Ti4600 on Gaming Issues

[marqmajere]

Just bought the MSI Ti4600 and I have to say I love it. It ran great out of the box and it scored 11,000 stock in 3DMark. Only game I've run into problems with is GTA3. The text in the start menu is replaced by yellow boxes. No clue on what to do on this because I'm rather new to this whole GeForce thing. Any links or advice would be great. Thanks

Marqus

[Raptorman]

Try using the 40.41 drivers, or the 30.82s (if using WinXP). Also, you can try disabling Anti-Aliasing. Depending on the game that helps. Anyways, to help more we need your system specs.

[marqmajere]

I've tried both sets of drivers and It's been patched for a while now.
Athlon XP 1700+
Soyo Dragon Plus
512 Crucial DDR
Western Digital 30gig@ 7200rpm
Windows XP Home Ed.

Nothing is overclocked and I'm not running any antivirus programs. I have all the latest updates and drivers. This game never had this problem with my 8500, but I'm sure it's something simple.

Marqus

[thcdru2k]

it isn't a patch its a windows directx problem. head over to www.gta3forums.com and go to troubleshooting forum. read the faq, it should head you over to microsoft for an update.

[marqmajere]

Downloaded the Directx "patch" and it fixed it, no sweat. Man. I am beginning to love this G4 a little more every minute. Thanks guys. Couldn't have done it without you. (Well, maybe:D )

Marqus

[thcdru2k]

we actually have someone that bought a gf4 to actually play games :). congrats marqmajere, your first person i see doesn't give a **** about 3dmark.

[ExitWound]

Why does everyone bash 3dmark??? It's being used as a tool to measure minute changes through tweaks applied by the drivers and settings. It's the same thing as changing the ratio in an engine, remeasuring the performance, and repeating the process to get the best possible output from the machine. I don't see a problem reporting points in 3dmark to assess how gameplay will end up. Tweaking your 3dmark to go from 9000pts to 11,000pts will undoubtedly increase gaming performance as well. Why is this wrong?

[thcdru2k]

yes for some, but honeslty do you think most people do that? no, they don't really care, they just go for highest possible score.

[ExitWound]

The difference between REAL car enthusiasts and Ricers. I gotcha.

[thcdru2k]

yes exactly :)

[Nephilim]

LOL...

I haven't used 3dMark once on my GF4.

Don't feel the need to. It plays games beautifully (and smoothly). That's all that matters to me.

[thcdru2k]

i'm one of those ppl that ew mentioned lol.

[marqmajere]

I only like to use the 8 lights demo on 3DMark to see how smooth it runs. Could care less about it to be honest, but it IS rather nice to get 11,000 straight out of the box.:D As long as it plays my games well, I'm a happy camper.


Marqus

[ExitWound]

How can you spend $300 on a video card, and NOT put it to its maximum efficiency?! That's like spending $100,000 on a sports car and driving only in residential areas. How can you justify it? OVerclock, change the coolers, add heatsinks, anything(!) to get the maximum out of your purchase. I don't understand how things can be "good enough". They can always be better.

[thcdru2k]

true but sometimes, doing all that takes a lot of time, i mean, sure there is a big difference between 9000 and 11000, but for the people that try to go from 11000 to like 11200 by reducing lod or whatever crap they can than its kinda overkill. and than some of em don't even play games that much. obviously not everyone is like that and you will have true gamers and performance tweakers.

[Chalnoth]

Originally posted by ExitWound
Why does everyone bash 3dmark??? It's being used as a tool to measure minute changes through tweaks applied by the drivers and settings.

Because it sucks even for that. Just try running a few benchmarks in a row, or rebooting inbetween, and see how much the scores vary by, and you'll see what I mean.

The only thing that's remotely useful about 3DMark2k1 is the array of synthetic tests, which are somewhat useful at looking at specific aspects of your video card. The "game" tests are utterly pointless.

