HAHAA! i decreased HW accleration 1 notch! didnt even get to windows freezed before it!!!
BUT JEE!
After that logged in safemode and put the HW accleration to full.
And in bios i put AGP8X on, fastwrites on agp R/W on,all damn things on AND now this crap works like a dream this far!

hasn't been this fast & stable EVER! This card is ODD!?

Mike Sassus...
Sure, blame Directx incompatibilities...whatever. There are other cards that are also DX9 compatible and don't exhibit this problem. As for a game being DX9 compatible, do you know of one game that is completely coded in DX9 and uses Pixel Shaders 2.0 exclusively?

Also, for those who care...

The 9800 Pro is NOT the same die as the 9600 pro. The 9600 series is ATI's first .13 micron process. To my knowledge the 9800 series is still a .15 process just higher clocked. Different hardware = possibly a different issue.

It's great to vent, but perhaps we can preface our venting with "I fixed it, this did or did not work for me, this is what I've tried, your mileage may vary". Otherwise this entire thread will simply degenerate into venting. I do believe people would want an actual helpful message and obviously eventually a fix or patch rather than "ATI SUCKS" every other message.

Mr. Callahan...

I'll tell you what did it for me was a combination of the Cat 3.4 drivers and turning down hardware acceleration one notch. Yes, the pointer does flicker, but at least the game plays.

As for the XP pro possibly being an issue, I had the freezing problem in Generals in 2k and actually upgraded to XP in an attempt to fix the issue.

The other thing I noted is that going from the onboard sound AC-97 to an SB Live! seems to have resulted in slightly smoother gameplay. I also notice that in general my sound is much clearer.

Of course you may have a different experience, but this is what has worked for me.

Good luck.

Hi, i just thought id put in my 2 cents..

Turning down hardware acceleration *In windows' Display Properties, Advanced, Performence* only works with 1 game, all other crashers crash anyway (empires dawn of the modern world is the game that worked with this fix of the games i've tried)
as for directX being at fault, this seems like a bit of a stretch... Also New games are failing more often then old games.. i can go into my game collection and whip out games from 96 that still run great on this computer, and as i've said before, the ONLY games that crash are games with a HARDWARE accelerated mouse, if the game has an option to disable the hardware mouse it then works (with mouse flicker)

Some new games that have this problem: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Deus Ex- Invisible War, Mysterious Journey 2, Microsoft Flight simulator 2004, SimCity4

I think a couple of those are directX 9 games

and last, for some reason lowering the hardware acceleration by 1 notch doesn't seem to disable hardware acceleration for all games as it should. I also tried lowering it by 2 notches but when i do that and reboot windows is unable to load the ATI drivers or control panel making my videocard useless before i linked that to lowering my acceleration by 2 notches i had thought my drivers were corrupt, i tried uninstalling- and reinstalling every driver there is and none worked.. only when i finally noticed that even after the uninstall my hardware acceleration was down 2 notches did i fix the problem, weird

i lied couple of posts ago
i looked in displayproperties troubleshoot and forgot to mention: disabled writecombining
Now i got every damn thing on 8X, writes, etc..
3dmark03 over 3300
3dmark01 over 11000
+tested AOW for a while OK!
and played COD v1.0 over hour without any problem!! (@ in middle of whole game now)

I'm having the same hanging problems as other people. Turning down hardware accelleration works for some games that would otherwise hang (C+C, Neverwinter Nights, etc), but doesn't fix all of them. I've tried pretty much every other "fix" on here aside from settings my motherboard doesn't have (write combing). I'll be talking to Asus next week since both the card and motherboard are from them. Only thing left to try before then is a motherboard bios flash and a totally clean install of XP.

