Best driver for Geforce 2 GTS/PRO
 

To provide a gauge or timeline for this message I'd like to start off
by saying that the most current driver I can download from Nvidia today
is 77.77 for 2000/XP and 77.72 for 9x/ME. I am running a Geforce 2 GTS
64Mb card (bios 3.15.01.02) on an MSI K7T lite with dual-boot Windows
98 SE and Windows XP SP2 and DirectX 9.0c. The computer is an Athlon
900Mhz; with 3.5Ghz processors out today you can certainly say that
this is a low-end gaming computer. As a result I am playing classic
games on it: Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, High Stakes, Porsche
Unleashed, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D, Shadows of the Empire, Battle
for Naboo, and Episode 1 Racer. All of these games had a common
problem with the Nvidia 75 series drivers, they either displayed no
graphics or had missing 3D objects.

An example of this is Porsche Unleashed. In Win98 there was no text on
the menu screens so the game was unplayable. In WinXP there was menu
text but I could only see the doors and hood on the cars. While racing
I could see the sky and mountains but there was no road. It was as if
half of the 3D objects weren't being rendered. This same problem
showed up in every game mentioned, some graphics were missing or there
were none at all. With Episode One Racer I could see just the horizon
and my HUD, nothing else showed up on the screen.

After trying numerous drivers from the Nvidia archive I can report that
using any driver beyond the 50 series does not work on older DX6/DX7
and possibly DX8 games. Currently I am using revision 56.64 in Win98
and 56.72 in WinXP. This caused me quite some frustration so I hope
the information is useful to others.

44.67 is compatible with modern games and ran good on my ti4400.
But i really liked the 41.09 because they gave the best results,but not so
compatible with new games.
For my gf2 GTS card i prefer the 30.82
Runs most older games and good image/performance on that card.
Steer clear from any 5x.xx driver,it will only slow down your card.
As a side note i like to add that i tested them all upto the late 6x.xx
series.
However the 2 drivers i recommended are regarded as good drivers by the
community at that time.
The ti4400 runs in a xp2400 pc and the gf2 runs in a pIII@800mhz.

"noabody" schreef in bericht
oups.com...
To provide a gauge or timeline for this message I'd like to start off
by saying that the most current driver I can download from Nvidia today
is 77.77 for 2000/XP and 77.72 for 9x/ME. I am running a Geforce 2 GTS
64Mb card (bios 3.15.01.02) on an MSI K7T lite with dual-boot Windows
98 SE and Windows XP SP2 and DirectX 9.0c. The computer is an Athlon
900Mhz; with 3.5Ghz processors out today you can certainly say that
this is a low-end gaming computer. As a result I am playing classic
games on it: Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, High Stakes, Porsche
Unleashed, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D, Shadows of the Empire, Battle
for Naboo, and Episode 1 Racer. All of these games had a common
problem with the Nvidia 75 series drivers, they either displayed no
graphics or had missing 3D objects.

An example of this is Porsche Unleashed. In Win98 there was no text on
the menu screens so the game was unplayable. In WinXP there was menu
text but I could only see the doors and hood on the cars. While racing
I could see the sky and mountains but there was no road. It was as if
half of the 3D objects weren't being rendered. This same problem
showed up in every game mentioned, some graphics were missing or there
were none at all. With Episode One Racer I could see just the horizon
and my HUD, nothing else showed up on the screen.

After trying numerous drivers from the Nvidia archive I can report that
using any driver beyond the 50 series does not work on older DX6/DX7
and possibly DX8 games. Currently I am using revision 56.64 in Win98
and 56.72 in WinXP. This caused me quite some frustration so I hope
the information is useful to others.

With patience akin to a cat's, noabody, on 8/25/05 1:32 PM typed:
After trying numerous drivers from the Nvidia archive I can report that
using any driver beyond the 50 series does not work on older DX6/DX7
and possibly DX8 games. Currently I am using revision 56.64 in Win98
and 56.72 in WinXP. This caused me quite some frustration so I hope
the information is useful to others.

I've received similar problems on my system, with an older CPU (AMD
Athlon 700) and a GeForce 2 GTS/PRO (forget the brand--it's been a while)
running Win 98SE.

One of my favorite older games is Drakan: Order of the Flame, and
although the game ran okay with the 71.84 drivers, it caused a pixel shift
that put the graphics and text just slightly out of focus, making it impossible
to look at for any length of time. The 6x.xx drivers caused any DirectX 3D
graphics to be shifted to right, half-way off the screen, making them positively
unusable. I'm currently running the 56.64 drivers with success, only seeing a
minor corruption of the ruler numerals in MS Word, which is tolerable at my end.

