I am having problems with the graphics on particular games on my system. I am running an AMD Athlon 1800+ (1.53 Ghz) with 1 Gb DDR PC2100 RAM on a 266 Mhz FSB. I have the GeForce FX 5600 with 256 Mb of RAM. I loaded the most current drivers (Verified before posting). I have Direct X9 installed and I am running WinXP with all available updates. My games are all updated and patched as necessary.

The problem is that when I start a game, after a few minutes or after most intro's or Main Menu's (when I get control of characters) the screen will either black or white dots or rectangular black or white boxes all over the screen and normally around the characters in the game and some objects. I have not been able to correct this problem as of yet, so if anyone has run in to this already or knows how to fix this, I would much appreciate it.

The games that are causing this to happen are Rise of Nations, Unreal II, Mech Commander 2, Max Payne, and Jedi Outcast. I still have a few more games to check, but for the most part, those are the ones that seem to always get the problem.

The games that are WORKING CORRECTLY are Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2, Star Wars galactic Battlegrounds, MechWarrior 3 (and Expansion), MechWarrior 4 (Vengeance and Mercenaries), and Aliens Vs. Predator.

Hopefully I have included as much information as possible. I called Microsoft to see what the problem was with Rise of Nations, but they had me edit a text file and include my card in the document. This did not fix the game.

I thank for all your help and input.

Hi dgbarnett welcome to the forums.

I suggest trying to lower the hardware acceleration from the default full to a little bit lower.

Another approach is to use the Omega drivers. These are not official drivers, but ones that have been tweaked by a guru of the gaming world appropriately named Omega . I use the Omega/plutonium drivers for my ATI 8500 LE card and they work great.

You can get the latest version from here: http://www.driverheaven.net/downloads/index4.htm nvidia_wxp_omega_14403 (NVIDIA) is the one you are looking for.

I recommend trying the alternative drivers (after you've uninstalled the others of course), but try just reducing the hardware acceleration a bit first and see how it runs.

Edit: I haven't checked, but are the games that are working and not working OpenGL or direct X. Let me know if there is a theme.

Rob

I think I've discovered the problem. I opened my case and put a nice big fan next to the computer to see if overheating might be the problem, and after a few attempts at each game, I found that they worked perfectly. Hopefully this is the answer, but thank you for your reply, I downloaded the drivers and stored them in a folder for later use in the event that overheating isn't the problem.
Again, thanks, but now I have another question, should I get another case fan, or a new fan for the video card? Thanks a lot for your help!

The fan that was provided with the geforce should have been sufficient, but if you were thinking of overclocking your graphics card then I highly recommend you use a better fan on it.

Have a look at this FAQ and overlocking guide here: http://www.gidforums.com/t-118.html

Rob

That’s something I don’t run into everyday we have the exact same setup. (Well as far so the CPU, Memory, FSB and Video Card.). I had the same problem with my 5600 I fix the problem with my card in the same way. The fan on the card is ok but what I discovered was that the overall temp in my computer was too hot the air inside wasn't flowing very good and here where I live it hot and that does help me either. So I added 3 new fans and that seems to have done the trick. Now the drivers I would also suggested be cause I have tested a lot of games on the new 5600 and there are many games that don't display right. One off the top of my head is Mafia there are some major display problems there. These drives may help out with some of the other display problems that aren’t solved by cooling. Thanks jrobbio for the info on those.



Side Note: at about what temp does your AMD 1800 run at normally.

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I'm not sure how to tell how hot the card is running, but I think I'll more than likely have to do what you did and install some fans into my computer. Is there a program or some tool that can tell the temperature of the card and the computer also? Thanks for the info on everything, I'm going to give these drivers a shot and see what comes of it. Thanks!!

Glad to be of help.

Motherboard monitor or MBM for short is a fantastic program to keep track of your temperatures. You can get it from:
http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

You didn't mention what motherboard you have, but if you go to the motherboard list on the site it will tell you a bit about the sensors that are available to you. I tell you this bit because some motherboards have a sensor that is pretty much a wire and it allows you to specifically put it in the area you want to check like the graphics card.

Rob

I think I am having the same problem. I had a friend lend me a two fans and it still isnt working i am going to try opening the case and blowing a fan into the case to cool it down. The exact problem I am having is that when i try Running halo and other direct 3d games the game crashes and i can not do anything. i am forced to reboot. The sounds continue to play but nothing moves. I am planning to contact FXF, the manufacture, today to see if they can fix the problem. If you have any other ideas on how to fix this please help. Its quite annoying not being able to play my computer games. I had a geforce 2 and everythign worked fine. I have tried various driver versions and if worst come i will try omega drivers. Thanks for any help.

Heat is hardware's mortal enemy...

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I fixed my problem with card. With a little help here and some from the posts here. I figured I would post how mine was fix in case anyone else is having my problem. I went to my bios and there was a 4x option under acceleration menu i disabled it and now everything is working. I hope this helps anyone that was having the same problem i was having.