GeForce2 WinXP problem.

Dear All,
I wonder if anyone can help me. I upgraded my machine from
Win98SE to WinXP with SP1 recently. I own quite a few games and play
them quite often. All my games ran perfectly under Win98SE but now when
I play many of these games on XP many of the polygon surfaces of 3D
models within the game are missing completely and not being displayed
at all. As you can imagine this renders the games unplayable. This
occurs on Mediaeval: Total War, Mig Alley, Dark Reign 2, No One Lives
Forever 1 and 2 to name but a few.
The specs of my machine a

1GHz Athlon Thunderbird.
Asus A7V motherboard.
640Mb SDRAM (133Mhz)
DirectX 8.1 (b, I think!)
SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
GeForce2 MX400 32Mb (Made by Gullimot, if I remember correctly).

I've patched all the games and this hasn't solved any of the problems.
Neither does using Win98 compatability mode. All my drivers are up to
date and I've searched everywhere but can't find a mention of my
problem, let alone a solution. I've been tinkering with the idea of
changing my graphics card but don't want to do this if it is not a
problem with the card itself. Out of interest these games work fine on
my office machine running Win2000 with a GeForce2 MX200. Does anyone
have any ideas? I would be most grateful! Thanks very much in advance.

Best Wishes,
Gareth.

g-force wrote:

I wonder if anyone can help me. I upgraded my machine from
Win98SE to WinXP with SP1 recently.

What exactly do You mean with "upgrade"? Did You do an update
installation or a fresh install?

I own quite a few games and play
them quite often. All my games ran perfectly under Win98SE but now
when I play many of these games on XP many of the polygon surfaces of
3D models within the game are missing completely and not being
displayed at all. As you can imagine this renders the games
unplayable. This occurs on Mediaeval: Total War, Mig Alley, Dark
Reign 2, No One Lives Forever 1 and 2 to name but a few.

I haven't played the others but I can assure You that at least NOLF 1
and 2 ran perfectly with a GF2MX and Winxp...

The specs of my machine a

1GHz Athlon Thunderbird.
Asus A7V motherboard.
640Mb SDRAM (133Mhz)
DirectX 8.1 (b, I think!)
^^^^^^^^^^^

That's not good...

SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
GeForce2 MX400 32Mb (Made by Gullimot, if I remember correctly).

I've patched all the games and this hasn't solved any of the problems.
Neither does using Win98 compatability mode. All my drivers are up to
date

I really doubt that. Regarding Your description it seems Your software
is very outdated. First, You didn't say where You got Your drivers from.
I hope it's not from Asus or Guillemot but from the chipset
manufacturers (VIA, Nvidia). And if You really have DirectX 8.1 Your
problem is clear, because DirectX 9.0c is out for some time now, and all
current drivers expect to find Dx9 and not the outdated Dx8.1. So what
You should do:

- Check if Your mainboard has the latest BIOS (if not, do an update!)
- Do a fresh(!) install of Windowsxp (no update of a Win98 installaton)
- Install SP2 (yes, SP2, forget about SP1!) and the latest patches from
the Windows update site (You really don't want to use a Winows without
the latest fixes installed!!!). This also brings Your Windows to Dx9c!
- Get the latest drivers for the VIA KT133 chipset from www.viaarena.com
- Get the latest SB Live drivers from www.soundblaster.com
- Get the latest Nvidia Forceware drivers from www.nvidia.com

After that Your games should run fine...

and I've searched everywhere but can't find a mention of my
problem, let alone a solution. I've been tinkering with the idea of
changing my graphics card but don't want to do this if it is not a
problem with the card itself.

No, it's not the card. It's very likely that this is Your messed-up
installation...

Benjamin

It was a full install onto a clean HD.
BIOS is bang up to date.
All drivers are the newest possible from the correct chipset
manufacturers.
This is the third install I've done in an attempt to correct the
problem. I've done installs on many occasions of umteen OSes so I know
what I'm doing! I definately haven't screwed the install up.
I've tried the games with both SP1 and SP2 installed along with the
newest version of DirectX 9.0c. Still no luck, hence I reverted back to
8.1b. Conseqently I've had no luck in solving the problem. Hope this
clarifies things.

Gareth.

On 27 May 2005 02:32:13 -0700, "g-force"
wrote:


It was a full install onto a clean HD.
BIOS is bang up to date.
All drivers are the newest possible from the correct chipset
manufacturers.
This is the third install I've done in an attempt to correct the
problem. I've done installs on many occasions of umteen OSes so I know
what I'm doing! I definately haven't screwed the install up.
I've tried the games with both SP1 and SP2 installed along with the
newest version of DirectX 9.0c. Still no luck, hence I reverted back to
8.1b. Conseqently I've had no luck in solving the problem. Hope this
clarifies things.

Gareth.


If you did a clean, fresh format, and install of WinXP, and
all it's updates, and the systems drivers, it should be working. My
brother has a GF2 MX400 on WinXP SP2, and most games run fine. The
only ones that don't are games that won't run on WinXP no matter what
videocard you have. I have Mig Ally, and I was unable to play it
without applying some 3rd party fix, but it was a long while back, and
I don't remember what that fix was.
It's weird, because the problems you describe happen with me
if I ues Win98SE/ME with any DirectX version past 8.1, and newer
Nvidia drivers with any Nvidia card. That's on a fresh, clean format,
and install.

