Serious video problems

[Epimetreus]

I've got Win2K SP4 on an Athlon Barton 2500, with a gig of RAM, and a Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128 MB.

The problem is that all 3D games I load are unplayable. The symptoms range from 0.2 frames per second(literally) to torn/missing/overlapping polygons to corrupted textures, etc.

The sound appears to be working okay, because it usually plays/works normally, or loops like it does when the game engine itself is hung and the sound can't "progress" any further till the engine gives further input.

Thus far I've re downloaded and reinstalled my graphics drivers, re downloaded and reinstalled DX9, updated my BIOS, disabled AGP8X on my A7N8X, and increased my AGP Aperture to 256 MB, as well as testing games that use both OpenGL and DirectX, both of which are affected similarly.

The computer doesn't hang during this, I can actually CtrlAltDel out and kill whatever game is causing the problem, but it takes a minute or two to for this to happen.

My RAM recently passed 9 hours of Memtest, my CPU is well-cooled(34°C), my RAM is cool, my video card is not OC'd, nor is it hot(about the same temp as the CPU), and my system has a good power supply.

This just started happening recently, in the last few days.

Games I've played in that time include Counter Strike, Age of Wonders II(is not 3D, works), Age of Wonders Shadow Magic, and a few other 2D games in OpenGL mode. All but CS and AoW:SM work fine, and those two are 3D.

I don't have another video card, so I can't test known good hardware.

Also, as a note my sound card is a TBSC.

Please help!!

 

[kursplat]

could be a flaky power supply or the video card.
good luck

 

[Epimetreus]

Not a power supply issue, power levels are adequate and stable.

As for the card, I don't know, but I don't have another to test it, so I need to try other things first.

 

[kursplat]

mentioned power supply because i recently had an ANTEC 380w that seemed fine until I'd try to play a 3D game , then it would hard lock the system. swapped everything else out 1 at a time. it was just a flaky power supply.
good luck

 

[mall]

Looks like it is time you thought about a clean install of windows.

Then try installing one game.

Also try sticking to direct x 8.1 As the Geforce 4 ti 4200 is not a direct x 9 card.

This is what I would do.

Also try patching the games you are having problems with.

Hope this helps.

 

[Epimetreus]

Where can I get a copy of DX8 these days?

Besides, it shouldn't matter as long as the game uses DX8 interfaces, which these games ought to - they're older than DX9 by a good margin.

Also, I've had this card work with this same system config in the past, so unlikely it's a conflict of that nature unless it's intrinsic to the current graphics drivers. It could be a system corruption issue, but I'd prefer not to reinstall my OS right off the bat. The OS hasn't been on this computer very long anyway, only a couple of months.

Also, the fact that it affects OpenGL apps as well suggests it's nothing above the driver level anyway, which is why I'm asking here in the first place - if it was DX apps only I'd skip to reinstalling Windows as soon as I'd learned that reinstalling DX and my drivers didn't work.