gaming problems with Windows 2000 (Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Neverwinter

[red-dragonX 0]

hi guys,

i got win2000 os a couple of months back and i've noticed all of my games except for rollercoaster tycoon work on here.

so i started thinking of going back to windows 98 SE, and a good friend is advising me against it. he said that his games played fine on Windows 2000 and that there may just be another problem with my games situation.

now i've just installed Return to Castle Wolfenstein which used to work perfectly fine single and multiplayer. however, now that i've installed it on Win 2000, it gives me this error after the screen blinks twice "GLW_StartOpenGL() - could not load OpenGL subsystem"

please keep in mind that i only have an NVIDIA64 i think? (also, i am not a techie, so please go step by step). any ideas of how to make this thing work?

also, is Win98SE better than Win2000, especially for gaming? this sucks kuz i hate the blue screen of death, but i also hate going through all of this mess just to make a game work.

on a side note, i bought neverwinter nights and though it plays single player, it has HORRIBLE lag..... i.e character moves after 30 seconds.

i'd like to make both of 'em work, so please help out. thanks in advance!

[Curley_Boy 0]

Your RTCW problem sounds like you need a driver update for your video card. If it's an NVIDIA based one then www.nvidia.com is where you need to go. (The driver installation program is completely automatic, but make sure you uninstall any previous nvidia drivers / programs AND *reboot* before you attempt to install the new ones).

 

As for 98 being better for gaming than 2000, that's a matter of personal opinion and really depends on your hardware and what games you plan on running. In the first year or so of it's release Windows 2000 was definately inferior to 98 for gaming because of it's increased hardware requirements and the fact that hardware manufacturers had not optimised their drivers for the new OS. We're now a good few years down the line: 2000 has 4 service packs to its name and with the launch of XP developers have had to optimise their software and drivers for the NT platform. However if you still need 98 for the odd troublesome program, you can set up your system as a dual boot (assuming you haven't converted your drives from FAT32 to NTFS).

 

I've never played Neverwinter Nights so I can't help you there. I would suggest that you visit the offical site or forum and see if other users have a similar problem, there will most likely be a patch or workaround availiable.

[peterh 1]

The default drivers with Windows tend not to include the OpenGL part of the drivers. Also, when downloading graphics drivers, ALWAYS use the WHQL signed drivers as they are more reliable than unsigned ones.

 

[adamvjackson 0]

1.33 is the Game of the Year version

1.41 is the final version

[red-dragonX 0]

hey guys,

thanks for answering back. i was also having problem with making my printer/scanner/copier work with win2000 (psc 500) and now i got it to print, but it refuses to scan! frustrations!

anyways, i was rereading these threads and also visited the nvidia site... and a question popped into my head, how do you find out what exact graphics card you have? i can't remember but a few weeks back i had managed to find a way to look it up and now i can't remember (feel free to laugh!)

i'm trying a couple of things now, please do keep on replying. thanks.

[red-dragonX 0]

alright, got it to work! while i'm at it, there are a couple of issues i'd like to tackle here and since you guys helped me with one of my problems, maybe you guys can help me out again.

first, i have 128mb RAM, 184 GB harddrive, and Win2000 as you know. after downloading the driver and the comp. restarting, everything appears... large, very big. i know it didn't start in safe mode though, so anyone know how to adjust everything on the screen?

secondly, win2000 seems to be a big memory hog. here's what comes up on task manager (keep in mind this is when i'm playing RTCW) (and since Neverwinter Nights runs so slow, i'm thinking memory may be a problem there too):

CPU Usage 100%

Memory Usage 268784K

 

Totals:

Handles 4733

Threads 297

Processes 25

 

Physical Memory (k):

Total 261668

Available 75904

System Cache 123060

 

Commit Charge (k):

Total 269004

Limit 436072

Peak 272616

 

Kernel Memory (k):

Total 46220

Paged 40644

Nonpaged 5576

 

 

what processes are necessary to keep running? when i'm not playing the game and i bring up the task manager, it shows me that for a second, the CPU usage peaks at a 100% but immediately comes back down to like 3%.

 

I know i'm all over here, but ANY suggestions/inputs will be highly appreciated. Thanks a lot and happy gaming!

[Sampson 0]

If you've just installed the Nvidia drivers, it will default to the lowest resolution. Right click anywhere on the desktop where there is no icon, choose properties, then click on the setting tab, and adjust the resolution the way you want it. Then, click on the Advance button, choose the monitor tab and choose the refresh rate.

 

As to knocking out properties to increase your memory, don't fool with it. Go out and get some memory for that thing and cram it full. W2K will love you for it. I put 768meg in an old BX box that runs at 850mh and it does extremely well hauling W2K around.

[red-dragonX 0]

bump

[red-dragonX 0]

does anyone know why it suddenly peaks at a 100%?

[Sampson 0]

You are not being very clear. Which process is peaking at a 100%?

[Devil_wills 0]

The 100% peak in processor usage will just be the processor opening the task manager therefore registering 100% usage, it drops shortly after as it idles again once the program is open.