? :-[
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A stab in the dark but what about updating the motherboard's BIOS version and of course there is also the GPU's firmware too.
Thanks for your input as well, definitely something I might try when I get done ruling out driver issues.
As a sidenote and as an oldtimer who started my geeking days in the 80ies I must say I'm more than a little disturbed to notice that Gigabytes G logo is almost a complete ripoff from Commodores classic red and blue C. Is nothing sacred anymore? :-[
Yes, now you come to mention it the similarity is amazing! I can't say I thought of it before but now you have mentioned it I will never look at it in quite the same light. :o
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The Logo was probably designed for/by runn3R. :D
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You are probably quite correct there absic as he does have a special affinity with the old Commodores!
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This is more a bible then a tutorial but it is definitive and up to dated .... the days are gone of putting a det driver one over the other
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1174372&mpage=1
Also there an exellent app for uninstalling anything ... set to it's stongest setting .... will even rip out the hard drive ;D
Aussie Allan
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Wow, a lot to wade through there Aussie Allan but it makes sense and is well worth reading.
I haven't noticed these uninstall problems or driver issues when overwriting with an update on the ATI side of things but it is something to consider even, for those of us using these GPU's.
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This is more a bible then a tutorial but it is definitive and up to dated .... the days are gone of putting a det driver one over the other
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1174372&mpage=1
Thanks for an interesting read, I went through all the directions and manually uninstalled every NVIDIA component, did a clean reinstall of the recent 280.26 version downloaded from nvidia.com and... same problem again. No and/or horribly bad antialias in both Crysis and MW2 :(
Just to illustrate what I'm talking about here's a quick screen of an ocean view from Crysis, ironically this was taken running on the max (16x) available antialias setting:
http://imagebin.org/171582
Note the section I've magnified at the top, where the ship in the background and also the island does show a slight bit of smoothing on the edges but the palmtrees have clearly been left completely without any antialias at all. Commodore is not entirely irrelevant in this thread because those palmtrees look like straight out of a c64 game. And to think the reason I fell in love with Crysis was its beautiful photorealistic nature :-\
Anybody have any idea what could be causing this issue? The ship and island is obviously partially antialiased, could this be a hardware issue with the card being broken somehow? Or is it just a matter of plowing through every single driver released until I (if ever) find one that works properly with games?
Needless to say Modern Warfare 2 looks just as crisp and bad, and this is the third driver I've tried now.
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Whilst it is possible that it is merely a driver problem, I think after trying several and having no improvement rather identifies it as a hardware issue. Maybe worth just trying a driver that is much older and see if the image is still the same.
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I have very strong suspicions that it's ............................before I say, is there any way you can put your current GPU in another computer running the same picture/game with similar setting...........this will emphatically rule out the GPU ...... reducing what we need to concentrate on.......I hope this makes sense to you too!
Aussie Allan
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I have very strong suspicions that it's ............................before I say, is there any way you can put your current GPU in another computer running the same picture/game with similar setting
Actually no, while I have other computers the next step down is a P4 I put together maybe 8 years ago and I doubt it would even manage to run Crysis (or any comparable game) at all.
Is there anything else I could try?
I really am getting more and more puzzled by the ship and the island though. The thing is, the island, palmtrees, and even the ships on the horizon are all 3d models (no "painted backgrounds" in this game) that can be driven up to with a boat and walked around on. So why on earth would the card decide to apply SOME antialias to the ship/island models but none whatsoever to the palmtrees? Doesn't make any bit of sense to me :-\
Although honestly the antialias on the ship is pretty crappy too compared to how it's supposed to look, but at least some little effort to smooth the lines by blurring has been applied there.
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If it will fit into the p4 and run ........do it...........better then nothing..........you need to find out if the antialias is doing it's dance
Two things need to happen.............delete and do a fresh clean install of the game.........check you have the "Full" driver Package 280.XX (including PhysicsX)....... check all setting to do with rendering................then test!
Number two.........you have to put this card into another machine to see if it does the same or even simular......you may have to consider.......even a PC shop you trust.......anyone with a board that will run the card with eye candy.
