Should I just get a new graphics card already?

I've been talking to Support a few times over the past few days, so I'm already following some advice there, but I thought I'd post here as well and see if anybody else is having a similar problem.

I have Windows XP, graphics card is Nvidia GeForce FX5200, the drivers I'm using are Forceware (I think) version 8.4.2.1, dated 3/9/06, downloaded from the Nvidia website. I upgraded to those drivers after the 1.10 update, because my previous ones couldn't support both the new lighting and ripple water. Everything was fine, no problems until about two days ago.

A couple of days ago I started having problems with freezing and crashing. The whole screen would freeze, I couldn't move at all, couldn't shut down the game, had to turn off power to reboot. I kept getting a blue screen after the crash, with an error message about a problem with my graphics drivers, and nv4_disp being caught in an endless loop.

At first it was messing up the display on my whole PC, but after talking to Dell support, I've gotten it down to where it's only SL that's affected... I can hardly play at all now. I put the graphics details at the lowest settings, removed and reinstalled SL already, tried a few other things.... still no luck. I'm still freezing up and crashing to the endless loop message. Also ran disk cleanup and a virus scan, just in case.

So, my question is, is anybody else having this happening? Could the problem be that my old card just can't handle it anymore? Should I start shopping around for something more powerful, and if so, what should I be looking for?

Thanks a bunch in advance for any advice, etc. anybody might have. This is so frustrating-- I want SL back!

It could be overheating, or even powersupply issue. I think the best question I should ask, do you want to upgrade? If you got some extra cash, now is a good time to upgrade that card. Have you tried a different video card first, just to see if it really was its fault for the crashes? I am assuming you are using an AGP version of the FX5200, would that be correct? Try cleaning out the dust in your computer first, it may be blocking the ventilation and overheating. If you have a fan on your video card, make sure its working, if its just a heatsink, make sure it doesn't have anything blocking the airflow to it. It is possiable that the card just went bad, but at the moment it doesn't seem like it since SL is the only thing that crashes the system with the nv4_disp error. SL can heat up a system quickly and is a great stress test.

It could be overheating, or even powersupply issue. I think the best question I should ask, do you want to upgrade? If you got some extra cash, now is a good time to upgrade that card. Have you tried a different video card first, just to see if it really was its fault for the crashes? I am assuming you are using an AGP version of the FX5200, would that be correct? Try cleaning out the dust in your computer first, it may be blocking the ventilation and overheating. If you have a fan on your video card, make sure its working, if its just a heatsink, make sure it doesn't have anything blocking the airflow to it. It is possiable that the card just went bad, but at the moment it doesn't seem like it since SL is the only thing that crashes the system with the nv4_disp error. SL can heat up a system quickly and is a great stress test.

The 5200 is pretty close to the minimum acceptable, but it shouldn't have a problem running SL at the minimum settings. It's better than the Radeon 9200 on my Mac mini.

It sounds like you've got a bad card.

As for a new card, the 6200 or 7300 would be a relatively cheap upgrade. The 6600 or 7600 are massively better. Don't bother with the 5600, if you find yourself offered a deal on one. It's better than the 5200 but has too many problems with the new shaders.

Thanks for the advice-- I would actually like to upgrade, just because I think I'm going to have to sooner or later.

I'm afraid I'm not technically-minded enough to know if my card is AGP or not-- although I hate admitting that. Can I check somewhere and find out? (Yeah, I know, I should be ashamed that I don't know!)

Already have cleaned all the dust out-- one of the first things that Dell tech support had me do was reseat my graphics card, which involved taking the cover off and getting inside. I cleaned a ton of dust out of everything when I was doing that.

I'm not surprised that the 5200 is close to the minimum acceptable; I've had it since I bought this system, which was maybe two years ago, or a bit more.

This card was working fine before the last major upgrade, so I'm thinking maybe you're right, maybe the current graphics are just too much for it-- maybe the card was going bad anyway, and this was just the last straw.

Thanks for the recommendations, think I'll start checking prices! (It's a pain sometimes to be addicted to SL, thanks goodness it's worth it!)