Texture issues on 6800 GT

[b6x]

Hi,

I've recently installed a XFX 6800 GT graphics card in my machine following the failure of my 9800 PRO. Now I got major screen draw issues!

Things start off well, I'm spawned into the map - everything looking fine... but as the game goes on (within 2 minutes or so), textures of buildings etc start disappearing and replaced with just black shapes. Tanks/Helicopters etc just disappear and I can see the bloke sat down in the air flying around.
Grass starts to disappear and replaced with blackness.

I've tried on many different detail levels... however also only get to see two resolutions on the Video Settings screen - 800x600 and 1024x768 - however TFT can do 1280x1024.
I've tried Medium and High textures, AA on/off, many many different nVidia etc etc

Spec of the machine is as follows:-
AMD64 3400+ (2.4GHz I think)
1GB PC3200 400MHz RAM
XFX 256MB GeForce 6800GT (with nVidia drivers at 78.01)
1.02 BF2 patch installed
Dell 1800FP TFT monitor

Would appreciate any advice as not long after buying the game the Radeon 9800 blew up and I've not had a chance of a decent game yet!

Thanks very much.


EDIT: Problem solved!! Seems root cause was motherboard (or chipset drivers). Changed to a nVidia chipset board and everything now running well!

[DrunkenPirate]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

The correct procedure when changing video cards from different manufacturers is:

Uninstall all catalyst driver software.
Run Driver Cleaner Professional Edition and clean all ATI driver components from the system.
Power down and remove the old card, fit the enw one, reboot.
Ignore all windows new hardware wizard dialogues.
Install the latest NVidia Forceware drivers.

Any other procedure will result in a mix of drivers and normally have the side effects you are describing right now.

[b6x]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

Nice one. Thanks very much. I think I'll give that a go tonight.
Thanks again.

[b6x]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

Well, I uninstalled drivers, rebooted, run drivercleaner which did seem to remove some old ATI stuff and then rebooted. Installed version 77.77 (and then later 78.01) of the ForceWare drivers and started BF2.

I seemed to be able to run at 800x600 and both low and medium settings, but moving up to high, or any 1024x768 rez and it screwed up again. Same problem. Textures blacking out; people floating above the road.

I've also somehow managed to introduce another problem where the EA Games "Challenge Everything" logo takes at least a minute to appear.

I'm beginning to suspect the card as although, for example, HL2 runs pretty well at 1280x1024 (with everything on high), it does stutter now and again. And thinking maybe I should return it an try to get an X800XT PE in it's place. It certainly doesn't seem much more powerful than the old 9800PRO I had.

Setting the AGP Aperture down to 64MB seemed to make the problem a whole lot worse. i.e. on entering the map pretty much everything is black straight away. I've now set this to 256MB and the game starts well... however after a few minutes of gameplay - things start to disappear again.
Seriously starting to dislike BF2 and PCs in general.

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

[gogtaylor]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

Im having the same problem and have had the same problem since the begining. My specs are as follows
AMD 64 at 2.2ghz
1.5 gig of ram
80g hardrive
gforce5800 with 256mb ram
I am going to bet you use more than on profile while playing. Reason being is I did also, until I deleted all but one of my profiles, went in and deleted all files in bf2 cache(same thing as deleting shaders) and allow shaders to reload to one profile. That has worked for me several times. After installing 1.03 the problem has cropped up again and have not had the chance to to try this fix on 1.03. Good luck and I hope this helps.

[b6x]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

Thanks for taking the time to help out. I've tried so many things I'm completely confused whats going on... anyway, it appears I may have solved the problem. I can now run at 1280x1024 with half decent detail. (on patch 1.03).
I think the main thing causing the problem was texture detail setting and dynamic shadows. I've moved these down to Medium, as well as a few others (as to be honest I dont think the defference between medium and high is much - not compared with low to medium)

The other thing that made a noticable difference was my AGP apeture size in the BIOS. When set to 64MB the whole terrain was black... and this seemed to get better the higher the value. I've whacked that up to max now (512MB).

As I say, I've changed so much stuff I can't guarantee what actually fixed the issue, but I think I was just expecting too much from the 6800GT. The reviews I read saying that everything can be bunged on High I now realise were not quite true.

So, basically, I wouldn't bother setting anything on High, and would check your AGP aperture size.

Regards,
b6x

[Mikeyzig]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

Mine runs fine with everything on high, used to judder on occasions before 1.3 but now runs perfectly with all up high, the card seems good to me.

[b6x]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

I've installed patch 1.03, but haven't been brave enough to monkey around with the settings again, seeing as it's taken me so long to get it working.

I'm not necessarily saying the card alone is at fault here... for example, I only have 1GB of RAM, and (probably -) a slow IDE. I'm sure that's not helping.
However I'm not 100% convinced that high gives you much over Medium. Think I'd rather have a fast machine on medium settings than a stuttering one on high. (although I can only dream of having the choice )

Be interested to know of any benchmark software than can be applied to graphics card only to compare my card to someone elses, as to be honest, I'm not convinced mine is 100%.

It's not as good as I was expecting anyway. HL2 for example runs nice on maxed out detail on 1280x1024, however occaisionally stutters. I dont remember having too many problems on the Radeon 9800 PRO it replaced.

[Nomad2k3]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

yall should remember that a 6800gt is a "mid range card at best", bf2 was designed to take advantage of newer gfx power, namely the 7800 range and above, shadows and anti-aialising ect..will kill your framerates an possibly cause gfx glitches, altho medium settings all round at a medium setting 1024x780 should be fine...

also is your agp port 8x or 4x? sounds like a bandwith problem....

[N2K]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

Well, I uninstalled drivers, rebooted, run drivercleaner which did seem to remove some old ATI stuff and then rebooted. Installed version 77.77 (and then later 78.01) of the ForceWare drivers and started BF2.

I seemed to be able to run at 800x600 and both low and medium settings, but moving up to high, or any 1024x768 rez and it screwed up again. Same problem. Textures blacking out; people floating above the road.

I've also somehow managed to introduce another problem where the EA Games "Challenge Everything" logo takes at least a minute to appear.

I'm beginning to suspect the card as although, for example, HL2 runs pretty well at 1280x1024 (with everything on high), it does stutter now and again. And thinking maybe I should return it an try to get an X800XT PE in it's place. It certainly doesn't seem much more powerful than the old 9800PRO I had.

Setting the AGP Aperture down to 64MB seemed to make the problem a whole lot worse. i.e. on entering the map pretty much everything is black straight away. I've now set this to 256MB and the game starts well... however after a few minutes of gameplay - things start to disappear again.
Seriously starting to dislike BF2 and PCs in general.

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

you did uninstall 77.77 before you installed 78.01 right?

[|D|-Char-ley_Killa]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

i have a 6800 gt and i also have the prob where the ea logo takes awhile to come up and after it comes up the sides of my screen are red

[N2K]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

stop from those vid to play, they get anoying after a while

[Tenshi]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

I recently upgrade my cpu and graphics card. Had some crazy graphics stuff happening. big black trangles all over the screen. Reset the computer and it went away.

[wrxlvr]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

Your problem is 100% the amount of RAM you have. I had a gig (same card) and couldn't run textures on high. Have 2 gigs now and EVERYTHING is on high. Saw several writeups online that say 1 gig isn't enough for textures set to high.

[b6x]

Re: Texture issues on 6800 GT

wrxlvr,

nice one. I was comtemplating going for the 2GB as couldn't think what else could be causing my problems (Daqing Oilfields still kills the graphics and black textures appear). Since installing the Special Forces add-on too, it's got worse again. Looks like 2GBs is the way to go then!
Thanks alot.