lattitude cpi-a direct3d mystery

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neomystery

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alright, this is a strange mystery for me that i can't solve, though i am very hopeful

when i bought my dell latitude cpi A400XT, it had windows 2000 on it and the direct3d was fine......i used playstation and n64 emulators with thier direct3d plugins and all was fine....then, stupid me, taking '2000 off and putting 98 on thier instead, poof, bye bye direct3d....to make things worse, i lost the cdkey for my dell product cd

i have installed, 98, 2000 and xp on my machine, used the drivers from dell and still no direct3d

i've read all over the net, some saying neomagic 256av doesn't support direct3d, others saying it does....specs of computers with the neomagic 256av say that they have both direct3d and opengl support

i theorize that either i need a specific driver version or version of directx or possibly a combination, i did read something about a press release stating that neomagic, newly, at one time, was making thier stuff direct 7 compliant

a friend said to me "windows 2000 is a very diferent animal than the other versions of windows...hardware can be optimized under windows 2000"....and windows 2000 must be something special, i read that the xbox uses a stripped down win2k kernel

the guy that sold me the notebook said briefly "you only get direct3d under windows 2000" and then he offered me a new product cd wich i didn't think i needed at the time (i was two states away and planning to buy a windows 2000 disc myself"

i've exhausted every idea i can come up with....i suppose my last effort would be getting another product cd and installing 2000 from that........unless someone else has had a dell lattitude cpi A400XT and grappled with this before?

this is my first notebook, i don't want to dump it right away just because i can't get the direct3d going again, with some more ram and a bigger hard drive, i want to be using this notebook for a few more years,

thanks y'all,
-Johnnie
 
Have you downloaded and installed the latest Dell Video driver? ...Also definitly stick with Windows 2000, far better than 98. You should also download Direct X 9.0
 
Agreed...if Windows 2000 has generic video driver for your card, it almost certainly won't have any sort of hardware acceleration features... like Vass says, Update to DirectX 9.0b and the latest video driver from NVIDIA or ATI, whichever is applicable.
 
guys, i apreciate your suggestions, but, i mentioned that i downloaded and tried the drivers provided by dell, at support.dell.com

2ndly, i've tried the newest directx

3rdly, i clearly say that i have a neomagic card, more accurately, a neomagic magicgraph256av on my dell latitude cpi A400XT

so, its a problem on the:

>> dell latitude cpi A400xt

with the video hardware:

>> neomagic magicgraph256av

when i first bought it, it did have direct3d when under:

>> windows 2000

understand?

i have put 2000 on my machine again (WITH the win2k drivers downloaded from dell) with no luck (not from the same cd that the seller did, i believe he used the dell product cd that he provided me, and i don't believe i ever had a cdkey with it, though he insists it was on the sleve) - i've done the same thing under 98 and xp, no luck with them, wich also i tired with the dell drivers and newest directx

i've tried the newest directx and directx 7b, i've tried drivers out the @*%$%^ from driverguide, i love driverguide....you know, there aught to be a free p2p devoted only to drivers

i hate neomagic
 
oh hold up, i might be miss labelling the problem....when i used direct3d (before i stupidly took 2000 off my machine), my apps were more particulary using the HAL and whats the other one? these being direct3d's software rendering?.....would this aspect not be dependant on the hardware but more on directx itself?....i've tried the newest directx, the directx that comes with 98, win2k, xp and i've tried directx 7b.....grrrr, i'm really stuck in search engine hell....i get little bits about "accelorated drivers"...."direct3d drivers from the manufactuer".....if anyone has a direct3d to SDL wrapper, i'll go with SDL

is anyone familiar with linux on the dell latitude cpi A400XT?
 
also whats strange is, that i've seen from 98, 2000 and now in xp, that it'll show that i have two default monitors installed....i disabled one, didn't do a thing.....suppose this is a bug that would mess with directx?
 
There is no point speculating whether or not it supports D3D is there? It does, You've used it.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Whats that say?


2 monitors probably isn't a bug in DX, do you have TV-Out aswell as an Analog port?

