TNT2 on a P4


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Being the cheap ass I am (:D), I'm going to move my 5 year old nVidia TNT2 (32Mb) onto my Pentium 4 for the time being. I'll keep it there until ATi introduces their new line of graphic cards, or releases a hotfix for their 9600 pros which causes lockups. I was wondering if I will get really unplayable/crappy graphics, or a really low FPS when playing really demanding games (Halo, UT2003, GTA)? I don't mind setting my resolution down to 1024 * 768, or setting details on low, just as long as it's playable and I don't experience much lagginess/slow resonse. It's been running like a champ on my old computer, and I don't think I've had one problem so far.

This card obviously doesn't support Directx 9.0b, but I have it installed on my P4. Will there be any problems, or will the graphics card just disregard it and use Directx 8.0? This card has been running pretty fine on my P3, and I have 9.0 installed.

Another thing, will my motherboard (which is AGP 8x) run this card? I think it's running at 2x. Is there anything else I should know before making the switch?

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eally low FPS when playing really demanding games (Halo, UT2003, GTA)

dude you wont even be able to play those games. If you do get UT working, forget even 1024*768, look towards 640*480.

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Stop bagging TNT2s :(

I got a Vanta, which is like TNT1.5, and I'm on an Athlon 1.2, I can play Vice City fine! A bit of lag on 800x600 but playable at least :)

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yeah really. and i dont see how you ave issues with your 9600 Pro, i have had mine for almost half a year, and it is still kickin along great

somehow after weeks of reading it appears some Radeon cards work flawlessly, some others are duds. unfortunately, either my 9600 has some serious driver issues or it is incompatiable with my machine, which i highly doubt.

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god damn it, i'll just go out and pick up an FX5200 or something after i see if my games look like crap. i won't be surprised one bit if it does.

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The TNT2 is only DirectX 6.0 technology compliant, meaning is has no pixel or vertex shaders. No hardware transform & lighting. No DDR SDRAM. No NVidia Shading Rasteriser (NSR) or AA/AF technologies.

You probably won't even be able to use it in your motherboard as it probably draws 3.3V, which is not compatible with any of the i845 or higher chipsets (which demand that 1.5V/0.8V AGP4x/8x cards be used), unless its' keyed for universal AGP slots, in which case it may work. Check with your card manufacturer to see if it will work when drawing only 1.5V.

Good luck playing UT2003 with a TNT2. Welcome to all "low-quality", 16-bit, 640x480 hardware D3D/OGL rendering. :)

Do yourself a favour and grab even a used GeForce 2 GTS or Ultra or ATI Radeon 7500 / 7500 Pro. At least you'll be able to enjoy 1024x768 with low quality, depending on your CPU speed.

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OMFG! I've found someone who is actually cheaper than I am! You can't understand how happy this thread has made me! ;)

I just switched to a 9600 Pro XT and I love it (look a few days back on some threads I started). I still have a P3 800 and it runs great. I can play Splinter Cell at 1024 x 768 on medium detail, I've played a few demos of other games and so far there aren't any games I can't run and the images look fine. I don't understand what problems there are with the ATI cards. Surely, if there were problems, people wouldnt be buying them.

Thrown the TNT 2 out already!

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Let's do this, you send me the non-working pro and I'll send you a working non-pro lol

(if you want the problem solved yea, I mean do you really want to use a tnt2 card?)

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Well, I was going to say go with it, but after reading that it doesn't support half of the stuff my GeForce 2 mx200 does, I say get a GeForce 2. Mine runs Vice City fine, CS @ 60fps, Star Wars Jedi Academy, according to Microsoft Games thing it should run Halo, Need for Speed Underground, at about low-medium quality with Particles turned off...but I have a PCI version, if you have an AGP one it might run better.

Or you could get a Radeon 7500, my friend has one, runs all those games great @ 1024x768...

