nvidia and Via KT266A chipset

[benjamat]

I would greatly appreciate some thoughts on the following.

I recently decided to switch from intel to AMD and spent quite a bit of money building the system listed below in order to get the fastest system. having done so I have had many problems but the one I am raising here is to do with the compatability of nvidia and Via.

I have an XP sytem and have found that the only nvidia drivers that work with my setup when playing games in particular are the pre detonator xp 12.41 version which happens to be the driver that is native to WinXP. None of the newer drives even those certified allow most games to run without graphic lock ups, 21.83 - 23.11 etc.

Whilst I am tempted to blame via for this perhaps the problem lies with nvidia or even microsoft. Why is it that pre detonator xp drivers work with Win XP and games (AVP-2, Wolf3D, Black & White ) while all later versions the detonator xP's cause lock-ups.
What is it that they all did with the old drivers that they have not done with the XP's?

When you spend a large amount of money to get the fasrtest and most up to date system it is a bit sickening to find that you lose around 30% of your potential performance because of incompatability between such major players. (the 30% is in 3dmark 2001) which does run with newer drivers.

I would appreciate any thoughts.

 

[neutralizer]

Hmm... don't know, but I'm running a KT266A chipset mobo, an nVidia card with the latest DetXP drivers and WinXP and have no prob in games except those running old D3D.

 

[Mem]

Hmmm no problems here with my Epox 8KHA+ with winXP and latest drivers anyway all I can thing of is try some bios tweaks like disable all video shadowing and disable system bios cacheable,also try slower ram settings for your memory.

You can also try the latest VIA AGP 4.10 driver from

here .

Almost forgot, don`t forget to install the Windows 2000/XP NVidia Refresh Rate Fix if you want higher refresh rate then 60hz.

 

[CAMS]

AV7266-E (no raid or sound), 1900XP, 2x256Crucial, GF3 & 23.11 and no problems.

 

[benjamat]

Thanks for posts but what I am really interested in is why the games have no problem with the generic Nvidia driver in WinXP whichis the 12.41. have microsoft tweaked this driver?
Over at Via Arena I have seen many posts with issues concerning the compatability of the newer Nvidia drivers.
As a point of note I have a P3 system with a geforce2 GTS and have had no problems whatsoever with any of these games or frequent changes of driver including betas.

 

[Mem]

<< Thanks for posts but what I am really interested in is why the games have no problem with the generic Nvidia driver in WinXP whichis the 12.41. have microsoft tweaked this driver? >>




The default Nvidia XP driver does not support OpenGL so you can`t use it for OpenGL gaming unless you install a newer driver. So are you trying to run D3D or OpenGl games or both?

 

[benjamat]

Good point, at this time I am not sure, seems that most games these days revert to D3D but I have noticed that unlike some older games you do not get the options you used to.

Native XP Nvidia does not cover opengl ! What do you do then if you want to run something with this/

 

[Mem]

<< Native XP Nvidia does not cover opengl ! What do you do then if you want to run something with this/ >>




You can only run D3D with the XP default driver,if you want openGL install a newer driver then the WinXP default one.

 

[CdnMade]

<< Thanks for posts but what I am really interested in is why the games have no problem with the generic Nvidia driver in WinXP whichis the 12.41. have microsoft tweaked this driver?
Over at Via Arena I have seen many posts with issues concerning the compatability of the newer Nvidia drivers.
As a point of note I have a P3 system with a geforce2 GTS and have had no problems whatsoever with any of these games or frequent changes of driver including betas. >>



ok about 2 weeks ago i started a thread about the problems i was having, damm via and their chipsets i say. No wait i am kidding. here are the steps that have fixed my problems. 1st install the via 4in1 435or 436 drivers then install the via agp 410 drivers restart your system and then install the det xp 2310 drivers it seems to be the only thing that worked for me. and i spent quite awhile trying to figure this out.

My problem was that with the windows xp drivers all direct x games would run fine. but no opengl/glide (i get these confused) would run. If i installed the 21.83 drivers all the glide/opengl game would run but not direct x. the above soulation did fix everything now and my system runs great.

 

[Booty]

I actually just got on here to post a similar thread...just built a system for a friend using the Gigabyte KT266A board (GA-7VTXH) and a Duron 1.2 GHz. Absolutely no games work...at first we had his old Geforce 2 GTS in there, then we tried an MX400 board with no luck. The system starts up fine with the original XP drivers installed, but installing any newer detonators results in a black screen with a flashing cursor in the upper left. We've tried an old ATI 8 meg Rage IIC and, though it can't run Q3 anyway, it at least allows crap like Snood to run. With the Nvidia cards we can't even get games like that going.

Anyone else had similar problems? I've flashed the newest BIOS, got the newest 4-in-1's, detonators, etc...gonna keep switching drivers around and messing with it, maybe try installing 2k...I wanna make sure that this is definately a software issue, but I'm assuming it is since the Rage works fine. How ironic that the ATI card's drivers are working under XP and Nvidia's aren't...that's a total flip-flop, from what I've heard, hehe.

Please post here if anyone's had similar problems and/or a solution.

