Direct3D Flicker with Radeon9700Pro??

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acidosmosis

acidosmosis

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Why does my screen flicker in Battlefield 1942 and Direct3D applications?

I just installed my Radeon 9700 Pro. When I went to play Battlefield 1942 the screen flickers about 1 or 2 times a second constantly even in the intro and menu. In the game the screen flickers but also with some graphic distortion. I noticed that in the game menu while the screen is flickering I can see a vertical line from bottom left to top right with topleft in a red shaded color and bottom right in full black. In the game I get graphic distortian plus the flickering but FPS runs amazing. The screen flicker and graphic distortion also happens in the 3D Screensavers that come with Windows when set to use the Radeon9700Pro.

Specs:
-------
DirectX9 (latest version)
Catalyst 3.2 (latest version)
Radeon 9700 Pro
AMD Athlon XP 1.7ghz
512MB DDR PC2100

If I play games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein (I believe it uses OpenGL) they run fine with not one problem, and great FPS.
So, it seems to me that it is a Direct3D problem.

As far as the Radeon's control panel settings I have lowered everything, turned everything all the way up, tried as many different variations of settings as I possibly could and the game still flickers the exact same way.

I even uninstalled the catalyst drivers, and installed DirectX9 again, then reinstalled the catalyst drivers, AND tried the older version (the one right before 3.2).

HELP! LOL. I have bought this damn game TWICE and can not evne play it now!
 
The D3D flickering has been an on going problem for the R9700. ATI is slowly addressing most of the problems with D3D. Check this link out for BF1942.

http://mirror.ati.com/support/infobase/4081.html

I would try installing an old catalyst suite (pre DX9) as DX9 could have something to do with you're problem.

also check the forums @ www.rage3d.net
there is a lot of helpful info there

specs
radeon 9700 pro
msi kt333 ultra aru
768mb pc2700 ddr
hercules game fortismo 7.1
 
Hmm.. well that leaves me a nice little problem. How do I un-install DirectX9 so I can downgrade, and what version of DirectX should I try? I believe I had DirectX 8.1 installed prior to 9 but I am not 100% sure.

By the way.. ATI's website says that the new Catalyst drivers rememdy the flicker problem in Battlefield 1942, but I started out with the newest version of the drivers and have this problem, are they still working on a better driver for this problem?
 
You might go to driverheaven.net and download the latest Omega drivers. They are based on Cat. 3.2's, they were just released a couple of days ago. I've haven't tried these yet, but when the Cat.3.0's came out I had a bad stuttering problem on some games and the Omega's fixed my problem. Might be worth a try.

I also looked at Rage3D, and couldn't find anything on your problem. That's not saying it's not there, that's a massive site, I used there search, but nothing related to your problem.
 
I tried the Omega drivers but it tells me that setup has failed and to try and install standard vga adapters before trying to install.

Ideas?
 
I don't how how you installed, (most of us uninstall old drivers first) but the instructions say "DO NOT" uninstall the old drivers. "DO" uninstall the control panel. These drivers are supposed to install over the old ones, with a new control panel.

I researched Rage3D and DriverHeaven forums for quite a while and couldn't find anything similar to your problem. Most people there were happy, but as always, some people have problems.

If you uninstalled the old drivers, I would suggest reinstalling Cat. 3.2's and then trying again. Are you running XP?
 
I tried the Omega drivers again after reinstalled the Radeon's drivers. This time it installed, but now Battlefield 1942 just goes straight back to the desktop after it starts to load.
 
Sorry that didn't help. I wish I knew how to insert a link here, because there is some info at Rage3D that seems to be exactly like what you are describing. (crashing to the desktop when loading). Go to Rage3D and then to the PC gaming forum and type Battlefield 1942 Crash, in the search. I saw a possible fix there but just don't how to link it. I know this is not your original problem. Guess I haven't been much help, again, sorry I didn't help any.

Also, I think the latest patch had some fixes for graphics corruption, if you don't have it, it's v1.31.
 
I am going to install Half Life and try to run it under the Direct3D settings and see what result I get. I will update when I do that.
 
Ok, I tried Half-Life with Direct3D and had the exact same flicker problem. Then I used OpenGL in Half Life and didn't have the same problem.

Out of curiosity since I am upgrading my motherboard REALLY soon, does anyone think that could possibly get rid of my problem? The motherboard I am getting is the Asus A7V8X by the way. I heard something about some motherboards that are have 8XAGP capabilitys don't like the Radeon 9700 Pro. Let me know what you think. Much appreciated.
 