Asus Radeon 9600XT
Asus A7V333
Athlon 1800

Hi Folks
I was going to post a practical way forward for some of you- but seeing the 'Mr ANGRY' messages- I thought better of it LOL. Anyway my, Gigabyte 9600 Pro is working very well after a change of mobo. Anyone having problems with a Gigabyte Card???? No i'm not trying to be sarcastic or smug, but the problems seem to affect other card makes. So could everyone in future please state the maker of their card when posting messages- please.
For the record my rig is a
Gigabyte GV-R96P128DH Radeon 9600pro.
Soltek NForce2 mobo
512 mem 333DDR
LG DVD drive
2X WDigital HD
Athlon 2100+
DX8.1 (no need to change yet)
Cat 3.4 Drivers
PS2 keyboard and Mouse
Soundblaster Live!
Windows 98SE
And I will be starting a gigabyte 9600 Pro only thread soon
Regards
Twight

Just thought I would share a similar problem. I bought a ATI 9600 SE for an older computer I had:
PIII 1GHz at 133FSB
Intel VC820 Motherboard with AGP 4x support
256 MB RDRAM
Windows ME

I previously had a GEFORCE 256 32MB running and had no problems with my games, steam(halflife), warcraft III, Aliens vs Predator 2, etc ... I bought the card because the GEFORCE wasn't cutting it for video caputre, something the ATI 9600 SE actually has helped with considerably. Once installed with catalyst 3.7 steam (half-life) was still working but Warcraft III would not. I updated to catalyst 3.9 which caused Warcraft III and steam (half-life) to stop working. Everything is okay until you touch the mouse, which then causes the system to freeze and the computer to lock-up. Catalyst 3.8, produced the same results, only 3.7 will allow steam to work. I disabled hardware acceleration on my mouse and it allowed Warcraft III to work, with a nice flickering pointer. To bad that the newer technology produces worse results for more money. ATI gave me the normal reply that it was the games problem and that I should just update to catalyst 3.9. Hope at some point they will address this issue (hardware accelerated mouse) which seems to be a problem on a number of different systems. Not going to hold my breath though.

Hi again,

Im just wondering, does anyone in this topic know of an article similar to this but about Nvidia not ATI? hmmm... that just says it all.. ohyeah A good match for the 9600 serries is FX5600Ultra or 5700Ultra Performs better faster no problems etc. I dont know why but anyways i just had to say .

Kind regards
Michael Sassu

it doesn't perform faster and if you want to get a 5600 or 5700 go right ahead and don't post stupid s**t like that again.

I found a solution to my problem and the 9600XT is now running pretty well. I forgot that I had my FSB slightly overclocked (it had run fine that way for a year with the nVidia card). I was at 11.5x 140/35, now with it set at 11.5x 133/33 it's not crashing at the beginning of every game. I still have to turn hardware accelleration down for a few games (C+C, NWN, etc) but at least everything else is working now.

Apparently, I too was a victim of this "crash to desktop" scenario...I may have found myself a SOLUTION to work around this problem...

Get latest drivers for your m/b if you're using nforce M/B or others...

These are the steps I used to correct this for working around the problem for my computer...

1. Download and Flash your Bios on your M/B to the current latest bios release available...Be EXTRA CAREFUL here as I am not and will not be liable to any hardware failures, harm , damaged to hardware that may have caused while doing this..

2. Download and installed Catalyst 3.4 drivers. --->Reboot your computer

3. Under "Display Properties"---"Settings"---"Advanced"---SmartGart(tm) Tab" ---Set AGP Speed setting to 4X ---Set "Fast Write" to OFF then hit "Apply" ---"Ok" ---Restart your computer to take effect

4. Go straight into BIOS Menu---"Advanced Chipset Features" Under "AGP Data Transfer Rate" set it to 4X ----then under"AGP Fast Write Capability" Set it to DISABLED

Lets go to CPU settings...for my Own computer settings due to hardware specs(others may or may not have this option)

5. CPU Soft Menu..I lowered my CPU FSB clock speed to 200 with a multiplier of 11
"AGP Frequency" to 66 with the rest as default settngs.
everything else on bios as default settings

6. Save and exit cmos...

7.Download all the latest drivers for your computer specs, Latest patches,drivers for the games...

Most games today are at AGP 4X capability, otherwise most of the games out aren't capable of 8X therefore...I'm not too worried about running at 8X agp yet...untill the newer ATI drivers come out or the more stable ones.

This has successfully worked for me...Games like Battlefield1942, Desert Combat(mod), Halo, Call of Duty...has worked for me and hasn't crashed since...(3 weeks now)
Haven't tried other games other than the ones mentioned.

