Hi guys, i had same problem like u guys.
I did not entirely fix it but i can now play Generals without freezing.
go to display driver, then advanced then troubleshoot, turn hardware acceleration 1 step down and now u can play Generals without freezing.
U will have a flickering mouse though but at least u can play the game untill someone really fixes this problem. I hope I helped u guys out because Generals it a beautiful and cool game.

Greetz Paul

I'm glad to see that there are others out there with my problem!

I recently upgraded my entire system to an ASUS P4SDX with 1 Gig of memory and installed a 9600 Pro.

I can NOT get the card to be stable in AGP 8X mode. It IS stable in 4X mode.

In AGP 8x, it completely locks up the system and I have to do a hard reset. I too have tried everything...motherboard bios update, Catalyst 3.6 and 3.4 drivers, turning off Fast Writes, increasing the AGP Aperture Size in the bios, changing the bios setting from US to USWC.

The only thing I have yet to try in taking out my SoundBlaster Live X-Gamer sound card, and just using the SoundMax on-board sound on the P4SDX motherboard. I'll try that tonight after work.

The 9600 Pro locks up in all my 3D games, depending on how intense they are on the graphics. I've had it lock up on

Madden NFL 2004
Unreal Tournament 2003

Let me know if anyone out there finds a solution to this problem!
Hope someone does!
Dave.

Oops...I meant to write Madden NFL 2003.

I'll let you know about Madden 2004 when I get a hold of it

Dave.

I am also having the same problems with my Radeon 9600 Pro causing cpu freezing. I haven't really tried to fix it yet. From what I have read in this thread there should be v3.7 of the Catalyst drivers coming soon so I do not see the need to try and fix this problem.

You can add HL: Counter-Strike to the list of games that freeze. It doesn't seem to freeze right away but at random times throughout gameplay.

Well....I completely uninstalled and removed my SoundBlaster Live! X Gamer card, and it had NO effect. The 9066 Pro STILL locks up at random times during games when set to 8X mode. It works fine in 4X mode, but it's a bit slower at the really high resolutions.

I also tried uninstalling SmartGart from the ATI control panel, and that had NO effect.

I also tried using the latest Omega drivers (after completely uninstalling the Catalyst 3.6 drivers) and that did NOT work either.

I guess I'll be running in 4X AGP mode until the 3.7 drivers come out. Oh well.

Let us know if anyone figures this one out.

Dave.

Hey it's me again. I've tried stripping my hardware as much as possible, but to no avail, it doesn't help. I tried that acceleration thingy, but that doesn't help me either. I can tell you though, that I can play Halflife SinglePlayer without freezing, but I use OpenGL there, since when I use DirectX and press Escape to menu and Resume again, I get some background picture, and only the sound of the game, no gfx.

I'm still mailing back and forth with Sapphire. They asked for the card's PN and the type of memory on there, to request a new bios from their software group. I expect it some time soon, and will report here if it helps. Other than that, I too hope that 3.7 makes a difference...

We'll see.
Greets, S.

Oh yeah,

Could those that are experiencing the same problem as I do list the card's PN (Product Number, it's on the label on the card) and type of memory (look for the memory chips)?

Mine:

PN card: 1024-9C19-11-SA

Memory:
Samsung 316
K40263238E-GC2A
WVB327FD KOREA

Simon,

The PN number on my card is 1024-9C19-D1-SA

I'm not sure which are the memory chips. Are they the square black flat chips on the card? There's about 4 of them on mine. Let me know, and I'll tell you what it says on those....

And if you DO get a new BIOS from Sapphire, maybe you can send it to me via e-mail! If not, let me know what they send you, if it works, and I'll try to get the same thing from them.

Thanks!
Dave.

Yea there should be multiple memory chips on the board, black rectangular chips, with tiny text on it.

Here's what it says on the four square black flat chips on my Sapphire 9600 pro....

EtronTech
EM6A9320B1-2.8
H090406MEH10031

Hope this helps.
Keep me updated!
I'll let you know if I have any success with any settings that I try.

Dave

Pauls earlier suggestion to take the video options down a notch worked for me too.
I noticed that the mouse was also flashing and dissapeared when you stopped moving it.

That seems to g with the fact that the game always seemed to crash right as I was selecting one of the options in the menu screen.

