Dancing Triangles (Solution Inside)

Leyah · Post by **Leyah** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 4:23 pm

Well, I've asked a few people already, but I can't quite seem to find any solution to this problem. On very specific points, I will get some sort of big colorful triangles dancing over my screen. They always originate from the same location, for example, if I look north when standing infront of the Jobe Whompa in OA, I will always get them really bad, and in the same way, so actually I assume it is some sort of geometry error in the maps. The triangles also tend to mess up the UI, and sometimes, they even show parts of the text you can read on the UI. I've posted 2 pictures below so you can see what I mean

I'll post my system specs first:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (overclocked to 3Ghz)
Abit IP35 Motherboard
4GB DDR2 Memory (Corsair)
ATI Radeon HD2900Pro 512MB with 512bit memory interface(driver is Catalyst 8.7 beta)
WD Raptor 36GB (for windows)
WD Caviar16 320GB AAKS (this is where AO is installed)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB
Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit
Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 Soundcard
500W PSU by beQuiet! (an expensive and very good german brand)

What I have tried so far:
reboot and restart.
different rendering devices on the AO launcher.
all kinds of compatibility modes for AO (win2k, WinXP)
turning off visual styles and Aero.
all kinds of different compatibility settings in the graphics driver.

What still needs to be done:
I need to check if the errors still occur when the PC isn't overclocked. Everything else runs rockstable, much more demanding games, but well...you never know.

Rolling back to significantly older drivers (i.e. anything beneath Catalyst 8.5) is not really an option, as I also play other games, and ATI has improved their drivers bigtime with 8.5. It could be tried just for troubleshooting tho, I suppose.

I don't know if I have overlooked anything, or if maybe this is a known issue, but I would appreciate any further input.

core · Post by **core** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 4:48 pm

looks like a graphics card issue to me usually caused by overheating or
driver issues or both.

I can only tell you from my experience in wow which uses the graphics hardware a lot more than this game that overclocking while it was rock solid
on everything else it didnt work with it (it was Ram in my case that caused the trouble).

Do you have these issues if you don't OC ?

Have you run stability checks like orthos prime etc. to test your stability in general ?

Edit didn't see you hadn't checked probs on a non-OCed system try that first

Leyah · Post by **Leyah** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 5:24 pm

Okay, I have tried a few more things, minimal settings for the game, and also no overclocking. It makes no difference whatsoever, unfortunatly.

I had a quick look at the Funcom forums though, and it seems there are some known issues with HD2xxx and HD3xxx cards by ATI, and they are known by the devs too, so I pretty much have to assume that what I am seeing is one of those issues.

The card is definitly not overheating, it only runs on 2D clocks when running AO windowed, which are about 160Mhz lower than 3D clocks, and I have replaced the stock cooler with a better one, so even in extremely graphic intensive games like Neverwinter Nights 2 (yes, that one really gets your card sweating

), it wont go above 70°C, which is definitly within the limits.

caveman · Post by **caveman** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:00 am

isn't anarchy mainly CPU based...if it is it might the CPU overheating a bit..

BTW Leyah how did you OC your E6400 as i have the same CPU..i tried on my XPS720 but as soon as i hit 2.5ghz my PC crashes

core · Post by **core** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:35 am

Going to try running AO on my htpc which has an ATI HD3850 by Asus and catalyst 8.5 to see if I have the same probs and report here.

Catalyst 8.5 is fine tuned for video playback which breaks in 8.6+ so I can't
update to a newer version yet but the test will provide some reference.

Other than that the system is about the same as yours but with an Asus Xonar DX2 soundcard and a satellite HD card (Skystar HD2).

Post by **Chrisax** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:08 pm

As Core, at first sight, the screenshots made me think of some hardware issue or low-level driver issue. I know you said temperature was OK but are you sure you can really monitor the temperature of the graphic processor itself? And is the card RAM ok? (Not overheated either for any reason btw). Overheating wouldn't be the fault of AO by the way, as AO doesn't use the graphic processor a lot. (Next engine will, on the other hand.)

While Core is making tests, maybe you could try -without any guarantee of mine- a third party driver for ATI?
http://www.omegadrivers.net/
http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati.php

core · Post by **core** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:56 pm

Hmm first look gives graphics corruption issues as well on my setup so its not OC or model specific issue.

In my case I get text corruption rather than triangles which is probably texture related.

Edit :

seems that a lot of people are having your prob

check out this thread in AO forum

AO status on ati 3870 cards

Leyah · Post by **Leyah** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:28 pm

Yes, that is exactly the thread I had found as well, and apparently the beta driver I am using is the first one to reduce those problems somewhat, as with earlier drivers, even the chatwindow would be affected. Omage Drivers are no option for me, as there simply aren't any for Vista64.

