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7 Days...time I gave my 4870

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elpedro

elpedro

elpedro

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Yep. recieved my Sapphire 4870 (not bought from OcUK) last monday, just this morning I have arranged a full refund on the card.

Utterly disapointed, it seems 9 out of 10 games the card is flawless, I think I am unlucky and I play those 1 in 10 it doesn't work well with. TF2, CS:S both suffered frame drops in heavy firefights around 40FPS which my 8800GT could handle and keep above 60 with 16xAA applied!

Guild Wars -the most graphically unchallenging game I own would frequently crash the entire PC whereby the image on screen would become corrupt.

I took the advice of people and decided to run the AA in CCC through the box filter to minimize stress on AA applied in games AND wiped my PC with a fresh install of Vista yesterday... still no dice.

Not all doom and gloom, Crysis ran between 45-50FPS average (1680, all high DX10) but what good is that when I can't play a game of TF2 or GRID with out the gameplay dropping.

I sorely wanted to give ATI a chance, after all the good things I read. Upgrading from an 8800GT seemed a no brainer, they just don't compare; so I thought.

I will miss ATI's vivid colours, man it brought my HDR wallpapers to life but I'd much rather go back to Nvidia which just seems a much more mature company where things just work. Maybe I'll try once again sometime, 5870? :p

You had your chance ATI, I hope to god I was unlucky and I got a faulty card but I'm not risking it and going green again.
 
there is know bug with ati cards that drop fps in source games but there is a fix.

lol 7days who is g/\y reminded me of scary movie :D
 
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I was thinking of buying one of these cards. Tute is this "fix" from ATI or a 3rd party fix ?

I was going to buy this for a 2nd system btw. Why replace my gtx when it plays everything very well in the first place :D
 
I've played guildwars on my CF 4850's and it is flawless, not a single crash, lockup, or anything of the sort, nor have I heard of any 4 series problems with GW...


As for TF2, again flawless... same for my m8's who all have 50's and 70's...


You sure it isn't a general system problem rather than the 4870.
 
I've posted everywhere, searched everything. Last resort was fresh install of Vista. Granted, I did not find any ATI or 3rd party fix for steam games, even still, Guild Wars is one of my main games I play and that was crashing for fun, seemed to be some incompatibility with the game. Couldn't find much on that seen as 4870 is super overkill for such a game and therefore not many people would have the same card to play it.

Going to shove an old 8600GT in for now. Any ideas (GTX 260 seems best option) for around same price. October being mentioned as a date for new NV cards, 55nm 9 series or something?

HeX said:
I've played guildwars on my CF 4850's and it is flawless, not a single crash, lockup, or anything of the sort, nor have I heard of any 4 series problems with GW...


As for TF2, again flawless... same for my m8's who all have 50's and 70's...


You sure it isn't a general system problem rather than the 4870.
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Well I don't see how it could be. Played flawless on my old 8800GT, never dropped below Vsync ever and GW never crashed! And putting the fresh install of Vista on to make 100% sure there were no remnants of Nvidia lurking was the final straw for me.
 
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elpedro said:
I've posted everywhere, searched everything. Last resort was fresh install of Vista. Granted, I did not find any ATI or 3rd party fix for steam games, even still, Guild Wars is one of my main games I play and that was crashing for fun, seemed to be some incompatibility with the game. Couldn't find much on that seen as 4870 is super overkill for such a game and therefore not many people would have the same card to play it.

Going to shove an old 8600GT in for now. Any ideas (GTX 260 seems best option) for around same price. October being mentioned as a date for new NV cards, 55nm 9 series or something?



Well I don't see how it could be. Played flawless on my old 8800GT, never dropped below Vsync ever and GW never crashed! And putting the fresh install of Vista on to make 100% sure there were no remnants of Nvidia lurking was the final straw for me.
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You did not mention the AA + filter that was used on the ATI. ?
 
Presume you cleaned the system several times of old drivers to avoid conflicts etc.

I tend to run Drivercleaner pro and CCleaner several times before installing new drivers...different card or same manufacturer regardless really.

Wouldn't have thought a jump from an 8800gt to a 4870 would be a major increase anyway.
 
i've never had any issue on any ati cards with cs:s except for the last few drivers that made the fps plummet when using adaptive AA but that seems to be fixed with the 8.9's.

did you try running at stock settings before you were convinced it was the card?
 
Final8y said:
You did not mention the AA + filter that was used on the ATI. ?
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I did on my original post - set filter to box and 4xAA in TF2, made no difference


RavenXXX2 said:
My 4870 eats stream games for fun and the the action never dips below 60FPS, I would say you have a dodgy card or system.
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Again, my system worked flawless when using my 8800GT and once again I had a fresh install of Vista just yesterday to make absolutely sure...

Found a GTX 260 for the same price so just ordered one of them:D
 
Box filter is not the AA method to use.

Try edge detect and set it to application controlled then use 4xAA ingame menu as thats is still x12AA edge detect or 8xAA ingame=x24AA edge detect. Otherwise force it in CCC to either 4xAA or 8xAA.

4870 is the 3rd best single slot card you can get so no point changing it unless you get a 4870X2 or GTX280. Anything else is a backward step.

I find my 4870 eats all source games FPS wise no slowdowns or issues whatsoever so either you are doing something wrong or your system has some other bottleneck. I notice you only have 2GB Ram well under Vista 4GB is much smoother as less paging to disk so perhaps that is part of your problem.
 
AWPC said:
Box filter is not the AA method to use.

Try edge detect and set it to application controlled then use 4xAA ingame menu as thats is still x12AA edge detect or 8xAA ingame=x24AA edge detect. Otherwise force it in CCC to either 4xAA or 8xAA.

4870 is the 3rd best single slot card you can get so no point changing it unless you get a 4870X2 or GTX280. Anything else is a backward step.

I find my 4870 eats all source games FPS wise no slowdowns or issues whatsoever so either you are doing something wrong or your system has some other bottleneck. I notice you only have 2GB Ram well under Vista 4GB is much smoother as less paging to disk so perhaps that is part of your problem.
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I disagree, I was originally going to get a GTX 260 but found the 4870 for a really good price. Both the 260 and 4870 have positives and negatives whereby one can outperform the other and vice versa depending on the game. Also the 260 has much more overclocking head room than a 4870.

And tbh, if the GTX 260 gives me 130 FPS oppose to 135 FPS the 4870 may give me in a game... so what 'cos I use vsync! And I can say I did pay a lot less than the current OcUK prices which seemed to have increased lately. I'm not going to name any places/links but the Sapphire 4870 cost me £160 inc VAT + delivery, this 260 I have just bought was about the same.
 
sapphire have got a new BIOS for the 4870 on their website that I have used to flash my card. You have to make sure, of course, that you have the particular model that it is intended for if you intend to flash your card with it.

Usual caveats apply - if you b0rk your card it could be recoverable by using a PCI one to boot with.
 
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