Direct3D not working

[grijp79]

Hello everyone,

I have a problem with access to Direct3D after I formatted my harddrive.
My videocard is a Nvidia TNT2 4xAGP, a pretty old one. I installed directx9.0c and the lastest driver from the Nvidia website, detonator 71.84.

Well, when I wanted the run the game Mafia, my pc froze up. Then I tried to run Dxdiag but it went very sluggish and it said that Direct3D was not accessible and also directdraw. I couldn't activate it.

Maybe it has something do to with the driver. I installed another one, 61.xx with the device manager but the problem is still there.

I am a fairly experienced pc user, but I have never had this before. What should I do next. When I uninstalled the 71.84 driver, with driver cleaner, I rebooted first before installing a new one. Windows gave the message that no display driver is installed and that I needed to reboot. Everytime I did this the same message appeared.

I went into safe mode and used system restore to go back when 71.84 was installed. Then I installed 61.xx.

Could it be that after using driver cleaner I need to install other driver first and then reboot? I thought that Windows would use a standard vga driver when no Nvidia driver is installed at reboot?

My system is a pIII 866 Mhz with 192 Mb Ram and Win ME.

Please help me with getting Direct3D working again!

Thanks

 

[fishhookz]

"Could it be that after using driver cleaner I need to install other driver first and then reboot?" - No.

"I thought that Windows would use a standard vga driver when no Nvidia driver is installed at reboot?" - Correct. And XP will prompt you for drivers if a new device is detected.

Was your previous video card ATI-base?

 

[grijp79]

I only had a NVidia card.

But could it be a directx 9.0c problem or is my card broken?
Yesterday I used driver cleaner again and followed the instructions in the read me file etc and everything went fine, after rebooting I had the latest drivers 71.84 installed.

Tried dxdiag, still the same problem.

I think there are three possibilities

1. Card is broken
2. Directx is corrupted, but i installed it two times already, on top of eachother because I don't know if a previous installation can be uninstalled
3. The driver is too new for my old card and I need an older driver.

Well those are my options, but I still don't have a clue if these are the right ones and, if so which one causes the problem.

But to answers your question, the only card I have ever had is an NVidia (dont know if these are ATI based).

Greetings Patrick

 

[fishhookz]

People have had problems with replacing ATI with nVidia cards. The older driver would leave something behind. Driver Cleaner does the trick. That's why I asked.

Could be 1 & 2. Make sure you set up 4x AGP & no fast write in BIOS. It's best to reboot as soon as an install is done. Like d9c & detonator. After a format, install in this order: OS, drivers, dx9, games, etc.

 

[gwhite]

Try this. Go to add and remove programs and uninstall any Nvidia driver you see. Then reboot into safe mode and run driver cleaner. Follow those instructions carefully with driver cleaner. When you reboot and it wants to install the new driver point it to install the standard pci vga display adaptor. Reboot when asked. After a reboot, now start the Nvidia graphics driver installation by doubleclicking on the driver icon you downloaded. You may want to find an older driver if you still have problems. Do whats in the previous post as having these enabled may be the problem. I would spend a little cash and get something a little newer. You won't be disappointed.

 

[grijp79]

Thanks for the advice. I tried your method but nothing works. Maybe I should take out my videocard and plug it back in en then do the steps you suggested.
If that doesn't help, I have to buy a new card.

Gr Patrick