Vista - games Rendering everywhere!

I just recently updgraded to Vista Home Premium about a week ago, and I have
hit a major problem: any game on Vista has problems rendering objects, with
misplaced or missing parts of objects all over the place. Everything else on
Vista runs fine.

here's a few screenshots to better illustrate what I mean:

Nvidia 3d test

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ista/prob1.jpg

Hellgate: London

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ista/prob2.jpg

Even solitaire!

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...ista/prob3.jpg

As you can see, basically anything that requires 3d rendering has this
problem. I've got the latest certified Nvidia drivers, the latest directX
update from the download centre, and also the latest sound card drivers. i
have tried to update to SP1 to see if that fixes it, but I cannot install SP1
for some reason.

My system specs are as follows:
Intel celeron D 2.66ghz
2gb DDR400 Kingmaxx RAM
Nvidia 7600 GS 512mb video card
WD 250gb SATA HDD
Onboard AC97 audio (since my SBLive! 5.1 refused to play sound in 5.1)

Help would be appreciated, thanks!

=?Utf-8?B?bWlrYWRlZQ==?= <mikadee@xxxxxx> wrote in
news:5A07EBD4-7C8B-4EE0-84D5-44079CB4621E@xxxxxx:
Your video card is dieing. I had similar problems with various cards
over the years (Worked in hardware testing for gaming for a while), when
a card chipset gets damaged it basically has trouble calculating values,
when that happens it might misdraw some triangles/polygons/pixels on
your screen. This will only get worse.

Some things you can try.

First, if you have access to another computer, try loading the video
card in that computer, and see if the problem appears there.

Put a fan on the video card (like a house fan), see if keeping it a
little cooler helps.

if you upgraded your computer from an older computer you might check
around the internet to make sure your Power Supply Unit (PSU) is good
enough for your setup. A bad power supply may cause this problem if your
video card isn't getting enough, or clean enough juice.

If you are trying to overclock anything on your computer, disable it.
Check your BIOS to make sure all your CPU/RAM/PCI timings are set to
default. You may want to update your Motherboard Firmware. If you don't
know how to do that you can ask here, but it's tricky and you really
shouldn't try it unless you know what you are doing.

There are new drivers for your SB Live, look on creative.com's support
site for their Alchemy application. It should help restore EAX features
to Games played in Vista.

Basically you may need a new video card. Usually age of the card has
nothing to do with it. Cards just sometimes fail. Don't bang your head
against the wall for too long, you can buy a replacement video card at
someplace like Best Buy, and if it doesn't fix the problem Best Buy will
give you a refund within 30 days, I think.

--
-A.

"Andy [YaYa]" wrote:

I am running at default settings when it comes to CPU/RAM clocks, and when I
upgraded my computer, I put in a 720w PSU, so that's definitely not a
problem...and I tried positioning a desk fan on the card with the case open,
unfortunately to no avail.

I've ordered an PowerColour HD3850 AGP to replace it, so hopefully replacing
my 7600GS with this card will relieve the problem; considering it's natively
compatible with DX10.1, it should run pretty well on Vista too.

Thank you for the information.

=?Utf-8?B?bWlrYWRlZQ==?= <mikadee@xxxxxx> wrote in
news96B33BF-FACE-4A23-A791-B3A910FD3C48@xxxxxx:
Not all PSUs are created equal, I know some brands like "Ultra" sold at
our local Fry's come in 1000w flavors, but they provide no more power
than an adiquate Antec 450w PSU. Something about the Ampherage of the
PSU favoring the 5V rails which was great for your 386, but PCs rely
more on the 12v rails now for power. Enermax, Antec, etc. Check your PSU
brand/model# online, make sure there's a good review about it somewhere.

If a video card supports DirectX 10.1, that's all well and good, but
that only applies if the game supports 10.1. Currently there are none
that I know of save for a couple tech demos. I would still look into the
PSU, make sure the brand is reputable and not a cheap, prone to failure
piece that's gonna explode and take your new video card with it.

All said, I hope the new card fixes the problem. I think it will.

--
-A.

The PSU is a SHAW 720w Dual Fan, and from what all the various forums have
been saying about SHAW is that it has a bad reputation.

In fear of having the new 300 dollar video card become a pile of burnt-out
plastic, i'll make sure to buy a CoolerMaster ExtremePower 500w PSU to
replace it; there's a lot of good reviews around for it.
Considering i'm running two HDD's, two optical drives and the rest...I
thought 500w should be enough.

Thanks for the heads-up with the PSU!

Try this:

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/

hopefully that should link you to Thermaltake's site, and the PSU power
calculator! Hope it's of help.