Inspiron 1520 and BF2 Graphical Errors

[angrycougar84]

As you can see in the screenshots, no matter what driver pack I use, I get these weird little holes in the ground where the sandworms like to jump out and grab me as I pass by.

Can anyone recommend anything? Nothing on the system is overclocked, never has been and never will be.
I am running Windows XP SP2 with all the latest updates and drivers that are available. The following screen shots are with 3 different versions of nVidia drivers, each cleaned with DriverCleaner Pro between installations.
System specs are:
Intel C2D T7300 - 2.0 Ghz, 800 Mhz Bus, 4 MB Cache
160 GB 7200 rpm HD
15.4" WXGA Glossy
nVidia 8600GT 256 MB
2 GB RAM
Win XP SP2

Here are screenshots with 162.25 drivers:




Here are screenshots with 101.38 drivers by Dell for the Inspiron:




Here are screenshots with 163.14 drivers:

[TroyMcClure]

Re: Inspiron 1520 and BF2 Graphical Errors

weird... have you tryed to reinstall BF2?

[camper.]

Re: Inspiron 1520 and BF2 Graphical Errors

*Ahem*

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT:

"CUSTOM DRIVERS" ARE NOT SUPER-DUPER-UBER-CUSTOMISED MAGICAL PERFORMANCE ENHANCING ELECTRONIC VIAGRA. INCREASING THE NUMBER FROM 162.18 TO 162.25 IS LIKE INCREASING YOUR CARD'S NUMBER FROM 7950GTX to 8300GTS. IT MAY BE 350GTS MORE, BUT IT WILL PERFORM LIKE UTTER CRAP. THE ONLY THING YOU GET WITH "CUSTOM DRIVERS" ARE CONTROL PANEL AND REGISTRY TWEAKS THAT YOU CAN DO YOURSELF. A TWO-BIT TECH FORUM WITH NO ACCESS TO SOURCE CODE WILL NOT MAKE BETTER DRIVERS THAN A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY WITH FULL ACCESS TO HARDWARE LAYOUTS AND SOURCE-CODE.



In other words, use the official 162.18 drivers and stop messing with texture management tweaks/optimisations. Also, your system is most likely overheating. Install Rivatuner (enable the hardware monitor, GPU temperature especially) and Speedfan, let them run in the background while playing BF2, then ALT+TAB periodically. If it gets higher than a preset amount (varies between cards) you're in trouble. That looks like a texture management issue, meaning either dodgy "optimisations" or VRAM chips overheating.

[angrycougar84]

Re: Inspiron 1520 and BF2 Graphical Errors

Ahem,
That is with two sets of non modded drivers and with only one set of a modded driver, I'm very well aware of what they can do and cant do. The system is not overheating either, and BF2 is the only program this is happening in.
I realize this is a texture issue. Anyone else ever have this happen to them?

[ConscriptVirus]

Re: Inspiron 1520 and BF2 Graphical Errors

have u tried clearing ur cache files and resetting ur video settings?

and r u 100000% sure its not overheating? i would check the overheating problem again w/ wat camperstrike said. that's my first guess at wat's going on. plus ur on a laptop so that would also increase the chance of overheating.

[angrycougar84]

Re: Inspiron 1520 and BF2 Graphical Errors

I thought it would have been that too, and checked it out and it wasnt overheating.
Thing is, I played BF2 once fine on my Vista install maxed out and it ran fine (then for some reason it stopped working after that, stupid Vista), then uninstalled Vista and put on XP SP2. I have also played games like Oblivion on high settings, Two Worlds maxed out, Quake 4 close to maxed out, and a couple other demanding games and none of them have given me textures that present as overheating.

Thanks for the help so far though, I appreciate. I'm lost right now and really want to get back on the battlefields.

One suggestion by someone over at the notebookreview forums is that he thought it looked like I installed it from a crappy torrent or p2p file, and I actually installed it from the retail box that I purchased at Gamestop.
So that led me to wonder if maybe a file from the CDs is not copying over correctly? I know it isnt my DVD drive because I've installed like 6 other games from it and they work fine, and have created h.264 .mp4 videos from it like my own personal Blockbuster and they've all copied fine too.

[ToneDog]

Re: Inspiron 1520 and BF2 Graphical Errors

i just installed BF2 on my 1520 (with 8600MGT as well)

even though some weird firewall issue prevents me from going online, I can still play single player and I don't have this problem.

I'm using 158.45 driver from laptopvideo2go