I'm sorry but what the hell?

greenday_234 · July 11, 2006, 11:25

So I had my old video card a Radeon 9550 and when playing cIV it would constantly overheat but the graphics were fine. So when my dad offered me a blank check for my birthday I thought, jeez why not get a top-of-the-line video card. So I went out and spent 400 bucks on a BFG Geforce 7800 GS OC card and with excitement I started up civ and as apposed to getting sharp graphics I got Polygolonal shards and graphics corruption! I tried updating my video drivers, running DXdiag, with no issues, checking the GPU temp with no issues, playing with the graphic settings all too no avail. So someone please help me out with this because I find it hard to believe that a video card like mine can't handle civ4

P.S.

1.7ghz AMD Atholon
2 gb DDR ram
Geforce 7800 GS OC
plenty o' harddrive space
and a 500watt powersupply (brand new, needed to buy it for the card min requirement was 400watt)

greenday_234 · July 11, 2006, 12:08

here are some pics

MMC · July 11, 2006, 12:23

It might help if you actually put the pics in your post

EDIT: Here are the pics you emailed me...

Sabre2th · July 11, 2006, 19:46

First thing I'd check is your card's temperature. A card like that will likely be warmer than your 9550, especially if it's overclocked. If that is the problem, an extra (or bigger) fan either on the card or in the case may fix your problem.

I believe there was also another issue shortly after release with similar visual defects. Update Civ4 to the latest patch if you haven't. If neither of those work, just try searching the forums for similar cases (assuming you haven't already)

Edit: Sorry, I missed the "GPU temp" part. I guess I'm not very helpful

phlucas · July 12, 2006, 01:50

Woa.

Have you tested other games? You might want to download a demo from NVIDIA's website and check that for corruption and artifacts.

greenday_234 · July 12, 2006, 23:13

Well to give you all the heads up, I took the video card back and traded it in for an ATI Radeon X1600 and a few other things. I know it is a downgrade from my previous card but at least it functions, I for one will continue to buy nothing but ATI from this day forward. I'd like to say a special thanks to Snoopy369 and MMC for their help during my difficulties and a thanks to all who helped me in this forum. P.S. The new ATI is working great.

Sabre2th · July 13, 2006, 17:32

Originally posted by greenday_234
Well to give you all the heads up, I took the video card back and traded it in for an ATI Radeon X1600 and a few other things. I know it is a downgrade from my previous card but at least it functions, I for one will continue to buy nothing but ATI from this day forward. I'd like to say a special thanks to Snoopy369 and MMC for their help during my difficulties and a thanks to all who helped me in this forum. P.S. The new ATI is working great.

Everyone is, of course, entitled to their opinion, but I think it's silly to completely give up on nVidia because of one problem that hasn't even been explained.

greenday_234 · July 13, 2006, 21:35

Everyone is, of course, entitled to their opinion, but I think it's silly to completely give up on nVidia because of one problem that hasn't even been explained.

Well I it basically boils down to this, I've had problems with other NVidia cards before and the reason I've given up on it is because it hasn't been explained. For the past three days I'd been doing everything under the sun to get it to work bios updates, chipset updates etc. etc. and nothing did the trick. I called tech support at take2 they had no idea, and I called tech support at nVidia and short of returning it and trying a new card they had no idea either. I would have exchanged it for a new card but given the fact that I've had problems in the past with nVidia cards I wasn't really interested. Also I know mistakes can happen but the fact that I paid 400 bucks and the card was bad made me nervous.

So in other words, if you constantly shop at the same store and every time you leave you're always left disappointed, do you continue to shop there?

roxya · August 2, 2006, 15:46

It seems like I have the same problem as greenday_234. I'm using a nVIDIA nForce2 Integrated GeForce4 MX which runs around 99F. Is that too hot?

P.S. I don't have a blank check to spare for a new card.

Cort Haus · August 16, 2006, 06:29

I too have had bad experiences of nvidia in the past. They've made money out of me supplying rubbish that didn't work so I try to avoid giving them any more custom.