Multi-colored Squares in 3D using Radeon!

[fade2black]

The system in question is the following:

Enlight 300W ATX case
Abit KT7 mobo
T-Bird 800 w/Orb
128MB PC100 RAM
Quantum and Maxtor HD (15 Gig ea.)
ATI Radeon 32MB DDR
Diamond MX300 (Aureal Vortex2)
Viking 56K ISA winmodem

I am running Win98 SE w/DirectX 7. I have updated the BIOS, Installed the latest 4in1's from VIA, and tried both the latest official and special purpose drivers for the Radeon. The only 3D software I have used so far is Quake III demo, 3DMark 2000, and ATI Arc demo. However, all of them have the same problem.

When rendering 3D there are multi-colored squares arranged in several diaginal lines (individual squares touching at opposite corners) that appear on top of the textures of various surfaces. The squares seem like some sort of texture corruption since everything else about the 3D rendering looks fine. Everything is being rendered and the textures are all there, there are just these squares on top of most of the 3D surfaces. No programs have crashed or given any error messages.

As it is happening in both OpenGL and Direct3D, I belive a driver issue or BIOS setting is to blame. The only AGP BIOS settings that were changed from the defaults were the Aperture Size to 64 MB and enabling AGP 4X. The driver settings under Display Properties were not changed from their defaults.

I have not been able to find a reference to a similar problem with the Radeon. I can't seem to figure this one out, so any ideas, help, and or references are greatly appreciated.

[Floppyman]

Is your videocard sharing any irq's with any of your other hardware? Try removing all your other hardware (soundcard and modem) and then playing a game. Maybe that's it....I have the 64mb version and have had zero problems..in both win98 and win2k both using DX 8...so maybe updating to DX8 could help. If it still doesn't help..maybe you were right about it being something in the bios. Lemme know and HTH

[fade2black]

Thanks for the ideas, Floppyman. I did try DirectX 8, but that didn't help. However, I found a problem with my hard drive setup. The 80 conductor IDE cable wasn't connected correctly. :o So, after a quick switch of connectors and a fresh format and install, this seems to have solved the hard drive problem. I haven't had a chance to check anything else yet. Once everything is more or less up and running, I will check for resource conflicts and run some more 3D tests. I have heard of problems with early Aureal sound cards in systems similar to this one. Hopefully, Vortex2 cards do not have the same problem.

[fade2black]

The squares are gone now that I have properly enabled AGP 4X in both the drivers and BIOS. However, there are still some issues to be worked out. I have found an unofficial KT7 FAQ off a link in ABIT's own KT7 FAQ. This site has a lot of good info on proper setup procedures and methods to avoid or cure problems. Add to that, the fact that ABIT has released a few new BIOS updates and now I think I may just start over from scratch and do it the "right way".

[fade2black]

The squares are not actually gone as had said. I did a complete format and reinstall by the book with the latest everything. The squares appear after a little while in QuakeIII, but are there from the beginning in the ARC Demo.
I have a few screen shots of what I am speaking about.

These <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/metallicaholic_69">screen shots</A> are linked on this homepage. This is to get my geocities account to work. I think I remember hearing that these UBB things can cause problems with linking to files.

[Edited by fade2black on 03-01-2001 at 02:55 AM]

[Floppyman]

Yep I looked at some of those and can honestly say I've never experienced this with my 64mb Radeon. Have you tried this card in a different computer to see if the same happens? HTH

[fade2black]

I did try it in another system and there were no problems like this one. However, the motherboard in that system was an ABIT BH6 which doesn't support all the same features and such. I have been thinking about exchanging the card for another to see if the same thing happens again. I suppose that I should send a few of those pics to ATI and see what they have to say about this whole situation.

I guess that I can at least enjoy the fact that the PC100 RAM runs @133MHz CAS2 without any problems. :D

[Floppyman]

Do you think the o'ced ram could be the problem? Does the same happen when the ram is clocked at 100mhz?

[fade2black]

I wish it were that simple. But it has been like that even when everything (RAM, Processor, Radeon) was running at rated speeds.

[Floppyman]

Are all settings correct in the bios? Have you heard of any problems with the KT7 and Radeon?

[fade2black]

This <A HREF="http://go.to/kt7faq">FAQ</A> has a lot of info on compatibility issues and just about everything KT7 related. There is no mention of an explicit incompatibility with the Radeon.

[Edited by fade2black on 03-03-2001 at 04:43 PM]

[BeardedClem]

I suggest you use AGP 2X mode and not 4X. There is no benefit to it and it may cause problems. Install the via drivers in standard mode, not turbo mode and before giving up, try posting your question at the Radeon forums here. (http://www.rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?forumid=13)