Open GL, we have a problem

**Alaeron** · September 03, 2012, 03:17 AM

My video card can run games like Medieval II (and countless others of comparable graphics) close to maximum settings, but if I try to run something that requires Open GL for some reason...ugh. It runs so pathetically slow that I might as well have a potato instead of a video card. That, or it just won't start and/or give error messages.

Windows XP Home
2 GB DDR2 RAM
512 MB ATI Radeon X1950 PRO
Pentium 4 3.2 GHz, HT disabled

**Bolkonsky** · September 03, 2012, 08:25 AM

All OpenGL or just newer OpenGL programs?

List some that you can't run.

**Alaeron** · September 03, 2012, 08:33 AM

Hm...Future Pinball, it says that my OpenGL is in "software mode" and that the game will "run badly" (and it does). Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup runs like garbage despite being slightly more graphically intensive than a crayon drawing on a piece of paper. There are also many other games I suspect are affected by this, which should run flawlessly but instead run horribly (like Neverwinter Nights and Titan Quest, who are both unplayable and I used to play them both a few years ago on this very system).

**PoleCat** · September 03, 2012, 09:36 PM

Originally Posted by Alaeron

Hm...Future Pinball, it says that my OpenGL is in "software mode" and that the game will "run badly" (and it does). Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup runs like garbage despite being slightly more graphically intensive than a crayon drawing on a piece of paper. There are also many other games I suspect are affected by this, which should run flawlessly but instead run horribly (like Neverwinter Nights and Titan Quest, who are both unplayable and I used to play them both a few years ago on this very system).

What CPU do you have? What is your GPU? Do you have any option to run OpenGL in hardware mode? I'll make a very poorly educated and outdated guess and say that floating-point processes are being run through software emulation alone without CPU support. This is an old problem I remember seeing long ago with the initial Pentium Celerons - they had no FPP and had awful framerate problems as a result.

I hope someone else can use this as a base to help you out. Good luck!

**Alaeron** · September 04, 2012, 02:33 AM

Oh, of course, I forgot the processor. I've updated the first post with more details. My CPU is a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 (terrible) and my ATI Radeon X1950 PRO should be able to destroy anything that is installed on this thing (and what drives me insane is that it used to before another computer borrowed this video card for a while).

EDIT: after the unplayability of Titan Quest that I used to play for months ON THIS VERY SYSTEM before I changed video cards and back again, I think there's something wrong much bigger than Open GL. It could be anything. Should I make another topic or keep discussing this one?

Any valiant technical heroes who will want to face this faceless, all-corrupting evil will be greatly rewarded.

**PoleCat** · September 04, 2012, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by Alaeron

Oh, of course, I forgot the processor. I've updated the first post with more details. My CPU is a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 (terrible) and my ATI Radeon X1950 PRO should be able to destroy anything that is installed on this thing (and what drives me insane is that it used to before another computer borrowed this video card for a while).

EDIT: after the unplayability of Titan Quest that I used to play for months ON THIS VERY SYSTEM before I changed video cards and back again, I think there's something wrong much bigger than Open GL....

Not looking for a reward - just trying to get you sorted. I've highlighted where I think your problem is coming from. When you swapped cards did you uninstall the old drivers for the previous card? Did you update the drivers for the cards after install?

Also what two cards are the issue here? You mention the ATI Radeon X1950 but what was the other card?

If you're getting performance issues then I'd bet you were a little sloppy in the software bookkeeping side of the installation. Just my guess from here. Good luck!

**Alaeron** · September 04, 2012, 10:10 AM

Hm...let me summarize the history of videocards here. When I first bought this computer, I had a 128 MB card. Then I got a 256 MB one, then a 512 MB one. They were all ATI Radeon something, the latest one is the X1950 PRO 512 MB, the other ones I don't remember since I moved and the boxes are at the old house, sorry. The 256 MB one was probably an X550 or something similar.

So, after a while and some technical difficulties I can't use the latest card anymore. I go for a period with the onboard integrated Intel chipset, of which I update the drivers, then try the 256 MB one which works (it didn't earlier, even tech support had absolutely no idea why and made me replace the motherboard, all I got was a black screen if I didn't use the onboard one and the computer seemed to be laoding and working normally), then I got bold and tried this one (X1950 bla bla bla), and it worked! Sort of.

I used to play NWN before, when I had this card before all the trouble began, and it predictably ran flawlessly on maximum settings. It worked with the integrated chipset too, albeit on lower settings. But I could play it for hours on end. Now it's a trainwreck. Same thing for Titan Quest. When I had this video card, before removing it, I could play it perfectly to my heart's content, and now it's literally unplayable. It freezes every few steps, loads for a while, rubberbands like hell and resumes. Rinse and repeat every 10 seconds. Silent Hill 4 used to run on max too and now it doesn't allow me to choose a resolution greater than 400x300 or something equally hilarious.

What absolutely baffles me is that Medieval II runs well on almost max settings, Mount & Blade Warband, Rome Total War and many others too, but a few games just aren't the same anymore while they used to run flawlessly on this very hardware before.

I did delete the old drivers with the tool provided by ATI, even when updating this card when I first got it. I uninstalled the Intel drivers yesterday, and everything ATI this very morning and reinstalled a re-downlaoded (just in case) a copy of the absolute latest legacy drivers for this card. Nothing has changed. Every problem is still there, and I have no clue what is going on. I have no leads.

