6600 + Via Chipset -> most games unplayable

[ggambett]

I have a GeForce 6600 AGP running on an Athlon XP 1800+ with a VIA KT266 motherboard and 512 MB of RAM. Most DirectX games I tried are unplayable due to vertex coordinates corruption. OpenGL games work fine both in Windows XP SP2 and Linux. My own DirectX and OpenGL code works just fine (fixed function pipeline, not vertex shaders). I therefore doubt this is a hardware problem.

I've installed the latest nVidia drivers, the latest (and previous version) VIA drivers including the AGP drivers, I tried RivaTuner to disable most advanced features, I disabled combined writes in the Control Panel. Nothing works. I get exactly the same horrible artifacts.

Battlefield 2 and Halo exhibit this behavior (and are unplayable). Hitman 2 and Joint Ops work fine.

I know for a fact I'm far from the only person having this problem with a 6600. Is there an official solution provided from nVidia that actually works? Do we have to accept that nVidia has just abandoned owners of certain nVidia products considered "too old" to be worth supporting?

Try to lower your AGP port from 8x to 4x, I had this type of an issue with my 6800GT on a Via board back when they released. Don't worry there isn't any noticable performance lost.

[ggambett]

Originally Posted by |MaguS|

Try to lower your AGP port from 8x to 4x

Thanks. I already have it at 2x.

[g-a-m-e]

ehm, isnt that like bad or something? Doesnt AGP 2x give out twice as much voltage as 4x or 8x ?

[$n][pErMan]

Must be a problem with the older VIA chipsets .,.. my mobo uses the VIA KT880 and it works fine.

[ggambett]

Changing the AGP settings didn't work. I know it's a problem with this video card and this motherboard, but since OpenGL games work just fine, it's clearly something that can be solved in software. Do nVidia people read this forum? I'd really appreciate to have a definitive solution to this problem. The bottom line is that I bought a nVidia card and it doesn't work.

[fps_dean]

OpenGL games always seem to run better, especially with nvidia which handles opengl really well.

You should be able to play many games without the eye candy on a 6600.

[The Bigman]

Its the Chipset not the card or AGP setting. Via is a very bad chipset for gaming and memory. I heard from a source at Corsair that Via isn't there favorite either.

I would look into an NForce chipset or Intel for gaming not vio.

[ggambett]

Originally Posted by The Bigman

Its the Chipset not the card or AGP setting. Via is a very bad chipset for gaming and memory. I heard from a source at Corsair that Via isn't there favorite either.

I would look into an NForce chipset or Intel for gaming not vio.

I know, but I refuse to change my motherboard. The card works fine with OpenGL so the incompatibilities can be fixed in software. I want that fix.

[The Bigman]

Try uninstalling old via inf's and update the chipset to the latest. I believe there are newer drivers out from last month from VIA.

I work around the vio 880 too not my flagship but one im stuck with in my fleet of pc's. I can't get mem timings to work with my chipset, it tells me my ram is overclocked.

[ggambett]

Didn't work either...

Any official, proven fix for this? I know this problem isn't so unusual, and come on, a VIA chipset with a GeForce6600 can't be so unusual to just ignore it...

[Jasonp31]

Can you set the motherboard bios to go to agp 1x? If so, try it. You'll take a good performance hit, but it might make it stable enough to run everything well. Worth a shot.