Aussie Allan
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Two things need to happen.............delete and do a fresh clean install of the game.........check you have the "Full" driver Package 280.XX (including PhysicsX)....... check all setting to do with rendering................then test!
Well, reinstalling the game didn't help (with Crysis nor MW2), same issue still and I am running the full 280.26 driver including PhysX installed according to that other long text with all unnecessary bloatware discarded. Haven't had time to find another computer to stick the card in yet but I managed to get something else to happen.
Checking through different settings configs I somehow managed to get the game to respond to the forced AI settings in the NVidia control panel. I set that to the maximum (I think it was 32x) and the following happened (notice palmtrees):
http://imagebin.org/171773
Unfortunately, the game still looks very bad compared to how it looked on my GTS 240 because the antialias is apparently just "slapped on top" of the game-rendered image, but at least it shows that the video card - hardware-wise - is at least capable of applying anti-alias at all. So the issue seems to be that when the card is set to just follow the programs/games own instructions for antialias, it just somehow fails to listen to what the program wants and subsequently ignores the antialiasing instructions altogether unless it's in the "forced" setting.
Not sure if that sheds any light on anything. I also found this other guy on the nVidia forum with a GTX 465 and EXACTLY the same issue as me with no antialiasing in games, so at least I'm not alone in this problem. Sadly the other guy hasn't gotten any reply to his thread so it wasn't of much help otherwise, also not sure what brand of card he had :-\
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Well just to get the driver out of the loop ....can you drop 280.xx and go back two releases and see if it's the same.....then we have Nvidia drives out of the lets fix it equation
Aussie Allan
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Sure, I did a clean reinstall of new drivers, two versions back this time which means the results are now the same with the following versions:
258.96, 270.61, 275.33 and 280.26
So that's four different drivers producing identical results as far as I can tell, and I've changed every setting imaginable in the NVidia control panel too without any real results besides that very ugly rough smoothing effect I get if I force the card to "reinforce the programs settings" or whatever that option was called for the antialias setting. I feel like I'm running out of things to try software-wise.
I've google around a bit and I've managed to find about 5 other people now on different forums with GTX 460 (or at least 4xx) cards who refuse to antialias edges in pretty much any and all 3d games. None of the threads however lead up to any solution, but they do have in common that the suggestions for trying different drivers etc don't seem to help any.
I dunno, maybe this card just isn't compatible with certain motherboards and I simply got an unlucky match or something? ???
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I think you've exhausted all your option with your machine..........it needs to go into another machine to confirm whether it's the card or your Dell rig.........if it does it in another machine.........you have solid ground to go the RMA path.
Aussie Allan
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Well, the plot just thickened by a large degree. I agree that you're right in that I need a second (machines) opinion and I just realized we DO have a more modern computer than the clunky old P4 - my wifes computer, I just never use it so it didn't spring to mind before.
I unplugged the GTX 460 and slipped it back in its anti-static bag and at the same time I plugged the old GTS 240 back in because even though its fan sounds like an eight motor propeller bomber on the runway I still wanted the computer somewhat operational while I was tinkering with the other one. So, I booted up the computer with the GTS 240, reinstalled one of the nvidia drivers for it, and out of curiousity decided to have a look at the games again before moving on.
The result: Same antialias problem, regardless of game, regardless of settings, now using the old card.
So basically it now seems safe to say this isn't a hardware issue of the Gigabyte card because now the disease seems to have spread to my GTS 240 as well. The strange thing is though, I absolutely KNOW the Gigabyte installation caused this issue because I was playing Crysis with beautiful antialiased graphics ealier that very same day (and since over a year back) on the GTS 240, then I shut down the computer and installed the GTX 460 only to have the antialias function suddenly be broken at the end of the installation process - and permanently broken it seems :-[
I realize this is a longshot to even ask but, does anybody know if there's ANYTHING that might have gotten installed from the Gigabyte installer CD that could be causing this conflict? Something that might have managed to stay on the computer even through all my nvidia uninstalls and reinstalls?
