nVidia 9800GT issues

[vegetaa]

Hey guys,

(I looked up on various boards and obviously here, and find that several peopole had the exact same problem I have, but didn't find any solution so I made this post)

I bought a 9800GT a few weeks ago, and I've been having issues while playing FFXI since the day I installed it into my PC.

The main issue is my game textures becoming all fucked up after a few minutes playing. Items icons being all mixed up, walls having creepy taru face textures (you don't want this to happen in KRT, believe me...CREEPY !), menus background becoming all black, ...stuff like that. Stuff like you can see in this post but more of it. From what I gathered it's called "artefacting", and is usually due to crappy drivers or overheating GPU.

The second issue is my computer freezing after a few minutes playing FFXI. It happens mostly when I have 2 instances of FFXI running on my comp. Not much to say about this...screen just freezes on a slightly altered display of what was going on just before it froze.

I tried various versions of their 9800-compatible drivers : Didn't fix it.
I then contacted nVidia support for some help, and they made me test various BETA versions of their drivers : didn't fix it.
nVidia support last answer was "We know we had similar issues with FFXI and older nVidia cards, and it was eventually fixed in our drivers, so you should just wait and hopefully we fix it someday." and I'm not too happy about it :/

So do you guys know a way to fix that problem temporarily, while waiting for an nVidia driver that will fix it for good. I was told by a couple friends I should try underclocking my GPU or speeding up the cooling fan, hoping it could make things better, is that true ? Any other hints ?

Thanks ^^

[Wintermute]

How does the card perform in other games?
Any issues or is the artefacting striclty a FFXI thing?

[shiarua]

Things to try->
1. Driver Cleaner
1a. Uninstall the drivers from normal mode through the device manager
1b. Reboot into safe mode and run a driver cleaner (drivercleaner.net)
1c. Reboot into normal mode
1d. Install the latest BETA or WHQL drivers

2. Reinstall FFXI
3. Format and reinstall OS

[vegetaa]

How does the card perform in other games?
Any issues or is the artefacting striclty a FFXI thing?

GTA:Vice City and GTA:San Andreas plays fine, but I don't have other games installed...I basically play FFXI only on my PC.

I'm gonna add that to my list of things to test though...what recent games are good tests for a graphic card ? Crysis ?

Things to try->
1. Driver Cleaner
1a. Uninstall the drivers from normal mode through the device manager
1b. Reboot into safe mode and run a driver cleaner (drivercleaner.net)
1c. Reboot into normal mode
1d. Install the latest BETA or WHQL drivers

2. Reinstall FFXI
3. Format and reinstall OS

I already did steps 1, with every driver that was available from nvidia.com, and even an unlisted BETA nVidia support provided me. WHQL was the version I installed the day I installed my card on my comp.

I forgot to write about it in my OP but I already did step 2 and reinstalled FFXI from scratch last week. It sure is a long and boring process, but I was hoping it would make things better. It didn't :/

Format and reinstall OS is the option I'm keeping for later, after I tried tweaking CPU and fan speed for a couple days. Right now I use XP on this PC, but maybe I'm gonna try Vista...Seems that nVidia's platform of choice is now DX10/Vista, so I might be luckier that way ? Not sure though...

[Epical]

To be honest, it's tiring to see these threads pop up over and over again. It's not some secret that some nVidia cards have major issues handling FFXI correctly. Now, having said that, I cannot offer you more than "go try all the drivers", which is pretty bland advice at best. There's also a nVidia driver thread in Advanced if you want to go dig that out.

The way to fix this? Grab a 2900 or 3800 series ATI card if you want to keep costs down, as they run FFXI very smoothly. If you plan on doing any other gaming, grab one of the new 4800 series.

Again, sorry if that's not what you want to hear, but it's really getting excessive now. =\ Yes, some people will boast they have perfect framerates with their new and old nVdia cards, so hopefully they can chime in here, but on average there's just way too many texture/handling issues regarding the GeForce chain.