I hate you, NVidia!

[Bjoern]

Why?

Because you can't seem to get the grip on FSX compatibility with your 18x series drivers on 8800 GTS (G80) cards.

Don't get me wrong, other applications work fine with them, so they're not for the bin at all.

But once in a while, I'd like to take a 737, CRJ or similar to the skies.
Your current drivers ruin the fun though. Big time!
No, I'm really not a big fan of sudden FPS drops, tearing autogen and CTDs.

I know, I know, older drivers work better, but what if I want to play a current game?
Do you think I want to put up with low performance in those? Really?

Wrong.

Consider this a kick in the butt or I'll divorce you and marry ATI.


Sincerely,
Björn

[harleyman]

ATI Rules FSX IMO.

Just loving my 4870X2 still and not proper drivers released as of yet...:ernae:

[Bjoern]

Just looking if I can find a cheap 4850.


If I sell my 8800 GTS and that Ram still dusting away somewhere (plus maybe my old PSU), the financial hit might turn out quite low.

[harleyman]

The ICE is the most awsome 4850 out...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161244

[harleyman]

But a 4870 will be better yet..Expecially the ICE version....:ernae:

[Bjoern]

The 4870 is too expensive, the ICE as well.

Additionally, Newegg doesn't ship to Eurabia. :kilroy:

[harleyman]

The 4870 is too expensive, the ICE as well.

Additionally, Newegg doesn't ship to Eurabia. :kilroy:


Hmmmmmm Now thats a problem.....

[EgoR64]

:wavey:

I'm looking for new card been checking out the ICE, Today was a bad day, Right in the Middle of an ApocoChop Mission, Boom, Blue screen and allot of Dumping going on, Turned out to be Me Old Faithfull 8800 GTS, Fan musta went dead and burned out. Got a Couple of years out of it - not bad -Now I have dual 7600's in there since it is the only thing I have laying around, is terrible no anit-alias, no DX10, Planes are all Fuzzy, screen shots looks like crap, no good.

I think it is Time for some ICE ICE.........

[harleyman]

You won't go wrong with the ICE 4870 for sure..beautiful colors IMO....


To bad about your card...They don't last forever...:faint:

[6297J]

ATI Rules FSX IMO.
Just loving my 4870X2

Same here (Sapphire). Where do you set your fan speed Harleyman?

[harleyman]

In the Catalist Control Center...


On the left..Bottom is called ATI Overdrive..Select that...Then you see a lock...Click to unlock it and your option to set fan speed manually is there....

[6297J]

In the Catalist Control Center...


On the left..Bottom is called ATI Overdrive..Select that...Then you see a lock...Click to unlock it and your option to set fan speed manually is there....


No, I meant what is your fan speed - where do you prefer to have it?

I usually keep mine at 40% unless I'm running something like Far Cry 2 in which case I change it to 50%

edit - In your screenshot it's at 100% - that must be LOUD!!! :faint:

[SirBenn21]

In the Catalist Control Center...


On the left..Bottom is called ATI Overdrive..Select that...Then you see a lock...Click to unlock it and your option to set fan speed manually is there....

Man..
Do you run it at 100% !!! I set my one to about 70%
That's the only thing I hate about my ATI 4870. It's dam LOUD!!!
Anyway I try and imagine it's part of the noise of the aircraft. :d
Need to get some headphones.
I wonder if my lightspeed's will work on my PC?

Ben

[huub vink]

One of my PCs have an ATI video card and the other one a NVidia video card. Both thave their good and weak points and to be honest I have experienced probems with both. So I guess there is still room for another manufacturer.

However thanks for the hint Bjoern, I won't update my drivers this time!

Cheers,
Huub

[harleyman]

Yup..I keep mine at 100% always...The thing is loud, but it really doesn't bother me at all.. i sit between two of them too...


I do use headphones when I fly too....

[6297J]

Yup..I keep mine at 100% always...The thing is loud, but it really doesn't bother me at all.. i sit between two of them too...


I do use headphones when I fly too....


