My HD3850...

[AddSub]

Nice! 3850 is truly a king of sub $200 cards. As for artifacting, I think you are looking too much into it. Unless there is a severe and quite visible amount of artifacting, I would ignore it. Otherwise, RMA it. What else.

 

[tkpenalty]

Here's a shot of NFS: Prostreet, don't see any visible artifacts for some reason:
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r150/Xolairs_bucket/Prostreet.jpg

Strange, maybe it could just be because of the drivers or something? I dunno, the performance was a bit sluggish in NFS, but at least didn't artifact at all, or so it seemed.

Describe how the artifacts look like. I doubt its related to the GPU itself. I'm assuming things such as shadows disappearing and appearing unaturally, the nitrous burst all of a sudden "streaking" in a straight line and finally the colour of the car flashing once after you paint it classify as artifacts. Well, those that I just described arent. They are just errors in the programming of the game.

Well stuff like random green, pink etc patches appearing in the textures, or warped models (lets say a sharp and long protrusion out of the road which you can go through without it disappearing) count as artifacts. Anything else, well, they arent.

Nice! 3850 is truly a king of sub $200 cards. As for artifacting, I think you are looking too much into it. Unless there is a severe and quite visible amount of artifacting, I would ignore it. Otherwise, RMA it. What else.

No such thing as looking too much into it when your card's life is at stake

 

[Xolair]

Describe how the artifacts look like. I doubt its related to the GPU itself. I'm assuming things such as shadows disappearing and appearing unaturally, the nitrous burst all of a sudden "streaking" in a straight line and finally the colour of the car flashing once after you paint it classify as artifacts. Well, those that I just described arent. They are just errors in the programming of the game.

Well stuff like random green, pink etc patches appearing in the textures, or warped models (lets say a sharp and long protrusion out of the road which you can go through without it disappearing) count as artifacts. Anything else, well, they arent.

I indeed can't see any artifacts like that in NFS: PS at least, Crysis does certainly host them. Just dloaded the demo of ET: Quake Wars to see if that artifacts as well...

 

[Xolair]

Yeah, no artifacts in QW. Strange indeed... maybe it is some kind of driver issue?

 

[Xaser04]

The texture flickering in Crysis is a well known issue with the ATI cards and is fixed by using the hotfix driver. (I am using the hotfix installed over the 7.11's without an issue).

Also don't worry about the lagging in the crysis menu. I also get this, the game however funs ok. (running it at 1680x1050 mostly medium settings at circa 40fps on my 3850 @ stock)

My 3DMark06 score with my E4300 @ 3ghz and the 3850 @ 750/2098 is about 10.6k.

 

[Xolair]

^ Yeah, except that the hotfix didn't repair my problem for some reason.

 

[Xaser04]

Hmmm that is odd.

The way I installed it is install the 7.11 drivers and then just install the hotfix on top of them.

Worked for me. (may be worth a try unless you have already tried this)

 

[Xolair]

^ Indeed.

Tried the original Enemy Territory and Bioshock's demo for confirmation. ET worked fine, or so it seemed again, but Bioshock's demo artifacted weirdly already in the menu (flickering screen)... dunno if this is a hardware issue, has anyone got somekind of a hunch here???

 

[JrRacinFan]

Xolair, I am still thinking it's partially the motherboard, and the other part is drivers.

 

[Flapper]

I found this in the Anandtech thread for the ASROCK 775Dual-VSTA:

ATI 3870 work with 775dual-vsta but some peoples must set in bios PCIE DOWNSTREAM PIPELINE --> DISABLE (texture corruption problem)

Twingo: It is working with 775dual-vsta. My sapphire 3870 arrived this afternoon, it took me three hours to put it in, had to take out the AIW x800xt, cut all the watercooling tubing to switch the position so 3870 can fit in. It's working fine with my 400W power supply, I have a FSP Zen 400, which has no fan so it's dead quiet. Ati did a wonderful job for they don't have any compatibility problem like 8800GT has with 775dual-vsta. Well done, ATI!


see:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1031710047

This may also be relevant to the 3850

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1896616&FTVAR_STKEYWORDFRM=&STARTPAGE=81&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

 

[Xolair]

^ Tried that pipeline thingy, actually found it from the BIOS. No help tho, actually became worse and these weird artifacts came, looked liek the card was dying. Hrh!

 

[Xolair]

Well, I've decided to RMA this thing... hopefully it'd work out by then. Back to my good 'ol X1650 for now.

 

[trog100]

Well, I've decided to RMA this thing... hopefully it'd work out by then. Back to my good 'ol X1650 for now.

yes i think it was faulty memory on the card.. it happens..

trog

 

[Xolair]

Damn, it seems that even the Sapphire card shares a similar problem. Haven't tried many games yet, but tried 3DMark06 and here's the result:
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r150/Xolairs_bucket/3dmark.jpg

I also get this kind of artifacts in 2D usage, in some sites:
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r150/Xolairs_bucket/artifacts.jpg

It's weird, I tried visiting those sites which give the probs and they don't seem to give any artifacts, when drivers ARE NOT installed, but instantly when I install Catalyst 7.11 those dots appear everywhere. Could all this be just driver-related, after all..?

 

[Xolair]

I just tried the demo of Prey (which is an OpenGL game), and it worked just fine except for some strange stuttering here and there. No artifacts, no corrupted textures, or stretched vertices from what I managed to see. It indeed could be true, that these Catalyst 7.11's have an issue of some sort with Direct3D... that seems like an reasonable option now. Should get a hold of other OpenGL games too, just to be sure.

