Eratic (choppy) screen movement

OK, now that I've finally gotten rid of Win98SE, it's time to see how many games I'm going to throw away. So far, I've loaded one, and I've already got a problem

Loaded Warzone2100 (Win 95/98). Game seems to play OK, except for screen movement which is choppy, and there appears to be a slight hesitation when excuting action with the mouse. Have tried all settings within the program; no improvement.

System uses a PIII-533 w/ 128M Rdram. Older video card; a Viper 550 w/16meg Video Ram.

Any ideas how I can save this game; the video is just choppy enough to be annoying.

Dredging up info from my memory, what driver have you told the software to use when playing. On my old K6III 450, TNT2 Ultra, W2k etc using d3d play was as smooth as a babys bum, no choppyness at all so you should not have a problem unless its your 16Mb video card...did w98 work ok?

Under Win98SE, the program worked just fine with the Viper 550!

I'm not certain what you mean by "what driver did I tell the program to use"? If you mean have I tried to start the program in 3D and 2D modes, I've tried all the start-up options the program shows.

SnapperOne

Yeah one of the game software settings, sorry. D3D worked best for me, 800x600. Was your install of W2k an upgrade from w98 or clean? The only problem I have had was the same choppiness with SoF which went when I re-installed the os from scratch.

Again using my old AMD and all manner of drivers for my TNT caused no problems at all, but what drivers are you using with the Diamond?

Yo, Splat.......thanks for the follow up.

We wiped out Win98SE, reformated the drive, and installed Win2000-Pro fresh. Figured the transition from 98 to 2000 would be difficult enough without any loose 98' stuff laying around to confuse things.

As for the drivers we're using with the Viper, we're using the drivers that were determined by Win2000 when if found the card. Device Manager lists the driver as NVidia 5.00.2165.0327 which is loaded in c\winnt\system32\driver\nv4.sys. I've been unable to locate an updated driver for the card; not unusual for its age.

Hopefully I'll find a way to get Warzone2100 working; I really enjoy playing it. And, haven't even tried to load East Front II, East Front, West Front, Shogun, CaeserII, Recoil (still the best shoot-em-up going), Panzer General II, Tycoon, Mobil's Road Rally, or Quake II.

Push comes to shove, may have to buy a used 98SE machine to play some of these legacy games. Hope not; I've got other things to do with my money. But then again, $400-500 for a used PC vs. replacing $500-600 in software. Hmmmmmmmm?

Thanks again for the follow up.

SnapperOne

That would be the problem then. D3D was not supported in any of the drivers provided with Win2k (their argument being that it's a business OS so doesn't need it). Anyway, the solution is to go to your video card manufacturer's website and get some new Win2k drivers.

Xiven..........Hi again, it has been awhile.

I'll pop out to Diamond's site, but I don't hold much hope that I'm going to find any Win2K drivers for a video card this old. Best guess is that this Viper550 is 3-4 years old. Yea, Yea, Yea, I know....I should get a new card. But, since this is primarily a business machine, and my business software works just fine with the card I've go, I hate throwing any money at the problem. Oh well, just one of those day-to-day annoyances.

Thanks for the info!

SnapperOne.

By the way, what the deal with something call Application Compatibility form MS? Worth the trouble? More importantly, since this machine is primarily business related, it's finally running well under 2000-pro, I'm a bit edgey about fooling around too much with it.

Good luck. I had a quick look around some sites but couldn't find anything for win2k. I'll let you know if I do though.

Hey, isn't the Viper550 a TNT-based card? Have you tried the nvidia reference drivers?

If not, get the official current version from [url=www.nvidia.com]www.nvidia.com[/url] or try some other versions from http://www.the-cad.com/Drivers.htm

Postscript - my old Diamond 550 Viper (yes there are some left) works fine but using the ref drivers from Nvidia 6.something on Warzone, I think Ground Control is a better game though now.....

Splat.............

Just got back in town from a weeklong trip. Thanks for suggestion on Ground Control; I'll nose-around and see if I can find it.

With regard to your last post, however, I'm not certain I understand your comment about ref drivers and the Viper550. Did you try them and they didn't work, or.......... Would appreciate a clarification.

SnapperOne

Yup I did use them for a while with no problems, all nice and smooth.

Let me know how you get on, I have a habit of using reference drivers but don't forget to un-install the Diamond ones first then apply the nVidia ones.

Good luck

Splat..........

Big time newbie question here! How do I uninstall the Diamond Drivers? I never installed the Diamond drivers when I did a fresh install of Win2000. As mentioned in an earlier post, I simply went with the drivers the OS picked out.