Dear All,
I wonder if anyone can help me. I upgraded my machine from
Win98SE to WinXP with SP1 recently. I own quite a few games and play
them quite often. All my games ran perfectly under Win98SE but now when
I play many of these games on XP many of the polygon surfaces of 3D
models within the game are missing completely and not being displayed
at all. As you can imagine this renders the games unplayable. This
occurs on Mediaeval: Total War, Mig Alley, Dark Reign 2, No One Lives
Forever 1 and 2 to name but a few.
The specs of my machine a

1GHz Athlon Thunderbird.
Asus A7V motherboard.
640Mb SDRAM (133Mhz)
DirectX 8.1 (b, I think!)
SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
GeForce2 MX400 32Mb (Made by Gullimot, if I remember correctly).

I've patched all the games and this hasn't solved any of the problems.
Neither does using Win98 compatability mode. All my drivers are up to
date and I've searched everywhere but can't find a mention of my
problem, let alone a solution. I've been tinkering with the idea of
changing my graphics card but don't want to do this if it is not a
problem with the card itself. Out of interest these games work fine on
my office machine running Win2000 with a GeForce2 MX200. Does anyone
have any ideas? I would be most grateful! Thanks very much in advance.

Best Wishes,
Gareth.

I would suggest that your video card drivers are *too* up to date. My
father-in-law had a similar problem with a GF4MX when he upgraded from 98 to
XP. Take a look at the Nvidia site and try the 30 & 40 series drivers. There
is much debate waged in forums as to which are thw best to use with your
card.

Lord Deckard.

"Lord Deckard" wrote in
message ...

I would suggest that your video card drivers are *too* up to date. My
father-in-law had a similar problem with a GF4MX when he upgraded from 98
to XP. Take a look at the Nvidia site and try the 30 & 40 series drivers.
There is much debate waged in forums as to which are thw best to use with
your card.

Lord Deckard.

Where's DaveW when we need him and his canned responce? But seriously.
This is truly the only reason to use old drivers. That is when playing old
games.

DaveL

These service packs seem to be the culprit AFAICT

I do a lot of builds and I have found many strange problems when trying to
fresh install video drivers which already have sp1 or 2 applied.

When I do a clean install of ordinary xp and THEN do the drivers for the vga
BEFORE installing sp1 or 2 everything works fine!

In fact recently I tried to install the drivers for a ti4200 made by asus
and it kept telling me there was no asus hardware installed..........this is
just one of many examples!

Did you install a disc which was slipstreamed with sp1 or was it a MS xp
with Sp1?

Can you try it by the method above or dont you have an ord xp with no sp`s?


"g-force" wrote in message
oups.com...
Dear All,
I wonder if anyone can help me. I upgraded my machine from
Win98SE to WinXP with SP1 recently. I own quite a few games and play
them quite often. All my games ran perfectly under Win98SE but now when
I play many of these games on XP many of the polygon surfaces of 3D
models within the game are missing completely and not being displayed
at all. As you can imagine this renders the games unplayable. This
occurs on Mediaeval: Total War, Mig Alley, Dark Reign 2, No One Lives
Forever 1 and 2 to name but a few.
The specs of my machine a

1GHz Athlon Thunderbird.
Asus A7V motherboard.
640Mb SDRAM (133Mhz)
DirectX 8.1 (b, I think!)
SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
GeForce2 MX400 32Mb (Made by Gullimot, if I remember correctly).

I've patched all the games and this hasn't solved any of the problems.
Neither does using Win98 compatability mode. All my drivers are up to
date and I've searched everywhere but can't find a mention of my
problem, let alone a solution. I've been tinkering with the idea of
changing my graphics card but don't want to do this if it is not a
problem with the card itself. Out of interest these games work fine on
my office machine running Win2000 with a GeForce2 MX200. Does anyone
have any ideas? I would be most grateful! Thanks very much in advance.

Best Wishes,
Gareth.

g-force wrote:

It was a full install onto a clean HD.
BIOS is bang up to date.

ok.

All drivers are the newest possible from the correct chipset
manufacturers.
This is the third install I've done in an attempt to correct the
problem. I've done installs on many occasions of umteen OSes so I know
what I'm doing! I definately haven't screwed the install up.

Well, using Windowxp with an outdated SP isn't really a good idea, but
using current gfx drivers which require(!) Dx9 to work properly with
outdated Dx8.1 tells me that this guy even didn't care to read the
driver documentations. This is not how an installation should be done...

I've tried the games with both SP1 and SP2 installed along with the
newest version of DirectX 9.0c.

If You really did this, why didn't You write this?

Still no luck, hence I reverted back
to
8.1b.

Again, You only wrote You updated from Win98 to XP with SP1 and Dx
8.1...

BTW: You can't easily "revert" back to Dx 8.1 after installation of Dx
9(c). There are tools that claim to do that, but the results often
are....strange at best...

Conseqently I've had no luck in solving the problem. Hope this
clarifies things.

Yes, especially that it might be better that next time You have a
problem You should make certain that You include all details. People
here usually don't have glass balls that tell them what You did and what
not...

If You really didn't screw up the installation with "tweaks" and
"tunings" or any other "improvements" or "reverts" there isn't much You
can do. In this case I'd follow what has been suggested elsewhere and
try older drivers...

Benjamin