I just tried mine at 100% - Good God!! :hand:

If you dropped to 50% (40 is when it gets really quiet) what sort of temps would you see? Mine says 43c at 40%

Now I'm glad I spent a small fortune and a couple of weekends on my Cosmos S case, installing 8 case fans - probably helps more than I realise!!

[harleyman]

Well at 50% fan I get temps in the very high 50's and low 60's..but that goes to 70-75 while flying, which I don't like, so I just use 100 all the time..


Not sure how much extra case fans help, as the card exhausts directly out the back as its completely enclosed except for the fan opening...Not like older cards that push their heat right into the case and leave the dirty work to how well your case moves air..

I have a great cooling case though...So not real sure or scientific on my answer there....LOL

[datter]

I recently went back to 180.48 from the newest nVidia drivers due to a lot of graphical weirdness in other games. FSX was fine, but my rig was not liking the new drivers at all for some reason.

[gera]

No problems with Nvidia ever...............................you guys must have bought lemons!!!!!!:rapture:

[harleyman]

I agree Gera.....I never had any problems with Nvidia except for expecting their newest drivers to make it all better, which is always a major let down anyways ,..Once I learned to stick with the one I had that was working, and all FSX and Control Panel things doing what their job was..


But I found that with new drivers came days more set up and testing to get it just right again, only to find out I was pretty much back where I was anyways...LOL

[Bjoern]

Hmmmmmm Now thats a problem.....

Not really.

Shipping times and fees over the pond at quite a lot to every puchase from the US.



To bad about your card...They don't last forever...:faint:

Actually, they do. I've never had hardware related problems with my video cards.

Hell, I bet that six year old ATI 9700Pro in my old PC will still work just fine after six years.



However thanks for the hint Bjoern, I won't update my drivers this time!

You can still give the new ones a try.
Maybe I'm the only one having trouble with the drivers in the universe.



No problems with Nvidia ever...............................you guys must have bought lemons!!!!!!:rapture:

It's the drivers, not the hardware.

[harleyman]

Well thanks for setting us all straight then....


Hope you get it all sorted......I thought you said the card maybe died...must have misread that as you were looking to purchase new again....

[Brushman]

I use a freeware program called Speedfan which moiters all your temps and adjusts the speed of the relevent fans acordingly.
It will also perform an indepth online analysis on your HDD's if there SMART enabled.http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/images/attach/jpg.gif

[Bjoern]

Did some research for a new card among which is the 9800+ as a candidate.
A review mentioned a "video ram" bug in the 9800 series of cards. Google confirmed this.

So I was thinking "What if this problem got introduced before?" and bingo, the german Wikipedia article on the Geforce 8 confirmed my suspicions.


Fehler im Speichermanagement Die Grafikkarten und mobilen Grafikchips der Geforce-8-Serie wurden mit Treibern ausgeliefert, die einen Fehler im Speichermanagement besaßen. Dieser von Nvidia als VRAM-Bug bezeichnete Fehler führt dazu, dass immer weiter Daten in den Grafikspeicher geladen werden, so dass dieser irgendwann überfüllt ist. Dann müssen Texturen und ähnliche Dateien ausgelagert werden, wodurch die Leistung stark abnimmt. Im Normalfall sollten vorher nicht mehr benötigte Dateien aus dem Grafikspeicher entleert werden, dies passiert bei der Geforce-8-Serie nicht.
[...]
In weiteren Tests wurde dann eindeutig festgestellt, dass die Leistungsfähigkeit stark von der Speichernutzung abhängt.
Insbesondere bei den 256-MB-Modellen der Geforce 8600 GT und GTS wurden noch größere Unterschiede festgestellt, durch theoretische Überprüfungen ließ sich jedoch feststellen, dass jede Grafikkarte der Geforce-8-Serie diese Fehler besitzt.
Nvidia reagierte und versprach einen Treiber, der das Problem lösen sollte. Dieser verzögerte sich jedoch mit der Begründung, dass ein „Problem komplexer Natur“ vorliege. Ende August 2007 stellte Nvidia dann ohne weitere Ankündigung den Beta-Treiber ForceWare 163.44 bereit, dem viele Internet-Magazine unterstellten, er löse das VRAM-Problem. Dies geschah meist auf Grundlage eigener Tests, nachdem die Geforce 8800 GTS mit 320 MB in getesteten Spielen deutlich schneller wurde, die Geforce 8800 GTS mit 640 MB allerdings keine Unterschiede zeigte. Wie jedoch Nvidia auf Nachfrage mitteilte, sei in diesem Treiber der Fehler nicht behoben, die Leistungssteigerungen seien auf Änderungen zurückzuführen, die den VRAM-Bug etwas abschwächten. So sei die Speicherkompression überarbeitet worden, wodurch beim Speicherüberlauf nicht mehr so viel Leistung verloren gehe. Außerdem würden in Stalker die Texturen anders verwaltet, was dortige Leistungssteigerungen erkläre. Laut dem Technical Marketing Analyst Nvidias, James Wang, wird der nächste offizielle Treiber die Fehler im Speichermanagement beheben. Mittlerweile sind zwei weitere offizielle Treiberversionen erschienen, der VRAM-Bug ist aber noch immer nicht behoben.

