Asc

Dell Dimension 2400, Win 2k, 2.6 ghz, 256 RAM. EVGA Geforce 4 MX 4000, PCI, 64 MB. I've installed a GeForce 4 MX 4000 (I know it sucks, but I'm not trying to run anything newer than Halo). After having some fun with drivers, the current state is as follows: The integrated video card is disabled, and in BIOS-> integraded devices Auto is selected for the graphics card (the two options are Integrated and Auto). The integrated video card's drivers have been uninstalled. The GeForce drivers are installed (ForceWare version 77.77).t The Geforce card is, as far as I can tell, active and working. I have seen significant speed increases in Diablo II and counterstrike. Everything else runs as slowly as it did with the integrated video card, or more slowly. In Halo, my frame rate is 10-20 fps with the lowest graphics settings, about 1/4 what it is on a similar computer with a GeForce 2 MX 400. Since I have heard from two seperate sources that the GeForce 4 MX 4000 is better than the GeForce 2 MX (series), I have reason to believe that this is a problem. Anti-aliasing is off. Anisotropic filtering is off. Image settings are high performance. Vertical sync is off. EDIT: there's what looks like a two-prong power plug on the card, but the installation directions don't say to plug anything in. So I didn't. An older version of the ForceWare drivers (56.72) allowed me to view "advanced options" in the Nvidia settings control panel thing. Under those advanced options, there was one labeled "hardware acceleration". It was marked Off in the right collumn, and there was no way to turn it on. Whether or not this is normal, I do not know. The newer drivers don't allow one to view advanced options. If anyone has any bloody idea what - or if - the problem is, I would surely appreciate the help.

Hmm. Is yours PCI or AGP?

It did uninstall DX correctly - I checked under the Nvidia control panel several times during the process. Interestingly, DX tweak doesn't seem to be working. I re-upgraded to 9.0c and installed the .net framework (and restarted...), but after following the directions (activating the configuration and checking the modules, and starting from DXtweak and so forth) none of the modules seem to work. For example, I've set , to display pixel shader type, and . to display wireframe, but in-game pressing them doesn't do anything.

I believe that the MX 4000 supports pixelshader version 1.4 (available in directx 8.1) but not version 2.0 (DX 9.0 I think) or 3.0 (DX 9.0c, I think). The box says it has "optimised DX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 acceleration".... Transparencies seem to be a significant component of the problem. When much of the screen is taken up by a transparent effect, such as the Diablo 2 automap in D3D mode or a flaring plasma weapon in Halo, the frame rare drops by about three fifths. Update: Downgrading to DX 8.1 (used DX eradicator to remove 9.0c) had no efect. Prior to downgrade, dxdiag indicated no problems with DX. I'll test drivers tomorrow.... [Edited by Asc on 2006-01-02 06:20:16]

Trying them driver things (56K modem....) I have found that in Open GL mode, everything works perfectly. Counterstrike and UT (origional) get 40+ fps in 1024x768 with the graphics settings all the way up. Programs that use direct 3D seem to be the ones which experience problems. To test this, I ran Diablo II in direct 3D mode. Instead of the 75 fps it got previously, it got 20 fps on average. Therefore, it seems likely that direct 3D is the root of the problem. To test this, I will downgrade to Direct X 8.1, which is supposedly the latest version that the MX 4000 supports, and see what happens.