BIOS upgrade for TNT2 M64

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Hi

First of all, sorry if this message seems a bit familiar - I posted
something similar a while back but didn't get much of a solution.
Anyway, here's the problem. I have an nVidia TNT2 M64 with 32 MB of
RAM and no TV-out. It came as part of my Dell Dimension. The original
BIOS version for the card is 2.05.13.03 so I thought about updating
it.

I managed to locate an updated BIOS, version 3.05.00.10 and loaded
this with VGABIOS.EXE to test compatability. That went OK so I decided
to flash the card BIOS. Having made a backup of the original BIOS, I
flashed the card with the new BIOS using nVFlash and that went OK.

The problem is that, during POST, the video card is now reporting 16
MB of RAM instead of 32 MB, as the previous BIOS did. In the end I had
to re-flash the card with the original BIOS as the card was unusable
under Windows 98 SE.

Why is the amount of RAM being incorrectly reported? I'd love to be
able to get a newer BIOS working because, when loaded with
VGABIOS.EXE, I noticed some performance improvement.

Regards

Daniel Lam

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

"Daniel Lam" <daniel_fs_lam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2ea609d.0405211704.17c550c3@posting.google.com...
> Hi
>
> First of all, sorry if this message seems a bit familiar - I posted
> something similar a while back but didn't get much of a solution.
> Anyway, here's the problem. I have an nVidia TNT2 M64 with 32 MB of
> RAM and no TV-out. It came as part of my Dell Dimension. The original
> BIOS version for the card is 2.05.13.03 so I thought about updating
> it.
>
> I managed to locate an updated BIOS, version 3.05.00.10 and loaded
> this with VGABIOS.EXE to test compatability. That went OK so I decided
> to flash the card BIOS. Having made a backup of the original BIOS, I
> flashed the card with the new BIOS using nVFlash and that went OK.
>
> The problem is that, during POST, the video card is now reporting 16
> MB of RAM instead of 32 MB, as the previous BIOS did. In the end I had
> to re-flash the card with the original BIOS as the card was unusable
> under Windows 98 SE.
>
> Why is the amount of RAM being incorrectly reported? I'd love to be
> able to get a newer BIOS working because, when loaded with
> VGABIOS.EXE, I noticed some performance improvement.

Unless some means 100-200% performance improvement why would you waste your
time on a card whose time has come and gone? I believe you could buy a
$40-$50 replacement card that will run circles around that card...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Hi Biz

Yeah... what you say is quite true. Trouble is, the computer itself is
quite old (Pentium III 700 MHz; about 4 years now) and it's probably
not worth changing the video card. However, I thought that, if a newer
BIOS could give *some* improvement, then at least that would be
something (and it's free).

Regards

Daniel

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

On 21 May 2004 18:04:16 -0700, daniel_fs_lam@hotmail.com (Daniel Lam)
wrote:

>First of all, sorry if this message seems a bit familiar - I posted
>
>Why is the amount of RAM being incorrectly reported? I'd love to be
>able to get a newer BIOS working because, when loaded with
>VGABIOS.EXE, I noticed some performance improvement.

A used $15 GF2-MX400 would be 4-6 times faster than that TNT2-M64
(which is a tad slower than the original TNT1)... that will give you a
real speed improvement over what you have... while not costing
anything. Of coure its performance is not usable for modern games.