Vista disables 3D Capabilities of Graphics Card

[gcrook]

I've recently installed Windows Vista, all was well until I installed the correct drivers for my graphics card, which is a HIS HD 2600XT AGP card, which is DirectX 10 and Vista compatible.

Installing either the drivers bundled with the card, or the latest Vista drivers downloaded from ATI, all 3D Functionality is disabled.

If I run dxdiag, I see the following on the Display tab

DirectDraw Acceleration: Not Available
Direct3D Acceleration: Enabled
AGP Texture Acceleration: Not Available.

This is the 2nd card I've tried with Vista, and have had exactly the same results. With the first card I tried (ATI X1950 XTX), the card worked when I used the default windows drivers, but all games ran with unacceptable framerates, updating the card to the latest Vista drivers resulted in the loss of 3D capabilities.

I've searched all over the net, and none of the suggestions I've found have worked, anyone here experienced this or can shed some light on this most annoying problem

Cheers

[gcrook]

Firstly, thanks to all those that replied to this topic, although your suggestions didn't help in resolving my issue I thank your for you time and effort.......oh.......hang on......

You will be happy to hear however I have fixed the problem, and it's not Windows Vista causing the trouble, its ATI, and their drivers.

ATI are aware of this problem and have released a hotfix, a brief description of the problem can be seen below:

"After installing Catalyst 7.9 or higher an error is received launching DirectX based games. The error indicates that Direct3D Failed to Initialize or similar.

In Vista your Experience score will drop to 1.0.

The DirectX Diagnostic tests will fail in both XP and Vista."

If anyone else has experienced these issues, which effects a wide range of ATI cards, check the link below, which shows you which cards are effected and where you can download the appropriate hotfix for the version of Windows you are using.

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31542

[gcrook]

Well it turns out this didn't actually fix my problem, the card is still not working 100%. This is definately a ATI driver issue, hopefully they will be able to fix this problem properly in future driver releases.

In the meantime, back to my trusty X800 and Windows XP

[allibear]

gcrook I have had various issues after updating ATI catalyst drivers for my card on Vista, a Radeon X1650 pro. Everytime I updated to the latest set something else cropped up so I have decided just to stick with the drivers Microsoft provide in the meantime.

I am not a gammer but I do run a lot of multi-media programs and the hardware acceleration capabilities of my card are reduced with this driver but for me that is easier to live with than some of the instability problems I had when the Catalyst Drivers where installed. Will wait a few more versions and try them again though. I always look through the FAQ's (Release Notes), for that driver release on the ATI site before making any decision on whether it's time to give it another go or not. I am sure they will come right one day. :)

[gcrook]

On the first card I tried (X1950XTX), the default drivers Windows installed allowed the card to work, but gaming performance was terrible, and as my PC is only used really to play one game, not being able to play it defeated the object, installing the ATI drivers resulted in the problems mentioned.

The 2nd card (HD2600XT), Windows did not install any drivers (card too new?), so I had no choice but to install the ATI Drivers.

I've been in touch with ATI and they suggest installing graphics drivers from the card manufacturer, in my case HIS, but I haven't had chance to do this yet.