pmistry

Under Windows XP, High Stakes should install and play normally, Direct3D and Software modes too.

I did a search through the forum, and here all the posts regarding success with High Stakes, and a few failures: http://www.ntcompatible.com/vb/search.ph...rder=descending

Alright I am running the following: Hercules 3D Prophet 2 MX [Nvidia GeForce2 MX], Detonator 23.11 Sound Blaster Live! Player 1024, Creative Labs drivers from Creative's web site. Need For Speed: High Stakes Retail CD, no additional patches like the 4.5 patch, Full install. Windows XP Professional 5.1.2600 For WinXP I have a few updates, but I installed all of these after High Stakes, in fact High Stakes was like the first application/game I installed on WinXP, cuz it gave me so many problems in Windows 2000. It has run without a problem. Try getting the WinXP application compatibility update, but honestly the game should run. Try a different Detonator set first, try 21.83, that is the set I had installed when I first installed NFS: HS.

High Stakes works fine normally under XP. You don't even need compatibility mode. Try uninstalling any Windows 2000 Compatibility updates if you upgraded from Win2k. Also uninstall it if you updated from 9x and just reinstall, it should work without a problem.

Do you need a new case and power supply to switch over to P4 motherboards? Do they not fit in normal ATX cases? Also I saw these new 64-bit PCI slots on some new boards when did they come out????????

thanks for all the feedback, I am just looking at some options.

From what I can see, I think you have enough power. You are only running a GeForce 2 MX which consumes less power than a GTS or Ultra or GF3, etc. You also don't have a RAID array too and you are not overclocking. I have a power hungry 750 Mhz SLOT A Athlon running on 250 watt generic power supply and all is well.

M4Carbine, so essentially I can keep my ATX case, and swap the Power Supply to a P4-compatible PSU.

PCI-X, I remember alot of discussion on it being the replacement for normal PCI. It was the Asus A7M-266D board I saw at a computer shop, it is geared towards server/high end workstation market like you said Brian. Also found it on Asus's web site: http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socketa/a7m266-d/overview.htm

hooper48 use an enhanced port like Doom Legacy. Zdoom, or JDoom. There was a whole thread on these ports: http://www.ntcompatible.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=18800

You don't need the DOS SB Driver unless you need to run a DOS app with sound in real mode, like a DOS Game such as Doom. I would pick ME over 98 SE if DOS isn't important. I find that ME runs better on newer hardware.

Fastwrites work fine with most drivers under 2x.xx, the 14.1 enabled it for me.

I blamed VIA, because it was a problem with their chipsets. Quake3 and other games were stuttering so bad without that PCI Latency Patch. At first I thought it was mouse lag, but it wasn't, it was the chipset. I just know that I won't use a VIA chipset next time around.

Is there anyway to run Borland DPMI modules inside Win32? Is there a way to convert a Borland DPMI module into a standard DOS module, etc? I am not familiar with Borland C or whatever Borland language compiled programs.

All of my VIA problems got fixed with that PCI latency patch. The only problem I have with Windows XP is NETBEUI support. I can't use it for Direct Connections across Parallel, this was the only way I could get Win9x and WinNT to talk to each other over a parallel connection. Also games perform a tad slower, but that will improve as driver updates concentrate on WinXP.

Asus A7V133 = VIA Chipset = No Sidebanding. Enabling Sidebanding on a VIA chipset will just cause problems. There is no REAL performance increase. SBA works best on Intel chipsets for most people. To enable it, I believe you have to flash your GeForce BIOS to allow Sidebanding on a VIA chipset. But it isn't worth it, you might want to try some Nvidia Tweaking program like RivaTuner, GeForce Tweak or even PowerStrip.

I have a VIA KX133 chipset too, running an Asus K7V mainboard with BIOS revision 1008-D. Stable like anything but with fast writes disabled. I did upgrade ME to XP once and it just messed everything. I am not using the VIA chipset drivers, using default XP bundled drivers. Got 512 Megs of PC133, AGP Size at 64 megs, Fastwrites and SBA off, Creative's SB Live drivers, and using the VIA PCI latency patch at VIA Hardware all is well.

What is the deal with XP and ZIP files. I use Winrar 2.9 and anytime when I am browsing my files in Windows Explorer, if I single click on a ZIP file, CPU usage jumps to 100 % or so for a brief moment. It really is bothersome, and only happens with ZIP files not RAR files or ACE files.

Hey DosFreak, check this out: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article03-202 Helps big time.

DosFreak, I think you are right. How is this "search" function disabled. In any case, when you are in Explorer, XP treats ZIP as folders and then when you click it, it opens up even if they are registered with Winrar. The larger the zip the longer the delay and longer 100 % CPU use.

I have a VIA based motherboard, while haven't encountered your problem, in my opinion I hate VIA now. After I am done with this board I am getting one on a new chipset. Right now I have things running fairly smooth. After I installed the 4.37 I had REALLY slow disk access CD and Hard Disk, and DMA was enabled. My AGP graphics was slow too as I dropped about 10 FPS in Q3. I reverted back to XP's default and all is well again. The thing is that I installed that PCI Latency Patch at VIAHardware.com and it fixed my laggy graphics with the AGP, SB Live is running is really nice. Try the patch it is supposed to fix a whole bunch of IDE/Sound issues.

Fast Writes are automatically disabled in all drivers past 2x.xx. To enable them try tweak programs. Riva Tuner is the best. But GeForce Tweak, Powerstrip, and others can get it done.

I fixed my Quake 3 and Quake 2 mouse lagging issues, turns out it wasn't the mouse but the chipset. Gotta love VIA, try the PCI latency patch for VIA chipsets. If you have any VIA based board made past 1997 [i think] this patch will work. It worked on my VIA KX133, the patch fixes sound and IDE problems with VIA and XP but also solves stability and for me got rid of the mouse lag!!!!! Download here: if it doesn't work it can be uninstalled. http://download.viahardware.com/vlatency_v019.zip There is an interesting read on this PCI latency problem and how it affects VIDEO, DISK and SOUND performance. Click here: http://bbs.pcstats.com/viahardware/messageview.cfm?catid=19&threadid=8947 You can also grab VIA 4.37 if you would like as well.

thanks for the tip

I don't know much about Samsung drives, never used one, but I think it would be wise to pick up a better rep hard disk for primary use, and since this is your backup drive, go for it if its cheap, let us know how it performs. For me, Maxtor and Western Digital never gave me a problem. Seagate is ok, but hard to find. IBM are fast but expensive, I don't know much about stability. I hate Fujitsu.