Ok, I bought my Nvidia 6800 (AGP) xt for my old motherboard. It worked perfect I had no complaints. I then bought a new motherboard, a Asrock 939 Dual Sata II. When I first installed it I installed the AGP driver with it, when I tried to install the video driver the screen would go all black immedialtely after the installation and then restart without the video drivers installed. Without the AGP driver installed, I could install the Nvidia graphics driver that came with the disk and run games, however I could not update it, the update for the video driver caused the card to stop working reading: This device is unable to start. The problem I have is that now I need to update my driver to address an Anti Aliasing problem I am having on several games (Oblivion, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Hitman Bloodmoney) that causes the graphics to show tears on the screen during these games, please note that even without the new drivers from the internet my 6800 never had this problem with the exact same games on my old motherboard. I figure it must be some sort of compatibility issue between my motherboard and Graphics card, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

I have
Asrock 939 Dual Sata II motherboard
AMD Athlon 3200
Nvida 6800 XT


Thanks

Hi markend, and welcome to the forums!

In regards to your "tearing" you see while playing those games, it is infact not AA that is causing it, but V-Sync...Vertical Sync.

What V-Sync does, is match your FPS in game to what your monitors refresh rate is at (if it's a LCD, then 60hrz is what it should be). If you are seeing this tearing, it is due to V-Sync not being on, and the game would be running at a higher then 60 frame rate.

To enable V-Sync...
Right click on your Desktop -> Properties -> Settings -> Advanced -> GeForce 6800 XT -> Performance & Quality Settings

Make sure "- Global driver settings" is in the Active profile drop down menu.
Then in the box down the bottom, you should see Vertical sync with "Application Controlled"

Select it, uncheck the Application-controlled box, and move the slider to On.

This should solve your tearing problem.

In regards to your unable to upgrade your drivers...have you tried upgrading them in Safe Mode?

When I said "Tearing" I may not have been describing the problem accurately enough, I apologize. I didn't mean the one where the lines interupt screen update rates. What I am getting is random textures "tearing" across the screen in diaganol, vertical and horizantal patterns. In oblivion, its small adverse boces of messed up textures. In all these games I only have this problem if "Anti Aliasing" is on. Counter Strike Source has this problem if I use the software's AA but not the Hardwares AA (set to the video card) However, Star Wars Battlefront 2 has the problem, regardless of what setting I'm using, However, SW BF2 displays it more as just flashy textures on surfaces. Unreal Tournament 2004 has the problem of one tear about every 2 hours I play. It is not a problem because it happens so very rarely, just wanted to note that it too does show some signs of it. I played all of these games on the same video card driver is the one I am using now and had no problems with Anti Aliasing on on any of these games. The only thing that has changed is that I got a new motherboard. I didi try the v-sync though, and it did not work. Please note that I have also switched from a 17" normal monitor to a 19" Widescreen LCD monitor and I still have had the exact same problem through the switch.

I did try to do it in safe mode. It installed succesfully but then when I tried to start it in normal mode it failed to get past the start up screen. it would turn black and reset just as it did when I installed it originally in normal mode. This forced me to system restore my computer to get it to work again.

Thanks for the advice


Markend

Problem solved!

I had to get the new BIOS version and turn on a AGP p2p deep setting on. All the problems are now completely resolved.

Thanks for helpin out



Markend

Great work markend!