As I said earlier, it is looking to be more and more like a matter of driver/code issues.
FIC tech support has me jumping through hoops yanking out PCI components, and swapping memory, and telling me that 350W is not enough.

Why is it that a bunch of people on a forum can collectively nail down the problem, but "trained" techs cannot? Must not be on thier flow charts!!

Yeah, well, I'll just try to work out the problem in parallel. I do believe too that it's most likely a driver problem rather than a BIOS issue. But I'll let the facts decide for me.

(As for the flashing mousepointer, I remember smth with that in the recent past, and recall that it was solved by Alt-Tab to Windblows desktop and then Alt-Tab back into the application.)

Paul's suggestion was helpful. The mouse flashes but at least I can play the game. The graphics still kick butt. Its a great game.

Hi all,

I tried to lower the hardware acceleration again, and now it does work all of a sudden. Very strange, I'm absolutely positive I did the same thing before without success, but I can't really tell what it is that I did in the meantime that might have made it work now.

At least this is a workaround for AoM and obviously C&C. Has anyone tried playing the latest Lara Croft? Or did you guys abandon this thread as soon as C&C worked .

PS: I did recieve the new BIOS. It doesn't solve the problem, I have to set back the acceleration nonetheless. Furthermore it is a memory brand specific BIOS, so I would recommend against using it on your board.

No, this thread isn't abandoned, but we are waiting for a driver update released by ATI. All we are able to do is done. I'm tired of testing, too.

OK guys thanx to Paul Meinema we have a temporary solution to our problems. And thanx to ATI that keeps IGNORING us... I think this problem will keep going on and on. I will NEVER trust ATI again, NEVER buy ATI's stupid cards and NEVER trust benchmarks and people that get paid to say that ATI is good. The problem on C&C Generals is solved by pulling down one step the hardware acceleration but the flickering is bad and gives u hard time while playing... and because I have customers that pay and have the expectation from an internet cafe for everything to be perfect, I cant depend on the ATI's unproffecionalism..

Please add these games to the list of crashing/freezing games.

1) Age Of Mythology (Freezes unexpectively sometimes in the main menu)
2) Counterstrike (You get a black screen if you press ESC during the game - problem solved after installation of latest drivers and using DIRECT 3d in options instead of OPENGL)
3) Battlefield 1942/ Desert Combat MOD 1.3 (computer resets with no reason after 10-15 minutes of gameplay)
4) Army Operation (Freezes when fog fills the screen - after using a flash grenade)


ATI SUCKSSSSSS!!!!!!!! NEVER BUY ATI!

I wouldn't be so drastic to say ATI is bad at all. That's their first big mistake and I can remember many similar problems in connection with hardware that caused more trouble (VIA's faulty southbridge on same mainboard types). Mostly these problems were solved after a period of time.

I suggest to wait for the next catalyst. If I were ATI, I wouldn't admit this mistake until the error is found and solved. Thus, stay calm! Nevertheless ATI is a excellent company and in my opinion the alternative (N**dia) is the greater evil.

PS: The solution to reduce hardware acceleration was mentioned before (page 1) and isn't as new as you thought.

Henry,
Hope this is not what you have to look forward to down the road.
Jay

Hello, I must say that the 3.5 cat drivers fixed my problem.
I wonder why mine was fixed with the 3.5 cat drivers. What things are different from yours?

I'm running Cat 3.4.
I installed IL-2 Forgotten Battles, and the patch installation instructions stated quite clearly that there were issues with Cat 3.5 and 3.6. They did a great job clearly explaining the issue with the 9600 and their game. They stated that 3.7 was going to address the issue. They gave a fix, and explained it in a articulate manner. Hats off to Ubi Soft for not beating around the bush and giving us the straight answers.

I've had no problems with any of the other games on my "Run" list, although Battlefield still reboots or locks up, and Generals only runs with the acceleration down a notch.

I also have a problem with Jedi Knight II, it freezes and hangs the system up very hard.
Anyone have a fix for this?

I finally got a response from FIC. They said that I should try a stronger PS.....I'm already at 350W, and a decent 400W PS is $110 here in Canada. They said if there was no luck....which I'm fairly sure there wouldn't be, then I can RMA the card.

I might just do that in case it is a hardware issue. Even if the new drivers do address it.