I’m keen to buy an 8800 but also afraid for possible malfunction (see Bear’s troubles).
Anyone of yours has the 8800? how it works with IL2? what CPU and Mobo?
Thanks for comments.
I have the 8800GTS, Gigabyte DS3 motherboard, works very well indeed, unlike me 
It works with IL2 fine … with the proviso you dont use water 3 or 4 … you can but you get intermitent glitches like these:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1193732&postcount=340
At least I and many others did.
I believe its a driver issue, but nvidia are slow on releasing drivers for the 8800 range 
I ran water 2 as I found that very distracting flicking on and off on the bottom edge of the screen.
If you are in no hurry, ATI’s new card is supposed to be out end of April/ beginning of May, and rumour has it nvidia has a refresh 8800 coming mid April … reputedly called 8800 Ultra, basically a faster clocked 8800 but details are sketchy.
TBH its best to wait and see how these pan out before buying a new top end card right now.
You just need the new .dll’s which you can grab here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/daniel.clarke17/8800_dll.rar
Ah, nice spot Dano
I recently bought a new PC. Since 3 months I have only troubles
Intel motherboard
Processor: Dual Core 2 Duo Extreme
Graphic card: EN 8800 GTS
Ram: 2x 1Gb Corsair
That mean I spent really a lot of money…
Results:
Audio: problems in TS. Solved buying Audigi sound card (more money…)
IL-2: My plane is exploding random, and very often the screen freezes. This is not related to temperature, that is OK. Several installations and different settings have no results. Running perfectly both in OpenGL (Perfect settings) as well as DirectX. But after about 30 minutes the game freeze or my plane explodes. Ventilation and temp are OK. Last available drivers installed. 
GRAW: Not working. It starts everything well until I launch the first mission. Than I get a GRAW error message. No explaination.
Condor (a fantasting soaring flight simulator!): screen freezs after 20 secs from launch and stops. It is working perfectly on my portable Toshiba Satellite laptop, but not on my sci-fi last generation desktop at home.
GTI: working well. But unfortunately I am not interested in car race arcade :mad:
Me: Getting mad. I work like hell at my office, and when I am back home I would like to relax and play IL-2. On the contrary I am stressed about solving tech probs on my PC, wasting evening after evening since 3 months trying to find a solution… Result: IF I will find no solutions, I am seriously considering to give up everything and to retire from online flying. SHIT! :mad:
Sorry to hear you are having such a nightmare Bear.
Is the problem only since you installed the audigy or previous to that ?
What is the exact mobo ?
Have you installed the latest motherboard chipset drivers ?
Which OS are you running ?
Have you ran memtest from boot (IE not in windows)?
What PSU do you have ?
Can you borrow another PCI-E video card of some sort to see if the problem still exists ?
I am trying to check separately everything, in order to understand where the problem is.
Is the problem only since you installed the audigy or previous to that ?
The problem happened since the beginning. The Audigy made life a little better because at least now TS is working. Before of that, with the original audio card (built in the Intel motherboard) all audio was working but TS was not.
What is the exact mobo ?
When I am playing, sometimes, with no idetified reason, my plane explodes. This may happen at the beginning of the mision or either after 20-30 minutes. No clear cause and effect. It may happen both offline as well as online. Sometimes it does not happen (when I am flying some test offline) but every time I fly online with the EAF suddenly happen (Murphy law?). Sometimes everything freezes up. This happen not only with IL-2 but with Condor too.
Nvidia Doctor does not detect any prob, either in clock as well as in temperature.
Have you installed the latest motherboard chipset drivers ?
Yes. At least I think so. I am currently checking the Intel website, that is actually a total mess - one of the worst download websites I ever found - in order to check if there is someting more recently released
Which OS are you running ?
WinXP Home Edition. Original version, regularly purchased and registred :mad:
Have you ran memtest from boot (IE not in windows)?
NJext planned tests are:
- Running Memtest in manual mode
- Trying to use alternatively just one RAM in different slots
What PSU do you have ?
Sorry mate: I am so dummy that I am not able to understand what is PSU
Can you borrow another PCI-E video card of some sort to see if the problem still exists ?
What I am going to do is leaving my PC to my PC dealer (that is actually a pilot of an Italian Axis Squadron) allowing him the time to run different tests and to check everything again
mobo= motherboard, sorry I shouldn’t abreviate for non native english, even the very good english speaking ones like yourself. I forget that often
PSU is the power supply unit
Hopefully the pc dealer will get it fixed for you
Hi Bear. Sorry to hear about your computer problems.
