Player animations fade away..

[PaulT]

I just got a new Dell E520 with the integrated Intel G965 Express chipset w/256MB and not sure if it's the integrated Video card which doesn't look to be too crappy having 256MB or is it the software but when I try to play either online or just in practice the player image fades in and out. mostly OUT.. The computer has a gig of ram and a Pent 4 (3.6 Mhz) and is running Windows XP Media.. The rest of the picture is perfect and the ball flight and action is correct, when I can see the club it seems fine but mostly cannot see the golfer or the club.. Anyone ever have this problem??

[terrell]

coupla things ya might try. make an entry for the g965 in the videocard.txt file. go here:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2576

for the latest and greatest graphics driver. or if you're using the latest and greatest, try some of the older drivers.

[PaulT]

Thanks Terrell, downloading a driver update for this chipset just released earlier this month.. I will give it a try, funny a brand new computer would ship with drivers which were updated 8 months older then the ones they just installed in this computer 6 days ago..

[PaulT]

That didn't work, when trying to install the drivers from Intel it stopped with a error message stating "The driver being installed is not validated for this computer. Please obtain the appropriate driver from the computer's manufacturer.. Setup will exit" and leaves no choice but to exit..

[grim_x]

Looked at the Dell downloads and this was the only graphics driver I could find for your machine.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloa ... eid=195566

[PaulT]

grim, there are newer drivers and I installed them but made no difference... Last night I also downloaded the newest DirectX and ran the DirectX Diagostics (dxdiag) Testing
DirectDraw and Direct3D and it passed those tests.... only thing I can think is the integrated graphics [censored],, I didn't realize but a friend told me when they said it has integrated video w/256mb it means it's using 256 of my system memory.. that can't be good.

[PaulT]

Well according to the guys on the Dell forum the integrated vid is basic and
meant more for word processing, net surfing ect... A friend of mine told me
when they say it has integrated video w/256mb it means it's using 256 of my
system memory..That can't be a good thing for gaming... Not a big gamer here
but do enjoy a littel UT2004 and of course Links2003. I did a little research before I received this system, the BFG Tech GeForce 6600GT 128MB 128-bitGDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
looks like it has a lot of bang for the buck, reviews have been good, some
say it even outperforms the 7600..

[terrell]

bummer 'bout the g965. i wouldn't say it's impossible to make it work well with links, i'd probably wrestle with it for a coupla weeks, and exhaust all my possibilities, e.g. different drivers (particularly older drivers), try some switches in the videocard.txt, look for a graphics accelerator like gibby posted for one of the intel chipsets, etc.

provided you have an agp or pci express slot available for an addon card, i'd strongly urge you to go with a 256 mb card at least. you might not be a gamer, but vista requires a little graphics capability provided you're interested in turning on the fluffy stuff. you may not care now, just think about down the road.

i have a 256 mb 6200, which works extremely well with links, as well as vista. i know nothing of the 6600s, but i'm sure you can't go wrong. the best place to look for anything is ebay. if you're not comfortable with ebay, newegg has had some great prices on electronics lately. oh, and goto cnet.com for suggestions and reviews of different graphics cards. their editors' choices are usually pretty good.

[PaulT]

Thanks terrell, as a matter of fact I just ordered a BFG GeForce 6600GT card from Newegg, it has 128MB but the reviews have it kicking the [censored] of cards with double the memory, hell my present integrated card has "256mb" and it can't get out of it's own way LOL... let you guys know how it goes.. thank you so much for your help and see ya on the greens...

[djwoods10]

thats what i did t i have the same computer and same problem i just left it alone you said regester the thing in links how do you go about that

[terrell]

thats what i did t i have the same computer and same problem i just left it alone you said regester the thing in links how do you go about that

start links, click options|system info, to the right of video card:, you'll see the vendor id and device id for your graphics card.

edit the videocard.txt found at <d>:\program files\microsoft games\links 2003. scroll down to the intel section, and enter the device id you found in system info:

Vendor = 0x8086 "Intel"
0x???? = "965"
0x1132 = "815"
0x1240 = "752"
Bad8888
NoMipMap
DisableTextureDeletes
ForceSquareTextures
LimitTextureSize

ya might try the switches shown for the 752 one at a time or all at once to see if they make any improvements.

edit: my old voodoo5 used to act the same way i've read many of the intel chipsets described. but i played around with some of the switches for the other cards, and the voodoo5 displayed links perfectly. never know 'til ya try.

[grim_x]

According to Dell, this is what that particular machine has for available slots.

Expansion Slots
PCI: 2 Slots
PCIe x1: 1 Slot
PCIe x16 (Graphics): 1 Slots

Copied and pasted from dell.ca

http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/product ... dhs&~ck=mn

[PaulT]

Yes the integrated video was that bad lol.. I ordered the BFG GeForce 6600GT from egghead Thursday and believe it or not it was in my hand friday afternoon.. WOW, huge difference!! After installing the drivers that came with the card and not tinkering with any performance settings I ran both Links2003 and UT2004 with graphics maxed and they both ran flawlessly. There is a driver update also at NVidia's site and downloading them now... thanks all for you help and input!!

[terrell]

fantastic, pault. i thought the 6600 was a little on the expensive side for my taste. but if it runs links, what's a few dinero?