Problems with Verto Geforce FX 5900 128mb

[MadPistol]

Ok. I just got the Geforce FX 5900 128mb non-ultra card made by PNY (verto). I have had it now for about 2 weeks, and have only just recently figured out that the Ultrashadow technology that is supposed to be on the Cine FX 2.0 engine. By the looks of things on my card, it isn't working. The technology brief says that shadows are supposed to be from every light source available on a character.

Simple enough, so why the hell can't I see them? I swear, I paid to freakin much for that card not to be able to see all the nice little shadows on the characters. Does anyone know what the problem is? I need to know if it's a chipset problem or if it's a problem on my machine that can be fixed. here are the specs for my machine and I'm sure you will see that it certainly can't be the machine.

Dell Dimension 8300
Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz w/hyperthreading
800mhz fsb
Windows XP Professional
512mb PC3200 DDR memory
Verto Geforce FX 5900 128mb DDR
120 GB ATA Hard Drive 7200RPM
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
4x DVD+R+RW, 48X /24X /48X CD-RW & DVD-ROM Combo Drive
Antec Smart Power 350 watt Power Supply

Any help other than the usual "reinstall your directx" or "update your video driver" answer would be much appreciated. :r

[iceblue]

In the tech brief for UltraShadow Technology it says it'll be in next generation games like Doom III from id Software and Abducted from Contraband Entertainment. But- it also says that anytime a game or application calculates shadows, UltraShadow will enhance the application performance. The more passes that are required for the lighting and
shadow calculations—for example, scenes that involve multiple light sources and
many physical objects in sight—the more significant the performance improvement,
with the most complex scenes achieving the most noticeable results. :t

[MadPistol]

I have a friend that has the same card as I do, and he can see shadows from every light source on that character. It isn't a coincidence. The technology is working for him, but it isn't working for me. How do I fix this? Is there even a way to fix it?

I'm about to send it back to the manufacturer because I fell like I got jipped when I bought the card.

[Imperion1]

Have you turned all the graphics details turned up? Is AA on, set to 8x? Anistropic filtering on, set to 8x? Image setting to quality? Mipmap detail set to best?

If you have your video card set up for speed instead of quality, then you will lose some details.

[MadPistol]

Yep. I made sure that all options that would affect detail were on high. I am almost totally convinced now that the problem is chipset related (there is something wrong with the card.)

[Rugor]

What game is it? In some cases features like that require a game patch that your friend may have and you don't. Unfortunately you haven't given us all the information so it's very hard to give more than general answers.

[Imperion1]

Which video driver are you using? What kind of monitor? Whats the refresh rate? Have you tried running the Dawn video on it to see if CineFX2 works on that? The Dawn Demo was created to take advantage of the Cine FX2 and all uses of the FX series cards. And, it works fine on my EVGA 5700 Ultra.

[MadPistol]

That is what is so bafling about my card. I can run EVERY nvidia demo on my computer without any sort of glitches and such (the old demos and the new FX demos. I can even run the "last chance gas" demo, even though it is dreadfully slow on this card)It really is quite a powerful card and it shows in the demos.

Here are the detailed problems I'm getting with my card.

First of all, I have DX9.0b. For the video driver, I have the Detonator 53.xx driver (most recent one last time I checked.)

Problems: None of the games are taking advantage of the Ultrashadow technology that is supposed to be on the FX 5900. Some of the games that I have heard support this technology are Medal of Honor: Allied Assualt, Unreal 2, Halo, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Call of Duty. None of them seem to support this technology on my computer right now.

The one game I am having the most problems with right now is Splinter Cell. In Splinter Cell, I have patched it and done just about everything I know to do for it. The problem is that there is no projectors for the shadows on anything. No matter what detail level I set it at, the game looks like a Geforce 2 MX card is running it.

To test this theory, I put my old Geforce 4 Ti 4200 back in my computer to see if the shadows would work, and sure enough, on my Ti 4200, all projected shadows and lighting appears and works fine. I am convinced that the reason that Splinter Cell's awsome lighting doesn't show up on my FX 5900 is because the Ultrashadow isn't working properly and therefore is causing a glitch in the game.

Anyone got a way to fix this?

[MadPistol]

One more thing too that I've been wondering about.

The Tweaking utility called "NVHardPage", would it affect any of the settings I have? I have it right now and I'm afraid that it has made my FX 5900 not work properly. If it is affecting my settings for the games, does anyone know of a way to get rid of it and put it back to default settings on my card?

[MadPistol]

Update on a dead thread ---->

I have sent for an RMA from PNY because the card obviously isn't working right when the game they included (Splinter Cell) doesn't work properly with the card it came with. I will get this problem sorted out.

Mad Pistol