Does the problems with freezing and crashes only happen when you load a game or other graphic intensic program? Or does it happen also when you only run ordinary applications?
It might be that you have a power supply unit that can not provide enough power. Not sure what would suffice but at least over 500W I would guess.
Bear,
With the a/c exploding is this only online? It may be down to lag. e.g you can be flying, and have another a/c collide with you.
If it happens offline, ignore the last…
One other question, do you have any DVD burner s/w installed, e.g Roxio? I recently spent a weekend debugging an Oblivion lockup, went through the lot, re-installs, graphics drivers, audio drivers, then remembered I’d put Roxio on. Removed it and its been fine ever since.
@ Keets
Exploding is happening both online and offline.
I have installed Nero since years, also with the previous PC, without any probs, and DVD Decrypter. Do You think I ahve to remove Decrypter?
@ Mram & Maik
The prob happen only with games. No probs at all weith any other application.
This is my PC set in detail:
Motherboard: Intel XPX2 975
Processor: Intel Dual Core Duo 2 Extreme
Graphic Card: ASUS Nvidia 8800GTS PCI EX 640MB HTDP HDCP
PSU: ENERMAX AL-063 EGA850EWL GALAXY
HD: WESTERN DIGITAL HDD 400GB 7200RPM SATA WD4000KS CACHE 16MB , plus two additional HD
Ram: Corsair DDR2 800Mhz 2x1Gb
I have dvd decrypter with no problems.
Make sure the ram is getting 2.1v in the bios.
See if there is a way to borrow another graphics card and try that if the above is ok or doesn’t help.
Thanks Majik
I believe that trough the dealer (who is 167GA_Maxese) I can get some some with other graphic card to test. I will probably give him my PC after easter.
Seem to understand that this 8800 is a very powerfull card but not exactly a “troublesfree” one.
At the moment, in my PC there is 7800 GT (XFX) on a Asus Mobo A8N Sli Premium DL, AMD 4000 single core, 2 giga DDR PC3200, 2 x 160 Maxtor Raid 3 + 1 Maxtor 320 all feeded by an Enermax 650W.
It is well enough for Il2 but, thinking about what I could needs to run fairly the next generation game like SOW and so on, what would you suggest to improve in hardware, and what in priority order; CPU or grapic card? :rolleyes:
I think you’d probably get the most notable boost in IL2 from a graphics upgrade. Unfortunately the only real option there is the 8800 series cards.
However I wouldn’t write off the 8800 due to Bears ongoing problems. As unfortunate Bear’s issues are, there are quite a few people running IL2 and other games issue free with the 8800. Bears issue may not be graphics based he may have a fault motherboard or ram. It could even be PSU related. Unstable voltage rails will quite often bring a PC down. Which is why it is very important to have a good branded PSU in a performance PC.
But to be honest if I was you I’d hold off a little longer and go for a CPU, motherboard, RAM and Graphics upgrade in one move.
I agree with Brigs, the 8800 isnt a troublesome card, Bear is having some bad luck somewere
A more powerfull graphics card will help with most newer games, SOW I feel will be just as dependant on a fast CPU as well as graphics.
There are ATi graphics options coming around the end of this month, if you were looking to upgrade graphics now I would wait until the new ATi range has been released to see how that compares, there is also an upgraded nvidia range due mid month.
You’re right, I saw in the net that ATI is next to introduce it’s new Grapic Cards, as well as Nvidia. They will also introduce furthers key products, like chipsets and CPU (AMD).
Humm…lot of stuff will soon breake in the market. :rolleyes: don’t want waste money; I think I’ll hold “l’argeant” in the wallet, for the moment at least, and see what will happen one the next few months.
I run MemTest for more than 3 hrs. Everything OK.
Installed new Forceware drivers 93.71 of 2.11.2006 - No changes, still probs
The PC is well ventilated, and the PSU seem to be strong enough.
Made a full set of the monitor with the 8800 software. Still probs.
Thursday I will take the PC to my dealer.
my plane explodes
Bear can you say more about this ‘exploding’ thing?
Does the plane explode really?
Like if you hit the ground or a hill?
Do you see an animation of the plane exploding and then you are in the deathcam/seagull and you can switch around views to see the other planes?
Then you close the mission and fly it again?
Logic: to separate the exploding plane problem from the freezing 1946 application problem
When you get the freeze does your computer need to reboot? Or can you get back to the Desktop?
Nothing overclocked?
The user forum for Nvidia kit is at nvnews.com where you can get technical help too
Ming