Greggy

I have no performance or image quality issues with my GeForce 256 SDR card with games such as UT on Windows 2000 (Celeron 366 @ 550, 256Mb, CL GeForce SDR). In fact I'd have to say apart from the 60Hz refresh rate UT runs FASTER on Windows 2000 with OpenGL compared to Windows98SE with D3D. slkh, I hate to be the one to tell you, but Windows 2000 boxes with 128Mb and TNT/TNT2/GeForce cards struggle with UT. Do you get much hard disk activity when playing UT? If so, boost your memory to 192Mb or more.

Buddy...you've got what some would call the best video card teamed to what most would say is the worst chipset ever on a modern motherboard! Do yourself (and your DDR GeForce) a HUGE favour: Sell the K6-2 and the Super 7 motherboard to someone who thinks MS Hearts is where its at... and get yourself a Intel i440BX based motherboard and an Intel Celeron CPU. You wont go wrong with an Abit, ASUS or AOpen motherboard, and a 433 or faster Celeron will do nicely without breaking the bank.

I have noticed that 128Mb Windows 2000 boxes with TNT/TNT2/GeForce cards don't like UT especially using OpenGL for 3D acceleration. I've seen total allocated memory hit 270+Mb once a UT game is up and running! Using D3D seems to use less RAM, but 3D performance may not be as good as OpenGL for some users (GeForce users take note). Adding more RAM (eg to a total 192 or 256Mb) will of course fix the issue. However, 3DFx owners do very well with 'only' 128Mb of RAM. Even Banshee owners can play UT extremely well using the Glide API with little or no paging.

I'd say use: 64Mb - if you just want to look at Windows 2000 on your PC. 96Mb - you'd better stick to office-type applications. 128Mb - if you play games but don't take gaming too seriously. 192Mb - Will do for just about everyone. 256Mb or more - You demand the best performance from your Windows 2000 system regardless of financial outlay!

Use the in-built nvidia Riva TNT drivers that shipped with YOUR version of Windows 2000 and see if you get better results. I'm guessing you are trying to use the 3.66 driver on Win2K RC2 or older, which usually doesn't work.

Welcome to the M$ Windows upgrade treadmill... Unfortunately, I too found that 128Mb of RAM was not enough to get the game performance I wanted from Windows 2000. I now have 256Mb and will never go back. However, it seems as though Windows 2000 gaming rigs with 3DFx cards (eg Voodoo3 or Banshee) don't seem to suffer as much if they 'only' have 128Mb of RAM - but remember they can't yet use 32bit colour which is always a bit of a killer to game performance.

Does everyone remember when Unreal was released? Many users reported the game made their PC crash -especially when in higher resolution modes. The game hit the PC harder than anything had ever done before, and many systems (in particular Voodoo 2/SLI systems) had all sorts of stability problems. Often, Voodoo2 users had to downclock their cards below 90MHz to run Unreal stable! Perhaps you are experiencing something similar? Try underclocking your gear and see if it helps!

Try using Direct3D or safe-mode first to configure your desired resolution and colour depth etc, then from Preferences change your display driver (the game restarts) and choose OpenGL. Good luck!

More information please. What build of Win2K are you using? What video drivers are you using? What sound card etc are you using? Does UT work in 'safe mode' etc?

No... The video card driver looks after where textures are placed in the system's resources. If AGP texturing or -insert favourite AGP function here- is not available, it just means the driver must firstly copy the required texture from system memory to local video memory so it can be executed PCI style! NT4 does not support AGP texturing, but that doesn't stop it playing demanding games like Q3A, UT and Half-Life etc extremely well.

If UT runs fine on your box with OpenGL I'd say your Quake 3 is hosed.

Win2K 2195, GeForce SDR (nvidia 3.66), Dual 550 Celerys, 256Mb RAM. Unreal Tournament (OpenGL) is much better under Win2K than Windows 98. I can play at 1024x768 at 32bit with 16 bots hosting a LAN game under Windows 2000, where as Windows 98 is slugging out with exactly the same configuration. Quake 3 and Half-Life run at least as good as under Windows 98. But Direct3D games are defintely slower on Windos 2000 than on Windows 98 (eg Descent 3, GP500, UT D3D etc) but I'm sure newer drivers will address this issue.

