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Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be GeForce cowboys ...

(GeForce3 Asus V-8200 DDR 64 Meg video card.)

"Optimized OpenGL ..." it said, so I figured why not? Maybe Trainz would run a little better under 23.11 drivers than 22.80 - not that it runs poorly, but the frame rate could be better in heavily textured areas, ditto with Microsoft Train Sim, which is DirectX (you expected OpenGL from Redmond?).

Hoo boy. First off, I had just "upgraded" IE and OE from 5.0 to 5.5. And to improve performance on the new cable modem connection had done some reg entries. So the cable goes down last night, after I had installed the new drivers and MS upgrades. No TV, no Internet.

Fine, I'll play WAW while I wait for cable to come back up. Blotto. A black screen with nuttin' there. Allowed me to three finger out and return to desktop. Went through ALL the system files that had been changed - 214 and replaced 15 of them, mostly newer versions that had been taken out in favor of older (why do apps do this?). Nope. Black screen.

Biting said bullet, uninstalled WAW, manually edited reg to take out all entries - not bad, only 27 compared to a Trainz dump of 235 - scanreg /fix and /opt, defrag. Reinstall WAW from Desert Fox, which gives you v5.0. Nope. Black screen.

At this point, it was fairly apparent it was a video issue. I hate uninstalling drivers and replacing them with older versions - it is a REAL pain. Only three tries to do it right -am getting better!! Didn't need Detonator Destroyer, the way I did it each driver file from 23.11 was replaced by one from 22.80 - it ain't easy but can be done: always take out the newer nVidia drivers if you want to go back, it is much safer.

Rebooted the system, resored desktop resolution and voila! WAW now runs, inlcuding the Mega Camp, did successive installs of MCLV and MCW and all is happiness and light.

Just a warning - with P3 1.0 Ghz Asus CUSL-2 mobo and above video card, WAW will not play with the newest 23.11 drivers, it won't even load. Everything else loaded and ran just fine, including Trainz, MSTS, WinWord and Excel not to speak of various utililites and assorted junk. And that was true at each stage of testing, too.

Beware the 23.11 drivers!! They'll getcha and you won't enjoy it, not even one little bit. I have a sneaky feeling the 23.11 drivers are not campatible with one of the dll's that WAW uses, which is not used by other Windows apps.

I also tested with Bahn 375, a railroad operations sim that has a history almost identical to that of WAw: Begins as a pure DOs app, then by stages is upgraded to a windows app. Bahn 375 ran perfectly at each stage of testing. So it has to be just WAW.

Beware the 23.11 drivers! You may never play WAW again!! Don't let this happen to YOU!!!
(re "Charlie and the MTA").

Yours for peaceful computing,

Bing

Bing,
Just a thought: did u install the latest DirectX? I have the same mobo and proc; when I switched from my old TNT2 to a Radeon I loaded DirectX 8.1 and *pfhhhtt*, same problem. After removing 8.1 (using DirectX Buster www.directxbuster.de ) and installing 8.0a all was fine.

That was a thought, to take out DX 8.1 and replace with the older version. Problem is, while it might solve the WAW problem, it might create a worse problem in other games that require 8.1.

Excluding two or three other games from play wouldn't be worth it. This way, I have functioning nVidia drivers and compatibility across the board.

I appreciate the thought, however that which applies to Radeon doesn't necessarily apply to anything else. Under nVidia, going to the considerable effort to get 8.1 off the system and 8.0 restored might not work at all. Does Macy's talk to Gimbels? Does Radeon talk to nVidia?

Bing

B,
I used the same procedure with my TNT2 (nVidia) card...and as far as I know no games require DX8.1 yet. Besides the download time we're talking about 2 restarts: sounds reasonable to me. I'll try to find the site (or posting) that described the 8.1 problems...they were not Radeon specific.

I've heard that the 23.11 were kinda buggy.

I myself own the same Asus G3 Deluxe as you do, never had any problems with the 22.80 drivers on Win2KPro/DX8.1 (mb: Asus A7V266-E). Last week I tried the 27.70 to see whether I would have better anti-aliasing with the Red Faction and C&C Renegade demos. The AA was still kind of jerky, no better than with the 27.70, but I had no problems with the drivers either. OFP and SPWAW still run fine, so I am keeping the 27.70's.

