X1900XT artifacting in 3dMark06?

Hunders · 20 Aug 2006 at 21:30

Ran 3d Mark 06 earlier and noticed quite bad artifacting in the SM3.0/HDR tests(Canyon fight and Deep Freeze I think they are called). The artifacting in canyon fight appears after the monster has jumped over the ship and has finnished landing in the water and in deep freeze it happens in the last quater.
I uninstalled cat 6.8 drivers fully then reinstalled them and also tried reinstalling 3d mark but still no luck...

Any ideas on what it could be?

The card isn't overclocked by the way.

Ta.

ViRuS2k · 20 Aug 2006 at 21:37

Hunders said:
Ran 3d Mark 06 earlier and noticed quite bad artifacting in the SM3.0/HDR tests(Canyon fight and Deep Freeze I think they are called). The artifacting in canyon fight appears after the monster has jumped over the ship and has finnished landing in the water and in deep freeze it happens in the last quater.
I uninstalled cat 6.8 drivers fully then reinstalled them and also tried reinstalling 3d mark but still no luck...

Any ideas on what it could be?

The card isn't overclocked by the way.

Ta.

i get problems with my x1900XTX in canyon flight aswell, and i know there is nothing wrong with my card becuse if i got into CCC and up the settings to quality then run the canyon test i dont get no problems,,,

and its not artifacting that i get and presumably that you dont get either its pixel shaders like flashing pink colors and LANGUAGE! hehe.... its becuse your running the card in none performance mode

up the settings in your CCC then retake the canyon flight test...

as for deep freeze i dont get a problem in that test at all even with ccc settings at the lowest.....try what i said though and report back.

FrankJH · 20 Aug 2006 at 21:40

I ran this on my xfire setup just yesterday and it was perfect and as you say yours isnt oc'd I would suggest its either a duff gpu or duff memory on the card - I know artifacting is one or the other but can never remember which.

I would check a few games also and make sure you have the additional power plugged into the card - I dont think any 3d app would run if it wasnt but make sure card is firmly in the slot - if you have a second PCI-E slot try that also

Hunders · 20 Aug 2006 at 21:48

Thanks for the replies.

I tried setting it to performance in CCC but I still get the problem. I'm not getting the flashing pink colours but I'm getting black triangles of varying sizes and some areas of things like the blimp are sort of stretched out into points.

The thing is, I ran 3dMark06 on the day I got the card and had no problems.

It runs fine in battlefield 2 and Im downloading the FEAR 1.7 patch as I write this to give that a go. Might try CS and HL: Episode one later aswell.

Hunders · 20 Aug 2006 at 22:33

Just tried FEAR and Oblivion both maxed out and they ran fine with no artifacts that I could see...

Wierd that its just happening in 3d mark but at least my games run fine.

Sir Random · 21 Aug 2006 at 01:29

I have exactly the same problem, stretched polygons in canyon flight when the monster jumps over the ship, and black triangles near the end of deep freeze. At first, I thought it was because my memory was clocked to it's limit, but I ran 3DMark06 at 2D speeds (500/600) and the exact same thing happens. The temps were 15c lower than at 3D speeds, so it's not that either.

I've played Oblivion, Prey, and HL2 with no problems. 3DMark01 and 05 also run fine, including 'canyon flight' (without the SM3.0 shaders).

I don't know if it's faulty ram, or a driver issue. I'll try a few more games, with SM3.0 FX, and see if it happens again.

Btw, I have a Sapphire X1900XT

ViRuS2k · 21 Aug 2006 at 04:01

you guys are total noobs lol

there is nothing wrong with your cards.

i also have run the following games all maxed out details...

OBLIVION, PREY , QUAKE 4, CONDEMED CRIMINAL ORIGINS, NEED FOR SPEED MOST WANTED, COUNTER STRIKE SOURCE, HITMAN 3 CONTACTS, CHRONICALS OF RIDDICK BUTCHER BAY, to name a few.

and i dont get any artifacts at all...

3dmarks 2001 2003 and 2005 all run perfectly.

its just 3dmarks 2006`s canyon that i get sm3.0 problems
i think its just a bug in the ati catylists or a but with 3dmarks.... if your other games are fine then dont worry at all guys.
your all fine.

like i said if you go into your CCC and up your CCC settings to the highest quality then your canyon flight and deep freeze problems will vanish.

Sir Random · 21 Aug 2006 at 16:00

ViRuS2k said:
you guys are total noobs lol

there is nothing wrong with your cards.

i also have run the following games all maxed out details...

OBLIVION, PREY , QUAKE 4, CONDEMED CRIMINAL ORIGINS, NEED FOR SPEED MOST WANTED, COUNTER STRIKE SOURCE, HITMAN 3 CONTACTS, CHRONICALS OF RIDDICK BUTCHER BAY, to name a few.

and i dont get any artifacts at all...