I can uninstall whatever the hell I want and reinstall from scratch, nothing changes. Games, drivers, anything.

I know this piece of junk is almost 10 years old and belongs only in the garbage nowadays, and that I probably shouldn't be bothering you with it, but I can't get a new one now. Hopefully soon.

I'm thankful for all support, whether it does any good or not.

**PoleCat** · September 04, 2012, 01:54 PM

Try running the problem games in Compatibility Mode. If you're using the legacy drivers then try setting Compat Mode to XP. See if this helps or not.

**Crazyeyesreaper** · September 04, 2012, 01:56 PM

to be honest im amazed its working right

AMD cut off those cards long ago, hell anything Pre HD 5000 series also is on legacy driver support

Its also well known that AMD has been having issues with Open GL for sometime modern games are not a problem but older titles are hit and miss especially $5000 software apps like Autodesk Maya etc where for nearly 7 months i couldnt get any work done with it. on a 7970.

My only idea is to reinstall windows reinstall all drivers on a fresh OS and go from their, if the rig is as old as your saying that might be the fix you need. sorry i can't be more helpful but last time i messed with GPUs from that era was 6 years ago when i had 7800GTX 512 just before i upgraded to DX10 and the 8800GTX 640.

**Alaeron** · September 04, 2012, 02:23 PM

I do have XP, so I can't really set things to XP compatibility mode, and if I remember well (it's been a few months) I've tried every compatible mode with Neverwinter Nights without success. NWN 2 works like a charm though, adding to my bewilderment. Some games work and some just won't, regardless of graphics or age. It seems to be completely random.

Crazyeyesreaper, I would resign myself if these were problems with my card or drivers or anything else that I can't help, but the thing is that this card ran everything perfectly a year ago or so, before temporarily swapping it for others. I may very well try nuking everything with a format and reinstall, but it isn't a pressing matter so if it can be helped I'm willing to see if anyone has any idea what's going on. Or it could be a hardware problem (like something going bad like the RAM or processor which are old as heck) and reinstalling anything may not help. I really want to get a new rig altogether, but I sort of can't right now for various reasons.

Maybe the latest drivers are bad, I don't know. Before updating to them, I had the option to see the card's temperature and overclock it in the Catalyst. Now none of that is possible. Maybe it's a question of drivers? Do I need to roll back? Where can I find older drivers (that I foolishly deleted) in that case?

I want to see if this thing can be salvaged, if anyone has any idea where to look, but I'm not demanding anything. Who knows what is going on. Sorry for bothering you with such a dinosaur of a machine, and thank you all very much for your input!

My guess is that something very small, or very strange, is very wrong. For a very stupid reason. But I can't guess any more than that.

**PoleCat** · September 04, 2012, 05:58 PM

AMD legacy Catalyst display drivers. Good luck!

**Alaeron** · September 05, 2012, 02:41 AM

Originally Posted by PoleCat

AMD legacy Catalyst display drivers. Good luck!

Yes, 10.2. That's the ones I have.

Originally Posted by Crazyeyesreaper

again very small very annoying problems tend to be solved by re-installing the operating system sometimes its a mandatory change just cause the card worked a year ago and doesnt now well the system was still being used was it not? drivers and windows can corrupt over time, WIndows XP also tends to bloat with use, its notorious for it hell windows in general is notorious for it. The registry keeps entries of everything you do or install, as it gets cluttered things can go wrong.

I again suggest a fresh install tear down the PC build it back up clean it out etc, then reinstall the os install all the drivers for your motherboard and GPU etc etc make sure windows is up today all that hoopla, then test the games giving you problems. Sometimes a PC really just needs to a clean OS install to work right.

I clean the registry with CCleaner, is that enough? For the registry I mean.

You know, the more you tell me to just nuke everything the more I'm tempted to do it. But there's quite a bit of stuff I'd like to backup before that. I probably will soon.

EDIT: I've found a program to check all my drivers. I'll try that and let you know if that was the problem.

EDIT 2: it did nothing.

**Crazyeyesreaper** · September 04, 2012, 11:09 PM

again very small very annoying problems tend to be solved by re-installing the operating system sometimes its a mandatory change just cause the card worked a year ago and doesnt now well the system was still being used was it not? drivers and windows can corrupt over time, WIndows XP also tends to bloat with use, its notorious for it hell windows in general is notorious for it. The registry keeps entries of everything you do or install, as it gets cluttered things can go wrong.

I again suggest a fresh install tear down the PC build it back up clean it out etc, then reinstall the os install all the drivers for your motherboard and GPU etc etc make sure windows is up today all that hoopla, then test the games giving you problems. Sometimes a PC really just needs to a clean OS install to work right.

**Crazyeyesreaper** · September 05, 2012, 12:42 PM

most driver check apps etc dont do squat,

seriously back up your data find all the drivers you need for the mobo and gpu etc back it all up nice and neat, then nuke it reinstall and be done with it, even if it doenst fix the problem the machine will actually be a bit more responsive and abit faster due to the fact all the clutter is gone.

Ccleaner is alright but it can also cause problems it nuked my buddies Win7 install screwed up all his 60 of his steam games, and he had to reinstall anyway.