video output troubles.

[Spectere]

Reference drivers are drivers produced by the company who creates the chipset and have no modifications to them.

If you download drivers packages from Dell, HP, etc, they may have modifications done to them to affect the branding on the drivers or tweaks to get their specific card to work (the latter generally only occurs in very extreme situations, like when companies take a chipset designed for PCI-E and make it work in an AGP system).

Try starting your system in safe mode and see if it crashes there.  If it doesn't, it's most likely a driver issue.  Hopefully nothing was damaged when your PSU started crapping out.

[MortifiedocAlot]

Started in safe mode, dicked around with a few programs, and when I right clicked on my desktop and checked the Catalyst Control Center and it said I either had no drivers or damaged drivers. Now while I'm in normal mode I can access this.

Should I just let the Microsoft missing software thing to download Nvidia drivers? because so far I'm at a complete lost, and I couldn't possibly download anymore ATI drivers.

Okay, I can safely say I will probably never buy another ATI card again, this shit is beyond forgivable.

[Spectere]

Not to be a dick, but how is any of that ATI's fault?  There's clearly a lot of conflicts going on here.  If your system is trying to install NVIDIA drivers without an NVIDIA card being installed, something is either royally cocked up or you're doing something wrong.

One question that I neglected to ask: does your motherboard have an NVIDIA chipset (not a built-in video card, but an nForce chipset)?  If so, you need to have the NVIDIA motherboard drivers installed.  That could be the cause of some of your issues if those aren't properly installed.

[MortifiedocAlot]

No, I probably deserve it, I was just really tired and pissed off when I wrote that (just spent HOURS trying to get this working).

I just checked my mobo manual and there's basically an entire page on NVIDIA SLI technology and NVIDIA SLI-ready memory (http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/122-CK-NF67.pdf). So I'm assuming that's the problem? I don't see anything about an nForce chipset tho.

[Spectere]

Hate to break it to you, but it says "nForce 680i" right on the front page. :p

But yeah, that's probably why shit is going crazy.  My last system had an nForce 750i and I had to specifically tell the uninstaller not to remove the motherboard drivers, because it desperately wanted to remove everything from the system.  I suppose that would typically be admirable, but you typically don't want thing like storage drivers removed when you just want to swap out a video card.

Grab one of the following driver sets from NVIDIA to install the drivers again (don't remember which OS you're running, so here's a bunch of links):

Windows XP: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_winxp_15.46.html
Windows Vista 32-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_vista32_15.51b.html
Windows Vista 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_vista64_15.51b.html
Windows 7 32-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_win7_32bit_15.53.html
Windows 7 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_win7_64bit_15.53.html

[MortifiedocAlot]

That seemed to work, also man I'm a little slow.

but yeah, thanks a goddamn ton.

Batman is still giving me bad FPS, but I'm not getting that missing hardware pop up. Well, this is odd, might need to redo my ATI drivers, as I did them in a completely stupid way.

Well that's odd, Bad company 2 runs fine (a little bit of delay at weird times during the start of the cutscene and at the very start of the mission, but when I got into an actual gun fight I didn't notice anything). Maybe I just need to tweak some setting somewhere?

[Spectere]

I think one of Batman's problems is that it uses NVIDIA GPUs as a physics processor with the PhysX drivers.  PhysX is intentionally gimped* so that it works slower if you don't have an NVIDIA GPU that supports it or a PhysX card.

*"Gimped" as in it relies on instructions that are horrendously unoptimized and overly "safe."  The way that it does calculations can be done on CPUs from 1989 (I'm not exaggerating), so none of the newer, faster instructions from the SSE instruction sets are used at all.

[Bobbias]

I think one of Batman's problems is that it uses NVIDIA GPUs as a physics processor with the PhysX drivers.  PhysX is intentionally gimped* so that it works slower if you don't have an NVIDIA GPU that supports it or a PhysX card.

*"Gimped" as in it relies on instructions that are horrendously unoptimized and overly "safe."  The way that it does calculations can be done on CPUs from 1989 (I'm not exaggerating), so none of the newer, faster instructions from the SSE instruction sets are used at all.

That's interesting. What sort of "safe" are they trying to do? Do you know anywhere I could read more in depth about that?

[MortifiedocAlot]

Really? So I'm SOL as far as Arkham Asylum is concerned? I'm also getting odd graphical errors in a few games I try (all lights in Amnesia can be seen through walls, and the AA looks off slightly. The wood that sticks out of walls in BC2 is untextured on some sides) so I'll probably delete all the odd drivers I have for ATI and then strictly install the CD drivers and then update them (I ran and installed a non XP pack I believe, a long with a bunch of other things).

I'm assuming CCC is part of the default drivers.

[Spectere]

That's interesting. What sort of "safe" are they trying to do? Do you know anywhere I could read more in depth about that?

I don't remember who did the analysis, but somebody disassembled the PhysX software driver and found that it used nothing but x87 floating point for the math.  Considering that SSE has been supported since the Pentium III came out in 1999, that is inexcusable.  I found a link to a story about this here: http://techreport.com/discussions.x/19216

It's just bullshit.  The fact that NVIDIA no longer allows their video cards to act as PhysX processors when coupled with an ATI GPU is downright anti-consumer.  Fortunately, OpenCL has been making some headway lately, because PhysX is too locked down for anyone's good.

Really? So I'm SOL as far as Arkham Asylum is concerned?

You might be able to get a speed boost by turning off PhysX, if the game allows you to do that.  It should still play pretty well, you just might miss out on some physics engine effects (I think Arkham Asylum has extra details like papers fluttering around in the wind if you have PhysX enabled).

I'm also getting odd graphical errors in a few games I try (all lights in Amnesia can be seen through walls, and the AA looks off slightly. The wood that sticks out of walls in BC2 is untextured on some sides) so I'll probably delete all the odd drivers I have for ATI and then strictly install the CD drivers and then update them (I ran and installed a non XP pack I believe, a long with a bunch of other things).

Yeah, try reinstalling the drivers.  The only game that I recall seeing rendering errors on lately is GTA4, but those are issues with the game itself -- the same issues occur on my dad's NVIDIA card (which is my old 9800GTX).

I'm assuming CCC is part of the default drivers.

Correct.  I think it is considered an optional component, but it's installed by default.

[Bobbias]

I'm pretty sure ATI gives you 2 download options: A big package with CCC and stuff with the drivers, and a simple no nonsense drivers only download.

[Spectere]

Yes and no.  The two Catalyst packages both include CCC, but one is missing OpenCL support.  There is also a support package for CrossFireX support that's updated independently of the driver and more often, but most people aren't going to need that.

There is a separate tab that allows you to download each component individually.  A nice option, but largely unnecessary.  There's also a couple of optional downloads, including HydraVision (I believe it's similar to nView, offering some whiz-bang features aimed at multiple displays) and video converter software that uses the GPU for processing.

[MortifiedocAlot]

I think I accidentally installed my drivers, then installed the same/similar drivers with CCC, which is causing my computer to randomly (not really frequently) lock up.

I'll resolve that sometime...

[Spectere]

When it comes to reputable companies, drivers rarely cause semi-regular crashes and lockups.

Considering you were having PSU issues, you may want to do some hardware testing.  Maybe run it through Prime95 or memtest86+ after you head off to bed for a few nights.  Those two tools do a good job at stressing the core system (CPU, RAM, and part of the bus) out.

[MortifiedocAlot]

I keep getting VPU errors, but I'll run those later. I hear I need to run memtest several times?