Choppy Graphics/poor Frame Rate - Help !

East - I am not saying this is an Enigma problem specifically and I said that in my post to tech support (is tech support actually you ?) it is more a problem of my systems incompatability with Enigma. I did get back to Leadtek who are the card manufacturers and their support is woefully slow as it is restricted to a webpage submit form of the 'fire and forget' type. No replies till next week on that one I guess. I think frustration set in last night as I am normally fairly competent in troubleshooting PC problems. Anyway, I will pursue this a bit longer and get back to the forum if I fnd a fix. Looks like its back to playing the demos for a bit, which did work fine on my computer by the way

your problem is very easy to fix, it happens cause nVIDIA's drivers are leaving stuff in your registry file, so you need to download a little extra application to remove those enties before you install the new drivers.

Source / Program be sure to read the "howto"

Jesper - Thanks, good advice. I downloaded the utility and started over again trying to get rid of the 4230 drivers and replace with Nvidia 5304. The detonator ripper utility worked fine, I made sure system restore was off, however, once again if I check the display adapter driver entry in the device manager and dxdiag both still show 4230 as the current driver even though the setup of the 5304 drivers went without a hitch. Its weird - like these 4230 drivers are hard wired into the system or something, I just don't get it

New info. I wondered if the 5304 driver was just not liked by my system for some reason and tried the 5303 version. It installed fine !! Maybe Nvidia just have a bad copy of 5304 for download - it does say 13.4mb download on their website, but each time I downloaded it the file size is just 13.0mb. Anyway - time to reinstall Enigma and see what happens

Good luck - and glad you chose to persevere

/bux

OK - the latest.........

Enigma out of the box, with no patches, runs fine -no graphics glitches

Enigma plus UK patch A - runs fine - no graphics glitches

Enigma plus UK patch A plus UK patch B - the problem with the stuttering on the sea texture movement is still there. Have tried Dxdiag sound settings to basic and variations of all Preferences set to low and no change. Maybe my system is just not up to running this much detail with the latest patch. Its not a major problem I guess, I can still play the game after all, just visually annoying to have the stutter. I'll stick with it and see if future Enigma patches or a newer driver release than nvidia 5304 improve anything.

Thanks to everyone for the help offered

Ok more reading up on the web - particularly the 3d guru forums - indicates that the 5304 nvidia drivers are no good for a lot of people. Geforce4 Ti 4200 card owners (like me) should steer clear of these drivers as the card is not supported. Many people have had exactly the same problem with the driver not being recognised in device manager and dxdiag. The 5304 driver is optimised for Windows Media Center improvements and nforce 3 chipsets only. Most people in the know are avoiding them and sticking with the 5303's - indeed, if you go to the nvidia driver download section it is the 5303's that are listed as the current drivers, not the 5304's which appear in the driver archive link instead.

starshell Thanks for sricking with this issue!

As I am sure others will have a simular issue at some stage, this thread may well save a lot of people lots of time!

Well done champ!

THE PROBLEM IS FIXED !! :D:D Don't ask me why, but when I bumped up my monitor refresh rate from 75hz to 85hz the stuttering on the sea texture and all other object movements went away. I have no idea why this should make such a critical difference to the gameplay - does anyone else have a clue what the connection is ?

Anyway, i'm happy, and I hope this post helps someone else out with the same problems.

UPDATE: Only side effect of increasing the refresh rate initially was that the main game menus all developed 16bit pixellated graphics or green banding. This was fixed by forcing the refresh rate at my chosen screen res (1152x864) to 85hz via the main Nvidia driver utility tabs - (right click on desktop\Properties\settings tab\advanced button\GF4 Ti4200 (or whatever your card is) tab\refresh rate overrides\change from default to desired refresh rate in drop down list)

Its True, I rescently had to upgrade my dx version from 8.1 to 9.0 (beta) not alpha.

I also run a nvida geforce mx 440 video card ( slighty modified) and I was told

by an in game buddy in Eq to use the 53.03 drivers,, that the others were bugged

or not had the wqrl certificiate?

Anyways, Indeed 53.03 are the drivers you need to use and maybe someone could make a link pertaining to this driver issues and make it a sticky thread>

Fyen