Damaged 3D chip?!

My DC has recently started going all screwy on intensive 3D games. Some such as The Grinch and 102 Dalmatians seem okay, but stuff like Crazy Taxi and Capcom Vs SNK 2 are all messed up. All games are originals, before anyone asks.

I suspect it is to do with a faulty PowerVR chip, or messed up video ram, as homebrew 2D stuff and King Of Fighters games (which probably don't make use of it) are fine.

Anyone encounter such a problem, or more importantly know how to repair such a problem.

Not hopefull that there is a fix, but if anyone could it would be you guys.

You are using backups or you have purchased games that are PAL and are 60htz and wont work on a 50htz TV i know it sucks but its something you have to deal with and dont mention anything about backups cause its illegal

You could check if the PowerVR chip is cooled down correctly.

"All games are originals, before anyone asks."

No, I am not using 'backups'. Only Capcom Vs SNK 2 is foreign.

Tested games worked before. It is not a PAL/NTSC issue.

As I siad, I suspect the graphics hardware has become damaged in some way. Anyone else offer any insights?

And its spelt Hz eric. gottaluvdc dont worry about eric, he doesnt read posts and then posts about them anyway. Have you tried the games in another DC? in SNK vs. Cap is it just the background distorting, or is it the characters as well?

It's as if only certain aspects of it are distorted/glitched. Like a certain 3D effect used, that is malfunctioning. In CVS2 backgrounds and characters are distorted, but in KOF it runs fine, maybe because KOF doesn't utilise a certain aspect of the video chip.

I suspect the DC has overheated and permanently damaged something. However, I'm not sure why it has overheated. It is placed on a flat hard surface (no carpets) and is free from anything else 3 inches around it.

The error now occurs straight away from a cold boot, before anything even gets a chance of overheating. Even the initial boot up screen kinda wobbles now.

I've now discovered that a few other games work with no graphical glitches, such as San Francisco Rush, Hydro Thunder and Army Men. But, also a lot do not work, too many to list.

Looks like it's time to get another one. Just hope this is a rare occurance as looking on the forums, it doesn't seem like a common fault.

Have you ever played a game on your pc thats badly coded and the graphics RAM fills, it sounds a lot like that. Methinks, from your description there is something wrong with the graphics ram on the DC board.

about your best bet would be to buy a new dreamcast, i think :-/ that is an interesting problem though and i've never heard of that happening before...... fortunately, though, dreamcast systems are pretty cheap these days, check out ebay. At least in the USA, they should run like...maybe 50 USD or so at tops for the system alone.

[quote author=Eric link=board=hardware;num=1103468227;start=0#1 date=12/19/04 at 11:30:01]You are using backups or you have purchased games that are PAL and are 60htz and wont work on a 50htz TV i know it sucks but its something you have to deal with and dont mention anything about backups cause its illegal[/quote]Putting a PAL game into an NTSC DC will not damage it, and how can you just accuse the man of using backups? Not like backups would cause that kind of damage anyway, but regardless, he even stated to the contrary.

Thanx for all your comments anyhow people.

At least it's not a complete waste of a system. It can afterall still play NesterDC and Smeg games just fine.

At any point have you pulled the videolead out of the back when the system was on?

This doesn't sound like an analog video error related to the A/V out on the console.

It sounds like was said, a damaged hardware component. All I can suggest is that you buy another, sorry :(

Also taking the machine apart, cleaning things up, and putting it back together could always work. It's a long shot, but worth it.

FYI I also had some odd 3D problems - in Jet Set Radio, transparent areas of sprites wouldn't render properly so all of the trees had big green boxes around them. The problem fixed itself.

This topic was pretty much concluded. Why start it again?

Hi dudes:

I have the same problem than gottaluvdc ( post #1 ) with the PowerVu Chip...

My console show distorted/glitched with 3D effects, it is malfunctioning. backgrounds and characters are distorted.

The error occurs straight away from a cold boot too :confused:

It do not works without CD in, just memory card is inserted...

Thanks in advanced.

Can you describe how exactly the games are messed up? Is it like faulty extrapolation, artifacting, warping, or what? I can diagnose the problem if more data is present.