Problems with FFXI and ATI Vid Card

[Kirbyprime]

Hello,

Anyways, I recently changed my video card to a HD3450 (Old, but still better than what I had and it was free). It works decently (actually a bit slower than my old 1650xt at full load due to it being a silent card) but the problem is every once in a while (random, sometimes a few hours, some times a few days) it'll bug out and cause numerous graphical glitches.

Here's a few screen shots of what I mean.

http://www.illusionary-amalgam.com/i...raphicBug1.png

http://www.illusionary-amalgam.com/i...raphicBug2.png

Aside from bugs within FF, the rest of my desktop is affected. Various different areas of my desktop and other applications are "blacked out". The top bar of windows are often blacked out and most of the time the content area of web browsers are also blacked out.

So far I've tried various different drivers including the Omega drivers, and ATI Drivers from 8.1 - 8.8. I'm using DirectX 10.0 and running Windower 3.4 if that matters. Not sure what's the problem now, I'm pretty sure it isn't a problem with the video card, other programs seem to run ok.

>.> If anyone knows what's wrong please let me know. This is getting annoying.

[Dohorehn]

omg this looks like the twilight zone

[Olo401]

If it's an intermittent problem, it could be your computer's cooling system. It might also be a software or hardware setting issue, but I'm not as familiar with that kind of thing as some others here.

[Kirbyprime]

Vid card is steady at around 55 degrees so I doubt that's the case. CPU is also around that temp.

[Kohan]

In the past, I've heard of many issues related specifically to ATI HD cards, and in far more applications than FFXI. What you're experiencing is called all sorts of things, from "checkerboarding" to "disco" to the more predictable "black and white."

Unfortunately, almost every game out there has a different fix. Some developers have released their own driver patches, while users are able to ensure compatibility with some titles by rolling back several driver sets. As it's highly unlikely SE will release a patch (it's not their responsibility anyway, as this is a known problem on ATI's end), your best bet is to try older and older driver sets until something hopefully works. Try the 7 series, for example.

[Kirbyprime]

Yeah, unfortunately it seems the 7 series doesn't even recognize the card. Wouldn't even install the driver.

[Reality]

perhaps this is why it was free

one of the memory modules or GPU could be faulty due to a failed overclocking attempt

[Shuemue]

In my humble opinion, the card is so old and shitty that it's not worth trying to fix.

Go buy something at least as good as this; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102715

[Kirbyprime]

Yeah, I gave up trying to fix that and used started using my old card. Saw the 4850s and while it isn't really expensive, I reallllly liked the whole silent aspect so just gave up on a new vid card since all of the newer models required fans still.

[Shuemue]

The HD4850 isn't noisy, you can even set up different fan profiles.

[Pikarya]

ATi HD series cards are no better than 8800's imo for FFXI. Go back to a x18xx+ model card for the best performance & most compatibility with FFXI.