For example, when I just now glanced down at the CD I noticed "Yahoo companion Toolbar" on the cover. Being severely allergic to all kinds of toolbars and particularly Yahoos malwarian sh*t I would have never wanted this installed, but when I looked in the programs list - there it was! After a quick delete of Yahoo I also looked for another suspicious "GIGABYTE Easy Boost software" noted on the CD cover, but that on the other hand seems to NOT be installed - at least I can't find anything by that name.
Since the only clues I have now are that A) it seems to be a software issue after all and B) it started when I installed the Gigabyte card, I can't imagine what else the cause could be besides the CD. Well, unless the card installation somehow physically broke something on my motherboard that just happened to result in no more antialias in any games but that sounds a bit too unlikely to consider.
Any last wild guesses? :P
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Excellent!
Now the Video card is finally out of the loop.........Mmmmmmm!.......Wild guess!..........you've been targeted by SAPO for steeling parts out of the wifes computer !
No not logical enough!..........how about downloading a trial version of Revo-Uninstaller Pro........this software allows you to UN-install any given program and is customizable with easy"Just follow the prompts" to rip out even sub folder applicable to that program only (yes it's very safe)
Then I would target every Gigabyte program you can sniff out.......Revo will find even link program/folder and sub folders that might be hiding on C:
Failing this.........you could be up for a fresh install....sorry
Failing this.........there's a hardware problem I have never heard of before or know how to fault find.........Unfortunately, 20/20 hind sight is not a publication I have in the bookcase.........please keep me informed.....would love to know what's been causing you (and me ) this much grief
Up to now ..... 2 of the worst cases I have ever had were DELL..... I throughly enjoyed shooting one ;D
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Hi
OK time for some drastic action. Backup all your important data and do a fresh install of Windows. Add nothing that isn't necessary and use your old card for the GPU. Next install Crysis and see if it is displaying properly. if it is then the next job is to swap cards. Don't change the software but try with the Gigabyte card to see if it is behaving. Then post back.
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Welp, Revo didn't find anything Gigabyte-related or any of the other words on the CD cover so I guess it's down to a fresh reinstall if I want a decent chance of ever getting this computer to work properly again graphics-wise.
This is going to take time however, because being self employed and using this Dell can as my main work computer, I currently have more user data in need of backup on the main drive than I have other drives to backup it to, so I guess I need to go shopping for a large external drive of some sort to drag everything over to before I can start the reinstall. I suppose I should have probably taken up the habit years ago to not keep work files on the main bootable (Windows-infected) drive to begin with, so I guess this might be a healthy lesson in a way.
Assuming that the reinstall of the factory supplied Dell CDs, Win7 etc work as expected (I'm allowing for some doubts there all things considered) I'll make sure to drop by here and leave an update once I've backuped and reinstalled the drive and graphics cards.
Thanks a lot for your help and time guys!
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If you want to save some bucks..........look at (ebay) usb/sata/firewire docking stations....you can get a pretty good one for about $40us...this way you can buy cheaper internal 2.5 or 3.5 H-Drives for all your back up need ........you could then have a separate "Work" drive that you could plug-in when needed
Aussie Allan
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If it is for work use as well you should reallly have a dedicated drive just for backups as well as a dedicated work drive. You can't afford to lose work related data as that's your livelyhood.
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hehe nice to finally find someone with the same problem that i have
i got asus laptop G53 and it has GTX 460M
i have tried many games one of them is crysis and i couldnt use anti aliasing except for farcry 2
i dont know why or how does anti aliasing work for farcry 2
i'll tell you some of the games i tried
crysis
crysis warhead
mirror's edge
flight simulator x
lara croft and the guardian of light
left 4 dead 2
the witcher 2
plz let me know if you find any solutions
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Have you tried enabling antialiasing transparency in NV control panel?
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i have tried it before but it didnt work
this time i played crysis to see if it works or not and omg it works but it doesnt work for some parts of the game and then i tried it with other games and it didnt work
but at least crysis looks waaaaaaaay better now thank you wonderwrench for your help :)