Greggy

I'd download and run the GeForce Tweak program from www.guru3d.com and make sure features such as Fast Writes and Side Band Addressing (SBA) are both DISABLED! Don't worry about any potential loss of performance, as these features cause much more harm than good. Also, as Brian Frank stated, try nvidia's Detonator 21.83 WHQL drivers, or if your after a little more performance try the 22.50 drivers. For my WinXP system the 21.83 WHQL and 22.50s are easily the fastest and most stable drivers for my GF3.

A possible solution for VIA/AMD users having problems with the 21.xx series drivers... Until last night my PC did not like the 21.xx Detonator drivers from nvidia. They seemed great for OpenGL, giving a nice little performance boost over the 12.90's however D3D seemed very broken - I was getting strange graphical anomalies in GPL, and UT was completely unstable - often freezing or BSOD'ing the system. Also, the system was not capable of getting past 1 or 2 demo loops of 3D Mark 2001. The 12.90 drivers on the other hand were 100% perfect - no problems at all in all games that I play. Then I began wondering "I'm not alone with the above problems, what the hell is wrong with these 21.xx drivers for us VIA/AMD users?" I had a hunch that although Fast Writes and Side-Band Addressing worked fine with the 12.90's I thought perhaps they may have been causing all the problems with the 21.xx drivers on my system. I began to fiddle around with various settings such as AGP rate, Fast Writes and Side-Band Addressing. I was using nvmax to enable/disable FW and SBA, however even with these features 'disabled' in nvmax, H Oda's WCPUID 3.0 (from http://www.h-oda.com) program still reported SBA as Supported/Enabled. I turned off Fast Writes in nvmax and in the BIOS which after a reboot corresponded with WCPUID reporting that Fast-Writes was indeed Not Supported/Disabled. But I was still having problems getting rid of Side Band Addressing (SBA) support. I decided that perhaps nvmax was not instructing the 21.xx drivers properly, so I downloaded and installed the GeForce Tweak utility from found at http://www.guru3d.com I un-installed the 12.90 nvidia drivers and re-installed a fresh set of nvidia's 21.83 drivers from http://www.nvidia.com and rebooted. Surely enough when I got into Windows WCPUID still reported SBA as Supported/Enabled. I ran UT which soon resulted in another system freeze that only the reset button could solve - no joy just yet. Once rebooted again, I used the 'new' GeForce Tweak program and disabled Fast Writes and Side Band Addressing, leaving just the option for 4x AGP for VIA chipsets. I rebooted the system yet again (as the tweak program instructed me a reboot was required) and re-checked WCPUID, finally this time FW and SBA were both Disabled (although SBA was still reported as being Supported - a feature of the graphics card I assume). Well at least I have control over these features again! Since this was the first time I was using the 21.83's at 4x AGP without FW and SBA I began my testing... I ran UT and played it for about 30 minutes - no problems. I ran GPL - no graphical problems. I ran a 3D Mark 2001 benchmark - scored 3486, no problems. I ran Q3A - no problems. I went back to 3D Mark 2001 and ran a looping demo for 2 hours straight - no problem. (note - all of these were done one after the other in the order above without rebooting the system!!!!) I rebooted, and again tested GPL, UT and 3D Mark 2001 - no problems. So now my system is happily using the 21.83 WHQL drivers with no problems whatsoever! Have they made a huge difference to performance over the 12.90 drivers? Of course not, but if I had a GeForce 3 they would - and OpenGL is slightly faster according to Q3A timedemo's. Disabling Fast Writes and Side-Band Addressing has definitely fixed all my problems with the 21.xx drivers. I just hope some of you guys with AMD/VIA/nvidia hardware can try what I've suggested and that you are lucky like I was. Just remember that even if you have SBA disabled according to a tweak program, is DOES NOT always mean that SBA is actually disabled! Regards Greggy Athlon 1.33 @ 1.4GHz (10.5x133), Abit KT7A v1.1 4a BIOS, 512Mb PC133 SDRAM @ CAS2, Leadtek GeForce2 GTS 32Mb with Detonator 21.83 drivers (4x AGP, but FW & SBA are both disabled), Creative PCI128, Windows 2000 Pro SP2 with Hotfixes etc, VIA 4in1 drivers ver 4.34 etc ALL 100% stable in 3D!!!!!

Sounds like your using the 21.83 drivers. Install the 12.90's and see if it fixes your problems - they fixed mine compared to the 21.83's which in my opinion are rubbish for UT.

I case anyone wants to know how to fix this isue, I found a work-around... I couldn't be bothered to work out the registry entries that I needed to fix/create to re-enable a .Default sound in the Windows 2000 Sound & Multimedia options, so I fixed the problem like this: I backep up all data that I needed from my user profile, logged in as Administrator and killed off my usual login account (along with the folder under Documents and Settings). I then created a brand-new user account for myself (as I never use the Administrator account every day - sometimes you need it to get you out of trouble!). Now, after 15 minutes of re-configuring a few things, everything is back to perfection!

I don't think you mentioned what VGA drivers you are using, but try the reference Detonator 12.90's Ever since I installed the Detonator XP 21.83 drivers, certain games (mainly D3D) have experienced problems - UT, GPL and Nascar4 to name a few. UT was the worst, as the system would sometimes BSOD after only a few minutes of playing, or it would crash and drop back to the desktop... Since returning to the Detonator 12.90 WHQL drivers (which I think are still the best) everything is AOK again - and GPL/Nascar4 actually run faster! Athlon 1.33, Abit KT7A v1.1, 512Mb PC133 CAS2, Leadtek GeForce2 GTS 32Mb, Creative SB128, Win 2000 SP2, VIA 4in1 v4.33 etc

Of course I've been changing the sound schemes - I've been trying to get the problem fixed! However no matter what sound scheme I choose (including Windows Default) adjusting the volume control still results in a BEEP. On my other Windows 2000 box, if you select 'no sounds' as a sound scheme from Control Panel, you get a BEEP when adjusting sound volume, but when you go back and choose a sound scheme such as Windows Default, everything is AOK again including the volume adjustment as 'ding.wav' not a BEEP.