Der G92-Grafikprozessor, der auf der Geforce 8800 GT und auf der im Dezember 2007 vorgestellten Geforce 8800 GTS zum Einsatz kommt, stellt eine Weiterentwicklung der G8x-Chipserie dar. Da er gegenüber dieser diverse Veränderungen erfahren hat, ist es möglich, dass der VRAM-Bug ebenfalls behoben wurde, Belege hierfür stehen bisher aber noch aus.

Translation (quick and dirty):



Errors in memory management
The video cards und mobile video chips of the Geforce 8 series were shipped with drivers, which contained an error in memory management. This error, called "VRam bug" by NVidia leads to continuous loading of data into the video memory, so that it overflows at some point. Then textures and other data will have to be put elsewhere, which leads to a severe loss in performance. Normally, data which is not needed anymore should be removed from the video memory, this doesn't happen with the Geforce 8 series though.
[...]

Further tests showed that performance is very dependant on the use of memory. Bigger differences were recorded especially with the 256Mbyte versions of the Geforce 8600GT and GTS, theoretical checks showed that every video card of the Geforce 8 series contains these errors.
NVidia reacted and promised a driver which was to take care of the problem. Yet, this driver was delayed, since this problem was "of a bigger nature". At the end of August 2007, NVidia, without announcement, released the beta 163.44 driver, which, according to many internet magazines resolved the VRam problem. This was often based on proprietary tests, in which the Geforce 8800 GTS with 320 Mb showed a significant improvements in games, but the 8800 GTS with 640 Mb didn't show any improvement at all.
On request, NVidia responded that the bug hadn't been resolved in this driver, the improvements in performance could be traced back to changes which slightly toned down the VRam bug. The memory compression had been improved, so that the preformance didn't suffer as much as before during memory overflows. Additionally, texture management in Stalker had been changed, which explained the greater performance in that game.
According to NVidia's Technical Marketing Analyst James Wang, the next official driver will resolve the error in memory management. However, at this point, two further official driver versions were released that don't resolve the VRam bug.


The G92 GPU, used in the 8800GT and on the 8800GTS, which was presented in December 2007, is a derivative of the series of G8x chips.
Since it received serveral changes compared to its predecessor, it is possible that the VRam bug got resolved as well. Proof for this is yet to come though.
Alright, this article is a bit dated (driver versions, etc...) but it has very valid points.


I don't know to what extent the G92 cards suffer from this bug (if at all), but I think I have an idea now about what goes on.

Basic contributors:

First of all, FSX as one hell of a benchmark for my 8800. Autogen maxed out, AI traffic, weather, custom planes, custom scenery. All combined with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. This taxes the video memory pretty well.
Second, the hardware, an 8800 GTS 640 MB Rev 1 from 2006, featuring the aforementioned Vram bug.


Enter: The drivers. "Bug fixed" from versions 9x.xx till 17x.xx. Now there's the 180 series drivers. Optimized for NVidia's new hardware built with chips which got rid of or at least weakened the VRam bug. I suspect NVidia somehow left the bugfix out intentionally to get more performance out of their new cards (understandable, since the market share of the old G80 series chips drops over time and thus, the bug becomes less important).