Intel Celeron 2.4ghz

Geforce 2 MX 200 (32mb)

512mb DDR PC2700

XP Home

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Some things to try- to stabilize cards- Try running the system at the default FSB and voltages...also set the memory timings to a meduim setting....also they seem to have issues with and with out siband addressing..http://www.omegacorner.com/radeon_omega_drivers.txt

to quote the omega read me

5- I have received various E-Mails asking about FastWrites, there is only one

answer to that: TURN IT OFF

The Radeon cards do support FastWrites and they will work with it on

(on some machines), but it is not recommended, there is NO SPEED gain

when using FW, and this option will affect your PC's stability a LOT.

*** IMPORTANT FASTWRITES UPDATE ***

An important info has come to my attention, if you have a Radeon 9600 Pro card,

regardless of the manufacturer, you MUST enable Fastwrites to make it work

properly, if not, you may experience crashes and lockups! (This is only a temporary

fix until ATI resolves the problem)

There are also issues with memory being over a certain amount.

Important Notes:

1. If you are experiencing crashes or black screens just a few seconds after

entering a game, DISABLE VPU RECOVER (IF available), that should help.

2. If you play Call of Duty (Full version, not demo) and experience lockups

in certain game areas, DISABLE Fastwrites.

3. To use the Profiler Software you may need to download and install a recent

version of .NET RUNTIME from Microsoft. If you get an error message, at program

start which sounds like "program cannot be intitialized", then you need to download

and install the latest .NET runtime from Microsoft, or you will not be able to

use the program. Link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&displaylang=en

There also seems to be issues with having over 512mb of memory installed.

http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4217.html

Data corruption may occur if the Large System Cache feature is enabled in Windows XP

This symptom does not occur on all systems. The key ingredients that lead to this symptom may include:

System Memory greater than 512 Meg. (1 gigabyte of RAM is common)

Large NTFS disk volumes. And multiple large volumes. (60-100 gigabyte hard drives possibly in RAID arrays)

AGP graphics with large AGP resource requirements (AGP aperture greater than default)

Large file transfers

This problem occurs when the computer runs out of system page table entries. Windows determines (at boot time) the default number of page table entries to assign, based on the amount of system memory available. The items mentioned above all contribute to increasing the number of page table entires that Windows XP must maintain and in extreme cases the page table entries may be exhausted.

To avoid this symptom ensure the System Cache option is NOT selected for Memory usage. Use the Programs option.

- right-click on the My Computer Icon then Properties to open the System Properties dialog box

- select the Advanced Tab then the Settings button under Performance

- select the Advanced tab on the Performance options tab

- in the Memory Usage area, ensure the Programs radio button is selected

- Apply the changes and select OK

It may be possible to work around this issue by increasing the value for page table entries, as follows,

WARNING: Please make a backup copy of your Registry before proceeding. If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Launch the Registry Editor. Select the Start Button then Run. Type in regedit.exe and select OK.

Locate the SystemPages value under the following key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Double-click the SystemPages value. The Edit DWORD Value dialog box appears.

Enter the maximum value (0xFFFFFFFF) , and then click OK.

Quit Registry Editor.

NOTE: 0xFFFFFFFF is the safest value however a value greater than the default but less than the maximum may provide better results.

NOTE: Changing the VALUE from the default may decrease performance by 1-2% .

INFO-BASE# 4217

KEYWORDS: ALL Products for PC Data corruption Large System Cache Windows XP

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I would also suggest try to set all the bios values to defaults and then slowly bring them up. Also for example- to test a power draw theory- is that if you have a cdrom and a dvd - try unplugging the cdrom.. leaving the dvd as the only other device. I would also suggest taking out the sound card and reinstalling xp it is quite possible that an IRq may be not routed properly... I would also suggest trying this at both extremes- the agp apertature- raising it to its max and then also try lowering it the lowest... Make sure also to have your latest bios as well as your latest mobo(chipset drivers) also should you do for example a RTMXP to Sp1 update reinstall all drivers as to sometimes the service pack update will put back old WHLQ drivers in place of the newer ones. Possibly if you had something like theme xp or something of that nature that could cause the problems you said.

What have you tried in order to get it working?

I remember when I purchased a GF3 Ti500 that I had to set my memory settings from 4 way set associtive to 2 way in order to get that card working properly.

I would als try setting in the bios possibly 2x agp speed at least it would be stable.

Edited by redvamp128
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