ATI videocard for a 550 NVidia chipset mainboard ??

Question

Hi there,
I have an MSI K9N Neo-F mainboard (550 nVidia chipset) and an MSI 7600GT video card. I decided I wanted to upgrade the video card for my 3D gaming (first-person shooters). After deliberating on what card to get, an nVidia 8800GT or ATI HD3870, I decided to get 3870 on the grounds of better image quality (a 10% less framerate was not important for me) and just because I wanted to try ATI.
So I got the 3870 card. The image quality noticeably improved (e.g. in Team Fortress 2), however the performance of the card did not seem to be as good as it was with 7600GT. Now, the frame constantly tears, so that I had to enable VSync. With VSync, the frame does not tear anymore, however I can see that the framerate slowered, so that I can feel it (jerky movements etc). With the settings, the card should be blasting at the framerates of around 100 fps !
A thought occured to me: was that detrimental for the performance of my computer system that I got an ATI card for the mainboard with an nVidia chipset ? Should I have got an nVidia video card instead on those grounds ?

Answer 1

Quote from: BOSSKILLER on 18-March-08, 19:17:27
It doesn't matter. You can use what VGA you like (ATI or Nvidia).
Get Driver Sweeper,(http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=driversweeper) and remove currently VGA Drivers(Both Nvidia and ATI). Do that in "Safe Mode".
Reboot PC,
Install DirectX Release - March 2008: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=114542.msg865914#msg865914
then download latest Catalyst from ATI and install them: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
Reinstall your game too, then re-try.
Thanks for letting me know. I discovered that the ATI driver/Catalyst Control Center (CCC) is unreliable. First, I installed CCC, but got no sound. Then I played with the settings (not changing anything really), rebooted the computer, and got the system sound (but still no sound in Windows applications such as game or Player). Then I played with settings again (not changing anything by the end of the day), and rebooted the computer. Now I got sound everywhere I wanted it. I do not know what happened.
Secondly, last night I tried to enable VSync in CCC and in-game (I got massive "tearing"). It did not work. I played with the settings around, uninstalled the CCC 7.11 and installed ATI Tray Tools (ATT). I enabled VSync via ATT, but it did not work. I uninstalled ATT, and installed the latest CCC from the link you gave (CCC 8.3).  For some reason, I could now enable VSync (from within game). "Tearing" disappeared.
I do not appreciate what is happening. ATI provides a good picture quality (and that's why I chose it), however the drivers and work with them are unpolished. For me, having a polished product is a major reason why I get the product.
Now, few seconds after booting the computer into Windows, CCC crashed. I restarted it, and ran the benchmark "Aquamark 3D". After few minites, it crashed. An error window popped up saying that "the program could not read from or write to the address XXXX". This surprised me. I never got errors like this with nVidia Control Panel, or generally with nVidia drivers (their nTune often could not work, though).
My plan now is to uninstall CCC and .Net 2.0 it comes with; after that, I will install ATT and see if I get crashes.
As for getting a new PSU. It looks like so far I do not have the problems associated with underpowering the PC (like shutdown of PC). I will monitor for such symptoms and for symptoms of overheating the current PSU; in this case, I will get a new, more powerful PSU.