3dmarks 2001 2003 and 2005 all run perfectly.

its just 3dmarks 2006`s canyon that i get sm3.0 problems
i think its just a bug in the ati catylists or a but with 3dmarks.... if your other games are fine then dont worry at all guys.
your all fine.

like i said if you go into your CCC and up your CCC settings to the highest quality then your canyon flight and deep freeze problems will vanish.

Maybe you should have read the whole thread before calling people "total noobs" :rolleyes:

Hunders said:
I tried setting it to performance in CCC but I still get the problem. I'm not getting the flashing pink colours but I'm getting black triangles of varying sizes and some areas of things like the blimp are sort of stretched out into points.

We are NOT talking about the weird colours/white screen caused by setting mipmaps to "High Performance" in 3DMark06. This is actual polygon distortion in Canyon Flight and black triangles/spikes in Deep Freeze. Running the tests in "High Quality" makes no difference.

LoadsaMoney · 21 Aug 2006 at 16:04

x1800 XT here, and 3DMark06 runs fine for me on the 6.8's.

Mortster · 5 Sep 2006 at 15:56

I have HIS ICEQ X1900 XT and have also noticied missing and sometimes stretched polygons at the end of canyon and the end of deep freeze (3dmark06). I'm running CAT6.8s

Really annoyed as I have spent the last few painful days trying to get my E6300/P5b Deluxe stable with an overclock, hours and hours of priming/memtest/superpi etc.

Then when I think it's all nice and stable I see problems with 3dmark06

I am sure I have not had these problems before with this test.

I have monitored GPU temps during the canyon/deep freeze tests and it doesn't go over 73oC (which is well within specification), the fan on the HIS goes to 32% when it hits 70oC. The GPU/MEM clocks switch from the standard 2D speed to the standard XT 625/725 speeds as well (so the bios isnt doing any PEG link overclocknig etc.)

So tonight I will try the following.

1.) raise fan speed on X1900 to 100%, run 3dmark and see if it's an overheating issue, test.

2.) lower fsb and all other OC related settings back to stock and test

3.) check all catalyst driver options (mipmap quality settings as mentioned above etc.). then test.

4.) drivercleaner to remove all ATI drivers, try CAT 6.7's. then test.

5.) remove directx 9 and re-install, test.

6.) hope i dont get this far, remove and clean reinstall XP.

7.) if i get to this step it's RMA time.

FOR NOTE: I have PEG stuff set to slow(disabled) in BIOS, as this feature from ASUS may hard overclock the GPU/MEM. I have PCI-EX locked at 100 and PCI at 33.33MHz

My PSU is an Enermax Liberty 660W, so dont suspect this ?

Does PCI-Express connect to the southbridge or the northbridge ? (i'm sure it's the northy, but if not, i might try raising southbridge voltage ?)

Perhaps I need to change the PCI-EX speed from 100 to 101 or higher ??

arghhh so many questions and so much testing to do, but im stuck in work and cant do diddly until i get home

robaylesbury · 5 Sep 2006 at 16:14

If your card is playing games well then I wouldn't lose too much sleep over the 3D mark score.

Just enjoy yourself mate!!

Mortster · 5 Sep 2006 at 16:17

robaylesbury said:
If your card is playing games well then I wouldn't lose too much sleep over the 3D mark score.

Just enjoy yourself mate!!

lol - i know mate, it's tough, this really was the final test for me to do before I could start sinking my teeth into oblivion.

The score doesn't bother me, it's the corruption which occurs in the last two SM3.0 HDR tests.

I gotta get out more

robaylesbury · 5 Sep 2006 at 16:41

We all do!!

Sir Random · 5 Sep 2006 at 17:48

Mortster,
I was thinking of RMAing my card too, but since all games were running fine I decided to go ahead and fit my Zalman 9500 cooler + ram sinks, in the hope that the ram sinks would do a better job of cooling the ram. I ran 3DMk06 again, and NO artifacts whatsoever! I ran it a few more times, at low and high detail, and there's no trace of artifacting

I'm fairly sure my problem was poor ram cooling. On the stock heatsink, the 8 pink squares that contact the ram are still perfectly smooth, there's no sign of any indentations where they made contact with the ram chips, so I presume the ram wasn't being cooled efficiently.

I know the HIS IceQ comes with an arctic cooler on the gpu, but check that the ram is being cooled properly too.

Mortster · 7 Sep 2006 at 16:16

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure what to do now, as when I got home the other night I tried the tests and they where fine initially. I had ATI Tray Tools running which showed my GPU temp as being around 73deg and GPU mem at 54degree max with fan on 32%. I then run the test again after a cold boot later on and got the artifacts pretty bad, missing black small triangles and stretched vertex polygons etc.

Sometimes I get these problems in these two HDR tests, and at other times I can loop 3dmark06 in both these test consecutively without issue. I looped them for about 20 passes, and didnt notice any problems ??

