[RESOLVED] S3 Virge DX/GX 375/385 DirectX Compatible Driver

[Tselakus]

Hi Guys!

I have really annoying problem, and I hope one of you gurus can help me out. I have a S3 Virge DX/GX 385 4Mb video display card, and I have recently purchased and tried to run Baldur's Gate (collection). The game makes use of DirectX, and for some reason, my video card driver is 'not certified' by Microsoft, and thus DirectX craps itself, and the screen is all chuggy when I run the game. I have tried installing the latest version of DirectX, as well as installing 5 or 6 different drivers for the card (one even came on the game CD - and even that isn't certified!). Since S3 has changed to SonicBlue, I can't find any decent support (the drivers on the Diamondmm site aren't certified).

I have also tried the same s3v.drv driver listed on the customer compatibility page at planetbg.com. The troubleshooting example on one of the BG support sites even has an image of dxdiag showing my exact problem! (s3_3.drv not certified). Please, if anyone can point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated.

Kind regards,

- Paul

[scutterboy]

If you can update your card you should. Getting something better than that old S3 would be easy and not expensive. I wouldn't recomend spending much but there are lot's of old PCI cards needing a good home.

Scutter

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And Control Enter STILL wont let me post a reply.
:)

[StevePorter]

Most of the newer games use OpenGL as the means to get passable graphics output. You're legacy video card probably just doesn't have the horsepower to support OpenGL, nor is there a driver written. Consequently, the newer games don't work well since they are forced to run in "software compatibility mode".

Listen to the scutterboy. You can pick up a new GeForce2 MX card pretty cheap, and a somewhat outdated, but still useful TNT or TNT2 video card even cheaper... http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smilies/cwm17.gif

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Sometimes computer problems require extreme measures. Our hero, the Intrepid Spaceman Spiff, sets his blaster on "deep fat fry..." http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smilies/cwm27.gif