I can read all kinds of data from my graphics card with Riva Tuner, even showing a graph, including things like core frequency, core temperature, it even shows how much electric current is currently used.

CPU is definitly not overheating either, it hits around 50°C max under full load, and AO only hits a maximum of 50% (due to the fact it is a dual core processor, and AO only uses 1 of both, so having one core at 100% and the other at 0% ends up with 50% load.

cave, overclocking requires all components to work together, and in case of a dell computer, those parts are chosen for stock speeds, not overclocking, so I assume in your case, it's not the CPU, but your RAM or your motherboard that stops any further overclocking (which is why I never buy pre-built systems, btw). In fact, at stock speeds I could undervolt my E6400 pretty heavily, 1.1V instead of the stock 1.325V, which produced a significant drop in temperature. I have had it run at 3.2Ghz too, and it would most likely go higher, but at 3.2Ghz, I get an occasional bluescreen due to my memory not liking to be overclocked so high, so I settled at 3Ghz, which is rock stable. (Not tested with any stability programs as they only say so much, but tested in countless hours of gameplay, also very demanding games like Mass Effect or NWN2)

Thanks for all your input, it seems though as if this in fact is a common issue, which is both good and bad to know

EDIT: I'll include a link to Rivatuner, but be aware that you should know what you are doing when using this program. You can screw up your computer to the point of having to reinstall windows if you don't know what you are doing.
http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner

caveman · Post by **caveman** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 8:03 am

well i now have 4gig Crosiar Balistix tracer ram,will this help ?

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartsp ... C4A5CA7304

Leyah · Post by **Leyah** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:54 pm

That RAM can do a maximum of 400Mhz FSB without being overclocked, which would mean 3.2Ghz for your E6400, as it has a 8x multiplier. Make sure you can actually adjust RAM voltage for those crucial memories. They need 2.2V to run, standard for DDR2 is 1.8V. If you run them with 1.8V, you will most likely either get loads of crashes, or your system will not boot at all.

I don't know what chipset your motherboard has, but I assume it's a P965. With that new RAM, you could start and try to set your FSB to 333Mhz instead of the stock 266Mhz. Make sure your PCI and PCI-Express slots are locked to 33Mhz and 100Mhz respectively, you especially do not want to overclock your PCI bus, as that tends to make the HDD controller go nuts. With good retail motherboards, this is no issue, as the frequency is usually fixed, but as that requires extra components, I do not know how Dell handles this.

caveman · Post by **caveman** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:15 pm

nvidia 680! is the chipset on my Mob...i downloaded nTune from nvdia and tried to overclock with that...but got BSD alot and ram was at 303mhz and cpu was clocked at 2.432 ghz so my mobo is rubbish..can't change any setting at all via BIOS only via nTune,
had to uninstall nTune to stop my PC from locking up all the time

Leyah · Post by **Leyah** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:50 pm

Ah, we have the problem there then. nVidia680i is actually a very good chipset, and very good for overclocking. Do NOT, EVER, overclock with a program from windows, because you will get exactly the described problems

Enter your BIOS when the computer is starting up and set your FSB there. Dont change any settings you arent sure of, because you can screw up your PC up till the point of damaging components if you dont know what you are doing there. Setting up the FSB to 333Mhz to start should be safe though, worst case is it wont boot, and you would have to set the reset jumper, but with the components you have, 333Mhz shouldn't be any problem at all.

Leyah · Post by **Leyah** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:50 pm

I just installed the newest drivers from ATI (Catalyst 8.7), and the graphical errors have just vanished for me. The game runs alot smoother as well, even though I went and underclocked my GPU in 2D mode (AO runs on 2D clocks, due to the driver not recognising windowed 3D applications as something it needs to change clocks to 3D mode) from 504Mhz default to 250Mhz. Also overclocked in 3D mode from 600Mhz default to now 750Mhz, but that doesn't have any influence on AO, it runs very smooth even in cities with the lower core frequency.

core · Post by **core** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:14 pm

Leyah wrote:I just installed the newest drivers from ATI (Catalyst 8.7), and the graphical errors have just vanished for me. The game runs alot smoother as well, even though I went and underclocked my GPU in 2D mode (AO runs on 2D clocks, due to the driver not recognising windowed 3D applications as something it needs to change clocks to 3D mode) from 504Mhz default to 250Mhz. Also overclocked in 3D mode from 600Mhz default to now 750Mhz, but that doesn't have any influence on AO, it runs very smooth even in cities with the lower core frequency.

Thanks for posting that time to research if the driver works for video playback as well I guess ...

core · Post by **core** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 1:03 am

And it works everything is calibrated again for video playback and none of the problems of the previous drivers is there for AO and the HD36xx

No fiddling was needed with the clocks either.

Posting as reference for anyone with a radeon HD3xxx and AO problems.