Problems regarding the Radeon series

[Rhuarrc]

Hello, I am a new player of Planetside and I am searching for Developers and Player's opinions regarding a technical issue that I have acquired while playing Planetside.

I run a Radeon 9700 All-In-Wonder Pro, on a 2.4ghz machine with over 512MB of RAM on Windows XP. I am having frequent lock-ups (between eight and fifteen minutes) and I am currently at a loss for things to do. Here's what I've tried.

1) Dealing with overheating problems and testing 3DMax as well as testing with other games. No problems here.
2) Uninstalling and reinstalling Planetside as well as re-patching 3x. This didn't seem to help either and each time yielded no different result.
3) Installing the latest drivers for the Radeon from their website.
4) Browsing these forums for similar problems related to the Radeon.

The error message I receive is a "drawing error" on the Radeon 9700 when I play games. The graphics card has ran fine for me in all other games I've played, including Everquest/DAoC/WC3/BF1942/etc.

How many of you other forum-goers have this problem, and what have you done to remedy it? I have seen Planetside and I like it, but I cannot subscribe to a game I can only play every eight minutes.

Thank you,
Rhuarrc.

[Hamma]

Have you updated directx?

I had these issues for weeks and it turned out to be a memory leak in PS. But a patch fixed it..

Someone else had this issue and it turned out the Radeon was using too much voltage, they unplugged a few fans and off it went.

Try turning off hi-res textures in game and running at a lower detail setting

[Rhuarrc]

Changed some of the high res and detail and it seems the crashing problem has disappeared. The problem still happens but is now limited to vehicles (and then very rarely) though I was able to play a Vanu from BR1-BR4 without crashing tonight.

Seems to be doing okay, also downloaded Catalyst 3.4 which I believe supports planetside. I went to the IRC channel and that was to topic, and I hadn't considered that.

It's still semi-surprising that I have to run the game on medium detail with a machine like the one I have but nevertheless I can't really tell the difference between the graphics so I think it's a preference-thing.

Thanks for your assistance in this matter, for anyone else reading this post who has these problems let me write out my solution:

1) Download Catalyst 3.4 from www.rage3d.com which will give you a direct link to ATI's website.
2) Manually set under "options" in Planetside in or out of game your detail settings to "medium" ("low" if you are experiencing this problem with an older Radeon)
3) Set your desktop resolution equal to your Planetside resolution if you have it windowed, so this is in effect (except for the Windows Toolbar) full screen. Some people have reported Alt + Tab problems with their Radeons or other cards and this seems to fix that problem, though I still hear about people flying Reavers then crashing when they get back in Window.
4) Find all the windows updates and driver updates, and as aforementioned download the latest direct X. Keep in mind the Radeon 9700 + series is DX9 compatible, so you'll want to get that. To my knowledge Planetside supports this.
5) After you do all this, reinstall and re-patch Planetside.

I did all of this in about an hour tonight and would glady spend an hour fixing problems then crashing every fifteen minutes. It didn't take too much troubleshooting and it looks like Radeon users have hope. I must admit the "Nvidia" sticker on the box made me a little nervous.

Have fun with the game since I know I will be knocking out some TR's and NC's without having to worry about crashes for a while now.

Thanks,
Rhuarrc

[SpaceDrake]

IIRC there is still something kinda screwy with the way Planetside handles particles via Radeon's graphics routines. (The game is mostly optimized for NVidia hardware, remember.) I'm sure this will be fixed in an upcoming patch.

[Hamma]

They have been tweaking the Radeon for weeks now, at one point it was nearly unplayable for me :eek:

[Daleon]

I had a number of issues when I had the 9700 Pro. If I went to 4x AA/16x AF, I would lock very often. Since going to 9800 Pro, I am smooth as silk and faster than ever. I think the 9700 Pro will always be a little lock prone. Maybe going with something like a Heatpipe cooling system may help. Also BGA ram sinks.