Wiped the drivers on my partner's XP PC (Pentium 4 2.something ghz) and reinstalled them, this fixed Neverwinter Diamond and Baldur's Gate being unable to start, but CCC still isn't able to start, so I have no idea what is going on there. We are planning to get a new power supply and upgrade that PC to a Geforce 6800/ATIsomething anyways to preserve my 9700 Pro, so it's good enough until we wipe the XP install during that upgrade to play it safe. Upgrading from a 9550 to the 9700 Pro broke something that wiping drivers alone just doesn't seem able to fix.

Spent some time eyeing Geforce 9800s for my own XP PC as it has a 9600GT and there is room to upgrade (not that it needs it at all) but we'll see, beyond running oblivion/new vegas/fallout 3 better there's not much point. If GoG had Skyrim Legendary Edition I would definitely consider fudging my build a bit and look at a "2007 but upgraded their GPU to play skyrim" build and get an HD 4xxx series card, or a GT 2xx series card. Sadly skyrim had no true legacy versions openly available.

CCC as in ATI/AMD Catalyst Control Center ..not starting you say ...causes errors you say ...this is not uncommon with that steaming pile of shite.

I remember back in the day nearly always having issues with it which got worse the more horrible web components they added to it. Even after AMD took them over it never got better, it was always hit or miss if any particular version of it would work correctly or require several clean uninstalls and reinstalls to fix it. The individual drivers are fine its the horrible web component UI/Interface they went with for CCC that breaks a lot and is just generally trash.

Your best bet is to find the 3rd party drivers (Omega etc) for your GPU and use them over the shit ATI/AMD ones.

Due to components of the catalyst driver installs and CCC hanging around like a bad smell and screwing up subsequent installations, there have been several utilities around for scrubbing all trace of catalyst off a system, to enable true fresh starts.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-10-13, 11:27:

Due to components of the catalyst driver installs and CCC hanging around like a bad smell and screwing up subsequent installations, there have been several utilities around for scrubbing all trace of catalyst off a system, to enable true fresh starts.

Even then ...YMMV, if so much as one registry entry got missed or one folder/DLL/INF is still present because Windows prevented its removal then yeah CCC will likely break itself again, ask me how I know.

3rd party drivers all the way, especially now with how easy they are to find, there is zero reason to use AMD/ATI CCC drivers on a retro system.

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-10-13, 11:24:

CCC as in ATI/AMD Catalyst Control Center ..not starting you say ...causes errors you say ...this is not uncommon with that steaming pile of shite.

I remember back in the day nearly always having issues with it which got worse the more horrible web components they added to it. Even after AMD took them over it never got better, it was always hit or miss if any particular version of it would work correctly or require several clean uninstalls and reinstalls to fix it. The individual drivers are fine its the horrible web component UI/Interface they went with for CCC that breaks a lot and is just generally trash.

Your best bet is to find the 3rd party drivers (Omega etc) for your GPU and use them over the shit ATI/AMD ones.

It doesn't cause errors, it just doesn't start on boot or on command. The drivers themselves never actually were unstable, most games worked without issues outside of those three bioware games for whatever reason. This probably wasn't actually the ATI stuff at all, I found some Nvidia driver DLLs hiding from when this PC had an MX400 very temporarily. Windows XP must have dug something up because I never installed Nvidia drivers myself and the motherboard doesn't have a Nvidia chipset. The issue was probably lurking well before the 9700 Pro was installed and we tried to run BG/NW/BGII.

Alesia wrote on 2026-10-13, 12:36:

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-10-13, 11:24:

CCC as in ATI/AMD Catalyst Control Center ..not starting you say ...causes errors you say ...this is not uncommon with that steaming pile of shite.

I remember back in the day nearly always having issues with it which got worse the more horrible web components they added to it. Even after AMD took them over it never got better, it was always hit or miss if any particular version of it would work correctly or require several clean uninstalls and reinstalls to fix it. The individual drivers are fine its the horrible web component UI/Interface they went with for CCC that breaks a lot and is just generally trash.

Your best bet is to find the 3rd party drivers (Omega etc) for your GPU and use them over the shit ATI/AMD ones.