For some reason, now when I adjust the sound volume using the slider from the Volume icon in the Windows 2000 system tray, instead of getting a nice 'ding.wav' to indicate the current sound volume, now I get a loud BEEP from the PC speaker within the case! This problem happened all by itself - no drivers where changed at all. Unfortunately, re-installing the sound card drivers (Sound Blaster PCI128) does not fix the issue. It's really minor, but does anyone know how to fix this and get back to playing the ding.wav file when adjusting the volume? I'm guessing its a registry issue.

Before doing a full re-install try deleting your \baseq3\q3config.cfg file. Also, anyone looking for more performance in Q3A should delete this file - especially you guys that change 3D drivers often. Don't worry, Quake 3 will create a new file automatically and then all you need to do is re-configure your graphics settings etc. Good luck!

RE: ATA-100 and Windows 2000 Just because you may have an ATA-100 IDE hard disk and a motherboard that supports ATA-100, it does NOT mean that your system will actually run the hard disk i/o sub-system at the ATA-100 specification!!! I recently helped out a friend that had the following basic hardware: AMD Athlon 1.4 CPU Abit KT7A Motherboard (VIA KT133A) with 3R BIOS 512Mb PC133 SDRAM IBM 30Gb 75GXP ATA-100 IDE hard disk ASUS AGP GeForce2 GTS 64Mb Windows 2000 SP2 with hotfixes etc Now, one would expect the above system to run at ATA-100 right? WRONG! Windows 2000 refused to run the hard disk at anything other than PIO mode - In terms of disk performance it was woeful. It took forever to do any hard disk operations such as copying data around etc. We tried everything including Windows SP2, VIA 4in1 drivers, different IDE cables (yes the proper type) and every hard-disk utility that IBM had on their support site. We were getting nowhere and very fustrated... We decided to take a gamble, we ghosted the 30Gb IBM 75GXP to its replacement, a brand new 40Gb IBM 60GXP IDE hard disk (the same model as I use), removed the 75GXP and booted up - WOW! Windows 2000 instantly reported UltraDMA mode for the new hard disk and the whole machine went into overdrive! We were soon copying 1000's of megs between our two PCs and the only thing holding us up was the 100Mbit LAN. His 1.4GHz PC was at last performing well! So before you all blame your (VIA) motherboards and/or your operating systems, have a close look at your hard disk drive - it could be costing you major performance. Regards Greggy 1.33GHz Athlon, Abit KT7A (3R), 512Mb PC133 CAS2, Winfast GeForce2 GTS 32Mb (21.81), 40Gb IBM 60GXP (ATA-100), Intel 10/100 nic, Creative PCI128 sound, Windows 2000 SP2, VIA 4in1 (4.33) etc etc

I have not swapped the 1.33GHz Athlon CPU just yet as I'm reluctant to change it! I booted up at 1466MHz (11.0 x 133) at 1.75 volts and ran the Dronez rolling demo at 640x480x32bit for 4 hours straight with not one problem. I then set the resolution to 1024x768x32bit and ran the demo for another 2 hours - again without any problems. However the actual game of Dronez still freezes if I set the CPU anything higher than 1133MHz. It locks up at 1200MHz (9 x 133) (1.60 -> 1.85 volts), but runs 100% perfect at 1133MHz (8.5 x 133) even at 1.60 volts. I'm beginning to think that perhaps my CPU is AOK and infact Dronez has a problem running higher than ~ 1.1GHz... Its not the first time I've heard of software problems on fast CPUs (eg. early UMAX SCSI scanner drivers on CPUs > 300MHz). Can anyone provide some more information regarding this theory?

Looks like I might have a dodgy CPU... Dronez will run perectly if I under-clock the CPU to 1133MHz or below. FSB changes don't seem to make any difference, nor does increasing or lowering the voltage. I've tried 12.41, 12.90 and now the 14.70 Detonator drivers but they don't make any difference either- so it looks like my 1.33 Athlon is a little flakey. So strange, as other 3D games (Q3A, UT, HL etc) run perfectly even at 1.4GHz at a resolution of 640x480 (so that the CPU is not held back by the video card). I'll get a replacement CPU and let you all know the results.

Yes, Windows 2000 has the 'LargePageMinimum' registry patch - so thats not it. I'll try the 14.70 drivers and report back asap... Thanx guys!

I'm having a problem running Dronez on my Win2K Athlon system. Basically, the Demo will run all day long with no problems, however if I start a new game the system will freeze (ie Windows will crash) after just a few minutes - I have to press reset & reboot. Can you guys comment on your Dronez experiences - especially if you have AMD CPUs - as a freind of mine with PIII 800EB, Abit i815E and GF3 has no problems at all with Dronez. Other 3D games such as Max Payne, HL & CS, Q3A, UT etc all run perfectly - 3DMark 2000/2001 and the Dronze demo work flawlessly. Thanx Greggy Athlon C 1.33GHz (not o/c), Abit KT7A 3R, 512Mb PC133 SDRAM, WinFast GeForce2 GTS 32Mb (not o/c), SB Vibra 128, Intel 10/100 nic, Windows 2000 SP2 including Pre SP3 hotfixes etc, VIA 4in1 ver 4.32 etc etc

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hahaha I hear you Dirty Harry!