i have norton anti-virus 2003 running at all times... maybe its something to do with A.V. 2003 and the newer cat drivers. I can run A.V 03 with the catalyst 3.5 drivers fine during games... maybe i should have tried disabling auto protect.

Regards Anti Virus software, I 'm no expert but disabling any software that is running in the background while games are running , is often used to improve game proformance. The CPU has less work to do, besides who wants dialogue windows popping up just has you have given some bloody alien a good thumping???
PS NWN is working, so it seems that the problem is mobo chipset and perhaps DX9 too. Now to try out Jedi Outcast. By the way I used NWN with no patch- straight from the box???
Regards
Twilight

yeah i would disable it but its kind of a hastle disabling everytime i play a game.

NAV 2003 runs all the time on my xp1800+ computer, even during gaming, with the 9600 pro cat 3.7 driver. NAV 2003 imposes no noticable degradation on my system during gameplay. The small amount of CPU NAV uses is not the bottleneck, the video card is.

HHhhMMmm.. I think main problem is HEAT.
You guys who have these problems, DOES ANY OF YOU have water cooling on card?(Or upgraded heatsink/fan, something like Zalman ZM80C-HP with or without fan)
PLEASE tell if u have upgraded cooling how card works with it?

And try this:
1.open case side.
2.Put a desktop cooler @ 200-400*200-400mm to blow directly air to card.
3.Try does it work after that..

In my connect3d, there is a tiny fan/heatsink on gpu only, no cooling on memory..
and after crashes etc.. when i touch memory modules on card theyre really HOT!

WOW this 9600 problem thing is going over 1000posts soon, i know it will..

I'm reading this forum (thanks a lot for all the helpful information) and fiddle around with the settings for quite a while now. Like for many others my 9600 pro causes system hangs in certain games like GTA-Vice City, Max Payne 2, Unreal ... Reducing AGP down to 4x did cause a delay from some minutes up to some tenths of minutes till the system hangs. Setting AGPwrite to "off" helps and causes the VPU recover to become active. Together with AGP 8x this causes the screen flicker black from time to time and awful slowdowns after while. Eventually the VPU goes down, recovers and the system switches to software rendering. Not much better! The combination AGPwrite "off" together with AGP 4x, Fast write off, Write Combining off seems fine but I'm not absolutely sure. At least the screen doesn't flicker and there are no crashes yet. Other things didn't help. Because I was bored I wrote a error report to ATI. Beside all the BIOS setting stuff there was one thing in there that caught my attention. They recommend to check whether IRQs are shared between the card and other devices and to turn off IRQ sharing for the card

http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/howtowin2kxpirq.html

Sounds logical in my case as I have an USB mouse and keyboard and IRQ 16 is shared by 2 USB Controllers and the graphic card. Unfortunately I can't switch off ACPI and I can't assign IRQs in my BIOS nor can I change ressource settings in the device manager. Maybe it's just a coincidence.

System:

Intel 2.6 GHz
Shuttle SB61G2, Springdale-G Chipset (865G), FSB800
Tyan Tachyon 9600 Pro
Windows XP

Hi Folks
Okay, now the point about disabling background programmes is a pain- fair point. The performance gain is tiny, but the you do have the benefit of knowing that these programmes will not be taking up memory and more importantly these programmes will not do things like cause pop up windows or crash your system. What I do is call up the task manager and also right click on any icons that are visible in the bottom of the screen then using the r click menu either disable or exit them. Task manager allows you the shutdown programmes that have no icon on the bottom of the screen. Yes it takes time, but not as much as a reboot and having to replay a large level in a game all over again.
No the other guy here said something about USB, I'm sure this uses a fair amount of CPU power annd could be the cause of problems too. I have only one USB device, that is a USB joystick (Well, why do I need a USB this or that????) that is for my Mech games- I hate flight sims- urrrrrg. So maybe some of you have USB mice, keyboards and so on?
Boy it must be great at the Driver dept of ATI at present- wonder if they are on performance related pay????
Regards Twight

the problem shouldnt be heat unless you have faulty card. 9600 Pro's run very cool which is why they overclock so well. My problem shouldnt be heat either because i have a vantec iceberq4 vga cooler on my 9600 Pro with 4 ram sinks on the one side of the card.