 

[KainXS]

Xolair I have the same problems as you with a 3850, it seems that the cards are not fully compatible with AsRocks 4CoreDuals PciE slot and no-one knows if AsRock will even attempt to fix the problem

I sent a email to their customer support and they said they couldn't do anything simply because they didnt have one in their lab Do they even have a lab

As for 3d mark I can only get around 7800-9000 depending on the overclock on the card

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, I get the same artifacts on web sites so now we know its this god damn board and not the cards

to get rid of many of the artifact problems you have to disable the PCIE DOWNSTREAM PIPE in the bios of this riggidy board but theres still the problems in some sites, if that dosen't work then theres something else bothering something in the bios, the card is very likely to be perfectly ok

also try using internet explorer, for me, i only get the artifacts in firefox

after trying this card in my asus p5n in my gaming pc, their are no problems, its the board

this is what happens when riggidy drivers meet with a riggidy motherboard

 

[Xolair]

^ Well, it could be the combination of this mobo + the ''unfinished'' drivers. Seems a bit weird the issues occur ONLY in D3D games, so I won't throw my spoon into the soup just yet. I mean...

 

[JrRacinFan]

^ Well, it could be the combination of this mobo + the ''unfinished'' drivers. Seems a bit weird the issues occur ONLY in D3D games, so I won't throw my spoon into the soup just yet. I mean...

Which is exactly what I said 2 weeks ago.

EDIT: Wait for the new cats and see if it isn't just driver issues.

 

[Xolair]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

I just got a hold on the new 2.20 bios from ASRock, tried it on my mobo and tested some games afterwards. Crysis works fine without artifacts/stretches, WoW works fine too... yes! Guess it indeed was a mobo issue after all, therefore I humbly... go play games now.

P.S. This probably means there's no errors in the drivers themselves, but the 2D artifacts and weird colours are still there.

 

[KainXS]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

I just got a hold on the new 2.20 bios from ASRock, tried it on my mobo and tested some games afterwards. Crysis works fine without artifacts/stretches, WoW works fine too... yes! Guess it indeed was a mobo issue after all, therefore I humbly... go play games now.

P.S. This probably means there's no errors in the drivers themselves, but the 2D artifacts and weird colours are still there.

that goes for me too as well

just use opera to remedy that, firefox has problems with our motherboard

 

[bluezz]

I am having the same problem

Got ATI 3850 for chirstmas
I too have ASROCK mobo. Asrock 775 DUAL VSTA to be precise.

I tried updating the bios to the latest 3.0
link: http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA&s=
since it said "Patch ATI 2400XT PCIE VGA card."
But that did not help a bit. I am using ATI 7.12 with control center.

My issues are in mostly all games including bioshock, world of warcraft and gears of war.
Here is a screenshot of my WOW.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/3750/99477886dj8.jpg

As you can see.. it is pretty much un-playable !!
Can someone please suggest some solution??

 

[KainXS]

I am having the same problem

Got ATI 3850 for chirstmas
I too have ASROCK mobo. Asrock 775 DUAL VSTA to be precise.

I tried updating the bios to the latest 3.0
link: http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA&s=
since it said "Patch ATI 2400XT PCIE VGA card."
But that did not help a bit. I am using ATI 7.12 with control center.

My issues are in mostly all games including bioshock, world of warcraft and gears of war.
Here is a screenshot of my WOW.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/3750/99477886dj8.jpg

As you can see.. it is pretty much un-playable !!
Can someone please suggest some solution??

disable pcie downstream pipeleine

 

[Xolair]

I bet the 775Dual doesn't support that card yet, the errors are similar to mine and I'd say it's the same flaw as I had. Wait 'til a new BIOS arrives, or just email ASRock directly about your problem. They'll work it out...

... hopefully.

EDIT: That pipeline thingy didn't help me before.

 

[Xolair]

God dammit, it seems that I haven't got any luck with these things. I've tried Crysis' multiplayer and it worked fine for a moment, then almost gradually I've started to see some weird texture errors everywhere, including a few triangles but certainly not as many as before the mobo BIOS update. So, tried the SP of the game and recently I've began to spot similar errors in it too. Then, dloaded the demo of The Witcher, and it also shows weird texture errors, here's some shots:

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r150/Xolairs_bucket/Crysis_1.jpg
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r150/Xolairs_bucket/crysis_4.jpg
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r150/Xolairs_bucket/witcher.jpg

I hate to admit it, but I think it's an overheating/hardware related issue this time around. My temps seem fine though, I don't know what could cause overheating. Perhaps my card has had some bad memory chip(s) all along..?

P.S. Got an email from my previous card RMA, they've send it back but dunno' if it's a new card or not. Hopefully there was something wrong with it.

 

[Blacklash]

Here's the BIOS for my HD 3850 256Mb cards if anyone wants it. It doesn't do much, just makes the default core 690.

http://members.cox.net/malficar2/MSIhd3850

It's a shame because these cards will do 760 all day and all night via Rivatuner. With Overdrive I am limited to 730 and that's still enough to make 16.7 in 3dmark06 under Vista x64. I can get a few 100 more if I OC one card to 760 and I didn't bother.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=4422084

I hope ATi Tool works with them soon.

BTW these cards have worked great in a BX2 motherboard with the 7.11 and now 7.12 drivers under Vista x64. I've run; The Crysis demo, TheWitcher, Oblivion, Tomb Raider: Legend, and DiRT so far. I could run them all @ 1680x with solid FPS save DiRT. It is just too much to ask of a 256Mb card. I was hovering in the mid 20s at that res. They did 1440x fine though.

Crossfire is borked on the DX10 path right now in Crysis, and it's not like my cards could do all very high anyway. I run the DX 9 path with texture, object, water, shader on high and the rest medium.