I posted to this thread yesterday asking for help with the DVD player and the new Radeon drivers under WinME. After installing the Multimedia Center I could not boot into WinME. I got a blue screen protection error. Even after uninstalling the Multimedia Center I still blue-screened. I reformatted and re-installed WinME. This was NOT necessary.
I have since found out that it is not a WinME problem but a problem with the Via Apollo KT133 chip. When the Multimedia Center installs, it overwrites the GART.dll from the Via AGP drivers. The version on the ATI disk is not compatible with the KT133 chipset. To fix it, you need to reboot in Safe mode and re-install the Via AGP drivers (version 4.03 or 4.04).
The answer was right here on the AnandTech website:
The first problem with the Radeon's drivers on VIA-based systems is that the install program actually replaces any version of the VIA GART found on the system with version 3.30, which is packaged with the drivers. Although this may end up helping some with older GART drivers, it will hurt power users in the long term as the install program replaces any GART driver on the system with the packaged version, even if the drivers on the system are newer than those in the video card install program. For example, in our Athlon KX133 test system, the older GART version actually prevented us from getting into Windows, forcing us to boot in safe mode to restore the new GART drivers. The newest version of GART, version 4.03, is available from VIA's website.
This flaw will result in decreased card performance, as the older GART versions almost never have the same speed as the new ones. In addition, some systems may even be inoperable with the older GART drivers, forcing the user to boot in safe mode to replace ATI's GART driver with the previous one. Luckily, these problems only arise under the normal install. The custom install option does bring up a check box for "upgrading" the GART drivers which can be unchecked. We highly suggest that everyone with a VIA chipset in their system uncheck this option and gets the newest GART version from VIA's website:
http://www.viatech.com/drivers/index.htm
For the whole article go to: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1281&p=9
I have since found out that it is not a WinME problem but a problem with the Via Apollo KT133 chip. When the Multimedia Center installs, it overwrites the GART.dll from the Via AGP drivers. The version on the ATI disk is not compatible with the KT133 chipset. To fix it, you need to reboot in Safe mode and re-install the Via AGP drivers (version 4.03 or 4.04).
The answer was right here on the AnandTech website:
The first problem with the Radeon's drivers on VIA-based systems is that the install program actually replaces any version of the VIA GART found on the system with version 3.30, which is packaged with the drivers. Although this may end up helping some with older GART drivers, it will hurt power users in the long term as the install program replaces any GART driver on the system with the packaged version, even if the drivers on the system are newer than those in the video card install program. For example, in our Athlon KX133 test system, the older GART version actually prevented us from getting into Windows, forcing us to boot in safe mode to restore the new GART drivers. The newest version of GART, version 4.03, is available from VIA's website.
This flaw will result in decreased card performance, as the older GART versions almost never have the same speed as the new ones. In addition, some systems may even be inoperable with the older GART drivers, forcing the user to boot in safe mode to replace ATI's GART driver with the previous one. Luckily, these problems only arise under the normal install. The custom install option does bring up a check box for "upgrading" the GART drivers which can be unchecked. We highly suggest that everyone with a VIA chipset in their system uncheck this option and gets the newest GART version from VIA's website:
http://www.viatech.com/drivers/index.htm
For the whole article go to: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1281&p=9
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