Widescreen Gaming Forum

I am running Catalyst 12.4 with driver package 8.961-120405a-137224C-ATI. OS is Windows 7 Pro x64.

I tested again using only one of the Acer monitors but that did not seem to help.

I installed GPU-Z and grabbed the log file as well as a screen shot of the application itself.

I got the latest version of DX installed and also tried installing the Catalyst 12.6 beta drivers. The new drivers did seem to help a little bit, but not enough that it resolved the problem. Graphics are still pretty choppy and frame rates still tend to be all over the place.

On a side note, I ran SR3 on my Core 2 Quad, 8GB RAM and 1GB GeForce [insert model here] and the game ran fine. This really boggles my mind that my older PC is able to out perform my new one on some of these games. lol

Anyway, have a look through the files I attached and let me know if they were helpful. Thanks!

Edit: For some reason, I am unable to attach files. I will try again later.

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Motherboard: MSI X79A-GD65 (8D)

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL

PSU: Rosewill LIGHTNING Series LIGHTNING-1000 1000W ATX12V/EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified

Ever considered to return the card when you still have the chance??
Maybe you have a bad card...

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Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 ----- Intel Core i7 2700K ----- GTX 680 Twinn Frozer III ----- NVIDIA Geforce GT 520 1x Edition

Due to other issues with the build I was unable to test the card before the return time.

I put in a support ticket with XFX the day after I started this thread and still have no response on it. I plan on calling and chewing them out for that... I just need to find the time to do it. :)

Is anyone else having troubles trying to upload file? For some reason I still can't do it. When trying to upload my .zip file I get no error message and the files don't attach, but when I attach my .txt file I get the following error message:

The page at www.wsgf.org says:
An HTTP error 0 occcurred.
/comment-upload/js

_________________
Motherboard: MSI X79A-GD65 (8D)

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL

PSU: Rosewill LIGHTNING Series LIGHTNING-1000 1000W ATX12V/EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified

Since I am having problems with the upload...

GPU-Z Sensor Log Hint: click the toggle text wrapping button to fix the ugliness. :)

GPU-Z Screen Shot

_________________
Motherboard: MSI X79A-GD65 (8D)

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL

PSU: Rosewill LIGHTNING Series LIGHTNING-1000 1000W ATX12V/EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified

Both attach fine for me

Attached files

XvP5Mj1M.txt (379.7 KB)

Well, I don't see anything wrong on your GPU-Z logs or screenshot. I was hoping something obvious might be wrong like your PCI-Express lane running too slow, your GPU clocks not scaling up properly, or your card massively overheating. But, those all look fine. It may be a pain in the ass, but at this point I'd uninstall your 6970, reboot in to safe mode, run driver sweeper to clear all the ATI/AMD related files out, shut down, put your old Geforce card from your other PC in, and try benchmarking with it. If you want to be really thorough, swap the cards and benchmark your old PC with the 6970 in it too.

That should give you a pretty solid clue as to whether the 6970 is defective or if you've got some other culprit in the system causing low FPS.

That was one of my next steps only because I assume XFX would most likely ask me to do the same thing to verify that there isn't a problem with the PCIe slot or the machine itself. Two problems though. :) First, is that a while back I was troubleshooting another issue I thought to be video related. I used driver sweeper to remove the drivers and then wanted to re-install. I was able to re-install but with errors and was never able to get the Catalyst Control panel to work. I needed to re-format anyway so it wasn't a big deal. Was it possible that I did something wrong in that process that would have cause and issue with CCP being installed again? Second is that the XFX card won't fit in my old PC, so that is a no go. :P

I will be on vacation for the rest of this week but when I get back, I will try the following:

1. Re-arrange the cables in my case so I can try another PCIe slot and see if that helps anything.
2. Install the GeForce card and see what I get.

Even though I haven't been able to diagnose the problem yet, I want to thank everyone for taking the time to help me out and for sharing their ideas! So thanks!

_________________
Motherboard: MSI X79A-GD65 (8D)

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL

PSU: Rosewill LIGHTNING Series LIGHTNING-1000 1000W ATX12V/EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified

The one issue I've consistently had with AMD is their driver uninstall/update process.

In a perfect world, you'd just leave your existing drivers in place and apply the update on top of them. Or, at the most, use the Windows Control Panel->Programs and Features menu to uninstall the old drivers before updating to the newest ones, which is all that should be required. But, after doing this several times with my old 4870s and 5870s, I have frequently found that the install of the newest Catalyst Control Center will cause a BSoD if you haven't cleaned things up first.

Here are the steps I use each time I want to update my AMD drivers. It's a pain and I don't know if they're all necessary, but following them has always left me in good shape:

1. Go to Control Panel->Program and Features function.
2. Right-click on AMD Catalyst Install Manager and click Change.
3. Follow the prompts to uninstall all AMD-related programs/drivers/files.
4. Open the Device Manager (Control Panel->System->Device Manager).
5. Expand your Display Adapters.
6. Right-click on the ATI Radeon HD 6900 Series.
7. Uninstall. If prompted, choose to delete the drivers.
8. Reboot in Safe Mode.
9. Run Driver Sweeper and clean all the AMD entries.
10. Reboot into normal Windows.
11. Run the latest Catalyst Control Center installer and follow the prompts to install. Reboot when prompted at the end.

I'm pretty sure the latest Catalyst Control Center has some sort of automated update feature these days and I know Steam has started prompting me when updates are available, but I've gotten gun shy about updating any way other than this.

*Edit: Or, in your testing case, for step 10 you'd remove the 6970, install the old Geforce, Reboot into normal Windows, and then install the Geforce drivers.

OMG! It's fixed!

I don't know why I didn't bother with this sooner, I guess I just figured it wouldn't make a difference.

After looking at the manual for my mobo, it states to use the first PCIe slot (which is PCIe 3.0 ). Since my card isn't 3.0 I originally installed it in the next one down. After moving it to the PCIe 3.0 slot, the graphics card runs extremely great!

Since I don't work with video cards or PCIe anything for that matter very often, I didn't realize that PCIe 3.0 was backwards compatible. At least that's what the most accurate source of information on the web (Wikipedia) tells me. (Hopefully you got the sarcasm there :))

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_3.0

Anyway, CoD runs at 60 FPS on high settings and SR3 runs smooth in both DX9 and DX10/11 on high settings and all the other games I tested run flawlessly! The only thing I couldn't test was Eyefinity since my PS3 Display decided to take a crap on me again. On that note, I don't recommend buying the display. Buy a TV or 3D monitor and spend the extra money.

Last but not least, thanks to everyone for the troubleshooting help! It is very much appreciated. I now remember what it's like to play my games at the correct frame-rates.

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Motherboard: MSI X79A-GD65 (8D)

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL

PSU: Rosewill LIGHTNING Series LIGHTNING-1000 1000W ATX12V/EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified

I wouldn't have thought to try that, either. Congrats!

*Edit: Hindsight is 20/20. I looked back up at your GPU-Z screenshot and it clearly shows PCI-E 2.0 x 16, which is all I had paid attention to. But, it then indicates it was only running @ PCI-E 1.1 x 1. I should've caught that. Glad you got it sorted out!