As stated in the nVidia FAQ/Knowledge Base: "The general rule of thumb
for graphic card display drivers is 'if it ain't broken, don't fix it.' When we
release a new product, over time, we learn more about the architecture, and are
able to gain better performance from this architecture through our updated
ForcewareTM unified display drivers. As a product matures, driver updates
mainly provide bug fixes and compatibility with newer software.
"If your NVIDIA based graphics card is a newer model, it is recommended
that you update your graphic card drivers regularly to get the best performance
and experience from your PC. If your NVIDIA based graphics card is an older
model, then we suggest you update your drivers only if you are experiencing
instability problems while running newer software on your PC."


Purrs --
--
/\ /\ | "Everything that moves serves to
^o o^ D.K. "Cat" Kraft | interest and amuse a cat."
-T- |
~ Lynnwood, WA | -- Francois-Augstin Paradis de Moncrif
___oOO___OOo___ | (1687-1770)

When I had a Geforce3, I recall an option in Rivatuner for "alternate pixel
origin" or something to that effect. Never needed it myself, but apparently
it was for proper text display in Unreal for TNT2 cards.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"D. K. Kraft" wrote in message
...
I've received similar problems on my system, with an older CPU (AMD
Athlon 700) and a GeForce 2 GTS/PRO (forget the brand--it's been a while)
running Win 98SE.

One of my favorite older games is Drakan: Order of the Flame, and
although the game ran okay with the 71.84 drivers, it caused a pixel shift
that put the graphics and text just slightly out of focus, making it
impossible
to look at for any length of time. The 6x.xx drivers caused any DirectX
3D
graphics to be shifted to right, half-way off the screen, making them
positively
unusable. I'm currently running the 56.64 drivers with success, only
seeing a
minor corruption of the ruler numerals in MS Word, which is tolerable at
my end.

As stated in the nVidia FAQ/Knowledge Base: "The general rule of thumb
for graphic card display drivers is 'if it ain't broken, don't fix it.'
When we
release a new product, over time, we learn more about the architecture,
and are
able to gain better performance from this architecture through our updated
ForcewareTM unified display drivers. As a product matures, driver updates
mainly provide bug fixes and compatibility with newer software.
"If your NVIDIA based graphics card is a newer model, it is recommended
that you update your graphic card drivers regularly to get the best
performance
and experience from your PC. If your NVIDIA based graphics card is an
older
model, then we suggest you update your drivers only if you are
experiencing
instability problems while running newer software on your PC."

On 25 Aug 2005 13:32:10 -0700, "noabody" wrote:

To provide a gauge or timeline for this message I'd like to start off
by saying that the most current driver I can download from Nvidia today
is 77.77 for 2000/XP and 77.72 for 9x/ME. I am running a Geforce 2 GTS
64Mb card (bios 3.15.01.02) on an MSI K7T lite with dual-boot Windows
98 SE and Windows XP SP2 and DirectX 9.0c. The computer is an Athlon
900Mhz; with 3.5Ghz processors out today you can certainly say that
this is a low-end gaming computer. As a result I am playing classic
games on it: Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, High Stakes, Porsche
Unleashed, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D, Shadows of the Empire, Battle
for Naboo, and Episode 1 Racer. All of these games had a common
problem with the Nvidia 75 series drivers, they either displayed no
graphics or had missing 3D objects.

An example of this is Porsche Unleashed. In Win98 there was no text on
the menu screens so the game was unplayable. In WinXP there was menu
text but I could only see the doors and hood on the cars. While racing
I could see the sky and mountains but there was no road. It was as if
half of the 3D objects weren't being rendered. This same problem
showed up in every game mentioned, some graphics were missing or there
were none at all. With Episode One Racer I could see just the horizon
and my HUD, nothing else showed up on the screen.

After trying numerous drivers from the Nvidia archive I can report that
using any driver beyond the 50 series does not work on older DX6/DX7
and possibly DX8 games. Currently I am using revision 56.64 in Win98
and 56.72 in WinXP. This caused me quite some frustration so I hope
the information is useful to others.


I'm not sure what driver revisions stopped supporting the GF2
GTS/Pro/Ti chips. Only the GF2 MX versions are supported in newer
drivers. Why Nvidia would keep support of the lesser GF2 MX, and dump
the more powerful GTS/Pro/Ti is beyond me.

71.84 for Win9x and 71.89 for Win2K/XP were the last ones to support the
TNT2 and Geforce1/2 cards.

The reason Geforce2 MX is still included in the latest drivers is a strong
[past] OEM presence. Dell and HP/Compaq sold a lot of machines with the MX
installed. Understandably those OEMs would like nVidia to supply them with
one driver to support all their systems old and new.

