hello again, no time for an in-depth reply right now, but i'll get to what i can.
I have a Ecs elitegroup p4s51/dx+ motherboard, chipset: SIS645dx/SIS962l
the onboard soundcard is a "c-media ac97" not great but it seems to work (at least as well as my last computers sound blaster live 128)

I think the only thing you changed that actually did anything regarding the crash in neverwinter nights was turning off hardware mouse, just about every game that crashes crashes when you move a mouse, the few games with the option to disable hardware mouse then work without crashing..
also in some games simply lowering your hardware acceleration by 1 notch in windows (thus supposedly disabling hardware mouse) will work. I know of at least 1 game (empires,: dawn of the modern world) that will work where it would have previously crashed on mouse movement, i think not all games pay attention to windows' setting to disable hardware mouse and that's why that fix only works with some games. and i know of at least 3 games that all work once you disable hardware mouse from within the game

sorry if any of that inst totally clear, i'm in a bit of a hurry at the moment, ask me for any clarifications and i'll get back to you later

RE: GIGABYTE RADEON CARD

I have a Gigabyte Radeon 9600 Pro (GV-R96P128DH) card, and I managed to get it working just fine. A great card.

So those who have Gigabyte Radeon can try this:

** Run at AGP 4x (thru ATI SmartGart - 8x hangs but I haven't tried 8x with LATEST via chipset driver)

** Make sure you get the VIA Chipset driver (for other Motherboard chipsets I don't know)
This was the MAJOR thing for me. It solved the hang/freeze problem. If you have someother chipset like nForce or something - try getting the latest drivers for YOUR motherboard chipset and try then. VIA 4-in-1 drivers rule And I stupidly downloaded it from the web when I HAD it in the Asus motherboard CD all along

** Other settings don't matter I think, but here there are anyway:
AGP Write Off, AGP Read ON, PCI Write On, PCI Write On (these 4 can be accessed from the link called SmartGart in ATI panel not available thru Control Panel's SmartGart) FastWrite Off, AGP Aperture Size in BIOS: 64 MB.

And the Gigabyte Radeon cards are significantly different from other Radeon 9600 pro's i believe: Check out this article: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/gigabyte_r96p/

ok guys you want this issue with AGP8x solved? Ok well i have something new for you to try. With the 9600 series cards (inc mobility) i usually use AGP4x.....it was only when SMARTGART wouldnt appear with Windows Server 2003 that i went back to having the game freezes. The way around this is kinda stupid actually.......you have to enable pointer trails (sounds dumb) but it works.

I've got KT600mb & connect 3d radeon9600pro.

I have noticed that ALL DX9 games/demos/apps runs perfectly with anything on i want (8X, Fastwrites etc..)

DX8 games doesn't work with 8X etc.. , they work only when almost all disabled

COD is dx9game? it works perfectly & fast with AA&AF + high resolution.

So my problem is DX8 games (old) card is optimized for dx9 so i hope ATI crew does something "mystical"

to new drivers & makes dx8 games work also..

hi guys again!!!!
i am soo angry with this 9600Pro issue, u kno what i hav done about it.. i spoke to ati's consultant manager, he guaranteed me he will update the catalyst very soon to support all 3d games in the market, specially c&c generals, he said the catalyst will soon be posted at ati.com. good luck guys and me. If u can't wait that long for the new drivers, here's what i gotta say "just stick with the 8MB default GPU Card. mwahahahahah" or "go to gainward.com buy the latest CARD "GW_CoolFX1800XP_256MB no fans on it just pure WATERCHILL Cooling system on the card." after that! my friends thats right u! u whos reading this, THE 9800XT isn't a competitor. it will cost u a few more $ compared with 9600pro. if u think im sexy? email me plz... if u have anymore problems just prey to god and say "i dont need a computer to run my life i dont need a computer i dont need a computer to provide life for me, 'god'. my computer is not a necessity of importance."

lol


Stats:
P43.2GhzHT,
2,048MB DDR Ram
GigabyteMainboardworth300$
somenice sounds dont know but its 7.1...
Counterstrike V1.5 soo nice

Hi, I have also been having problems with the hanging... though I think I got it to work today when I changed down to 4X... oh well..
My biggest problem with this Radeon 9600 PRO card is that my TV-out sucks.. I get a very flickering picture on my TV.. and yes, I do have the right cables and a functional TV.. I have tried with my friends computer and the TV is working good then..

Anyone know any good sulution making the Flicker dissappear.. I have already tried "ALL" the stuff in the ATI Display settings, including "flicker removal" and the PAL settings.

