Should an integrated nvidia 6150 support 1600x1200 under Vista Aero?

[bhaney]

I recently built a new box:
Asus M2NPV-VM
AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+
2 GB ram (Corsair TWIN2X2048-5400C4 2GB DDR2-675 XMS2-5400)
Vista business
Tried many different versions of nvidia drivers, both official and beta.

My display is a Dell 2001FP with a native res of 1600x1200 and that's what I'm determined to run. I can get away with it if I stick to the Vista Basic theme but if I try to use Aero I get tons of "driver stopped responding" errors, which seem to be plaguing lots of nvidia Vista users. I don't play games other than Solitaire, and I'm getting these errors all over the place.

What I'm wondering is whether or not this should be possible, or am I just expecting too much of the on-board graphics?

Thanks,
-Brett.

 

[coolpurplefan]

I read in a thread somewhere here that integrated video sucks for Aero. I don't know where to find that thread though.

EDIT: I should add that ATI is coming out with DX10 mainstream cards at the end of June. You may as well get a DX10 card if you're running Vista. (I think anyway, don't quote me on that.)

 

[bhaney]

Originally posted by: coolpurplefan
I read in a thread somewhere here that integrated video sucks for Aero. I don't know where to find that thread though.

EDIT: I should add that ATI is coming out with DX10 mainstream cards at the end of June. You may as well get a DX10 card if you're running Vista. (I think anyway, don't quote me on that.)

If true, that sucks. I spent a little extra in order to simplify things since I don't play games. To have to turn around and drop more $ on a card would not be cool, even if it's $40-50.

Anyone else running integrated video with Vista and the Aero interface? Guess I can just run the basic interface until nvidia gets their driver act together, assuming it's a driver problem.

-Brett.

 

[Madwand1]

I'm running a Asus A8N-VM CSM 6150/430 board under Vista and have no problems with Aero, transparency, flip 3D, and previews.

My current video driver version is 7.15.11.5818. It was probably from the GeForce 6-series 158.18 package.

 

[LordGestle]

Running a foxconn 6150 here with no problems with Aero @1680*1050.

 

[Mitch101]

Almost Ditto
Running a Epox 6150 here with no problems in Aero @ 1680*1050

 

[bhaney]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I got some suggestions from the NVidia forums to check my RAM voltage and to check for remnants of a bad driver distributed via Windows Update.

I'll check those things when I get home tonight and see what happens. I appreciate knowing that it should be possible to get this chipset running with Aero and higher resolutions.

Thanks,
-Brett.

 

[yapel]

Check your frame buffer size in BIOS! Since you have 2GB RAM, you can go as high as 256MB.

 

[bhaney]

Man, I really thought you were on to something. It was set to 32M when I went in, changed it to 256. Things seemed "snappier" once I rebooted and I thought I might have had it beat.

After working for a while, though, the dreaded "driver not responding" reared its ugly head. It does feel like the frequency has been reduced so I'll leave it like it is.

Since the new forceware drivers were released, I still need to go back and clean the old drivers and reinstall the new.

Oh, and I think I may have underclocked my memory to 533 (down from 667) at some point, I should try reversing that.

Thanks for the tip!
-Brett.

 

[bhaney]

UPDATE:

I think I fixed it! It occurred to me that I had originally let Vista install drivers for EVERYTHING, including all the NVidia motherboard components. So here's what I did:
Removed TDR-related values from the registry (they weren't helping me)
Uninstalled video driver
Rebooted, went into safe mode
Performed driver scrub
Installed NForce "nforce_winvista32_15.00G_english.exe"
Rebooted

No errors in the approx 1 hour since that last reboot! I haven't bothered trying to install a newer video driver than the one that came in the NForce package (Display Driver (v97.54) WHQL) since that one appears to be working and gaming is of no concern to me.

My RAM s still underclocked (533 vs the default 667) so If things continue to remain stable I'll try bumping that back up to spec.

Cliff's notes: If you're having problems using the integrated graphics on your NForce-equipped MOBO, make sure you install the NVidia driver package and don't rely on what ships with Vista!

-Brett.