You may want to take a look at the Technogarb Asus drivers suite. What the guy on the site does is take the NVidia reference drivers (the most often updated) and mix them with some Asus DLLs, so we have the best of both worlds: NVidia reference performance with Asus functionality (like OSD and Stereo glasses). Worked flawlessly for me for the last 6 months since I discovered the site. The games tested were: WW2OL, DAoC, RTCW, MoH, Red Faction, C&C Renegade, and SPWAW. Of course he can't get rid of the occasional NVidia bug. But he retains Asus' rather nice driver uninstall functionality.
I've been juggling between Technogarb drivers versions with no problems (of course having a Norton-Ghost'ed copy of my c: drive ready ) Never needed Detonator Destroyer either, just Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs - Uninstall the drivers suite, then reboot without the drivers into 640x480, then install the new drivers, reboot again and voilà!

I plan on using that old nVidia card in another system, so I'll be sure to check out that site and the drivers there.

Thanks for the heads up, I'm looking to build a new system and am leaning toward the new Geforce 4's, I don't know what version drivers there using but I'll make sure it's not 23.11

Trainz requires DX 8.1. UbiSoft doesn't specify 8.1 for IL-2, but the rec is for the latest drivers - I think at the time that read.me was done 8.0a (later to be 8.1) was current as a "leaked" driver.

Admittedly, if the player has no interest in the newer games, 8.0 would get him by. But I wouldn't want to risk running Trainz on anything but the specified 8.1 - why take a chance? The way I see it, the 23.11 drivers are good for everything but WAW - a better system analyst than myself would be able to tell us why.

With 23.11 I saw what I thought was smoother performance in Trainz and MS Train Sim (my other two big apps right now) - not higher fps, not better detail or color, the flow of scene rendering seemed to be with less jerkiness.

But after the spring housecleaning of drivers, I am beginning to see smoother performance in MSTS with 22.80 - too soon to be certain.

Bing

Originally posted by Bing
Trainz requires DX 8.1. UbiSoft doesn't specify 8.1 for IL-2, but the rec is for the latest drivers - I think at the time that read.me was done 8.0a (later to be 8.1) was current as a "leaked" driver.

Admittedly, if the player has no interest in the newer games, 8.0 would get him by. But I wouldn't want to risk running Trainz on anything but the specified 8.1 - why take a chance? The way I see it, the 23.11 drivers are good for everything but WAW - a better system analyst than myself would be able to tell us why.

With 23.11 I saw what I thought was smoother performance in Trainz and MS Train Sim (my other two big apps right now) - not higher fps, not better detail or color, the flow of scene rendering seemed to be with less jerkiness.

But after the spring housecleaning of drivers, I am beginning to see smoother performance in MSTS with 22.80 - too soon to be certain.

Bing

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Gee, there are some unique parallels between my setup and yours. But I'm not sure if youre correct in assuming the driver is the source of the WAW problem. I had been using that same driver 23.11 with a Gefroce2 and now a Geforce3 and under Win Xp (which comes with DirectX 8.1 welded in) Not hitch anywhere.
By the way, I run MSTS, and I saw a great frame rate improvement using 23.11.

Won't let me delete ... sorry.

Win XP makes the difference, Greg. I'm running Win98SE and intend to keep it that way until the end of the year - if XP Pro gets settled down, maybe I"ll get it then.

Even if we did have the same OS there is no guarantee our systems would be configured the same, and if they were there is no telling what DLL's might be in your System file or mine and what they might do in a given situation.

If you got a frame rate increase in MSTS, that's great. A lot of people haven't no matter what they did with drivers.

Let's put it this way: If the other possibilities are eliminated, then why wouldn't it be a video driver issue? If all the other apps run fine but not WAW - then WAW runs great when I go back to 22.80 drivers?

There is no way you can tell from where you sit. I do the standard troubleshooting routine: Take the possibilities one by one until I come down to one area, then fix that area. Can I prove beyond a doubt it was a video driver issue? No. Can you prove it wasn't? I don't think so.

If you can, please let me know. I wouldn't mind going back to the 23.11 drivers - but remember, you are talking about Win XP and that is a whole different ballgame. Your fix will have to be for Win98SE ...

Bing

I have been through hell with those 23.11 drivers: not only would spwaw not run but I was unable to play FS, AOS2 and Combat mission on-line !

But on guru3d.com I found the 27.42 beta drivers, installed and solved all my problems.

Hope this helps

Antonius - Thank you for the reply, but will you please tell us what OS you are using? Win98SE - XP - whatever?

I am always interested in improving performance, but am somewhat suspicious of "off the wall" drivers - if the nVidia sponsored drivers can cause this much problem, I get to thinking someone's beta drivers could be a LOT worse.

Gets to the point where I spend all my time wrestling with drivers and fiddling with settings and not getting playtime in. MSTS was so much like that I quit running it for a time.

What we have to realize, I think, is that these days there just isn't any such thing as a "standard setup" - not like it was back in the good old DOS days when a boot disk with custom autoexec.bat and config.sys files would pretty much solve your problems.