SnapperOne

Ok, nice and easy.

What you need to do is:

1) Replace the diamond driver with a generic windows vga driver
2) Install the nVidia driver.

Log onto the nVidia website http://www.nvidia.com and download the latest reference drivers for the TNT chipset 12.41 I think (there are later beta drivers out there but I suggest stick with these for the time being) which is a self extracting exe file. Once downloaded you need to change the diamond driver:

To change drivers simply go and follow the following menus: start, settings, system, device manager, display adapters, double click on the display adapter and then on the diamond sub menu which should bring up the properties page for the diamond. Click on driver and change. It is important that you then select standard pci vga adapter as this loads a set of default basic drivers and removes any trace of the diamond drivers. Its a bit long winded but it works.
At some point you will probably need to reboot and your display will be good old 16 colours and VGA - ugh!

Run the nvidia exe and good luck. You should notice both a performance and stability increase.


Let me know how you get on.

Splat........

Been away for awhile. First chance I've had to follow the thread you provided.

Does it make any differnce if I download the Self Extracting Installer or Self Extracting Zip of the TNT 12.41 chipset?

SnapperOne

Splat.......

Just call me confused here!

Tried to follow the "menu sequence" you suggested. Got a bit lost.

Here is the best I could do following your instructions under Win2000-Pro:

Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, Hardware Device Mgr, Display Adapter (double-clicked), Viper550 (double-clicked), then Driver under Resources.

Driver gave me three options, none of which were "change":

Driver Update, Uninstall, Update Driver. The update driver wizard gave me two choices: V550 and Nvidia Riva TNT (please note, I have still not downloaded any updated drivers from Nvidia, I'm simply trying to do a "walk through" before I jump off the ledge and start changing things.

Any additional info would be appreciated.

SnapperOne

The Microsoft WHQL approved Nvidia 12.41 with auto-installer install like a breeze. Windows hardware quality labs (WHQL) approved drivers do not usually allow disabling of vertical sync which anyhow would not provide a performance boost with a fast Nvidia card.

Just uninstall old drivers, cut power, remove old card and plug in new Nvidia card, reboot in VGA, and double click the auto-installer.

Hi, if you are not too happy about changing drivers use ther installer as it does all the work for you (just make sure you change your video card driver to VGA from your current W2K Viper driver as a precaution). If you want more control use the zip but you then have to go and manually change the driver under settings.

Given the corrospondance I'd go for the installer.

Good luck.

But I thought TNT/2/x was dropped from 12.41? Well I haven't seen the benchmarks between 98 vs 2k with the tnt series. I know I took speed hit when I had a tnt2 ultra and went from 98 to 2k, but that was on some old drivers.

Simply grab both Launcher and Nvreffix for W2K:
http://www.gameroffice.com
http://www.planetquake.com/ztn/nvreffix/nvreffix.html

Check these sites for Nvidia Detonator information:
http://www.guru3d.com/guide/detonator-explanation/
http://www.geforcefaq.com/faq.cgi

Splat.........

In your last post you said ".....(just make sure you change your video card driver to VGA from your current W2K Viper driver as a precaution). Which ties in with a prior post where you said, "It is important that you then select standard pci vga adapter as this loads a set of default basic drivers and removes any trace of the diamond drivers".

With all the time and attention you given to this seemingly straight forward fix, please know I apologize for being a bit dense at this end, but how do I do the above. As you can see from my last post, I attempted to follow the step-by-step instructions but couldn't get where you wanted me to go; namely, selecting a standard pci vga adapter.

SnapperOne

This is an important point that does not come out clearly about VGA mode being involved and not VGA drivers.

In fact, VGA should NOT be selected for installation. If a screen offering this appears on reboot after removal of Damond card, just hit cancel. Otherwise some generic VGA drivers would get installed.

What does occur is that any new graphic card is booted, by default, as operating in VGA resolution and color depth. It then operates in VGA mode until the proper drivers get intalled which are cetainly not drivers for a VGA card.

Hi all, my experience goes back to a Creative TNT2 card where removing the drivers and trying to replace with generic nvidia ones caused a few problems. Removing the drivers and then re booting (card stays in machine) Windows always tried to reinstall the creative drivers. It was only when VGA was selected as a change of driver (generic again) was I allowed to then install the nvidia drivers. Trying to update the creative drivers with the nvidia ones always failed with a confused pc. Updating the generic vga driver with the nvidia worked a charm sooooo still suggest you use the self installer as a first option and good luck.