Radeon 32MB DDR and stuttering problem

[Merc7]

I just installed my 32MB DDR Radeon which I bought off newegg.com (one of the deals posted in the "Hot Deals" forum a couple days ago). Anyway, I ran into some stuttering problems when running some games, most notably Unreal Tournament and THPS2. I have the 7041 beta drivers installed right now, but when I fist tried to install the drivers from the cd it gave some sort of error. I first thought that might have been the problem, but then I thought maybe heat was the problem, since my card came with a heatsink with no fan attached, which I see has been the case for many other people as well. The heatsink didn't feel hot to the touch, even when playing UT for a while, but I figured i'd install a fan to make sure. I added a small fan to the heatsink (one I used to use on my Diamond TNT2 card). This seemed to help the stuttering problem, as it seemed to go away in THPS2, but it's still there in UT, although it happens less frequently now. Has this happened to anyone else? It seems like it's a heat issue but i'm not 100% convinced yet. Oh, and I haven't tried to overclock it at all yet, so it should be set to the factory settings. Check out "My Rigs" page if you want to know what my system specs are. Any light shed on this situation would be appreciated.

 

[NicColt]

Unfortunetly you just can't install a Radeon.....

See this thread for my opinion on the install or re-install.

 

[UltraWide]

disable ExportWBuffer in the registry and it should fix it.

 

[Merc7]

Thanks for the response. NicColt, I'll give your re-install process a shot, see if that helps. UltraWide, where do you find ExportWBuffer in the registry? I did a search and it came up with nothing.

 

[Merc7]

NicColt, just gave your instructions on the re-install a shot. I'm now running 7068 drivers, but nothing has seemed to change. There are still stuttering problems in UT. Do you think it's possibly a heat issue? I did install a fan that seemed to help out. Maybe i'll attach this blue orb that I have sitting around with some artic silver epoxy.

 

[Taz4158]

Add these reg keys and NO others:
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver\0000\atidxhal]
"EnableWaitUntilIdxTriList2"="1"
"TableFogEnable"="1"
"WFogEnable"="0"
"ZFogEnable"="1"
"DisableHierarchicalZ"="0"
"DisableHyperZ"="0"
"FastZClearEnabled"="1"
"Vsync"="0"
"AntiAlias"="0"
"ZFormats"="15"
"ExportCompressedTex"="1"
"DitherAlpha"="1"
"ExportWBuffer"="0"

 

[Merc7]

Well I put those keys into the registry, but it didn't seem to do much. Maybe it did i'm just not noticing it or something. Anyway, I downloaded powerstrip 3.0 beta and I found out my card was clocked at 143.6 mhz or something like that. Isn't the default 166mhz for these 32meg cards? I set both the memory and core to 180mhz, and while I get faster fps in games like Q3, it still stutters in UT. Well I guess I can live with this, it's just a bit annoying...

 

[snow patrol]

Merc - try reinstalling UT? Alternatively, try lowering the world texture detail or skin detail one notch.

Taz - Cheers for those registry keys. I just put them in and bumped from 4300 to 4800 3dmarks Thanks!

 

[hjs]

"DisableHierarchicalZ"="0"

if you get artifact (XL-R8R shows them clear to me) try putting this to a 1

 

[Perryg114]

Kill all the programs running in background when you play games. That fixed my GF2-MX card.

Perry

 

[oldfart]

Merc7, you got a Radeon LE. It is a "Low End" version of the card. Look at the topic on this forum. So far, it doesn't look like the card is all that crippled, but we aren't sure yet. Try the 7072 drivers from ATI's site. Here is the way I have UT setup:

[WinDrv.WindowsClient]
WindowedViewportX=640
WindowedViewportY=480
WindowedColorBits=32
FullscreenViewportX=1024
FullscreenViewportY=768
FullscreenColorBits=32
Brightness=0.700000
MipFactor=1.000000
UseDirectDraw=True
UseJoystick=False
CaptureMouse=True
StartupFullscreen=True
CurvedSurfaces=False
LowDetailTextures=False
ScreenFlashes=True
NoLighting=False
SlowVideoBuffering=True
DeadZoneXYZ=True
DeadZoneRUV=False
InvertVertical=False
ScaleXYZ=1000.000000
ScaleRUV=2000.000000
MinDesiredFrameRate=30
Decals=True
NoDynamicLights=True
UseDirectInput=True
ParticleDensity=0
NoFractalAnim=False
SkinDetail=High
TextureDetail=High

[D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice]
Translucency=True
VolumetricLighting=True
ShinySurfaces=True
Coronas=True
HighDetailActors=True
UseMipmapping=True
UseTrilinear=True
UseMultitexture=True
UsePageFlipping=True
UsePalettes=True
UseFullscreen=True
UseGammaCorrection=True
DetailTextures=True
Use3dfx=False
UseTripleBuffering=False
UsePrecache=True
Use32BitTextures=True
DescFlags=1
dwDeviceId=20804
dwVendorId=4098
Use32BitZBuffer=False
UseVertexFog=True
UseAGPTextures=False
UseVideoMemoryVB=True
UseVSync=False
Description=RADEON DDR

This is a "high quality" config that runs very smooth on my 64 DDR. With a 32 meg card, you may need to turn things down a bit. Try changing the
HighDetailActors=True
DetailTextures=True
settings if it still stutters.

 

[Engineer]

I downloaded the UT demo last night and it ran smoothly on that card as has all the other games (Quake 3 Demo, MidTown Madness and NFLBlitz 2000) that I've ran on it. I'm running at 183MHz (with Nidec Blower blowing on card) and am using the registry edits posted by oldfart in other threads. I downloaded the Radeon Tweaker and verified that these are indeed the registry settings....

So far, even though Newegg misrepresentated this card, it seems that this card isn't as bad as initially thought....time will tell