Any Ideas?Follow

Try deleting eqhardware.ini in your base everquest directory, out of game, then repatch. Your system may still have reminants of the old video driver, and the INI may be telling EQ, to use the old one, even if it's not there.

If that doesn't work, update the thread. It's most likely the cause though, since you've updated the video drivers and directx since intalling the new card.

Yther Ore.

Not bad. It's just often a cause of trouble with new hardware. Next thing to try is to run OptionsEditor.exe in your base EQ directory. And select the new video card (9600gtx).

Yther Ore.

Also note, if EQ says to use a particular driver version for the video card, sometimes the newest drivers dont' work as well as the ones recommended by EQ for EQ. I got a 9250 (9000 series) and using the Radeon 8.252 driver, which has seemed to work well, but not sure which one is best for the 9800 series.

Yther Ore.

Ok in game now swimming in pok to see what happens

Bummer :(

Try running DirectX Diagnostic out of the Programs - Accessories - System Tools - System Information window (may be differen location on Vista -- Or just Start - Run - Dxdiag)?

Also, I remember there being an issue long ago with certain Nvidia cards and EQ, but I couldn't find anything on google. It may be burried in the tech help forums on the Sony EQ site.

If you can't find anything specific, I'd try using the Nvidia tools / driver to set everything to the minimum settings, and keep upping things until it screws up so you know which option(s) / setting(s) are causing the problem, if it works at the minimum settings anyway.

Seems like a driver / directx issue from the description, but also like the problem that EQ had with certain Nvidia drivers that I previously mentioned. Also, is this an Nvidia or 3rd party card? Might try alternate drivers, if none of the other tests work out. Also, is it in the same slot as the 8500 or a different one? If it's different, you may need to adjust your BIOS settings for the new slot as primary video, but unlikely that it is different.

That's about all I can come up with atm, other than making sure you got a big enough Power Supply. I'm not sure what the recommendations are for the 9800, but if you're using a 300W or less, it's most likely not enough, and if it's 500W or more it most likely is more than enough .. in between, you'd probably need to check on the requirements of the motherboard, drives, and the 9800 to see if you have enough power for all of them.


Yther Ore.

Edited, May 6th 2009 1:26pm by Yther

Yther;
Thanks...will try all that when I get back from work. It may be a power problem, as this card has an auxiliary power plug-in.

The directx check was all good.

It is an evga card, and I am using the drivers that came on the disk ( they were the latest)

That's about it. Was gonna put the old one back in and see what happens.

Thanks. I do have it plugged in, and dual boxing now and it is running at between 45 and 50 degrees.

At 10 minutes the whole thing froze.

Running an Antec 550 watt power source.

Dang it...was really enjoying playing, but re-logging every 10 minutes isnt fun

Thanks Yther;
That is what I was hoping for by putting the old card back. Hopefully it is one of the new Ram sticks, although that really isn't likely, is it?

Seriously, I am off to work. Thanks again for the help, and I'll add the update tonight.

Take this post to the tech forum! Lots of well informed folks there. The Blessed Kaolian may help you in your time of need.
OTOH it does sound like a defect of card/power cooling to me.

Run a Memory Test diag, like the MemTest86 I link previously. If it crashes while testing, try slowing down the RAM speed. You'll have to check your BIOS settings for that. And, if you're not sure how to do it, check your motherboard manufacturer's site, and RAM manufacturer's site about specs, and/or google setting BIOS RAM settings.

If it doesn't find any problems, and doesn't crash, then the RAM is probably ok, and it was just a fluke crash.

Once you've ruled out the RAM, make sure the old video card will works as it's suppose to. If not, there's probably some driver problems, that need to be addressed due to the switching of the cards. Once it appears the old video card is working fine, replace it with the new one again, and set it to it's minimalist settings in the driver, and in EQ, and see if it helps.

If it doesn't do anything different (i.e. still crashes after 10min, probably a problem on the video card. If you gain some time, but still crashes, try removing the side panel on the case, and see if that gets you even more time out of it. If so, it's a heat issue, and several ways to get around it. Get a better heat sink / fan for the video card .. get a slot fan .. get another case fan .. etc., or just send it back and get a cooler running video card.

EQ shouldn't really be that taxing on a video card of that caliber, and shouldn't be overheating, unless it was poorly designed or used under-rated cooling components (generally happens with 3rd party video cards to save money).

If you think it's worth keeping but still having trouble, try searching for alternate / older drivers, that have been reported by others to work well with EQ or similar games.

That's about as much as I can recommend. If you still can't narrow the problem down, I'd definitely try as Jonwin said and post on the EQ Tech forums, and maybe even the Nvidia (or the card's manufacturer's if not Nvidia) tech forums.

Hope you get it solved and working!

Yther Ore.