Possible Detonator FX (44.03) Issues?

[PacoL250]

You know, I loved nVIDIA back when I had a GeForce 2 Pro and the drivers WORKED. Anyway, I'm not sure if it is my drivers for my GeForce FX 5600, my sound card drivers, or anything else regarding my motherboard.

Everytime I try to play Serious Sam, it locks up. And on top of that, it moves REALLY slowly as it plays before it locks up. Now for a GeForce FX, that's crap...and it happens in any mode, Direct3D or OpenGL.

I have the latest drivers for eveything else (I got the VIA Hyperion 4-in-1 drivers, latest Audigy 2 drivers, etc.)

This also occurs on my sister's computer which has a GeForce 4 Ti 4600. I did the same to it regarding the drivers (VIA Hyperion 4-in-1 drivers, etc).

I also have WinXP Pro w/Service Pack 1 and Direct X 9.0 on both systems.

So since it's most probably the Detonator drivers, which version should I go back to? If it's not the video cards, then what could it be?

[Radical Dreamer]

Sounds like heat to me since it starts slowing and then locks all together. I've been running those drivers since they were released with no issues at all.

[Radical Dreamer]

Oh, as for which version you should go back to, the latest WHQL certified ones.

[PacoL250]

It doesn't really seem like heat to me since I have a lot of fans in both PC cases. In my sister's case, I actually put a slot fan right below the GeForce 4 Ti 4600, so just about ANY heat given out by the card would be filtered out. My case has about 5 to 6 fans (forget exactly how much), but no slot fan. Still, it shouldn't really be heat with all the fans I have.

In regards to a set of drivers I should use, exactly which version should I go back to? I remember having an issue with a version of drivers with Unreal Tournament 2003, but I don't remember which one (well, maybe it was the v40.41...not sure). I then switched to another version (again I forget which one...maybe v40.72 which is WHQL certified, or maybe v41.09 which is a WHQL candidate), and everything worked fine. I'm assuming I should remove the current drivers on the systems and then install the other version.

Anymore help would be greatly appreciated!

[CeeBee]

I've seen some issues with driver versions starting 3x.xx with TNT / TNT2 / GeForce2 chipsets (those are the only ones that we have) - slow in some instances, unbearable in others - on several machines with Win2K. I keep the 2x.xx drivers in the archive... they work soooo nice...

[PacoL250]

Godforsaken nVIDIA Detonator Drivers...

Anyway, so far so good on my sister's computer after I downgraded to the v41.09 drivers; I now think these were the ones which worked beautifully on UT2003 (when I had the card) without any issues, and as of yet, there hasn't been any issue in Serious Sam.

Now my computer is a whole other story...
I went to my card manufacturer's website (in this case, PNY) and I looked for any specific drivers, but I was just directed to nVIDIA's website for drivers. PNY's site did have a driver specifically made for to fix an issue with Mythic's Shrouded Isles (the driver version was v44.67).

I tried those drivers out, and they worked...sort of. The game worked for a while without any slow-down until my sister and I tried to play a co-op LAN game of Serious Sam. My computer just straight locked up completely about 5 minutes into the game, while my sister's kept working fine. I tried out other driver versions (v43.45) but to no avail. In fact, with the previous drivers, I experienced slow-down at higher resolutions than the v44.67 drivers from PNY.

This is getting to be really annoying...I'm tempted to just sell this card and get an ATI Radeon 9700 or 9800, but I got this card on sale, so I'd prefer sticking with it.

Any help would be great!

P.S. In regards to older drivers, the only ones that support the GeForce FX are the v43.45, v44.03 (both from nVIDIA), and v44.67 (from PNY).

[mwarmuth]

I'd be interested in knowing if you get this issue resolved, because I have a similair problem. About 3 months ago, I bought a Gainward GeForce3 Ti200 board, and it works for my older games (Q3, UT, HL), but when I try to play UT2003 or run FutureMark '03, the Windows gives me an annoy 'system error' sound and something about a bad call. Right now I'm running the latest nVidia unified drivers.

It appears to have problems getting the resolution to change. I can change resolutions myself in the control panel, and otherwise the board works fine. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the DirectX 9.0 calls.

I've seen lot's of chats here and there talking about problems with various drivers. Anyone have any comments on this?

[PacoL250]

Well nVIDIA just released v45.23 of its Detonator FX drivers and Serious Sam works like a charm now...seriously.

I played a LAN game against my sister for about an hour with no hitch AT ALL. And I updated her drivers (which were working at v41.09) with no issues either.

So here's some advice to those who were in my type of situation:

GET THE NEW DRIVERS!

Thanks again for all the help you guys!

[mwarmuth]

My Russian buddy came over and noticed in SiSoft that the AGP slot was running in PCI compatability mode. After looking at my A7N8X motherboard and watching the POST, he said I had way to many things taking up interrupts. We disabled one of the USB channels and the Firewire, and now everything works great.