Remember, pay them enough or buy sufficient volume, anything is possible.
The Sultan of Brunei had a few custom Ferrari 550 wagons made just for him.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Larry Roberts" wrote in message
...
I'm not sure what driver revisions stopped supporting the GF2
GTS/Pro/Ti chips. Only the GF2 MX versions are supported in newer
drivers. Why Nvidia would keep support of the lesser GF2 MX, and dump
the more powerful GTS/Pro/Ti is beyond me.

I now only use driver from my card manufacture webpage not Nvidia.com. It
is safer to use this since they test the drivers and Nvidia has been
releasing some poor drivers that are VERY buggy. That will save you a lot
of headaches in the end.

"noabody" wrote in message
oups.com...
To provide a gauge or timeline for this message I'd like to start off
by saying that the most current driver I can download from Nvidia today
is 77.77 for 2000/XP and 77.72 for 9x/ME. I am running a Geforce 2 GTS
64Mb card (bios 3.15.01.02) on an MSI K7T lite with dual-boot Windows
98 SE and Windows XP SP2 and DirectX 9.0c. The computer is an Athlon
900Mhz; with 3.5Ghz processors out today you can certainly say that
this is a low-end gaming computer. As a result I am playing classic
games on it: Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, High Stakes, Porsche
Unleashed, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D, Shadows of the Empire, Battle
for Naboo, and Episode 1 Racer. All of these games had a common
problem with the Nvidia 75 series drivers, they either displayed no
graphics or had missing 3D objects.

An example of this is Porsche Unleashed. In Win98 there was no text on
the menu screens so the game was unplayable. In WinXP there was menu
text but I could only see the doors and hood on the cars. While racing
I could see the sky and mountains but there was no road. It was as if
half of the 3D objects weren't being rendered. This same problem
showed up in every game mentioned, some graphics were missing or there
were none at all. With Episode One Racer I could see just the horizon
and my HUD, nothing else showed up on the screen.

After trying numerous drivers from the Nvidia archive I can report that
using any driver beyond the 50 series does not work on older DX6/DX7
and possibly DX8 games. Currently I am using revision 56.64 in Win98
and 56.72 in WinXP. This caused me quite some frustration so I hope
the information is useful to others.

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 13:16:16 GMT, "Dromiz"
wrote:

I now only use driver from my card manufacture webpage not Nvidia.com. It
is safer to use this since they test the drivers and Nvidia has been
releasing some poor drivers that are VERY buggy. That will save you a lot
of headaches in the end.



Only problem is that unless you have the newest card released
by the manufacturer, the drivers are usally several versions old, and
some new games may require the newer drivers.

Oddly I was having some of these same problems on and Athlon XP 2800
running WinXP SP2 with an FX5200 video card. I encountered the same
symptoms running the Star Wars Games but the Need for Speed games were
fine. I rolled back to the 50 series drives on that machine and all is
well.

I have two more WinXP machines, an Athlon XP 2800 with a 6600GT and an
Athlon XP 1800 with a TI4200, both running the very newest 75 series
drivers. All of the games work fine on these two boxes. This begs the
question, what is wrong with the Geforce2 GTS and FX5200?

To me the problem seems to be bad z-buffer support; it's as if the 3D
objects are being rendered "behind" the camera. I'd like to know from
NVIDIA's standpoint if the fault lies in the game software or not.
It's as if NVIDIA knew about a DX6/DX7 programming issue and put
work-around code into the 50 series drivers, for these cards, but
pulled it in later revisions. Perhaps the work-around code is in the
video bios for the 6600GT and TI4200?

71.84 for Win9x and 71.89 for Win2K/XP were the last ones to support the
Geforce2 GTS/Pro. Have you tried those? You don't necessarily have to roll
all the way back to 50-series drivers.

In Rivatuner there were options to disable Z-buffer compression and forcing
the 24-bit Z-buffer (as opposed to 16-bit). Should also make sure the
W-buffer is enabled.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"noabody" wrote in message
oups.com...
Oddly I was having some of these same problems on and Athlon XP 2800
running WinXP SP2 with an FX5200 video card. I encountered the same
symptoms running the Star Wars Games but the Need for Speed games were
fine. I rolled back to the 50 series drives on that machine and all is
well.

I have two more WinXP machines, an Athlon XP 2800 with a 6600GT and an
Athlon XP 1800 with a TI4200, both running the very newest 75 series
drivers. All of the games work fine on these two boxes. This begs the
question, what is wrong with the Geforce2 GTS and FX5200?

To me the problem seems to be bad z-buffer support; it's as if the 3D
objects are being rendered "behind" the camera. I'd like to know from
NVIDIA's standpoint if the fault lies in the game software or not.
It's as if NVIDIA knew about a DX6/DX7 programming issue and put
work-around code into the 50 series drivers, for these cards, but
pulled it in later revisions. Perhaps the work-around code is in the
video bios for the 6600GT and TI4200?