Sean, I am using Win2K 2195 with a Creative GeForce SDR running the 'non-modified' 3.66 nvidia drivers and games like Q3A anfd UT all run perfectly. Spontaneous reboots in my experience are the result of a hardware fault... usually CPU or Video card. Put your CPU and video card back to standard speeds if you are overclocking, and make sure things are not getting too hot inside your case (see if its more stable with the case off etc) If you can, keep a PCI slot or two next to your GeForce card empty as this will help the GeForce shed heat. Q3A hits the CPU/Video card subsystem very hard and often games like Q3A or UT will knock over an otherwise stable system.

Ekstreme, I would start to look at other factors that might be causing the problem... Try these ideas: Assuming fresh install of Win2K Pro 2195... Adjust BIOS to conservative settings (make sure IRQ is enabled for the TNT2) Install the nvidia 3.66 drivers for your Viper 770. Verify that the core & memory clocks are correct for your model TNT2 card using Power Strip etc. Try your PIII 450 at 300 if you can. Remove other expansion cards (eg sound card etc) to see if it makes any difference. Try the other cards in different PCI slots. Use a different video card (borrow one from a friend?) Try another motherboard and memory if you can. Perhaps your Quake3 is damaged??? (try downloading the demo again) Do you trust the integrity of your copy of Win2K 2195 ? (anyone else have more ideas?) Remember... ONLY CHANGE ONE THING AT A TIME ! Otherwise you may not know what fixed it when you finally do, and I'm sure you will. Good luck!

I am using the 3.66 nvidia drivers and they are working fine. No problems at all with Q3A, UT (D3D or OpenGL), Half-Life etc. Still no AGP with these though. I have Win2K 2195 Pro,a Creative GeForce SDR and dual 366 Celerys at 566.

Now for GeForce Q3A SMP results! System: Dual 366 Celerons @ 550MHz, 256Mb RAM, Creative GeForce @ 120MHz core/ 190MHz memory, Creative PCI128 sound, NT4 Workstation SP6a. Quake 3 ver 1.09 with v-synch enabled, sound on, 32bit colour & textures, max texture detail, billinear filtering, timedemo = 1. Results: R_SMP 0 / 1 demo001.dm3 640x480 71.7fps / 84.8fps 1024x768 39.1fps / 38.8fps demo002.dm3 640x480 69.0fps / 84.3fps 1024x768 40.1fps / 39.5fps Summary Good performance increase over the overclocked TNT2 Ultra. Still fill-rate limited at 1024x768, but at 640x480 that second CPU is making a BIG difference. I wasn't very lucky with the Creative GeForce card I received, as it is not stable above its default core speed of 120MHz. Even 125MHz causes Q3A to spit-the-dummy BIG TIME. Memory (5ns) at 200MHz seemed to have the odd problem as well, but seeing the core is such a DOG its probably not al the memory's fault!

Please correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure someone will)... Put it this way, my Dual Celeron 550's running Q3A are just as busy at 320x240 resolution as they are at 1024x768 and at 1280x1024. Now if 320x240 requires less CPU, THEN WHAT THE HELL ELSE ARE THEY DOING? I agree that the theoretical peak fill-rate for the 120MHz GeForce (both SDR & DDR) is 480Mpixels/sec. But it will never be that high in a graphically complex game like Q3A as the GeForce simply cannot get the data out of the memory fast enough! The DDR version will be much better, but I'd say the memory speed of the GeForce DDR may still be the limiting factor for its performance.

Check earlier posts and you will see that Quake 3 runs fine on an NT4 SMP system. But steer clear of Aureal Vortex 1 & 2 sound cards (eg Diamond Monster Sound MX300) if your using NT4 and SMP. I use a Creative GeForce 256 and a Creative PCI 128 sound card on dual 550MHz (366) Celerons and Quake 3 runs perfectly! p.s. UT, Half-Life etc run fine too!

Please let us all know your results with the 'newer TNT' drivers. Good Luck!