Now, let's combine all of this.
I start FSX, I set up a flight, I go flying. The video memory continuously fills up, performance is normal. Then, I suddenly get an awful performance drop as the video memory overflows and FSX's game engine starts putting graphical stuff like textures elsewhere (like the Ram). Performance goes up again a bit (maybe one leftover routine in the drivers flushes a bit of old data from the VRam or FSX switches to "get stuff from the Ram while the VRam flushes" mode), before the autogen starts behaving strangely (video driver getting confused?). FSX can't receive any good data anymore and shuts down (CTD). End of story.


Other - in particular more recent - games like Far Cry 2 or Fallout 3 don't show this kind of behaviour because they either have better engines, which are able to cope with VRam overflows or don't use as much VRam as FSX (although I think I once had a similar problem with IL-2) as well as simply receiving optimizations in terms of memory management in the current drivers.


Yet, these are just assumptions based on personal experiences. The root for the problem could easily be somewhere else.


I'm really glad though that I could find a highly plausible cause for my problem. :)



Seems a new video card really *is* the way out of this.


Sherlock Björn, out.

[Markoz]

Hi Björn.

I'm sorry to see that you have had problems with your Nvidia 8800 GTS.

I've had my Nvidia 320MB 8800 GTS for about two years, or so, and only ever had one problem. That was using it with gmax using Direct3D, and for some strange reason the problem went away. New drivers perhaps? I've never had problems with it in any games whatsoever regardless of updating to newest drivers, or not, every time they are released.

I replaced it when I bought a new Nvidia 1Gb 9800 GTX+ (G92+ GPU) today. It's working perfectly for me so far. FSX is looking much better, for the same performance. I always setup FSX for better graphics quality with slightly less performance.

Mark

[txnetcop]

No problems with Nvidia ever...............................you guys must have bought lemons!!!!!!:rapture:






A lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges Nvidia lost more than $3 billion in market value because it concealed defects in its graphics chips.


The complaint filed by New York-based Shalov Stone Bonner & Rocco alleges that Nvidia committed "securities fraud" due to "a series of misrepresentations and omissions that actively concealed and failed to disclose the unusually high failure rates of Nvidia's mobile video adapters."
The suit ties the alleged misrepresentations to Nvidia's loss of market capitalization since July when the company "belatedly" revealed the information about problems and "promptly" lost $3 billion in market capitalization. The class action covers the period between November 8, 2007, and July 2, 2008--when Nvidia allegedly failed to disclose problems.
On July 2, Nvidia announced (http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1215037160521.html) that it would take a one-time charge of $150 million to $200 million to "cover anticipated warranty, repair, return, replacement and other costs and expenses, arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems." (GPU stands for graphics processing unit, and MCP for multichip package.)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10037632-64.html

All I can say Gera is that you were one of the lucky ones because I have had to replace over 20 Nvidia cards for clients in the past 6 months and those that were no longer covered under my warranty had to appeal to Nvidia direct.
Ted

This just in on Tuesday

March 16, 2009 10:40 AM PDT
Nvidia cites chip fix payments, nixes large event

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10196861-64.html?tag=mncol;posts

[harleyman]

But that appears to be for their notebooks..There is no mention of desktop cards failing ...Is there?

[gera]

Its a game of cards....I had the 8800 GTX same as Markoz for over two years with no problems at all, just some drivers did not work so well but that was easily solved by changing the driver. I now have the 9800 GTX and its as smooth as silk, again, some drivers have not been "tops" but a change and the problema solved.......I really will cotinue with these cards since to me, they are really good.........like I said before, sometimes you get a "lemon" and they surely don´t work!!!!, I had a very expensive Volvo once, and its the worst car I have ever had!!!!! a total Lemon...........................:argue:

[txnetcop]

