VOGONS


First post, by lmttn

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Hello, I recently got a Windows XP desktop that I have added a Geforce 8600 GT to. In the latest Nvidia driver available for Windows XP (released in 2014), I got several crashes in Painkiller and Doom 3 without making any modifications to the GPU or driver settings. While this issue may not entirely be on the graphics card, it did prompt me to ask: is the latest XP driver the best one, or is there a more stable/better-performing XP driver for the 8600 GT? Thanks.

Reply 1 of 4, by The Serpent Rider

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Most likely issues with the card. But you could try out Forceware 186, which was one of the last drivers before the Fermi architecture release.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 2 of 4, by lmttn

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I moved to the driver you mentioned (on a clean WinXP SP3 install) and I still get crashes in Doom 3 and Painkiller (in-game; benchmarks both work fine). Worse, the benchmark for STALKER Call of Pripyat produced weird black flat polygons all over one of the areas of the benchmark flyby before completely tanking the entire PC, so yeah, I think the issue is with the card. Not sure what to replace it with, though; probably something late-DX9 (Radeon X1000/GF7 series) instead of DX10.

Reply 3 of 4, by The Serpent Rider

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DX9 cards still retain 16-bit dithering for old 16-bit color only games, if that matters. Radeon X1xxx series has arguably better dithering compared to all Nvidia.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 4 of 4, by lmttn

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I was considering a DX9 card pretty strongly until I found a cheap GT 240. I imagine most games that only support 16-bit color should work fine on my Voodoo3/Pentium III machine. I'll keep those in mind if I end up needing it, though.