OK I had this problem too with a brand NEW 9600XT ASUS.

Fast card but locks up every game. AOM AOMT Wizardry 8, URT2003 the list goes on and on...

I have fixed my issue let me give you HardWare Spec and then what i did to fix it.

SOYO K7V Dragon Plus (latest Bios Ka9)
Mushkin 128 Matched memeory
AMD 1800+ OC'd to 1900+
FSB 139Mhz X 11.5 (i know slow to compared to new stuff) I'm upgrading soon....INCOME TAX!!
ATI 3.9 Catalyst (LATEST as of yesterday)

the card locked every single time. some times right away sometimes later. I read a few things on here and this one thing made it work perfectly. no more issue i played everything and for at least 45 mintues to make sure.

I turned ON fast writes in the system BIOS. The in the Catalysts Drivers i also turned ON the FAST WRITES.

every since that littel change no more issues. and i love the card but they need to correct this. I was seriously p**sed off, as we have a LAN PARTY this weekend and i need better vid card for it. thank god for FORUMS....

I Hope everyone has good luck with theirs as i have with mine..

Thanks

Ken

The sapphire radeon 9600 256megs suffers from heat problems........I recommend to take the heatsink off and apply some artic silver or artic aluminum....
I have sufferd from game freeze sorry to say i didnt leave it on long enough to restart.....
I am happy to say that i have applyed some artic aluminum and a fan and successfully ran at full speed.
To see if it is heat problems just underclock your video card and see if you have problems then..
I recommend underclocking the core about 100 to 150 mhz.

The sapphire radeon 9600 256megs suffers from heat problems........I recommend to take the heatsink off and apply some artic silver or artic aluminum....
I have sufferd from game freeze sorry to say i didnt leave it on long enough to restart.....
I am happy to say that i have applyed some artic aluminum and a fan and successfully ran at full speed.
To see if it is heat problems just underclock your video card and see if you have problems then..
I recommend underclocking the core about 100 to 150 mhz.

i cant see how any version of the 9600 pro would run hot. They are one of the coolest vpu's out there. If you can touch the back of the PCB where the GPU is on the otherside, thats not hot at all. Most cards run so that its too hot to touch under load.

Tried the CoD patch, seemed to fix more problems like the generals move mouse issue. I was so happy thinking I didn't need to buy a new card. But it turned out that every game freezes after a few minutes. I have the same problem with the new catalyst 3.9.
Only the original drivers (3.4) seem to work with my card, 3.5 to 3.8 result in very bad graphics and flikkering and 3.9 solved the bad graphics and flikkering but result in freezing. Do any of you recognize these problems?

It looks like the problems CAN be solved via the drivers.

Hey people!
I just replaced my GF4MX440 with a brand-spanking new Radeon 9600 pro 128MB!
I only have one problem (period) at the moment. .
C&C Generals keeps freezing at the menu, before i even start a game!
I've tried different Catalyst drivers, C&C patches, VIA Hyperion 4in1 v 4.51 and setting desktop resolutions to several combinations. . .
I have pinpointed the prob to the 9600 as I reinstalled my mx440 and generals worked fine. i just dont want to swap graphic cards whenever i want to play generals.
Anybody got any ideas? My rig freezes mostly when i browse the menu, about 10 ---> 30 secs into starting Generals. .

my system: Athlon 2000+
512MB PC2100 DDR
VIA AK77-333
ATI Radeon 9600pro 128MB
Western Digital 60GB 7200rpm
Avance AC97 sound
Win XP Pro (one of the main suspects)
i'm running in AGP4x (MoBo maximum) and agp appeture is set to 128 (default was 64)
Anybody else got similar probs or solutions please. . ?
And in reply to the heat issue, the 9600 is one of THE coolest cards as it runs on a 0.13 micron chip. i am able to touch my card soon ofter use.

