Gaffer wrote:
"Gaffer" wrote in message
...

I've recently started getting texture problems with games (ones that have
good graphics and are more demanding) and I have no idea why. I used to be
able to play "GTA Vice City" with my graphics card (Geforce4 ti4200 8x)

with

absolutely no problems with texture or anything else. But now I have

notice

quite a lot of texture problems in the game which make it very annoying.
There is no problem with the speed of games at all, it runs as fast as

ever.

I have noticed these texture problems with other games too, not just Vice
City. I have noticed that the texture problems are somewhat worse with the
newer drivers (53.04 & 56.64) and not as bad with some of the older ones
(41.09 & 44.03) and I have now tried around six different drivers for Vice
City but still I get the problems. When I tried each driver I always

deleted

the previous from my PC using "add/remove programs" and used Driver

Cleaner

to get rid of any other files to do with Nvidia and install the next one

to

try. For the life of me I cannot remember what driver I was using (to
previously play Vice City) before I got these problems but I'm pretty sure
I've tried it because I have experimented with a good few of them now

trying

to solve this problem.

Something else I've noticed, I'm not sure if it's related, but if I

restart

my PC (Start/Shut down/Restart/) then sometimes my PC does come back on.

The

PC stays ON but my monitor goes off and to get it started I need to press
the reset button on my computer to get it to load up my OS. Is this

because

my PC isn't picking up my graphics card? This never happens if I just

switch

on my computer when it's off.

System Specs:
AMD Athlon XP 2700mhz
512 DDR Ram 333
AT7-MAX2 motherboard
120GB SATA Cache 8m
Geforce 4 ti4200 8x






One more thing. My bios started acting rather strangely a while ago (changin
g things unexpected) and was wondering if there is something in there that
could be affecting my graphics card's performance?

_____
Gaffer



Whoa, there, gaffer! your BIOS shouldn't just change it settings. This
can be indicative of serious problems. Have you checked for mysterious
processes (virii) ? You could also be getting intermittent hardware
failures that cause the BIOS to reallocate IRQs etc. Is your mobo
battery still functioning? You could be coming up to default settings
everytime you cold boot.

The restart issue varies with the state of the MS security patches.
I've had it come and go depending on various updates on win2Kpro

As for texture, if overheating is not it, your card memory could have
issues. have you overclocked the card or system? I am not familiar
with your mobo, but on mine, if I am not careful, raising the FSB also
raises the PCI clock (ie synchronous timing) which raises the SDRAM and
AGP clocks. If the AGP is cranked up to high, you'll see video problems.

And here's one most poeple overlook: How's your monitor (and/or cable)
it too is reponsible for graphics quality.