Now for GeForce Q3A SMP results! System: Dual 366 Celerons @ 550MHz, 256Mb RAM, Creative GeForce @ 120MHz core/ 190MHz memory, Creative PCI128 sound, NT4 Workstation SP6a. Quake 3 ver 1.09 with v-synch enabled, sound on, 32bit colour & textures, max texture detail, billinear filtering, timedemo = 1. Results: R_SMP 0 / 1 demo001.dm3 640x480 71.7fps / 84.8fps 1024x768 39.1fps / 38.8fps demo002.dm3 640x480 69.0fps / 84.3fps 1024x768 40.1fps / 39.5fps Summary Good performance increase over the overclocked TNT2 Ultra. Still fill-rate limited at 1024x768, but at 640x480 that second CPU is making a BIG difference. I wasn't very lucky with the Creative GeForce card I received, as it is not stable above its default core speed of 120MHz. Even 125MHz causes Q3A to spit-the-dummy BIG TIME. Memory (5ns) at 200MHz seemed to have the odd problem as well, but seeing the core is such a DOG its probably not al the memory's fault!

Yes, I have had similar lockups under Win2000 RC2 (2128). I have dual 366 Celerons @ 550MHz on the Epox KP6-BS motherboard with a Creative TNT2 Ultra. Win2000 would completely lock-up not long into starting games like Q3A or UT etc. I kept tracing the problem... I thought perhaps the CPUs where overclocked too much, but the same hardware under Windows 98 and Windows NT4 SP6 works perfectly for days on end at 566MHz! Anyway I set them back to 366, no difference! The TNT2 Ultra is not the problem either as again under Win98/NT4 it is perect. But I know it has something to do with CPU utilisation. I installed Quake 2, and using software rendering started a demo in a 640x480 window... everything ok with CPU usage at about 50-55%. Open another session of Quake 2 (software mode) in another 640x480 window, now CPU usage is up to about 95-100% - a few moments later Windows 2000 locks up. Now under NT4 I have performed the exact same tests with the CPU use at 100% (three Quake 2's running at once using OpenGL 3D) and I have run the tests for over 8 hours straight with not one problem! Anyone else have an idea?

Give the HPT366 a BIG miss... I have played around with the HPT366 ATA66 IDE controller vs Intel IDE controller on an Abit BP6 with Windows 98 and Windows 2000 RC2. CPU usage was ALWAYS higher using the HPT366 controller compared to using the standard (and very good) Intel IDE controller performing tasks such as defrag, searching for files and loading games. Also, I noticed NO performance increase either. So why bother?

Ok people... more Q3A SMP results! System: Dual 366 Celerons @ 550MHz, 256Mb RAM, Creative TNT2 Ultra @ 170MHz core/ 200MHz memory, Creative PCI128 sound, NT4 Workstation SP6a. Quake 3 ver 1.09 with v-synch enabled, sound on, 32bit colour & textures, max texture detail, billinear filtering, timedemo = 1. Results: R_SMP = 0 1 demo001.dm3 640x480 55.7fps 65.2fps 1024x768 32.2fps 31.6fps demo002.dm3 640x480 53.3fps 62.8fps 1024x768 33.0fps 32.2fps Summary Obviously fill-rate limited at 1024x768, but at 640x480 that second CPU is making a difference. I am getting hold of a GeForce card next week and will post more results then. Of course all scores will be higher, but I'm expecting to see the 1024x768 scores pick up with SMP enabled. What have others found/think about these results?

I have always run my dual 366 Celerons at 566MHz at 2.0 volts under NT4/Win 2000 and Win98 and have had no problems at all with the CPUs. I'd have to say Win 2000 was the most unstable...probably due to TNT2 Ultra driver issues rather than overclocked CPUs.

I also have an SMP machine and had very similar problems with Quake 3 on Windows 2000. What sound card are you using? I might be wrong, but I am beginning to think the MX300/TNT2 (or TNT ?) combination is partly to blame. I blew away Windows 2000, installed NT4 SP6 and swapped to a Creative PCI 128 sound card (to cure sound dropouts under NT4) and everything is perfect. A friend of mine had NT4 SP6 on a dual motherboard, single PII 350, MX300 and a TNT2 Vanta and he was getting strange lockups under Quake 3 as well. He swapped to an AWE 64 sound card + latest drivers and its now fine...