 

[Booty]

Alright, so now I enable VGA mode, gets into windows fine, but as soon as I try to change the display settings it locks up and reboots...upon reboot it gives me an error that the card was unable to complete a drawing operation, whatever that means. What pisses me off is that I know these drivers work in other, non-VIA systems...what's going on? My friend wants to go back to running WinME...ack! He just really wants his games to work...why is it so hard for these companies to release products that work with each other?! I'd take a performance hit any day of the week if it increased stability, functionality, and compatibility. Guess I'm going to be reformatting and trying some different OS's.

 

[CdnMade]

with the standars settings in the bios and the setup i stated in my earlier everything should work. i have the same via chipset and use both a gf 2 mx and a gf3 with this configuration. though the driver setup has to be exactly as i said try it!

 

[BillClo]

I've had persistent problems with VIA chips and AMD (have a kx-133 mobo). I was totally unable to use a new GF3 card that I had purchased, regardless of what I did to the system. 13 days and about 30 hours later, I gave up and went back to my old GF2 GTS. I still couldn't use any driver more recent than 12.41. If I tried, I'd get constant system hard-lockups.

When VIA released their 4 in 1 driver 4.36, voilla! All of a sudden I could use 23.11. Sort of. I don't get lockups anymore, but during gameplay, the system seems to stutter. Scene freezes for a fraction of a second, and then skips as it were. Very annoying. Probably due to another problem with VIA chipsets. Man, I'm sooo sick of VIA products. Nothing but bugs, bugs. Almost makes me want to go back to Intel processors just to get more reliable mobo chipsets. ALMOST.

 

[Bovinicus]

This is why early adoption of an OS is bad. Stick with 2000 if you want that fresh NT core. I never experience compatibility problems with it. There is also a way of enabling a compatibility mode in Windows 2000 (That does the same thing as in XP), which many don't even know about.

 

[Dudd]

Yeah, try running your programs in Windows 98 compatibility mode. You can do that by changing the properties of the program you are having problems trying to run.

 

[Booty]

Okay, here's what's going on:

For one, something weird...every other computer I've installed XP on has created a user account other than administrator and has automatically logged on using it...for some odd reason, this computer isn't doing that. I don't know if this is related...I doubt it is...but it's just weird.

Anyway, what I did is a fresh install of XP (Corp. Pro), left it alone. Tried to just run Snood since it doesn't need to install. Got a hard lock. Installed newest detonator drivers. Got a hard lock right when windows was first loading.

Yeah, I know, I didn't install the newest 4in1's, but that's because I'm on a 26.4 connection right now and it takes forever to download them, but I will be installing them...however, they didn't fix a thing before, so I'm wondering if there's something else. I've heard of an 'infinate loop' problem or something like that...is this applicable?

Anyway, I'm gonna install the 4in1's and 410AGP driver and see what happens...try an older Nvidia XP driver...but this is really frustrating. If nothing works I'm installing 2k, but I hate to do that...I'm kinda anal like that - I like solving the problem, not circumventing it. Oh well, only so much I can do with what NVidia, VIA, Gigabyte, and MS give me, right? Feedback is much appreciated...

 

[neutralizer]

Wait, so u have to install DetXP then the XP driver over it to get OpenGL and D3D support?

And does the Refresh Rate Fix really work because I'm running my Ti200 with DetXP 23.11 and I can adjust the refresh rate to rates above 60 Hz without the Refresh Rate Fix.

 

[BIGGDOG]

Running on a KR7A Raid W/O Raid on board and an Visiontek GForce3 TI500 card with the latest drivers and no problems.

 

[Mem]

<< Wait, so u have to install DetXP then the XP driver over it to get OpenGL and D3D support?

And does the Refresh Rate Fix really work because I'm running my Ti200 with DetXP 23.11 and I can adjust the refresh rate to rates above 60 Hz without the Refresh Rate Fix. >>




The native WinXP Nvidia default driver gives you D3D only no OpenGL unless you install a newer driver.

Without the refresh rate fix you can only run OpenGL at 60hz ,so it allows to to use higher refresh rate and yes it does work.
I was having this problem for OpenGL only my D3D was fine so I installed the refresh rate fix and then was able to use higher rate then 60hz in my OpenGL games.

Note this is a Win2k/XP OS only problem.

 

[Booty]

Just an update: I'd been telling my friend (the owner of the system) to do the windows updates and he hadn't...I thought he had. So I went ahead and did them and now all is well.

 

[benjamat]

Well I have now gone through winxp, win2k, and am now back to win98SE, the problems still persist as before.
Even in win98 AVP2 locks at the intro after selecting marine with any other driver except the 12.41. I have downloaded all possible drivers from both Elsa(gladiac920) and nvidia and tried them all with no joy in fact I seem to be in the situation now where all my games are less stable than they were in Win XP, what a joke.

I think I must say here that as anandtech is my Number 1 technical site it was through reading the glowing reports and recommendations that I set up this system and that has been a waste of what in the USA would be around $1000. All of this because Via and nvidia cannot get a working driver setup, it is nothing short of ridiculous that a standard GF3 cannot be made to work properly and what about Asus. I switched from Abit to Asus a short while ago with the Cusl2 and am delighted with that but they are offering no solutions for this problem which is widespread.

Note - I am not using a sound card with this system but the integrated Cmedia however I still get the problems when I disable this.

 

[benjamat]

Anandtech has just posted a review of kt266A mobos and i would point out that they have used a geforce gts as the graphics board.
To use this in your test when it is now a third generation board must show that the reviewers knew about geforce3 problems with this chipset but no mention is made in the review.