It almost seems that my X1900 works better when it's warmer after a while than running from a cold boot ??

I have tried all manner of things now, including running the fan at 100%. I have also now reinstalled XP completely etc. and also set all my overclocks (cpu fsb etc.) back to normal..

I have also ramped the X1900 upto the top notch overclock settings included within CCC (670core and 800mem I think!) and this runs without any issues lol !!

I'm just not sure how to proceed now ?

I'm not comfortable removing the HIS cooler and heatsinks, as this is the reason I purchased this card to save me messing around with aftermarket coolers etc.

Is there any chance at all that me DDR2 memory sticks (G.SKill 2gbla's) could be causing the artifacts I see in 3dmark06 ? I have passed 12 hours stable of memtest86+ but I have had some errors with the windows version of memtest after about 4000% coverage ?

Any help would be great, I really love this card and dont want the hassle of RMA

I am actually beginning to wonder if my problems are PSU related. I have an Enermax liberty 620W which has split 12v rails (each with 22A i think), but I would doubt that this would be inadequate for running one X1900 XT would it ?

This is what the problems are like (although this I took from someone having a similar problem on xtremesystems)

Sir Random said:
Mortster,
I was thinking of RMAing my card too, but since all games were running fine I decided to go ahead and fit my Zalman 9500 cooler + ram sinks, in the hope that the ram sinks would do a better job of cooling the ram. I ran 3DMk06 again, and NO artifacts whatsoever! I ran it a few more times, at low and high detail, and there's no trace of artifacting

I'm fairly sure my problem was poor ram cooling. On the stock heatsink, the 8 pink squares that contact the ram are still perfectly smooth, there's no sign of any indentations where they made contact with the ram chips, so I presume the ram wasn't being cooled efficiently.

I know the HIS IceQ comes with an arctic cooler on the gpu, but check that the ram is being cooled properly too.

killer_uk · 7 Sep 2006 at 16:22

I had problems on 3dMark06 too on my old X1900XT before I had to RMA it. I'm just downloading 3Dmark again now to see if it happens again, will keep you updated.

The Asgard · 7 Sep 2006 at 16:28

I ran 3D amrk 06 with my X1900 without problem.

FYI
Sparklies = Memory
Black/coloured Triangles = GPU

I have had problems in the past with sounds cards conflicting with the graphics card in someway. Easy thing to check just try moving the sound card to another slot. I had this problem with an X800XT while playing Wow. Moved the sound card to a different slot and the problem went away. Worth a try.

Mortster · 7 Sep 2006 at 16:29

thanks guys. thanks asgard, that's great advice I do have a PCI audigy 4. Will remove it altogether tonight and re-test, cheers

Yep it's black coloured triangles I get, with red stretched vertices as shown on the dragon photo above.

stormy · 8 Sep 2006 at 20:24

How did it go monster, I have been testing my X1900XT in 3DMark for the past two nights with no problem.

Now tonight, I am too getting the corruption in 3DMark06 Canyon and Deepfreeze! God, I am beginning to regret going ATI now.

Mike

Mortster · 8 Sep 2006 at 20:54

stormy said:
How did it go monster, I have been testing my X1900XT in 3DMark for the past two nights with no problem.

Now tonight, I am too getting the corruption in 3DMark06 Canyon and Deepfreeze! God, I am beginning to regret going ATI now.

Mike

Hi there Mike!

Well I decided to check my IRQs to see what was sharing what. Anyway it turns out my Audigy 4 and X1900 are on seperate IRQ's, so I wouldnt expect any conflicts to be occuring. I decided to just disable the audigy in xp device manager and run a 30 consecutive loop of canyon test, and no artifacts whatsoever!

I then re-enabled the Audigy, re-booted and run consecutive tests and still no artifacts, I'm just about to run some more tests now....

But this problem doesnt seem to follow any set pattern at all to be honest. I'm sure my PSU is OK (enermax liberty 620w) and all my other components I believe are ok (orthos testing/memtest testing etc. etc.).

I really am beginning to think this is a software related problem, maybe something to do with the Catalyst Control Centre, maybe the AI stuff ?

But let's try and work together and see if we have any similarities in our system specs, here are mine, be good if you could list yours as well. It looks like the problem is not just related to HIS ICEQ3 cards either:

E6300 Allendale (at stock 1.86GHz whilst testing)
Asus P5b Deluxe - BIOS 0507 (Intel 965 chipset)
Enermax Liberty 620W PSU
2 Gig DDR2-667 G.Skill (2GBLA) PC2-5300
1* Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250Gb
2* Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 250Gb in RAID1 (using Intel ICH8R RAID)
HIS ICEQ3 X1900 XT 512Mb

What sort of artifacts are you getting Mike ?
My problems in Canyon are dark triangles, and stretched vertices, which only occur after the dragon has jumped back into the water and then until the end of the test.
Deep freeze artifacts are just the odd missing dark triangle, right at the very end of the test.