Can you program Graphics with Visual Basic?

Graphics card problems >> need diagnostic program?

• Im looking for a program that will diagnose my graphics card for errors etc , not looking for just a benchmarking program EG: "3DMark" The card is a Chaintech GeForce 4 ti4800 with the latest drivers , latest direct x installed aswell.I have also tried older dirvers too. My problem is that it is now locking out on games that ran OK before.Games that this card has handled pretty well are COD2 , Farcry,F.E.A.R , among other modern titles. I play quake2 alot and the FPS i get in the quake test is as good as when the card was new ( 600 ish FPS), so basic 3d rendering seems not to be affected.The card is NOT overheating , I stripped it out and cleaned the heatsink and fan.So to re-cap ...I'm looking for a utility/program to diagnose my card and provide me with a report ( I do not wish to simply benchmark its performance) Many thanks in advance

• Answer:

  try this program http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/ Its basically a GPU stressing program which runs in a window. You can copy the files onto a CD and run it off that to try rule out the HDD Have you installed a program since you last played these games, it could be a reduntant DLL file. Press CTRL/ALT and Delete on a fresh boot up and see what programs and processes are running. The cards quite old, as i have the Geforce 4 Ti 4200 in my laptop and at 1024 x 768 (everything maxxed) FEAR, Far-Cry CoD 2 is choppy and you are only using DX 8.1 pixel shaders (compared to DX 9 which these games work and look better in).. My best advice is go for a newer card which would be either 256mb Geforce 6600 GT or the newer 256mb 7600 GT both cards are AGP and use full DX 9 shaders with the 7600 GT having a much higher clock / memory speed and memory bandwidth , infact the new 7600GT outperforms the 6800gs