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Help! NVIDIA drivers driving me mad

Tags:
  • Graphics Cards
  • Drivers
  • Nvidia
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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December 5, 2001 5:30:37 AM

System: Gigabyte mobo, via kt 133 chipset, 512mb pc 133, Duron 700, SB live 5.1, Visiontek Geforce 2 mx400 64 mb vid card, 40 Gb Maxtor 7200 rpm HD, Windows Millenium edition

QUESTION: My system will only run on detonator 3 drivers version 12.41 or older. When I install 15.70 or any of the detonator 4 drivers it give me a "sytem running low on memory error" when I reboot then it freezes. This happens even with a fresh install of Win Me. I know that I have a cheap video card but the newer drivers are suppose to support this card. What's the problem???

Thanks yet again!

More about : nvidia drivers driving mad

December 5, 2001 1:16:41 PM

Check if your AGP aperture size is set to at least 128 in your BIOS. Maybe that can help.

My case has so many fans that it hovers above the ground :eek:  .
December 5, 2001 3:00:32 PM

If I were you, I'd adjust the VCache setting in the System.ini file, and <i>then</i> try out the newest driver set for the card.

Open the System.ini file in a text editor, such as Notepad.

Go to the [VCache] section.

Add these lines, or change the settings to this, directly under [VCache]:

MinFileCache=4096
MaxFileCache=131072

Save the changes and reboot.

Then go directly to the BIOS, and try to open the AGP aperture to 256, if the BIOS supports an aperture that large. That's pretty standard with 512MB of RAM. 1/2 the size of the physically-installed memory.

Then clean out the old drivers completely with Add/Remove Programs, and then install the new drivers.

Toejam31

<font color=red>My Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847&lt;/A>
____________________________________________________

<font color=purple>"Procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."</font color=purple>
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December 6, 2001 3:42:46 AM

Thanks Toejam31 your Vcache settings solved the problem. I installed without a hitch. The drivers seem to work flawlessly. If you have the time can you explain what the Vcache settings are and why you chose those values?
Thanks again.
December 6, 2001 5:09:31 AM

Glad I could help. ;-)

The VCache is basically a set of memory addresses for the disk caching virtual device driver.

In Win9x, when you install 512MB of RAM or more, a bug in the OS correspondingly raises the size of the VCache, and this can become as large as 800MB when controlled by Windows. But the VCache settings must <i>always</i> be smaller than the size of the physically installed RAM, or it can cause blue screens and out-of-memory errors.

Also, the AGP port uses a set of memory addresses that are very close to the VCache. This is a cache for texturing, and so, for example, if you have a video card with 32MB of RAM, another 32MB is allocated for AGP texturing. If these addresses overlap, the again, you get blue screens.

The settings I posted for you caused the minimum size of the cache to be 4MB, which is good for performance. The maximum number set the upper limit for the cache at 128MB, which is not only sufficient for the virtual device driver and the cache, but also better for performance. The standard rule-of-thumb in this kind of situation is that the maximum number is really the important one, and that it should be set at around 25% of your RAM.

After making the changes, the memory addresses cannot overlap and cause a protection fault when the disk caching virtual device driver and the AGP port start fighting over the RAM addresses during the boot, which is exactly what was happening on your machine.

Does that explain it sufficiently?

See ya ...

Toejam31

<font color=red>My Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847&lt;/A>
____________________________________________________

<font color=purple>"Procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."</font color=purple>
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