I'm running the A7V8X with a 9700pro without a single hitch, so I wouldn't worry about that....

The problem you're having seems quite strange to me, as I'm just home from a 48hour BattleField: Road to Rome LAN party, and I didn't encounter anything like you say...

I did get kicked back to desktop a couple of times, but so did GF4 ti4600 users, so...

What motherboard are you currently using?
What mobo you're getting doesn't really tell us much...

olefarte> there are several ways to insert a link... If you choose "quote" or "post reply" click on the button marked "http://" and do what the javascript tells you...

If you use quick reply, or don't want to click the button, you can do it manually in two ways:
1. type in "[ url=www.thelinkhere.com]the text you want to show here[ /url]" just without the blank spaces after the "[". An url to TechSpot will look like this...

or

2. just type "[ url]www.thelinkhere.com[ /url]" again without the blanks... Which will look like this: www.techspot.com... (Only use this way with short urls please)


For more info about the vb code, click here...
 
Right now I have the ECS K7S5A. Had to use this for a while because I had SDRAM at first and switched over to DDR Ram, and I don't like this motherboard, because for one thing ECS isn't all that popular and I'd rather go with a good $100 Asus motherboard. Thanks for the input I feel a little better knowing you have the A7V8X and haven't had any problems with it and the R9700Pro.
 
I haven't been able to find any info of anyone else with this problem, and since you're getting the A7V8X very soon, I'll leave it at that...
 
problem

I am building a new machine tomorrow for the owner of the company that I work for, so I am going to use my Radeon 9700 Pro first and see how well it works with his system then I'll just remove it and install the Geforce4MX onto his system. Hopefully I dont have the same problem with his system as I do with mine because this could mean a faulty video card. IF that is the case I'm wondering what would I do about it. The thing is I bought this card off of E-Bay (have been in contact with the recent owner about this problem numerous times just discussing it), and he took it out of his Dell system. So, I'm thinking it wouldn't be so easy to send this card back to ATI and say hey there is a problem fix the durn thing.
 
If he took it out of a DEll, it's most likely a 9700 TX, which is much like, but not exactly a 9700 pro...

That could be part of your problem... But I'm not sure...
(I can't remember what the real differences between the cards was/is...)

I'll have a short look-see tomorrow and see what I can dig up :)
 
Well the clock speed is the same as the retail Radeon 9700 Pro, as far as any problems this specific card has I dunno, but it does show up as a Radeon 9700 Pro, with regular clock speeds, 128mb, etc.

I just did a minute of research and the TX was supposedly a Radeon 9700 but not a Pro, the card I have is showing up as a Radeon 9700 Pro and is performing at the Pro's clock speed.

This sucks. The new motherboard better fix this DirectX problem.
 
What does SmartGart tell you your AGP setting is?
(0, 1x, 2x, 4x, 8,x)

If you're running at 8x, you might want to try it at 4x, as if it is a 9700tx, it only supports 4x...
Might just fix the problem...
 
Have you run DXDIAG and seen any problems?

Also, set AGP aperture size to 64 and turn off fastwrites/sideband.
 
It has been set for 4x in SmartGart, and I've tried 2x. BIOS is set for 4x because my motherboard only supports up to 4x. I tried turning off fast writes too.

Looked for the video bios shadowing, etc in BIOS but there isnt an option for it so I guess I can't change that.

Check this out.. This is one of the Direct3D screensavers.. and a screenshot of the kind of distortion I am getting. Obviously you cant see the "flicker" though ;-).

GROO8582CustomImage116363.jpg
 
I am thinking about RMA'ing this card to ATI and having them fix it for me. Hopefully before I do that I can find a system to test it in. Considering I bought this off E-Bay from someone that took it out of a Dell computer, can I RMA it for repair??
 
I saw something a while back where I had to get some serial #'s or something from my video card.. isnt there a program I can do that with or something instead of taking it out and looking?
 
FIXED

Ok, I *FINALLY* fixed the problem.

I disabled AGP 4x in BIOS. At least I think that's what did it considering I was tweaking for about 4 hours tonight before I finally got the problem fixed. Took me a few weeks of constant tweaking and troubleshooting but I finally got it. Thank GOD.

Woo. Now I can play Battlefield 1942. Oh wait.. one problem.. now I have music in BF1942 but NOT sound. WTF. argh.
 
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