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Bought an ATI 9250 as HTPC card - 2d performance is absolutely applling!

Trick

Trick

Trick

Soldato
Joined
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Bought an ATI 9250 as HTPC card - 2d performance is absolutely appalling in Windows XP! I can't believe it's this slow - dragging a window arouynd, the update lags by about a second and explorer.exe cpu usage goes through the roof!

The card can't be this bad for 2d, surely? Any ideas on a fix? Catalyst 6.5 drivers installed, card used as monitor 2 of 3 on an extended desktop.
 
neo-omega said:
maybe its the cpu holding you back then? whats your spec?
Click to expand...
Ah, sorry, should have included the specs:

Opteron 146 @ 2.8ghz
Primary gfx card: 6800Ultra running 19" lcd and 32" hdtv
Secondary gfx card: Ati 9250 running Catalyst 6.5s and 18" lcd through the vga output.
1gb ram

The display appears fine - good colours, decent res etc, it's just everything ion it runs as if it's covered in treacle! Honestly, dragging windows around is painful!

I made sure I ran driver cleaner before installing the card
 
Probably the NV and ATI drivers not liking each other. You really should have bought a Nvidia card to go with your primary one.
 
I'm beginning to agree with you Lanz - I can't seem to get it to work correctly at all. I was trying to do it on a shoestring, hence the reason for the £30 ATI card and a few reports suggested it would work without a hitch with the nVidia card. Ho hum, back to the drawing board....
 
Trick said:
I'm beginning to agree with you Lanz - I can't seem to get it to work correctly at all. I was trying to do it on a shoestring, hence the reason for the £30 ATI card and a few reports suggested it would work without a hitch with the nVidia card. Ho hum, back to the drawing board....
Click to expand...


Try a different PCI slot - sometimes the IRQ's can get mixed and thats why you are getting this awful lag

Unfortunately I would have also recommended the same manufacturer for the secondry card but with a little luck and determination you should be ok
 
I could be totally wrong with this but I would try some older more basic drivers for the ati card maybe some version 5 omegas as that cat 6.5 is a cumbersome driver package and may not be helping your situation.
 
Im fairly sure the cat 6.5s dont support the 9250.

Copied this from ati website :

Products Supported: Radeon® X1900 series
Radeon® X1800 series
Radeon® X1600 series
Radeon® X1300 series
Radeon® X850 series
Radeon® X800 series
Radeon® X700 series
Radeon® X600 series
Radeon® X550 series
Radeon® X300 series
Radeon® 9800 series
Radeon® 9700 series
Radeon® 9600 series
Radeon® 9650 series
Radeon® 9550 series
Radeon® 9500 series

NOTE: ATI All-in-Wonder® variants based on the above are also supported.

Not Supported: (To download drivers for unsupported products, please click below) Radeon® 9250 series
Radeon® 9200 series
Radeon® 9000 series
Radeon® 8500 series
Radeon® 7500 series
Radeon® 7200 series
Radeon® 7000 series


NOTE: ATI All-in-Wonder® variants based on the above are also not supported.

Notes:

ATI recommends Windows XP Service Pack 2 or higher to be installed.
 
/\ Very true, that point escaped me.
I have a 9500 and 9550 running in older rigs and the 9500 in particular does struggle with showing contents while dragging windows etc.
On those machines I've turned off a lot of those windows effects which makes a fair difference.
I wouldn't expect much running a 9250 :(
 
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You need an older driver version. You'll be finding that windows will be using its generic driver for the 9250, which would explain this crap performance.
 
Thanks for the replys all. I've still had no luck with the card and I'm probably going to ditch it. Changing drivers to an earlier version (I've tried 5.6 and 5.9) after Driver Cleaning the 6.5s made no difference. Neither did changing the IRQ so the Radeon had it's own, or swopping pci slots.

I think I'm either just going to have to plug in the hdtv when I want it to use pc content or see about getting a cheap nvidia pci card. I may be able to fish out an old 4200 when I visit mum and dad in a few weeks....

[edit]

Looking on the Ultramon forum, it appears that the card is failing to start DirectDraw and Direct3d Hardware acceleration when the Radeon card is installed second. I assume this accounts for the cripplingly slow 2d performance. The peeps on there got round this issue by uninstalling all drivers, rebooting, installing the ATI drivers first, rebooting, installing the Nvidia one's second. I'd have a go at doing this but for some reason the ATI card now appears to be dead! Ho hum....
 
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lol sods law!

ive had my fair share of ATI cards and i refuse to go back to them with the problems ive had.

if i was to try the same setup with my 2 monitors and a TV, using my 6800GT on 1 DVI monitor, what connection would go to the TV VGA or DVI?

and would it be useful or pointless buying another PCI-E card, of the same spec for this setup, or would a bog standard nvidia card do ?
 
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