Best video drivers for a 6600?

[behemothzero]

So I recently bought a GeForce 6600, and I need new drivers. Should I get the nVidia made ones, or are there better third party drivers out there? I'm on limited dial-up, so I can't just go download them all and see which is the best, even if I wanted to...

Thanks in advance.

[saphalline]

The manufacturer of the chipset always has the best drivers in terms of overall stability and game compatibility. 3rd-party drivers can sometimes unlock certain features and OC'ing abilities, but these aren't sanctioned by the manufacturer. And in the case of vid cards, using 3rd-party drivers to OC can void your warranty.

I always recommend you go straight to the manufacturer. NVidia for NVidia vid cards and mobo chipsets, ATI for ATI vid cards and mobo chipsets, VIA for VIA mobo chipsets, Intel for Intel mobo chipsets, etc.

[behemothzero]

I downloaded the drivers from the nVidia website. However, there are still problems in graphics, like these:

http://img370.imageshack.us/img370/4665/ee24gv.jpg
http://img370.imageshack.us/img370/783/gtasa2ko.jpg

Please help.

[saphalline]

Ok, this looks like a total system driver problem. What's your core hardware, and what drivers for them do you have?

[behemothzero]

Core hardware?

P4 2.4Ghz
P4S800D-X mobo
256MB DDR
GeForce 6600 vid card with latest Drivers
40GB HDD
Integrated Sound with SoundMax drivers

Well... that's it. If there are drivers for the other hardware, they're the default ones.

This only happened after I replaced my video card, even before I updated the drivers.

In one game, the graphics worked from going into windowed and fullscreen mode, and vise versa.

[saphalline]

Oh, did you uninstall the vid driver and then reinstall when you upgraded your vid card? If not, that would be the problem.

[behemothzero]

I only installed the new drivers, but I didn't uninstall the old ones. How do I do that?

Thanks in advance.

[saphalline]

First have the latest vid driver downloaded to your desktop. Then go into Safe Mode (hold down F8 after the POST) then into the Control Panel, then Add/Remove Programs. Uninstall any and all vid drivers. Reboot normally, close the Found New Hardware Wizard. Install the latest drivers from your desktop.

Also look to see if any of your games have the latest patches. And make sure your system has the latest version of DirectX.

[behemothzero]

I have DirectX9.0c, and I've patched an MMORPG with the same problems, RF Online. So far, only Age of Mythology has no problems with the graphics.

[saphalline]

Hmmm... I wonder if this is a problem with the mobo/chipset? If you haven't ever installed chipset drivers, that might be part of the problem. Go to SiS' download site (http://www.sis.com/download/), choose "Chipset software" then "AGP (GART) Driver" then your OS. Download and install that driver and see if it fixes anything.

[behemothzero]

I did that, but the problem persists. I've also tried it with two more games, Dungeon Siege 2 and Need for Speed: Underground 2, DS2 didn't have glitches, but NFSU2 had a lot.

I'm going to try third party drivers next...

[behemothzero]

Okay, I've tried Omega Drivers (which I used for my MX 440 before, only updated), and it has the same errors.

[behemothzero]

Sorry, I seem to have lost the edit button... sorry for the triple post...

So far, I've tried the following games:

Fully Working:
Dungeon Siege 2
Age of Mythology

Semi-working, little errors:
Morrowind
FlyFF (MMORPG)

Heavily Glitchy:
Sims 2
NFSU2
RF Online
GTA: San Andreas

So from this list, I think the only games that have no problems are those where Microsoft Games had something to do with... is there still a chance this is a hardware error?

[saphalline]

It could just be that your particular configuration just isn't working correctly. I remember a similar thread awhile back where there were multiple problems with games. In that case, the problem was fixed by replacing the Opteron CPU with an Athlon64.

In your case, I can only assume at this point that the flaky SiS chipset is causing the problems. Or perhaps that mobo doesn't like your RAM. Not sure how to fix something like that, though, without pouring more money into the problem. :(

[behemothzero]

That's hopefully the case, because... well, Semprons are pretty cheap here, and since I only plan on gaming, I might save up for those and give this PC to my sister.

As long as I didn't buy a faulty piece of hardware that made me skip lunch for one and a half months, I'll be all right :) My RAM's a single 256MB PC333 module... maybe that's the problem.

Thanks for all the help!

[Melzas]

I found this on another forum.

Anyone with 6600 chipset experiancing planar triangular shapes, (Artifacts) due to Motherboard compatibility problems (SIS mobo chipsets) and similar have always been told its Incompatible. (SIS and 6600)

After extream research and breaking point googling (and almost returning the card) I stumbled across a person in another forum who manged to FIX it entirely in a simply CHeckbox.
A large amount of work was done to find this large problem by a person named Mutlet (nickname, in another forum not naming).

Although Updating to latest drivers, Updating the BIOS and chipset DRIVERS helps fix freezing, cold boots, performance issues, the artifacts issue is SIMPLY a WINDOWS default setting --> "Write Combining". ISSUE RESOLVED.

Windows help file note: "Write combining speeds up performance by speeding up the display of information to your screen. However increased speed can cause display corruption. So if you experiance problems with your display ,clear this checkbox." WELL DUH, SO WTF IS IT ON BY DEFAULT LOL????

Properties->Setting Tab->Advanced->Troubleshoot

Unfortunatly this does impact performance. For me it was a noticable decrease. I play everquest and with this option on I got alot less slowdown when large groups of characters are on screen at once. When I turned it off it was much harder to function.

A bios update helped to lower the occurance of the problem since my board didnt have AGP Fast Write originally but after anywhere from 30 min to a few hours in game I will start getting the distorted textures and need to reboot to get rid of them.

I'm going to cut my losses and switch boards with my other comp since they are comparable in speeds. You're cheepest option might be a new board or depending on prices even a board/cpu/ram might be worth it.

It's possible that knowing that disabling this seems to alleviate the problem (at least for me it did) you might be able to dig deeper and find out why and even find a fix that allows you to leave the option on. I left my computer sitting in game for about 12 hours in a busy spot and the problem never came back.

[saphalline]

Hmmm... very interesting...