Nvidia 400mx rock solid with pre-WINXP service pack 2 versions and older Nvidia drivers - by older I mean up until a few months .
Now the Nvidia 6800 as I said which I recently got works OK with HalfLife2 as far as I know (only at the beginning) and screensavers are normal - the WIN XP builtin ones. But the new Spongebob Squarepants the Movie Game is totally erratic. Sometimes it craps out totally kicking out of the exe file leaving garbage all over the screen. Other times it runs but craps out during the cutscenes. Also has blinking black rectanges sometimes on the screen.However the captions in the game are OK when it works. Other times it can get through the game but has those blinking bars and weirdness.
The Nvidia 420mx actually - which worked fine before on an older VIA K7X333R board with the WINXP service pack2 and other updates now has different weirdness too. It has the caption problem which I thought I got rid of in Sponge BOb - 80% of long captions are gone. Only the end of the sentences are visible. Additionally - I noticed the first two screen savers are weird. The 3d Flower Box - totally blank, just a black screen The 3D flying objects shows a floating logo but its all white No details or colors.
The strange thing is the other screen savers work. The other strange thing is they work with the 6800 and Asus nforce2 board.
Just overall little weird things in both. I first suspected my 420mx - maybe it was crapping out. I reintalled another copy of WINXP with service pack 2. Same problems. So then I hooked up an old HD I had laying around with an old WIN XP - pre service pack 1 and I have no screen saver problems. Havent retested Sponge bob yet but since I had two fresh new WIN XP service pack2 installs on this machine with the same problem that didnt exist with the old WIN XP - I strongly suspect that the new Direct X , or Nvidia drivers or something in service pack 2 is screwing up the old 420mx graphics. Not sure if I can generalize to ALL 400mx and other cards though.
However I am having problems ALSO with the 6800 so if thats caused by the service Pack 2/Direct X 9c/newest nvidia drivers then theres a much bigger problem. Though with the 6800 the screensaver works , its mainly a Spongebob only (so far ) problem. So maybe the new stuff works with most stuff and youll just have to write off some kids games with the 6800 who knows. Or maybe its a much bigger problem that needs a fix.
John@Smith.com 17 December 2004 14:20:06 [ permanent link ]
On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:45:03 GMT, "John@Smith.com" <xxxxspud@newscene.com> wrote:
Did another test.
To recap -
My formerly rock stable 420mx nvidia card on an old VIA 333 system turned really flakey with a new install of WIN XP PRO SP2 + new NVIDIA drivers. My 6800 is also a bit flakey but in different ways.
Went back to the old WIN XP PRO installation on an ancient HD i had laying around and all was well with the 420mx .
Tested Sponge Bob the movie and the screensaver - everything worked perfectly. Even Polar Express - the game was having weird problems with the post WINXP SP2 + nvidia drivers new setup.
So I decided to add one new thing at a time. The first thing I added to the old WIN XP PRO setup was the new NVIDIA Drivers and that did it. It messed up Sponge Bob and the built in WIN XP PRO screen saver - the first two choices only.
Now I have to determine how far back I have to go with the drivers. The funny thing is I tried doing that uninstalling and then installing some older NVIDIA drivers that came with the 6800 card last night but it was still screwed up. Not sure if it didnt clean everything out or if I didnt go back far enough with driver versions.
As far as my 420 mx card - its defintely the Nvidia drivers. Not sure if my 6800 though can use really old Nvidia drivers. Might have to wait for newer drivers for that card.
John@Smith.com 17 December 2004 16:29:53 [ permanent link ]
On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:45:03 GMT, "John@Smith.com" <xxxxspud@newscene.com> wrote:
Another update.
The 420mx works fine now with driver 61.xxx.
My 6800 however has problems. Maybe its geared towards current games since HalfLife 2 seems OK and DOOM. But SpongeBOB is a mess . Crashes all over the place. Ive tried 61.xxxx. ,66.93, 67.22
May try 70.xxx beta.
Seems like theres still a lot of bugs with the 6800 and drivers. The maddening thing is thats a NEW game. Its not like Jimmy Neutron & ATIs where older games couldnt play.
I hope its not a case where you cant play a wide segment of games like childrens games on your PC if you have a 6800. Tried doing a search but I dont think a lot of 6800 owners play kids games. Ive got a nephew who is Sponge Bob crazy and Jimmy Neutron crazy. Sure I can use my other PC but Id like to have the option of using this one too.
Im going to test Polar Express and other games on this .
If anyone has any info on the 6800 and incompatible games - Id like to hear it. They do list various problems with the new beta drivers and aspects of various games but they are working on those problems. Im mainly talking about total crashes and just not being able to run period.
On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:20:06 GMT, "John@Smith.com" <xxxxspud@newscene.com> wrote:
On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:45:03 GMT, "John@Smith.com"><xxxxspud@newscene.com> wrote:>
Did another test. >
To recap - >
My formerly rock stable 420mx nvidia card on an old VIA 333 system>turned really flakey with a new install of WIN XP PRO SP2 + new NVIDIA>drivers. My 6800 is also a bit flakey but in different ways.>
Went back to the old WIN XP PRO installation on an ancient HD i had>laying around and all was well with the 420mx . >
Tested Sponge Bob the movie and the screensaver - everything worked>perfectly. Even Polar Express - the game was having weird problems>with the post WINXP SP2 + nvidia drivers new setup. >
So I decided to add one new thing at a time. The first thing I added>to the old WIN XP PRO setup was the new NVIDIA Drivers and that did>it. It messed up Sponge Bob and the built in WIN XP PRO screen saver ->the first two choices only. >
Now I have to determine how far back I have to go with the drivers.>The funny thing is I tried doing that uninstalling and then installing>some older NVIDIA drivers that came with the 6800 card last night but>it was still screwed up. Not sure if it didnt clean everything out or>if I didnt go back far enough with driver versions. >
As far as my 420 mx card - its defintely the Nvidia drivers.>Not sure if my 6800 though can use really old Nvidia drivers. Might>have to wait for newer drivers for that card. >
I would've also suspected drivers or the games themselves, though now it seems to be drivers. Which drivers are working vs. failed so far?
John@Smith.com 17 December 2004 17:11:21 [ permanent link ]
On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:02:24 GMT, kony <spam@spam.com> wrote:
I would've also suspected drivers or the games themselves,>though now it seems to be drivers. Which drivers are>working vs. failed so far?
Well I covered it in the next post but I was really going nuts last night cause I had several other unrelated problems so I started getting paranoid that maybe ALL my systems were getting corrupted by something bizarre. I actually ran memtest for several hours on both and rechecked all the cables etc. A real hassle.
61.xxxxx defintely works with the 420mx now so Im relieved. Possibly anything before 67.xxxx but I cant be sure since I dont have all those drivers.
However as I mentioned in the other post Ive got a whole other set of problems with the 6800. I think it might just be too new a card though its been out for a while now. Im going to test a bunch of kids games since thats where it seems to be having the big problems and the current top games. I just want to be sure its not a PNY issue (my card) vs a 6800 driver in general issue. Cause then I can send it back or take it back to Compusa.