Halo actually runs fine at 8x and agp fast writes enabled...

Computer Specs:
2500+ Barton
Abit NF7-S ver 2.0 (Nforce) M/B
1024 DDR 400Mhz Dual channel Ram (2 sticks of 512mb)
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128Meg
Viewsonic 17" P775
TK6500 Case w/ 300W PSU

Hope this helps ...

Dooms

Jack Black don't get mad, lets end this tripe about NVidia v ATI cards. For the guy who asked about NVidia, there is indeed a problem page for NVidia http://hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/10763/ take a look at it. Its title is wait for it 'FX5600 Problem!!!! ' LOL. And for good measure I have found another http://forums.pimprig.com/archive/topic/9462-1.html. called FX5600 Problems..... NO 3D!!!. So you see ATI are not alone.
Now no more buy a NVidia, if you want to- do so and leave this thread as a source of help for everyone- its not a bloody NVIdia fan club.
Now on another thread I have heard that its not ATI that is at fault but the actual card makers that have been messing up the cards. That explains a lot- perhaps ATI will stop selling chips to these companies????
Regards
Twilight
PS no Gigabyte card owners passed by yet I see.

heya,
Just shedding some light on the 9600 problems. . .
After having a good chat with an ATI tecnitian; also head of asia-pacific sales, i heard that Ati are developing a new set of drivers that will be available mid-2004 that are aimed at utilising the 0.13 micron chipsets. This would of course be welcome for the 9600 family and would make any "guinea pig" propoganda a thing of the past!
btw thanx for your help ES

Twilight Guy

I am concerned!!! but very amused thanks for your url's lol. although they are very an-useful as people only had problems with other parts not the graphics card lOl... thanks..

kind regards
michael sassu

I really do think that a driver can fix our problems. The new drivers (3.9) solved most of my problems like the move the mouse freeze but resulted in Freezing later in game. Still a problem but a different kind of problem. So directx isn't to blame. ATI just isn't doing enough to solve our 9600pro probs completly.

I just bought a PowerColour Radeon 9600PRO last sunday. The card was working till wednesdayand then it all of a sudden crashed the computer. The computer just restarted by itself. And now when ever i try to run a game it either freezes or the screen turns black or it just restarts. The fact is that the game was running perfectly fine for 3 days, i'm thinking i might have overheated teh card or something. Since i had my computer on 3 days straight. Also my i had the cpu buss speed set at around 144/35. Inno what do u guys think?
thx for nay replyes

System Specs:
Athlon XP 2200+
Asus 7VA266
PowerColour Radeon 9600Pro
256 MB of 266 DDR Ram

tomaz- sorry to bore you with basic stuff, but since you have not stated what you have done to sort out your problem here goes.
Have you checked that the card is seated in the AGP slot correctly. It could have slid out or paartly when you connect your monitor lead, if the card is not secured in place! Have you got anyway to return it, since you only had for a few days, it might be a duff one (no sarcastic posts from anyone please). Once your sure its in place, then im afraid you have 47 pages of reading to do, but it might be a range of things- latest and most likely reason is that the drivers are not upto the job- this being the ATI drivers. Also it could be that somecard makers messed about with the design and now ATI have to allow for this in the next driver update. Perhaps a reformat of your C: drive and the use of (the older I know, but they work for me) Cat3.4 drivers might be best for a starting point? But check the card is still seated correctly first.
Regards
Twilight
PS Jack, thanks for the comments
Kind regards too

I had that happen too. Try reseting your Bios. And check to make sure that your harddisk is still plugged in. That card is a troublemaker!!! (That really happened. I got an error saying that the OS could not be loaded and it just turned out to be a disconnected power cord.

yeah i checked if the card was seated properly in the agp slot, i took it out and put it back again. Still doesnb't work. WHat i'm going to do i'll try the card in two of my friends computers and see if it works on their comps. I'll post the results once i'm done. Also i was told to take out all of my other cards and just leave the radeon in, becasue there might be a problem with the irq's. This way the video card thas the chance to choose any of the irq's. I'll post the results.
THX for the replye's.
tomaz