A little problem with my 6600GT

[RadeonX0X]

Ok first of all, here were my previous PC specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon 3200 XP
Videocard: ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 256mb
Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
Power supply: 400W

All I can name for now, but here's the thing. My Radeon 9800 broke down on me so I replaced it with a Club 3D GeForce 6600GT 128mb, which in theory was supposed to be on the same level, if not higher, than the Radeon 9800. But to my shock, the performance has been significantly reduced. This is immediatly apparent to me when I started WoW: Wrath of the Lich King. It was already at the title screen, when I noticed the frame rate was a lot slower than the very smooth one I had with my Radeon.

Any ideas?

 

[klepto12]

did you get new drivers for said card ? does the 6600gt require a 6pin power plug?

 

[RadeonX0X]

Well my driver is something called NVIDIA Forceware 178.13 WHQL XP

I'm not really sure about the power plug thing, how can I check that out?

 

[Tmagic650]

You will have to make sure that you have deleted all the ATI drivers before you try to install the Nvidia drivers once again

 

[EXCellR8]

Well my driver is something called NVIDIA Forceware 178.13 WHQL XP

I'm not really sure about the power plug thing, how can I check that out?

6600GT = 4pin plug or doesn't require dedicated power... 128MB is not a whole lot on a graphics card, so if your Radeon 9800 had 256MB, you're gonna notice a performance drop.

 

[agissi]

Are you sure the 9800 had 256MB of graphics memory? I didnt think they made 256 verisons of the ATI 9800. Also I think the 6600GT should be a nice improvment over the 9800, the 9800s were out with the GeForce 4000s were out; wernt they?

With videocard drivers its crucial to uninstall your previous drivers through Device Manager (My Computer, right click > properties > device manager tab), boot up without VC drivers, then install the new ones. If your having poor performance I'd uninstall all of your drivers and install the latest from nvidia.com .

 

[RadeonX0X]

Yes the Radeon had 256mb of memory for sure.
I uninstalled my ATI drivers, but the problem remains. Although I'm not using the latest Nvidia driver, I tried but then the screen was reverted to the lowest resolution and the color quality was also reduced to 8-bit (lowest). I couln't change it to normal for some reason... I clicked apply but it stayed the lowest and I couln't change it.

What I really don't get is, the two cards are basically on the same level but everytime I reach the login screen, it shows a message, saying:
"Your Nvidia graphics card is not recieving sufficient power. As a result, the graphics card has lowered its performance to a level that allows continued safe operation.

To remedy the problem, ensure your Nvidia graphics card has the supplemental power connector attached."

What power connector exactly I don't understand.

If it's really overly powerful for my system, then it at least should perform the same as it did with my Radeon, which had no problem working at full power...

 

[Tmagic650]

There might be a connector on the video card that a power supply cable fits into. Check for this

 

[RadeonX0X]

+10 man! You were right and now it's working on full throttle! I don't know yet if it's better than my Radeon but it sure as hell is doing everything as good as the last one did! Thanks again!

 

[Tmagic650]

Good job RadeonX0X!

Glad we could help A lot of us get off track these days

 

[RadeonX0X]

No kidding.
But mind as well post the little comparison between the two cards. Well I've tested it with GTA: San Andreas and compared to the Radeon, I think it's slightly better. There were some times when the game would slow down with Radeon, but it doesn't seem to do it as much with the Geforce. That's it I guess. I was mainly just looking for a replacement anyway and this definitely fits, if not better!