The solution is mentioned a dozen times in this forum. But anyway, go to the display settings then advanced then troubleshoot then turn the hardwareaccleration down by one notch. Only problem now is that your pointer will flikker.

HoW MANY times guys that i have said this... "Once i think" but anyways listen to all 9600Pro Hang freeze VICTIMS Listen to this... OK' "check the DX Version for ur game... if the DX Version for the game lessthan DX9.0 thats where ur problem accurs.. Game and Graphic card incompatabilities as the 9600XT/PRO none PRO support Mainly DX9.0+ games.... but anyways Heres how u could still by-pass the Freezing.. go to desktop properties, display settings, trouble shoot. decrease the Hardware Acceleration by ONCE.. one times only aights!!!.. then replay ur game works FINE.. but thats the thing once u decrease hardware acceleration most of the drivers are turned off depending on how much decreassion u have done causing the Graphic card not to use its full potential therefore giving u bad graphics or crosshair glitches/flickers...

Nothing Perfect 100% can be done to solve Freeze,Hang problems its all about Direct X version incompatabilities AIGHTS!!!!!. Ask ATI or whoever made ur GPU and this is what they say """ASK the game maker, his game his fault we provide GPU's which support up and coming Nextgeneration games not old games and you kno what we dont give a F****k about ur freeze problems u bought our card you payed for it ur fault ur cause, return it if u wish.." blabla hehehe ATI AND F***king ALL RADEON CARDs SUCK s**t eccept Radeon9800PRO/XT or 9700Pro~~~ .. im neither nvidia or ati fan im just upset at how ATI's talk talk talk bla bla bla about there ooo ooo oo goodperforming cards.. trying out the card speaks better the words..

Kinds regards
Michael Sassu

webforums analyst
email: michael_enzed@hotmail.com

That was UGLY language!

**sensored a long text from here**

This 9600pro problem "conversation" seems to be a HANG/FREEZING thing!
No *REAL* solution, yet. (This freezing spamforum is like washer: roundNroundN...)

I seem to be a little frustrated.........or something like that.... sorry if u don't like my off-topic
(hope i got atleast one laughing.)

And to the thing: I am not satisfied ATI customer, maybe my card almost works but i paid 200€ for it and i thought i get a good card...

I'd just like to reply to Michael Sassu. I use the 9800, and play games such as Jedi Knight academy (a directx 9 compatible game), and experience freezes. In fact most games freeze, accept non3d games like Age of Empires etc. So I think that about covers u'r post, i.e not very helpful and pretty crap. I've tried all the usual stuff, changing drivers, agp settings in bios etc etc etc to no avail.

I used to use nvidia, as I thought their drivers and cards are pretty good. I changed to ATI because I thought I was in need of a change since supporting Nvidia since their Riva128. So next time please post help information.

Regards,

Stuart

Stuart Hutson/Doomgaze.. and for any1 else who aggrees with them.. sorry for my soo called unhelpful opinion, but i among dozens or maybe hundreds of people who now i myself used to have that problem was very frustrated and the fact that ATI did such a great great job of advertising their products i was a believer and indeed i believe in ati (bad mystake though).. but THEREFORE its neither their fault nor any1's fault because the 9600 serries are cards meant to be a cheaper version of the real thing (9700...9800PRO\XT) and an average card for a great price... good on them i give them credit for that. sorry guys i'll try to be helpful nextime

kinds regards
Michael Sassu

Thanx for the help guyz!
i'll go and try it out right away
AND AND AND. . I am extremely pleased with my graphic card and think it kicks all FXs into the dust!
A couple of hours on the freezing topic by one sensible ati technitian i think would make the card all it's hyped up to be!
also, does anybody know what the agp appeture is? options include 4MB ---> 256MB.

thanks oh so miserable ones. . .