Per Lönroth:

Try to pull out the antenna-cable from the TV. Works for me.

NEW VIA 4IN1 v.4.50 HAS ARRIVED TRY OUT ALL VIA 9600 SERIES DUDES who HAVE PROBLEMS!!!!

Doesn't have much new things but worth try if it helps somebody ...

nice... hope it fixes something.

Thanks for the advice... but it didn't help..

Stick got that Flicker on my TV-out.

I have tested with other TV's too, same s**t..

Anymore ideas?

per,

sorry i have no idea, but that problem sounds like it might actually be easy enough for the ati tech support guys to fix it
have you tried calling or emailing them yet? probobly wont help, but its worth a try

To Everyone:
Hey guys, i found a setting in my bios called Graphic Win Size (and it was set to 64) i changed it to 128, just cuz that sounded better
Anyone know what that setting was for? should i have it at 64 or 128? or does it not matter at all?

Just a thought but when I installed the card, I had problems with my USB mouse and kb not being recognised and had to switch them around the many USB ports I have before finally getting them working. Just a shot in the dark but I wonder how many here have USB kb/mouse?

Other than that I could suggest upgrading to the latest chipset drivers. SIS/VIA/AMD/NVidia/Intel/ALi or whoever else.

I'm assuming that people here have already done the AGP Write OFF and AGP 4x thing.

I think the Graphics memory thing mentioned above is the AGP Aperture Size. I'm no expert on BIOS tweaking so I recommend that you take a trip to RojakPot.com and read their BIOS optimization guide. It is FREE, just scroll down til you see "FREE Access To The BIOS Optimization Guide!" in big letters...

Hi guys,
At the end of this sorry tale we will all be experts at BIOS tweaking and GPU settings LOL. The DX8 /DX9 Should be easy to fix in a patch, surely. I know nothing about DX programming, but I susect that soon I will. Okay the link to the Gigabyte article is interesting, It seems that as the 9500 Pro was dear to make and sell, the move to a cheaper version-9600 Pro has seen a lot of stuff cut out the chipset- maybe the result is 4X AGP board. If so then any fix will have to be in software, but can anyone tell me, does running in 4x instead of 8x make a lot of difference?.
Those of your that are going to upgrade, maybe a look out for a different mobo chipset might be a good idea- VIA have been known to be a pain in the past, so a change is justifiable.
The Gigabyte issue also seems to say that Gigabyte boards have differences- maybe the others were either too close the ATI reference design, or they had infact got a bit creative with the design and messed it up. Poor memory, resistors or something. It would take a electronics guy to look over the differences between Gigabyte and other types. Perhaps red is a bad colour for Graphics card- lol.
Most go see ya folks and happy tweaking
Twilight

LOL!!!

New via 4in1 drivers screwed my system up totally... Installed and rebooted, in windows log on came a lot of errors, something about delayed write & screwed registry etc...

So didn't help me at all, caused lots more problems.

Just thought i'd let you know, in an email today ati told me to expect new catalyst driers in a couple weeks, implying that they would fix my problem, i know, we've heard the same thing since 3.6 but who knows, could be different this time...

ATI hasnt told me that ONCE since ive emailed them like 20 times so thats good news to me. All i wanted was to hear from ATI that they will have a fix for this.

RE: Gigabyte Radeon Cards.

Yes Gigabyte Radeon cards are slightly different in design to other ATI cards. And my Gigabyte Radeon works fine - no hangs/freezes at all (although the via 4-in-1 was the one that did it). And btw, gigabyte cards are blue not red

Gigabyte Radeons have been delay-launched... They claim to fix issues with the normal Radeon 9600 chipset/card.

Anyway, mine Radeon 9600 pro is now really flawless (well almost - not tried 8x yet).
And I don't think there is a significant difference in speed in terms of 8x or 4x. Atleast no game right now requires / fully uses 8x bandwidth.

HPFM! Now when i have tried 4in1 v.4.50 and it screwd my system COD doesn't work anymore with everything on...
@ 3min gameplay and then crashes but VPU recovery "recovers" the game in 3-8sec. and i can play on.
But after couple of recovers machine comes slow, then when i exited game i looked mem with system mechanic and memoryload was over 90%. icons came to desktop slowly(one in 10sec speed)
Then when i freed mem system came normal.

So maybe problem with radeons is that they eat all memory and when its full FREEZE/CRASH???

that 4.50 driver messed up my computer too. I had to do a kill disk to get it working properly again. Im not updating my chipset drivers until they get a newer AGP/PCI update. Right now im waiting for this miracle 4.0 catalyst driver to hope solve my problems.