What service pack are you at with Windows 2000? if you go

'Start'--> 'Run' and type DXDIAG what do the Direct3D tests do there?
 
well, when i goto run, and use "dxdiag", it shows the direct3d and texture thingies grayed out, however i can use the "test direct3d' button

also, i've read up on HAL, its something very special with windows 2000, it means hardware abstraction layer, its a layer between programs and your computers memory and hardware, so in my case, the direct3d HAL layer let my whole computer handle the direct3d (cpu, ram) when my video card couldn't cut it

i would tottally shake bill gates hand for giving us windows 2000 hehe =)

anywho, more reading on HAL says that it is system specific, so with my dell computer, it has a "dell latitude cpi a" hardware specific HAL, that may be one of the basic typed included in windows 2000, or one provided by dell

i have a product CD that i assume the seller used to install windows 2000 on my computer

i am now able to use it to install windows 2000 after losing the key....without using any illegal method mind you, although saying how i did it may be illegal, so i won't LOL

however, i only used the upgrade method, as i have programs and things that i need often, but when i have a few hours to spend, i'm going to do a fresh install

i believe a fresh installs, with nothin but what is provided by my dell product cd will do the tirck, i will keep you posted
 
oh, just used that adviser app, its tight, but it didn't reaveal anything to me that i didn't already know....i've seen my service tag a million times already...i've trolled support.dell.com

the issue isn't knowing the problem, i know what it is, its getting a direct3d HAL layer on my computer....thats either provided by the system's HAL or a direct3d HAL provided by neomagic (the manufactuer of my video device)....and, i assume the seller installed from this product cd he gave me with my pc....so i am going to install with it.....its not supriseing neomagic doesn't support thier old stuff, they suck......they gave you a paper boot painted to look like leather
 
Awnser

okay, if anyone is still watching this thread, i figured it out, and on my own, how about that?;)

alright, first off, the two ways that i used the "direct3d" in the original configuration (of OS, directX, video driver) was with a playstation emulator and with a nintendo 64 emulator....and the plugins for both of these wich i used were written for directx 6

so, aparently, whomever the previous owner was, (s)he installed windows 2000 with directX6 and perhaps an older neomagic 2200 driver

its as simple as that, however, i don't even know where to begin looking for an old neomagic m2200 video driver if thats what i need....although, i haven't tried the drivers i already have with directX 6 yet (under windows 2000), only with the 7.1 or watever that installs from the windows 2000 cd

does anyone know if earlier windows 2000 installations installed directX 6?

thank god for oldversion.com

hmmm, though i prefer windows xp LMAO...hmmm, would it hurt xp if i dumped directX 8 and installed 6? okay, i can hear you laughing lol, but seriously, would it "work"?
 
W2K originally installs DirectX 7. After applying service pack 4 (SP4), install DirectX 9.0b to give you best compatibility.

You should look for Neomagic nm2200 drivers, available all over the internet, e.g. at http://www.video-drivers.com

To get the CD-key from an installed Windows (any type), D/L Keyfinder from:
http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml

If you want to mess around with DirectX, you will need a directx-uninstaller for each specific version. Normal uninstall does not do a proper job. My advise, stick with DX9.0b
 
i'd like to know what version of windows & directx is the best combination to get direct3d going on a 256av system. I got an old 600E thinkpad that i have been working on stripping down windows for optimum performance for games. Unreal Tourniment has inbuilt drivers that has direct3d support for 256av graphic cards without software emulation as well. It can be run at amazing speeds on this laptop as a result with a bit of tweaking. Plus I have heard of people who have managed to fool their cards into direct3d mode, but no-one seems to remember how they did it.

Sony used to tweak the registry of their earlier viao laptops with the same graphics card to get direct3d. Does anyone know what were these registry settings.

No cliche responces please, chances are I have already tried them.
 
Use the most up-to-date version of DirectX, which is 9.0b.
This includes support for ALL previous versions of DirectX.

If you want to tweak for specific PC or laptop, go find a user-group for that PC/laptop or surf to one of the many game-forums.
 
Somehow I just knew someone would say that.

I've been doing all that :( and am still doing so, thats how I got here.

Updating to the latest drivers and DirectX doesn't solve the problem with these things. Thats obviously the first thing I did. That seems to be what countless others have tried with no luck either.
 
awnser?

bleh...my last post was marked as the awnser simply because it was the closest thing to it....and this was a "rough" one because no one has a real awnser...i don't believe anyone will, least not in this forum

however, i believe that we are confusing the software ratisizer of earlier directX versions with direct3D hardware acceleration, as neomagic's 256 av video does not provide hardware accelerated direct3D

i believe that back when the 256av video hardware was much more current, the version of directX at the time had more support for non-3D accelerated video hardware as also at the time video games weren't as 3D intensive as today

the real awnser, for my system atleast, is to have windows 98 (or perhaps windows 2000) with directX 6.x and use games/video plug-ins written for directX 6.x....on my system, these applications would be using the software ratisizer of directX 6.x and not hardware acclerated direct3D

now, mark this as the awnser, dell gods
 
my bad

my bad guys LOL, i forgot this wasn't the dell support forum, i should've realized because the posts here are more interesting than those in the dell support forum....my post there is probably collecting dust
 
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