No one? 🙁 Eh I guess I'll replace the other caps too. Have to order more. Is it possible the GPU is just bad in some way? Strange that 2D is okay whereas using opengl appears to immediately lock the system.

I'm surprised by the lack of responses here. Does the same happens on D3D games?

These kind of corruption usually appears to be related to RAM.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-19, 13:37:

I'm surprised by the lack of responses here. Does the same happens on D3D games?

These kind of corruption usually appears to be related to RAM.

Good idea let me try that

I did make a little progress, however. On a whim I installed RivaTuner and downclocked the GPU and memory to the recommended min. Surprise, it works fine... ran unreal timedemo for 20 minutes without crash or artifacts.

I also neglected to mention the 2d has a bit of an odd 'shimmer' at any resolution... almost like a display timing issue...

Could this all be related to the clock crystal? (Just a shot in the dark.)

drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-19, 14:18:

I did make a little progress, however. On a whim I installed RivaTuner and downclocked the GPU and memory to the recommended min. Surprise, it works fine... ran unreal timedemo for 20 minutes without crash or artifacts.

I also neglected to mention the 2d has a bit of an odd 'shimmer' at any resolution... almost like a display timing issue...

Could this all be related to the clock crystal? (Just a shot in the dark.)

I had to lower the memory clock on a GF4 MX440 card due to being unusually clocked higher and the high memory clock caused the text mode to display garbage over the time.

The blurriness on 2D appears to be normal on these cards and depends of the manufacturer due to the mess that most did on the filters around the RAMDAC. The best ones in regard to image quality are Diamond, ELSA, STB and Compaq.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-19, 14:36:

drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-19, 14:18:

I did make a little progress, however. On a whim I installed RivaTuner and downclocked the GPU and memory to the recommended min. Surprise, it works fine... ran unreal timedemo for 20 minutes without crash or artifacts.

I also neglected to mention the 2d has a bit of an odd 'shimmer' at any resolution... almost like a display timing issue...

Could this all be related to the clock crystal? (Just a shot in the dark.)

I had to lower the memory clock on a GF4 MX440 card due to being unusually clocked higher and the high memory clock caused the text mode to display garbage over the time.

These kind of shimmering on 2D appears to be normal on these cards and depends of the manufacturer due to the mess that most did on the filters around the RAMDAC. The best ones in regard to image quality are Diamond, ELSA, STB and Compaq.

Alright thanks for the ideas... it's a PNY card. I'll play around with it a bit more. At least I now know that it works in some capacity.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-19, 14:36:

These kind of shimmering on 2D appears to be normal on these cards and depends of the manufacturer due to the mess that most did on the filters around the RAMDAC. The best ones in regard to image quality are Diamond, ELSA, STB and Compaq.

I've noticed that I was talking about blurriness. 🤣

Adjusting the display refresh rate could help with the shimmering.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-19, 14:51:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-19, 14:36:

These kind of shimmering on 2D appears to be normal on these cards and depends of the manufacturer due to the mess that most did on the filters around the RAMDAC. The best ones in regard to image quality are Diamond, ELSA, STB and Compaq.

I've noticed that I was talking about blurriness. 🤣

Adjusting the display refresh rate could help with the shimmering.

Well after a few more tests a GPU downclock alone will make it much more stable. Changing render method did't help with crash at stock speeds. Interesting that directx8 runs faster than opengl, always thought that was best for older games and cards...

drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-19, 17:03:

Interesting that directx8 runs faster than opengl, always thought that was best for older games and cards...

Yeah, it's a common myth that OpenGL runs faster than D3D no matter what. That's due to T&L being implemented on the OpenGL ICD on nVidia cards and OpenGL being a high-level API, T&L on D3D API was introduced in DX7.

Well done trying to underclock the card, if I got it right the problem lies in the gpu, try to find the maximum underclocked frequency to have it stable, then you could modify the bios with new clock speed.
Another try is to use a bigger heatsink if you can, but maybe the card chip was damaged due to high temperature over time?

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-19, 17:07:

drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-19, 17:03:

Interesting that directx8 runs faster than opengl, always thought that was best for older games and cards...

Yeah, it's a common myth that OpenGL runs faster than D3D no matter what. That's due to T&L being implemented on the OpenGL ICD on nVidia cards and OpenGL being a high-level API, T&L on D3D API was introduced in DX7.

Hey I'll take anything that improves my benchmarks 🤣

Make sure you recap using caps one or two notches higher, eg instead of .1u use .22u or even .33u.
For overclocking you often need to do that.

And yes, a heatsink with fan will keep the GPU cool and signals clean.

drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-19, 17:16:

Hey I'll take anything that improves my benchmarks 🤣

No problem, the faster the better. 😁

Nemo1985 wrote on 2021-09-19, 17:12:

Well done trying to underclock the card, if I got it right the problem lies in the gpu, try to find the maximum underclocked frequency to have it stable, then you could modify the bios with new clock speed.
Another try is to use a bigger heatsink if you can, but maybe the card chip was damaged due to high temperature over time?

Yeah that would be the next experiment. I suppose I could even flash the BIOS with those settings as well, but right now RivaTuner is acceptable. I'll just put a post-it in the bag so I remember what i did. And even though I'm glad this card works in my 430vx build, I don't plan on using this in my main machines right now.