Help!! Radeon 9800 Pro Troubles

[Guest Anthony_D]

Hello All,I recently upgraded my graphics card from an 64MB MSI GF4-Ti4200 with 44.03 drivers to a 128MB Hercules Radeon 9800 Pro.After 5 days of tweaking and experimenting, I've found no fps performance improvement in fs2004 or fs2002. If I take the default Heathrow (EGLL) as an example, I'd get 9 - 12 fps with 100% Project Ai traffic and fair weather, dense autogen and extremely dense scenery. This was with the Ti4200. I get the no improvement with the 9800 Pro for the same settings.Now I've tried the following suggestions so far after searching through the forums.1. I updated the Catalyst Drivers from 3.2 to 3.6 (the latest on the hercules website), no improvement.2. I changed the BIOS AGP aperture size from 128MB to 64MB to 256MB, no improvement.3. I added the lines to my display.cfg and renamed my fs9.cfg to force the creation of a new fs9.cfg - no improvement.---------------------------------------------------------------------- ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 2k/XP----------------------------------------------------------------------<00001002:00004E48:ati2dvag.dll>Disable=1<00001002:00004E48:ati2dvag.dll.1>MinDriverRev=6.14.0001.6307Disable=24. I disabled Antialiasing from the display tabs for both windows XP and fs2004 - slight improvement but certainly not

[Guest Anthony_D]

I tried to edit my previous post but it seems that the period for editing has expired.I've now used a Driver Cleaner to get rid of any remaining Nvidia Drivers from the system.http://www.driverheaven.net/cleanerHowever, I still see some entries in the registry for the old Ti4200.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> ControlSet001/002/CurrrentControlSet -> Control -> Video -> ********I have no idea how to *safely* and knowledgeably edit registry settings. Would I simply delete any folders in the registry that have an entry for the old Graphics card? More to the point, could this be what's holding up my system?

[Guest SoarPics]

Hi Anthony,You can safely remove all those registry entries for the 4200. Simply delete them and then reboot.Use caution. You should end up with two entries for your 9800 (primary and secondary), one entry for the vga display, one for NetMeeting, and one for "RDPDD".Hope this helps,

[Guest Anthony_D]

>You can safely remove all those registry entries for the 4200.> Simply delete them and then reboot.>>Use caution. You should end up with two entries for your 9800>(primary and secondary), one entry for the vga display, one>for NetMeeting, and one for "RDPDD".Thanks, I'll try it tomorrow. Would setting a 'system restore point' be a sufficient precaution incase it goes belly up and fails to boot?One thing I'd like to get is 3D-mark to see if my card is pulling its weight. I know 3dguru.com has a freeware download of 3D-mark but at 187MB, my modem would keel over. Do any UK gaming magazines include it on their cover CD/DVD's?One thing I noticed is that the 9800 Pro has a power connector - the same type as used for the hard drive. I used the included power splitter, and the graphics card fan spins round as I'd expect upon inspection. Can the graphics card still work if this supplementary connection is slightly dodgy - what does the supplementary power actually supply power to - the whole card or just the cooling fan?As usual, I'd be grateful for any more advice.Anthony Dyer

[John_Tavendale 453]

Hi Anthony,You need to connect the power molex directly to the PSU, do not use a splitter with other things such as fans connected etc.

[Guest Wolf8218]

hey, does it matter if it is connected to a splitter without a fan or anything??cause my psu cable is too short to reach it by itself.and is it ok if my Hard drive is connected to a splitter with nothing??main cable->splitter(nothing on it)-->radeon......................^anothersplitter->hard drive

[John_Tavendale 453]

No, just as long as power isn't being taken from the one molex connection :)

[Guest Wolf8218]

huh?Life is a design flaw...

[John_Tavendale 453]

:-lol didn't make much sense did it?It shouldn't matter if you connect the splitter to a molex , just as long as you're only running the one device off it. The Radeons shouldn't be sharing the molex connector from the PSU with any other devices

[Noel 4,501]

John, what happens if you split between two devices? I don't recall if I set it up that way, but in any case I have no problems with my 9700 Pro.Noel

[Guest Anthony_D]

>It shouldn't matter if you connect the splitter to a molex ,>just as long as you're only running the one device off it. The>Radeons shouldn't be sharing the molex connector from the PSU>with any other devicesThanks for the advice. I'm not familiar with the term 'molex', but I'm assuming it's the 4 pin power connector?I've got a spare connector coming out of the PSU, but surely a power splitter supplying two devices shouldn't matter? The devices are connected in parralel to the power supply rather than in series - thus both devices get the same voltage as they would on their own?At any rate, when I installed the new card, I was a bit suprised not to hear any new noises eminating from my machine. It's either a very quiet graphics card or the fan's not spinning fast enough.Anthony Dyer

[Guest Anthony_D]

>You can safely remove all those registry entries for the 4200.> Simply delete them and then reboot.I've now tried it and, no improvement! Would there be other locations in the registry that could point towards old Nvidia drivers?Anthony Dyer

[John_Tavendale 453]

I've read that the Radeon needs to be connected to the PSU on its own. I assume its to provide enough power to the FAN and for the card. Have you checked to ensure its not sharing any IRQs?

[Guest Anthony_D]

>Have you checked to ensure its not sharing any IRQs? It's been assigned IRQ number 11 under device manager. Device manager reports no conflicts. I checked all other devices under 'system information' and found that it shares that IRQ with "VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller" (which also occupies IRQ 10).After a further check of my PC, I found the power splitter couldn't be removed from the graphics card - stuck. It came attached to the card when I got it. There are only 2 molex connectors. One is split between the DVD and CD-RW and the other is split between the hard Disk, floppy and spare connector.Anthony Dyer

[Guest freequest]

i have the radeon 9600pro what i did when i upgraded from my GF2 is I went to the change remove programs and uninstalled the drivers from there... then I just installed the latests catalist drivers 3.7 i think.Then for flightsim I had noticed that my FPS was less then perfect I had a look at my FS9.CFG and found out that it still had my GF2 listed in It I just deleted the .CFG file and then I saw a improvement in FS9.I dont know if I helped you any but thats what I done on my install.Out