[Nephilim]

Originally posted by ExitWound
How can you spend $300 on a video card, and NOT put it to its maximum efficiency?! That's like spending $100,000 on a sports car and driving only in residential areas. How can you justify it? OVerclock, change the coolers, add heatsinks, anything(!) to get the maximum out of your purchase. I don't understand how things can be "good enough". They can always be better.

Well, it all depends on how you look at it. For instance, I drive a sports car. It is fast, not as fast as a lot of sports cars, but faster than a lot and definitely faster than your normal everyday driver.

Now, I can get mods for this car (there are a LOT) to make it go faster. Do I want to? Not really. Why? Because I didn't buy the car because it's fast. I bought it because in the curves, it can out perform even a lot of the high-end exotic cars and that's where I have my fun. I go out and find the curviest roads I can find and have a blast.

So, how does this relate? I didn't buy my geforce 4 because it can play games and look decent at 1600x1200. I bought it because it can play games and look *awesome* at 1024x768. Therefore, do I *really* need to overclock and tweak stuff out? Not really.

[ExitWound]

Still, tweaking out the card will make even 1024x768 perform better. So you're not looking out to have the fastest car on the block. No problem. To me it's a waste to spend the money on the car if you're just showing it off, and not putting it to its maximum potential. It just doesn't fit me to buy something so expensive and not get the best out of it (which is far different from pimping it out).

[thcdru2k]

i agree with exitwound, for the online competitive gamer, of course your gonna want to tweak everything to the max. at situations 1-2 fps could actually make a difference.

online competitive gamers are like professional race car drivers.

but for people who just play games, single player, sometimes online, but not competitively, tweaking isn't always necessary. at a point tweaking can only do so much and when the difference is 1-2 fps, or 100-200 3dmarks, than it wasting time tweaking and not playing. i'm pretty sure most people wouldn't care about their online rpgs, or gta3 running at 40 or 42 fps.

[Nephilim]

Okay, so I can go from getting 80-120 FPS in most games (or ~180-200 in Q3) to getting 90-140 FPS. Why? It already looks awesome, it already plays smooth. 10-20 FPS doesn't make much difference when you are already getting more than you need for smooth play.

Same thing with my car. Why would I want to tweak it (and possibly damage something) when it already smokes most cars in the curves and can do 0-60 really fast (around 7 seconds). I could drop a turbo in it, an intake kit, or maybe an exhaust system and REALLY smoke people on takeoff, but I don't need to. That isn't where I get my fun. I didn't buy the car because of what kind of performance I could get out of it. I bought it because it's fun to drive.

Eh...this is going to go nowhere...shall we agree to disagree?

[ExitWound]

Originally posted by Nephilim
Eh...this is going to go nowhere...shall we agree to disagree?

I hate that. It's a copout to a debate. :)

"Good enough" isn't good enough for me :) heehee. I'm sure that as your machine falls behind the technology, you'll be sure to tweak it more efficiently, when your XxAA and xTap isn't enough so that you can still get 'super smooth' framerates. It maybe "good enough" now, but overall, you'll eventually have to move to tweaking and overclocking to get the most out of the games you play, unless you are willing to shell out another $300 right away for a better card. Why not just do it when you get the card? :D

[thcdru2k]

true, but improving performance, for the competitive gamer means, improving those frames during close-up battles, or those big fights with many players on screen shooting rockets/minis at you etc. this is where the frames count. if your just running around the map, than yeah of course 140 or 160 fps aren't going to make a difference.

[Nephilim]

Originally posted by ExitWound

I hate that. It's a copout to a debate. :)

Nah, people have different views on things and a lot of the time, no matter what you do, you can't change them. :)

Either way, I feel like I'm getting my money's worth out of the card as it is without tweaking. I don't feel the need to squeeze every ounce out of the card. When newer games come out (Doom3, DeusEx 2, etc.) we'll see. If UT2K3 is any indication, I won't need to worry about it for some time.

Cross that bridge when I get to it.