Course we didn't have 3D either - and apps such as Trainz are breathtaking when they run well. I didn't know how good my system IS until I got OpenGL set up for Trainz. Wow! Fps depends upon texture load - everywhere I"ve been in 3D that is true.

Some designers do a better job of evening out the load than others - per Ethel Merman: Some people got it and make it pay / Other can't even GIVE it away!

Bing

Originally posted by Bing
Antonius - Thank you for the reply, but will you please tell us what OS you are using? Win98SE - XP - whatever?

I am always interested in improving performance, but am somewhat suspicious of "off the wall" drivers - if the nVidia sponsored drivers can cause this much problem, I get to thinking someone's beta drivers could be a LOT worse.

Gets to the point where I spend all my time wrestling with drivers and fiddling with settings and not getting playtime in. MSTS was so much like that I quit running it for a time.

What we have to realize, I think, is that these days there just isn't any such thing as a "standard setup" - not like it was back in the good old DOS days when a boot disk with custom autoexec.bat and config.sys files would pretty much solve your problems.

Course we didn't have 3D either - and apps such as Trainz are breathtaking when they run well. I didn't know how good my system IS until I got OpenGL set up for Trainz. Wow! Fps depends upon texture load - everywhere I"ve been in 3D that is true.

Some designers do a better job of evening out the load than others - per Ethel Merman: Some people got it and make it pay / Other can't even GIVE it away!

Bing

My set-up is W98SE and my video-card is a Geforce2 MX/MX400.
I installed those drivers out of desperation and after a windows reinstall: as said above 2311 was messing up with spwaw (sometimes) and on-line gaming (always) while the my original drivers were not fullt compatible with direct-X (they did work before the reinstall but not afterwards )
On guru3d they said the drivers that solved my problem are those that Nvidia has submitted for certification.

Antonius - Thanks for the info - when I feel like hitting my thumb with a hammer again, I'll go after those drivers. Right now, it feels good that I have stopped.

Trainz looks good and frame trates are not bad, even in the heavily builtup areas. MSTs isn't bad but I haven't had the time to really. Too busy with crashing layouts in Trainz.

So or now, I got the lid on and just want to play trainz, MSTs and WAW. But I think the discussion will have benefitted others with similar problems. Just think what we have to look forward to when we "upgrade" to XP!

Bing

Originally posted by Bing
Win XP makes the difference, Greg. I'm running Win98SE and intend to keep it that way until the end of the year - if XP Pro gets settled down, maybe I"ll get it then.....


Bing

I see your point. I just went to XP last fall. I had been using 98 se. Then I struggled for quite awhile getting a dual boot
setup going, using XP as primary and Win98se as a secondary
OS. I went to 23.11 after I brought most of the software over
to XP. I'm using 23.11 on 98se, but thats not where I run
WaW from. I wonder if I should try to replicate what you're
experiencing. I won't break much since I just have old DOS
stuff on that partition. Hmmm....

Running 23.11 here, have been for a while - no problems with SPWAW. Win2k, GeForce3 Ti200 (overclocked like a mother though...wee!). Dual CPU rig to boot. In fact, these drivers have given me very little in the way of trouble, and certainly none with SPWAW...

Venger

Just got this from the Ziff Davis ExtremeTech website ( http://www.extremetech.com/ ) - another reason I am going to hold off on Win XP.

"Microsoft has stated that an upgrade like a motherboard swap (all other things remaining the same) should not force the user to reactivate Windows XP. As it turns out, that's not quite true, although the problem seems to be related to glitches in the operating system, not any conspiracy on Microsoft's part. However, the technical issues surrounding this are enough to make you tear your hair out--" You might be interested in reading the rest of the story.

BTW under no circumstances will I run any OS that requires me to report hardware usage - in effect that is what they are asking me to do. The cover story from MS is "Well, it really isn't that bad ..." yes, it is if you can read what has happened to users. XP ain't doing all that well and another reason is the inexcusable attitude of MS to security in XP - there are enough holes to make a Swiss cheese.

If necessary, I will wait for Lindows, the Linux version now in beta that will run Windows apps. If MS changes their mind and decides to quit acting like Big Brother, fine. Otherwise I will die with Win98SE on my system. Or Linux, if they make it compatible.

Bing

Neofit - Just for the record: Technogarb does not have drivers for Win98. I checked twice over the last coule days.

Bing

I have an old (PCI - ugh!) TNT2 Ultra with my AMD Athlon/Windows XP system. I have the latest 2311 Detonator drivers, and they're causing me no trouble whatsoever. DirectX 8.1 is another story though Once i busted it back to 8.0, everything runs just fine. 'xept my soundcard, but I use the integrated one until I can afford a new one :rolleyes: