Another thing you should do before doing what I suggested above, is to go to the Display Properties of XP, click Advanced, click Troubleshoot and change the Hardware Acceleration value and enable/disable the "writer combining" option.

These are your last options really.

Eugenia:

Thanks for the info.

I checked...

"writer combining" on or off made no difference.

Acceleration did.

0 being No Acceleration and 6 being Full Acceleration, the max I can run with no issues is 3. As soon as I get to notch 4, the problem comes back.

This does not seem to be a real solution.

Having to run with tweaked settings, does this not all go back to the cause being a display driver?

Thanks again much for your help.

but never install ATI's own drivers and let XP handle them.

I'd say that's the WORST thing you can do. XP's ATI drivers suck. Really really bad.

i see this rarerly, and normally when the CPU's busy & the screen doesn't update on time. That's in every app on every video card I've seen. I had this happen in Vegas but I disabled theme support. Enable theme support & it stopped happening.

Odds are there's an issue with Adobe apps or your card, drivers, etc. are bad. Or there's an issue with the specific driver you're using & the apps. Try uninstalling the ATI drivers & re-installing. Then re-install DirectX. If you look, image 1 isn't OK, it's messed up @ the bottom of the screen, partly over the start bar & timeline.

I take it when this happens it stays? What happens if you minimize & restore? What version of the ATI drivers are you using? I'm using the latest with no issues like this.

Well...

After MUCH messing around with this, I was able to update the display driver (I could not invoke the MS Win XP Version; I am not in a position to completely uninstall Windows XP right now)), and I reinstalled the latest distributable of Direct X from the MS site...and I am still getting the initial issue. The display driver is 11 months newer than the old.

Also found a monitor update as well.

It (the ghosting issue) is better than it was. No question. It's still doing it a bit though.

Any other ideas?

The comment on image #1 not being OK, I see I missed that. You're right.

I could write more, but I am completely shot after all this... I have not had to battle with things like this (updating the diplay driver) for some years. It's NOT good to be back. :(

Thanks for any other ideas you all might have.

Update question: Is there a particularily good video card? I definitely want to stay mainstream. I know of ATI and NVIDIA. From what hear, NVIDIA has problems of their own. I'm sure not everyone has NVIDIA Videa issues though.

If I know a card was particularliy good/reliable/easy to update, I would buy it. Any info on this would be helpful. Thanks.

Is the hardware in your profile correct?

I see you have an AGP card. that could be the issue. From what I've read, the AGP's that have come out in the past couple years from ATI & Nvidia aren't that good overall. Just for fun, check to see if you have the latest version of the AGP driver for the MB (MB isn't listed in the specs in your profile).

but I have the ATI 3850 & am very happy with it. no issues at all. I've personally always used ATI cards (8500 LE, AIW 9600, x1950 Pro & now 3850) with a variety of CPU's (Pe 667, AMD XP 1800, AMD 64 3000, AMD X2 4200 & now AMD Phenon 9600) & never have had any issues people describe. I'm not one to keep my computer in "pristine condition" either, I install/uninstall crap all the time to test things out. :D It should also be noted that sometimes the people who sell the card (Diamond, BFG, etc) change things that could cause issues.

Just for the heck of it, here's the AC97 updates. I've had those fix issues with the vid card.

In your BIOS settings, there may be one called "AGP Aperture" or "AGP Shared Memory." Try setting that to something conservative like 64MB and see if it makes a difference. It made a difference with the same behavior as yours although I have a Nvidia.

>>Is the hardware in your profile correct?

Yes. I just added motherboard info under processor field. It's an Asus A8V Deluxe.

>>...AGP's that have come out in the past couple years from ATI & Nvidia aren't that good...

I got this motherboard a few years ago in, I believe, 2004.

>>...latest version of the AGP driver...

I checked for this and I could find nothing for this motherboard that mentioned anything about an AGP driver. Is there possibly something else under which it could be listed?

>>...ATI 3850 & am very happy with it...

Until now, that had been my story as well. I read of people having all sorts of problems, but it was always someone else. Never me. For what it's worth, I run a dual-boot system. All of the testing I have been doing for this ghosting issue has been on my pretty stripped-down disk/OS partition. All that is there are video editing apps. No firewall, no virus protection, nothing extra. Just the base OS and video editing apps (including Photoshop CS3).

>>...sometimes the people who sell the card (Diamond, BFG, etc) change things...

For what it's worth, this might have been a Diamond-as-the-vendor case. It says that it uses ATI drivers though. Also, the ATI site does list my model #.

>>...here's the AC97 updates...

I will take a look when I get home. I do believe I have AC97 hardware on my motherboard.

>>...settings, there may be one called "AGP Aperture" or "AGP Shared Memory.

I will definitely take a look. I left all BIOS settings at default.

As I stated, setting the acceleration down a few notches does make the issue entirely go away. By virtue of the fact that video acceleration affects this issue, does that tend to point to an area in particular? I mean, sure, we're looking at the display adapter. Just wondered if this fact indicates anything more specific.

Thank you all so much for your help thus far.

Edit: As per the motherboard manual, I do see a reference to "AGP Aperture". As per the screen shot, it looks like the default is 64 MB. I will check it though. Also, I see that the VIA 4 in 1 drivers cover the AGP driver. I will also check this. Thanks!!

I had an Asus A8V Deluxe too! Nice little mb imho. :D Never had this issue though. I had the 9600 & 1950 in that MB too with no issues.
You can use the ATI drivers with the diamond cards. no issues there. But the AGP drivers for recent (post 2005-ish) haven't been as good.

>>...I had an Asus A8V Deluxe too! ...

That being the case, as per:

http://home.comcast.net/~kentwolf/Image04.JPG

...would you happen to know what this unknown PCI device might be? It appeared when I installed my current ATI display card. I could not for anything determine what it was. That being the case, I disabled it.

Any idea?

Thanks!

* 2nd video out
* audio for HDMI out
* capture part (if you can do inputs)
* something on MB enabled when card put in

the ATI drivers normally don't leave blanks. could be something that shared an IRQ that got it changed & now it needs to be re-installed. Check out it's IRQ/Slot settings & compare that to the booting screen the MB puts up on startup when it says "hit ESC to boot".

>>Check out it's IRQ/Slot settings

How/where would I do this?

>>compare that to the booting screen the MB puts
>>up on startup when it says "hit ESC to boot"...

I am not clear on this. Could you clarify, please?

Thanks.

question: does your vid card support HDMI out? mine does (3850) and there's an audio device that (for some reason) didn't auto-install. I told it to re-install the drivers via double clicking on the ? in the device manager & clicking "re-install" & letting it check the 'net. that worked. did you try that?

>>...does your vid card support HDMI out?

Yes.

I tried the searching the net for a driver deal some time ago. I just retried it, but nothing. Says it can't find anything for it. It's not that big a deal. I will pursue this later. I have projects due.

I think I might have the most updated PC on the planet with regard to drivers. I finally got a good methodlogy down for updating the display driver, now I can do it is just a couple minutes. I updated everything for my motherboard. I used that DriverAgent.com and it was a huge, huge help. All, except for the one question mark in device manager is up-to-date. All settings are set nicely and all works super...except for my original issue: The After Effects CS3 interface. If I bump the acceleration from 6 (full) down to 3, there is no more ghosting in the AE interface. If it's at 4, the AE ghosting issue returns. At the full 6, every single other app on my PC, and I have a lot of them, works flawlessly. I seriously think this is no longer in the ATI realm. I even install the ATI Catalyst software (later uninstalled), and tested every thing that could be tested. All indicated OK. I have spent over 30 hours on this. This is ridiculous. I will take a look at the BIOS, but I have all set where I want it and am now going to back up my dual-boot partitions. Before tweaking the BIOS, I have to consider the testimony of all of my other apps working great against the one anomaly. Even Boris Red 4, which is a pretty intense app, depending on what you're doing, works super. I'm one of those people that, if I know one little thing isn't right, it really bugs me. I guess I will just have to be bugged. I was pretty close to going out and getting another video card, but I reallty don't think it would have helped. I had this same AE issue with my Radeon 7200 (that's why I upgraded it); a very tried and true card, in my opinion. Worked great. Never a problem.

When all else works perfectly and I am having issues with just one (1) app interface, I am very prone to chalk it up to the app. I might also add that Premiere Pro, which I have never used even once, also has the same interface ghosting issue. The interfaces look very similar to begin with. I have no doubt that the issue causes, whatever they are, are identical. I tried doing various app interface tweaks, XP theme adjustments, etc, etc, etc. I still have the issue with the AE interface. I even disabled all AGP benefits, even turned it down to 1 X rather than 8X. The issue remains. Again, I have not one single issue anywhere else on my PC. I wonder if Pinnacle didn't help Adobe on their interface.

Enough.

Just reminds me why I like Vegas so much.

Until a fix is issued, I will just turn down the acceleration to 3 when using AE. I will later pursue the Adobe forums, just as a matter of principle. I doubt I am the only one with this.

I thank you all very much for your help. All was not in vain. I did get a lot of updates done that needed doing.

Thanks very, very much!

I have a NVIDIA GeForce 7500LE video card and I'm wanting to update to a card with dual DVI outputs. I primarily use my computer for Vegas Pro 8, and Photoshop Elements. The 7500 works fine but my second monitor is connected via VGA and I want another DVI. I have been considering the BFG GeForce 8600GT, and the Visiontek Radeon X1650 PRO. Any other opinions or suggestions? I don't know if it matters but I have an Intel Quad-Core processer with Vista.