nVidia 56.5x driver

[MrTarot]

Ok, before I just give up and go back to 30.82 (?) or whatever it is that is supposed to be free of whatever causes the black screen of frustration, I would like some feedback on whether I missed a step or what for installing a new nVidia driver.

But first, the formalities:

AMD 2100+ AthlonXP, nVidia GeForce 4200 Ti AGP 8x

512MB DDR RAM

WindowsXP Pro

The steps I used were:

1) Use control panel to uninstall the driver

2) Boot into safe mode and don't let windows pick a driver for the video card.

3) Run Driver Cleaner (2.7) to kill all the nVidia stuff.

4) Boot back into XP and install the experimental 56.55 drivers.

5) Start up CMAK Demo and get same black screen.

6) Check settings for Antialiasing & Anistropic 50 times to make sure they are off.

7) Try demo again, get black screen of frustration.

8) Come to forum to beg for help.

As a side note, CMBO works every time. I wanted to make sure that the demo would run before purchasing the retail, but now I'm really leary about it. So my question is, am I missing a step in the nVidia driver shuffle? Should I just go back to 30.82? Do I sound desperate enough?

And I thought I hated the BSOD...

[Schrullenhaft]

There doesn't seem to be any steps missing from your driver install. How is your monitor defined in Windows ? After deleting the drivers, the monitor definition sometimes disappears too. You may want to double check to see how it is defined.

You may want to check for the Windows Hotfix Q328310 which is a fix for the WM_TIMER. I believe that there is a newer version out, but I didn't find it mentioned explicitly. This Knowledgebase article seems to give a possible explanation as to why there may be WM_TIMER issue with CM (in a general manner).

Anyway, uninstalling this patch may work, though it may make your computer susceptible to attack (a rare one though). I don't know why 56.56 would have a problem with this compared to 30.82. Have you performed any updates to your XP installation lately ? What version of DirectX are you running ?

[MrTarot]

First, thanks for your response, I really appreciate it. Now, let's get to the questions and my answers for you:

My monitor is listed as default monitor (which until you asked, I never really looked).

I'm running DirectX 9.0b and as far as I know I'm patched to the gills. I know that the patch you asked about is installed, but when I tried to remove it, it did not give me a remove option. I imagine that's not a good thing.

It's pretty obvious from the screenshots that the engine has undergone some changes. Perhaps I just need to be more patient and wait for the 56.x drivers to stablize (but oh the agony of waiting hehe). I'm going to research the possibility of a better patch for that Q328310 problem.

Once again, I appreciate your time and any thoughts you have would be appreciated.

[Hpt. Lisse]

Hey Schrullenhaft, what was that Ti4600 and 4200 AGP x8 problem? Is this it?

[Schrullenhaft]

I suggest making a selection other than 'Default Monitor'. Hopefully there is something available that is more accurate. What model monitor do you have ?

I believe, once in the past, that chaning the monitor type helped someone, but it is admittedly a long shot.

Hpt. Lisse, I'm not familiar with the bug that you're talking about with the GeForce 4 Ti 4200 & 4600 AGP 8X models. The only thing I can think of off-hand is that they couldn't run the 30.82 drivers (with the INFs provided) since they weren't recognized - thus forcing the use of newer drivers that had the AA & 'black screen' problems. Was there another bug specific to these cards with certain drivers ?

[MrTarot]

Thanks to both of you, as it turns out it was the fact that I didn't have the correct driver installed for my monitor. As soon as this was installed, I could start up the CMAK Demo and it ran without a problem. I must say I am impressed with the visual changes and I can't believe how great everything looks.

Thanks to both of you for your help in getting this solved.

Just for the record I did end up using the beta 56.55 drivers and making sure that the monitor was installed properly to fix the problem. It even runs with the Antialiasing and Anistropic set for application controlled. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about getting to try out the demo's and potentially buying the full blown versions of CMBB and CMAK.