Stupid Video Problem

[IMJack]

This is a call to anyone who knows moe about computers than me, and that's pretty much everyone here. I just installed a new Geforce2 video card, and I went through installing the drivers. When I restarted, Windows told me there was a problem and that they were freezing my video settings at 640x480x16. Good for Doom, bad for Win98se. As suggested, I uninstalled and reinstalled the standard drivers, the card-specific VGA drivers, and DirectX, and it's stopped giving me error messages, but my display's still stuck at 640x480x16 (well not really stuck, It'll also let me pick 640x480x2 if I wanted). How do I get this damn thing back to a setting which won't ruin my eyesight?

[Lüt]

Heh, that's basically a driver problem (obviously), it's not recognizing or utilizing your driver, or the driver sucks. It's usually because elements of broken drivers are lying around. There's no specific fix I remember offhand, I usually just keep removing hardware (from Device Manager) and reinstalling drivers until they work. It normally doesn't take more than 3 or 4 tries before it all works right.

[edit]Also, what kind of drivers are they? If they're the kind where you click the EXE and they supposedly install, try extracting the files individually and specifying those files under the GeForce2 properties (load custom drivers) in Device Manager.[/edit]

[fodders]

In control panel system device manager display adapters, remove your card, then go to control panel, add new hardware, search for new hardware then say no to "do you want windows to search..."? say no, then select from list standard svga , reboot and windows should find your new geforce and ask for disk etc

[Liam]

HAHAHAHahHhahHAHHhahhHhahhahahaha

NVIDIA DRIVERS. SUFFER.

[spank]

HAHAHAHahHhahHAHHhahhHhahhahahaha

DOOM LEGACY. SUFFER.

:)

[Crendowing]

HAHAHAHahHhahHAHHhahhHhahhahahaha

ANOTHER PORT WAR. SUFFER.

:)

[IMJack]

The last three posts

Thanks guys, big help there.

I managed to reinstall the drivers using fod's advice. Now I'm back to my original resolution and I can tweak freely. New problem is, my display doesn't fit on the screen and there's a ghostly, inverted overlay. Suggestions on how to fix this?

I know, I'm an idiot. And yes, guys, I'll suffer. (Ooh, lookit me, I'm suffering...)

[Liam]

HAHAHHhAHAHAahahHAH

ADJUST YOUR MONTITOR SETTINGS. SUFFER.

[Submerge]

Heh, strangely enough, I have the exact same problem, IMJack. I'll just wait until stphrz or somewone who knows a hell of a lot more than any of us replies. Then I'll fix my own.

[IMJack]

On the upside, at least the graphics acceleration is working properly now. As soon as I get this fucking Windows display working properly, I'll have to fire up UT to stress-test it. Mmm... greasy-smooth...

[Zaldron]

Liam the Bard said:

HAHAHAHahHhahHAHHhahhHhahhahahaha

NVIDIA DRIVERS. SUFFER.

I have installed nearly 16 different Detonator Drivers in this comp and none of them crapped my system. Of course, none of them fixed the stupid infinity loop bug but that's strictly my mobo's fault.

[stphrz]

infinity loop bug

What's that?

[Zaldron]

VIA based motherboards (I didn't wanted one but our economical problems make all the others very expensive and I really really wanted to upgrade before our money's worth nothing for imported products) really hate heavy 3D traffic. In 98, W2k and WXP systems with either Radeons or Geforces the AGP drive tries to locate data in a forbidden section of the memory. Obviously this crashes the computer and in OSes with secure kernels (2k and XP) instead of crashing to desktop the system halts to avoid data corruption. All the involved companies point VIA as the ones to blame (altough certain Intel mobos do the same), so you can already imagine I'm not fixing this issue anytime soon. VIA just sucks when it comes to paying attention to their forums, where every 3 threads out of 2 are named "PLZ GAME CRASH NV4_DISP.DLL ERROR INFINITY LOOP IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL".

[stphrz]

Hmmm. That sucks. I'll have to make sure I'm not getting one of those mobos when I buy my new computer. Could something as simple as a bios update from the company fix the problem or is it an overall design flaw?

[Zaldron]

stphrz said:

Hmmm. That sucks. I'll have to make sure I'm not getting one of those mobos when I buy my new computer. Could something as simple as a bios update from the company fix the problem or is it an overall design flaw?

There are hundreds of solutions. Really. Problem is, each case is different. Quality RAM might fix it, reducing the CAS to 2.5 might fix, the proper 4-in-1 VIA drivers & Detonator combination might fix. So far nothing did it for me. :(

At least I managed to enlarge the time it takes to crash, and ompletely removed it from several games. But still it's not worth it, it took me 5 days of forum hunting. It's gone as soon as the economy shapes us a bit.

[fodders]

Nothing hereof any use?

[Zaldron]

fodders said:

Nothing hereof any use?

Heh, been there, done that. No such luck.

[IMJack]

I managed to fix the problem by changing the refresh rate on my monitor to a static 60 Hz. So it's all good. Thanks Lüt and fodders for your suggestions.

[Lüt]

Yay! =) =) =)))))

[Submerge]

60hz? I guess I'll give that a shot.