Hardware & Technical ED ate my GPU...

[Chernabog]

Indeed, my aging Gainward GTX 460 (Golden Sample), that has doggedly allowed me to play ED (including Horizons) as well as many other games has died, it is no more, it is kaput.

I was wondering why it was taking rather longer than usual for the shader test on startup, but all seemed to be fine until I started up in solo saw my cockpit and got that worrying buzzing sound + graphical glitches + total lock up.

Just a glitch thought I and swiftly rebooted ... windows logo appears ... BSOD.

Hmmm ... Reboot again ... BSOD

At this point I am becoming slight concerned, especially as I still have to finish off a presentation for tuesday afternoon, which of course is all stored on this pc (sods law is at work here thinks I). So I tried safe mode and that worked fine (a suprise, plus a glimer of hope and a quick saving of all the presentation materials to a USB stick). Perhaps its the Exper overclocking tool (now I know what you are thinking but its mild overclocking, in fact overclocking to the specifications of the said Gainward GS), so I disabled the tool and tried another reboot ... BSOD



Still, raided the wifes PC and stole her (or rather my) even older ATI 3850 (HD!) so at least I can use my PC, finish off my presentation and write this little eulogy.

Question is what new GPU (or rather 2nd hand ebay cast off, as I am totally skint) should I purchase? It needs to be a bit better than the GTX460 preferably, but as I am running a Q6600 on a P35-DS3R with 8 GB DDR2 (decent Antec 650W PSU mind) there is not much point in anything too new or shiny ... any suggestions out there for an Nvidia replacement (I need to use CUDA) that will run ED nicely on a little 1366x768 display?

C.

 

[MickyG1982]

A GTX 750 is around £100 new and a little more powerful than a 460.

If your budget can extend to it GTX 950's are around the £130 mark or better yet a 960 for 20 quid more.

Ebay specials will be cheaper however & you will need at least a 2gb card.

 

[hems303]

Get yourself a nice ageing GTX760...mine, although a 4GB not a 2GB mem GPU; runs ED Horizons at warp speed with no issues (Graphically speaking). You don't say where in the world you are, but in UK £'s there are 2GB versions such as EVGA going for as low as £30 on eBlob or some such e-auction site! Best of luck CMDR! o7

 

[jmp470]

The real question is: Did it taste like chicken?

 

[nosleepdemon]

Anything up to and including the GTX 950 is reasonably priced imo. I had a lot of trouble figuring out bang vs buck in the sub $250 CAD range, but eventually settled on a 950 from NCIX that came to around $220 including tax and shipping. Whatever you get, you will want at least 2gb of memory which Im sure you will know already, but just in case. I've heard good things about the 700 series from people posting on these forums, so for a super slim budget, I would cast my vote at that.

 

[Grumpy181155]

my GPU has died, it is no more, it is kaput.

It is an ex GPU; it has passed on; it is no more; it has ceased to be; it has expired and gone to meet its maker; bereft of life it rests in peace; it has shuffled of this mortal coil and joined the choir invisible.
It is time to get a replacement and best of luck there.

 

[Pyrebird]

I ran a GTX560 on this game and it ran at max graphics.
I've since upgraded to a 960, and it works better. It was likely the part just getting old that caused it to fail (my father's 560 died shortly after I got my 960, so I gave him my old GPU. it was unrelated to gaming) But in all seriousness, I'd suggest a 960-970 (if you want to splurge, go 970) as I got my 960 for about 200$, and it won't be out of date for a good 5 years.
If you want to go the route of the 560, then they're usually around 50$ which isn't bad, considering it still runs most modern games at pretty good settings. But if you want to expand to other games than Elite Dangerous, then I'd suggest a newer model of GPU. Set aside 50$ a month out of your paycheck and in 4-5 months you can get a pretty good GPU. It only took me a couple months to scrounge up the cash to upgrade, and I'm a lazy highschooler. As long as you're not looking at a 970, 80, TitanX or TitanZ you should have no problem purchasing one for under 200$. And that's all assuming you're in the tanking Canadian economy where I purchased my GPU, if you're American then a 960 will be closer to 160$ to buy, completely unused.
Hope this helps, and I don't use AMD cards, I don't like them and that is why I didn't mention any.

 

[GammaZ]

For me 2Gb version of GTX750 worked just fine. Great performence in space (i mean 60FPS vsync locked) using 1920*1080 screen, not so great in stations (~40FPS) and on planets (~20-30FPS), but with old system like you have (and mine is similar - PhenomII 955, 8Gb DDR2) i doubt that using better GPU will help that much.
Also GTX750 turned out to be very funny card, very small one with tiny "just a piece of aluminium" heatsink, a single fan, no external power connector and GPU temperature maxed out at 50C with 100% load...

 

[Weps]

Interesting story.

The exact same thing happened to my Gigabyte GTX460 a couple of weeks ago. I was playing CQC when all of a sudden the comp froze and after restarting it, I started getting a lot of "nvidia driver has stopped working and has recovered" messages. After a lot of driver reinstalls and a Windows reinstall I started getting BSODs too.

Could it be that E : D hates GTX 460s?

In any case, I have to see if I can get mine repaired, I'm not satisfied with the current selection of cards on the market and I'm waiting to see what new stuff will appear in a couple of months.

 

[Pyrebird]

Interesting story.

The exact same thing happened to my Gigabyte GTX460 a couple of weeks ago. I was playing CQC when all of a sudden the comp froze and after restarting it, I started getting a lot of "nvidia driver has stopped working and has recovered" messages. After a lot of driver reinstalls and a Windows reinstall I started getting BSODs too.

Could it be that E : D hates GTX 460s?

In any case, I have to see if I can get mine repaired, I'm not satisfied with the current selection of cards on the market and I'm waiting to see what new stuff will appear in a couple of months.

Any new stuff that's coming in the next months will be in the thousands if you're looking at the new things. As for older cards seriously look at my post above because my 6 year old 560 is still running a gaming machine so I'd recommend that if you're going with a budget PC. 50$ new on Ebay.

 

[Chernabog]

Thanks for all the advice guys, sbdags sorted me out with his old GTX 760, which is now humming along nicely in my ancient rig!

 

[sbdags]

Thanks for all the advice guys, sbdags sorted me out with his old GTX 760, which is now humming along nicely in my ancient rig!

Glad to be of service!

I love this community and any little thing we can do for each other is a great thing.

Enjoy the card and try not to burn this one out

Darren