adding that I tested with VGA and it does the same thing. The common thread here is that it has to be at low resolutions (like when running DOS games, older WIndows 9x games that run at say 640 x 480 and lower color modes). At native 1600 x 1200 and 32-bit color everything is crisp and without any artifacts that I can see.

Is this indicative of a failing card, or perhaps Nvidia just didn't bother making sure its cards were capable of clean low resolution graphics in the early 2000s?

Which card is it? Have you tried different drives to rule out a software based issue? Also what resolution does the artifacting go away at? I know you said 1600x1200 is find but what other resolutions are fine too.

Hi there, what is this game with these symbols on the stone disc?

Cheers,

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-04-27, 00:26:

Which card is it? Have you tried different drives to rule out a software based issue? Also what resolution does the artifacting go away at? I know you said 1600x1200 is find but what other resolutions are fine too.

Hi there!

This is a Quadro4 980XGL, I have a few other cards I can toss in there to test out.

Doing more testing it doesn't appear to be tied to resolution. I've finally got the Win98SE partition working more or less so I finished putting Win2k on the second partition and notice it's boot logo screen is also all sorts of artifacted.

At 800 x 600 32-bit color though, no artifacts. This makes me think it is something related to how this card is handling lower color modes, rather than resolution like I'd initially thought.

Other cards I could try are a Quadro4 900 XGL, a much newer Quadro 4000, or older I think Quadro2's.

Do you know off hand if these cards started having issues with lower color modes?

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-27, 00:40:

Hi there, what is this game with these symbols on the stone disc?

Cheers,

Hi there, this is Zork Nemesis

Try testing the card with VMT CE.
https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/video_ … tress_test.html
There's an ISO in the archive that you need to burn to a CD and then boot from the CD.

Edit: When using the program keep in mind it is primarily helpful in ruling out memory issues. It does sometimes create false positives, mainly when it detects the wrong memory size. If it doesn't show errors you can mostly rule out your VRAM but if it does you need to investigate further.

Just had a thought it's probably a long shot but is your PSU up to the task?

Note that Zork Nemesis isn't what would usually be considered "low resolution", it uses 640x480x16bpp. Most DOS games were 320x200 and practically all of them used only 8bpp.

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-04-27, 01:56:

Try testing the card with VMT CE. https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/video_ … tress_test.html There's an ISO in the archive […]
Show full quote

Try testing the card with VMT CE.
https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/video_ … tress_test.html
There's an ISO in the archive that you need to burn to a CD and then boot from the CD.

Edit: When using the program keep in mind it is primarily helpful in ruling out memory issues. It does sometimes create false positives, mainly when it detects the wrong memory size. If it doesn't show errors you can mostly rule out your VRAM but if it does you need to investigate further.

thanks! I'll download and try that out today

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-04-27, 03:01:

Just had a thought it's probably a long shot but is your PSU up to the task?

Thanks for the reply - I *think* so, for the time being I'm using an old PSU from the dark ages (early 2000's) with 40A on the +5v rail, looks to be dropping to 4.87 to 4.90v under load, the other rails stay slightly above spec.

I am currently searching for a non-overpriced modern Corsair HX1200 as that should still work (I used one temporarily on a previous iteration of this build with a different TUSL2-C board and Quadro 4000 SDI which requires two molex power inputs).

jmarsh wrote on 2021-04-27, 04:27:

Note that Zork Nemesis isn't what would usually be considered "low resolution", it uses 640x480x16bpp. Most DOS games were 320x200 and practically all of them used only 8bpp.

That's fair - I was mistaken on the conditions under which the graphical artifacts appear anyhow - seems it was more of a lower color depth issue than resolution.

However, after I got Windows 98SE to more or less work last night I installed Windows 2000 on the second partition and under that I started having weird artifacting/ghosting even at native 1600 x 1200 32-bit so I'm really starting to wonder if something on the card is dead/dying.

I'm not sure how hot these are supposed to get but I installed a Thermaltake copper cooler on this thing which includes some heatsinks for the VRAM and all of those get fairly warm even not doing anything 3D.

Additionally, the 900 XGL I have seems to work fine but the caps started shooting out steam/smoke for a few minutes the last time I had it hooked up. The caps on this 980 XGL I'm trying to use don't look like typical electrolytic caps i've worked with in the past and have not made any sounds or steam/smoke at least not yet.

I'm getting very similar artifacts on my 486 with a s3 805 vlb. Happens in fallout 1, civ 1' and SimCity 2000. It almost seems like a color thing? I wish I knew how to fix it as I'm running at low res.