Yes, Gera, it is a throw of the dice. Nvidia and ATI make allowances for a certain percentage of their video cards to return. These were not notebook cards but 8800GTs, 9800GTs, and 260s. These cards don't make headlines because of the allowance of failures. I have only had to replace one of the ATI 4870 video cards...again a throw of the dice, but I have noticed a larger failure rate of Nvidia cards and poor driver releases of late. ATI had a bad driver release with ver 8.12 and some game software to include X-Plane. Will I continue to push Nvidia as well as ATI...you bet.
Ted

[kilo delta]

Sometimes it isn't Nvidia/ATi's fault though...... http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39454/135/

[Bjoern]

I've had my Nvidia 320MB 8800 GTS for about two years, or so, and only ever had one problem. That was using it with gmax using Direct3D, and for some strange reason the problem went away. New drivers perhaps? I've never had problems with it in any games whatsoever regardless of updating to newest drivers, or not, every time they are released.

As I mentioned, it could be my combination of drivers, OS, software and settings that's giving me trouble.

Could toning down some visual features in FSX solve my problem? Maybe.
But that's not the way to go, since my enjoyment of FSX would suffer severely.


Just to announce it, I've just sealed the deal for a HD4850 with 1GB VRam and a custom cooler. The price was about $150; totally acceptable for me.

However, this doesn't mean that I'll never go back to NVidia again. That GTX285 is still as attractive as a bunch of nymphomanic swedish women lustfully staring at you...

(Enjoy your mental cinema, gents. :d)

[kilo delta]

That GTX285 is still as attractive as a bunch of nymphomanic swedish women lustfully staring at you...


You bring the laydeees....and i'll bring the GTX285 :friday:

[Bjoern]

You bring the laydeees....and i'll bring the GTX285 :friday:

If I had the ladies, I wouldn't need a GTX285. :costumes:

[6297J]

If I had the ladies, I wouldn't need a GTX285. :costumes:

Maybe it's because you are turned on by the thought of a Graphics Card that you don't have any ladies :female: :icon_eek: :pop4:

[Bjoern]

Maybe it's because you are turned on by the thought of a Graphics Card that you don't have any ladies :female: :icon_eek: :pop4:

Graphics cards and ladies aren't that different from each other if you leave sex aside.
- Both cost money
- Both consume time
- Both are sometimes acting weirdly
- Both last until a break up

;) :d

[6297J]

Mine gets very hot :redfire:

[Bjoern]

Mine gets very hot :redfire:

Totally forgot that.

- Both can be very hot.

:d

[UnknownGuest12]

Using Nvidia 9800 Gtx, for well over a year, with only one problem. Card fan stop responding to SmarDoctor to control temperature adjusting speed.
Everything in Europe came with a mandatory 2 year garanty, so it was repaired free of chages.
Otherwise, quite satisfied with it.

[Lionheart]

<---- ATI. :d

[harleyman]

<---- ATI. :d Me TOO.....:d

[Bjoern]

Soon...

[harleyman]

Soon...



Ahhh Are you leaving the fan club too? :gossip:

[Bjoern]

Ahhh Are you leaving the fan club too? :gossip:

Well that 4850 offered the best bang for the buck. ;)

[noddy]

In my old machine had ATI X1950XTX and no problems at all with, and in the new one dual 8800GTX and no problems with these apart the drives used to crash, but now the new drives are very stable.

This is the first time I have used NVidia and was a bit uneasy as I read some horror stories on the card, but as I said with the new driver they are very stable.

[harleyman]

Different machines get different results for ATI and Nvidia...


I am still looking for that piece of paper that has the specs for the *Perfect* FSX machine that works for all with no problems...LOL:woot:

[noddy]

Maybe this one!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/technology/09petaflops.html

But even then you will have to lock the frame rates to 35.

[harleyman]

Maybe this one!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/technology/09petaflops.html

But even then you will have to lock the frame rates to 35.




OK I want the RoadRunner Computer......

Its a steal at 133 million too...:faint:

[Bjoern]

This is the first time I have used NVidia and was a bit uneasy as I read some horror stories on the card, but as I said with the new driver they are very stable.

Well, the other way around for me.

Rock solid till 18x.xx.