Graphic Driver freeze

[Guest ksporry]

I'm a little surprised I didn't find any comments on this issue:I;m running Vista 64bit Ultimate edition on a core2duo 2.14 GHz processor with 2 HDD in RAID. My graphic card is a Geforce FX 5700 Uktra, which is now getting a bit older and is even no longer supported by NVIDIA.Anyway, it seems that many people, myself included, have issues using NVIDIA cards with Vista. The problem is that the display will freeze up, sometimes even going dark, followed with an error report stating that teh graphic driver has stopped responding and has successfully recovered. In my case, it became worse and more frequent. Now I can only run my PC in safe mode. Occasionally I am able to start my pc normally, but this is more exception than rule.Having browsed many forums, it seems that the problem lies with just about any graphics card, and any system configuration. The only common factor so far seems to be Vista. At first this seemed an NVIDIA issue only, but it seems ATI cards are also affected.Has anyone noticed this behaviour on their systems at all???As a note, on one forum I asked if teh latest ATI cards (the 2xxx series) also have this issue, and it appears that so far they don't. The 2600 and 2900 seem unaffected by this particular problem.from teh forums I have read, it seems to go back into last january, when Vista came life. Rather odd I would say.Has anyone got any solutions?I have to say, I am using driver version 96.85 because this is teh latest driver from NVIDIA that supports Vista for my card, since then my card is no longer supported (which is pretty rubbish actually since it is about 2 years old or so).In any case, I am thinking about upgrading my card for FSX anyway, andwas thinking of ATI 2600 series.If anyone has experienced the above problem, lets discuss this, and if anyone has had success (or failure) with teh ATI 2600 series cards for FSX as well as this particular problem, I'd love to hear about it!!!

[Guest baksteen33]

Maybe 'No user base, no infos'? If you don't have to have Vista, I would indeed solve it with a winXP CD. Which GPU depends most on your display/resolution. Kind regards Jaap

[bsmonroe 0]

I run Vista Home Premium on a AMD 64X dual chip with an ATI Radeon 1650 - and FSX runs fantastic. A couple of caveats though:1 - Despite the fact that this is a power system, you cannot set all the sliders to maximum and get any kind of performance. Tweaking is the only way to get anything to work in FSX. As someone said elsewhere - they haven't made the computer/graphics card powerful enough to run FSX with the sliders to the max. (Which seems a little ridiculous - how on earth could they have tested it? But it seems to be true).2 - You MUST keep up on the drivers! ATI frequently releases updates (often without any fanfare). Had I not double checked the updates, I would have made a fool of myself at a tech support forum when the problem was the graphics driver - not the product.3 - FSUIPC and the drivers are related - somehow. If you have problems with FSX check to make sure that FSUIPC is up to date too. (I use the payware version so the freeware version may not be so picky).Hope this helps.Brian

[Guest ksporry]

Honestly, it's not related top FSX at all. It does it anywhere any time. No matter if I switch Aero on or off in Vista. This is is definitely a Vista issue.It really seems to be random. Having said that, I don't know how many people with this particular poblem are using AMD systems.As for performance, well, if they can't test FSX, then they probably didn't. After all, when it was first released it was one big mess. It seems that not a single producer is bothered releasing it's products immature these days, especially when it comes to computers and software. Isn't it time that we as consumers say "stuffit! straighten up and develop a decent product that works before it is released!"Anyway, that's a different discussion.SInce January people are having problems with their graphic cards. It's still not solved, which is really quite bad doing from both NVIDIA and Microsoft.I'll attempt to buy an ATI card when the latest cards drop in price, and that will be the last time I invest in PC stuff (hard and software).There will be no future upgrading for PC related affairs. It's just too much hassle for me. Next time I'll buy a copy of x-plane and fly on my mac without any problems whatsoever.

[Guest firehawk44]

This issue is actively being worked on by NVIDIA techs (see the NVIDIA SLI community forums for further info). Individuals getting this error were asked to upload their error reports to the forum so the techs could find a fix. NVIDIA techs were able to duplicate the error a week or so ago and I think a fix will be coming soon. Meanwhile, to stop the errors until this problem is fixed, you need to turn off Windows AERO and enable Vista Basic and, under Visual Effects, turn off shadowing (menus and cursor). Jim

[Guest baksteen33]

Frankly, I wouldn't go Radeon. A, because you have a good GPU and :( driver troubles are common. Even with winXP. At least one doesn't have all the software probs with XP - making it much easier to find an acceptable config. Kind regards Jaap