It doesn't cause errors, it just doesn't start on boot or on command. The drivers themselves never actually were unstable, most games worked without issues outside of those three bioware games for whatever reason. This probably wasn't actually the ATI stuff at all, I found some Nvidia driver DLLs hiding from when this PC had an MX400 very temporarily. Windows XP must have dug something up because I never installed Nvidia drivers myself and the motherboard doesn't have a Nvidia chipset. The issue was probably lurking well before the 9700 Pro was installed and we tried to run BG/NW/BGII.

That's actually an error with CCC and its web based backend, it cant display it because the web front end cant load but if you check task manager you'll find all the associated CCC junk is loaded. Its a common issue with CCC and likely has nothing at all to do with the NVidia DLLs since that issue can and did happen with a fresh install.

Track down the Omega drivers and you'll find they not only run with out problems they will also perform better than the ATI/AMD ones do as they don't include CCC. (At least I don't remember them ever having it)

I found Omega drivers do strange things if you swap GPUs, reusing settings intended for your previous device and imposing them on your current device - so I stopped using Omega.

Am I remembering right that "AmigaMerlin" of voodoo driver fame also did a catalyst cleanup util?

MattRocks wrote on 2026-10-13, 13:21:

I found Omega drivers do strange things if you swap GPUs, reusing settings intended for your previous device and imposing them on your current device - so I stopped using Omega.

That's why its best to use a clean up util to remove the previous drivers or use them on a fresh install of windows, this advice goes for all drivers if you are switching GPU vendors or even GPU families from the same vendor.

Took out the quadro2 pro, put in a ti4200. tried shadow warrior, was a bit juddery. put the quadro2 back in, butter smooth. quadro2 pro stays in. cant find geforce 3 for a decent price

gmaverick2k wrote on 2026-10-13, 13:54:

Took out the quadro2 pro, put in a ti4200. tried shadow warrior, was a bit juddery. put the quadro2 back in, butter smooth. quadro2 pro stays in. cant find geforce 3 for a decent price

I doubt you will either, all 3 models go for absurd amounts in working condition .. just like the 256 DDR does.

Geforce 2 cards however are like Cockroaches.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-10-13, 07:59:

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-10-13, 02:54:

Does software/web design count as retro? That's what I spent the morning doing.

Depends what version of HTML/VML/JS/CSS you used? 😉

I'm a big fan of the sites that are JS-light (just the touch needed for functionality) before the web became JS-heavy (libraries on libraries of dependencies to do the same thing but slower).

I'm using pure HTML 1 right now. No JS or anything else yet.

<h1><blink> Pure HTML 1 si t3h awesum!!! </blink></h1>

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-10-13, 14:27:

<h1><blink> Pure HTML 1 si t3h awesum!!! </blink></h1>

Unironically (okay, maybe a little ironically), thanks for giving me an idea to use with the top of the page.

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-10-13, 13:38:

MattRocks wrote on 2026-10-13, 13:21:

I found Omega drivers do strange things if you swap GPUs, reusing settings intended for your previous device and imposing them on your current device - so I stopped using Omega.

That's why its best to use a clean up util to remove the previous drivers or use them on a fresh install of windows, this advice goes for all drivers if you are switching GPU vendors or even GPU families from the same vendor.

Omega are an extra pain to cleanup though.

Cooking some cables 🍜

Wrangling an MSI MS-6163. I swear to god, not only these give me grief with 133FSB. This one is so bad to the point 66FSB is a crashfest with a Klamath 233.

I saw this thread, realized I have a working S7 board, GeForce 4 MX PCI card, and an array of CPUs, and then found an HDD with Win98 on it to boot up. Unfortunately the nvidia drivers don't work on this setup. I tried 3 different versions and they just cause a windows protection error or a reboot-loop. No time to install Win2000, if that would even work on a VIA chipset with BIOS from 1998.

Late PCI cards with a bridge chip sometimes need the vendor drivers for first install, then upgrades seem to work.

dominusprog wrote on Yesterday, 18:55:

Cooking some cables 🍜

The attachment IMG_20261014_221149.jpg is no longer available

Any recommended seasoning and accompaniment suggestions ?

More seriously, while I have heard of boiling rubber belts in an attempt to restore elasticity, I am a bit at loss trying to guess why one would want to boil power cords, for example.