VOGONS


First post, by Dracolich

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I have a 16MB TNT2 M64 (Dell OEM, I think) in a AMD K6/233 box with an i430VX mobo. Labels on the back indicate part# 09629U and Rev. A02.
https://www.ebay.com/c/1800418486

I tried it first a while back with WfW 3.11 and the beta driver, and the first time launching Windows I had the message about too little memory to load all of my icons (although the same icons loaded previously on a 4MB Virge/GX), then a few seconds later a GPF popped and hung the whole desktop.

I swapped the cards back and put the TNT2 aside a for a while. About a month ago I felt adventurous again and decided to try it in Win95c (DirectX 8.0). I think I used a 21.x or 24.x driver version, not really sure. I was installing some games and all was going well until I got to Turok2. After choosing install options and it began copying files the screen became horizontally corrupted. I checked Heretic2 and Mageslayer, and got the same thing when the games launched. I checked the 3D screensavers (pipes, maze, flowerbox) and the thumbnail preview causes the same thing.

Once again I swapped the cards back. As a test, I tried Mageslayer with the Millennium II + Voodoo1; it launch with a message that it can't set D3D 640x480 mode, but it still ran in software mode.

Then yesterday I decided to try the TNT2 again with Win98fe (DirectX 8.0), using driver versions 2.xx, 3.xx, 6.xx, and 21.xx. First, the same horizontal corruption appeared, and with the 3.xx driver I found I could solve that by turing off vsync. Now the desktop and 2D stuff worked great. The 3D screensavers work. The ddraw and d3d tests in dxdiag work. But Mageslayer and Heretic2 still hang on a blank screen and I have to blindly press Ctrl+Alt+Del a few times until the computer reboots. In my mobo BIOS I tried enabling "PCI 2.1 Compatibility" but that didn't help.

Am I missing something, such as compatibility with my mobo, or conflict between the Dell OEM and nvidia drivers?
Could it be a bad card? Or such a crappy card that this is how it performs? 😁
It has a couple of light scratches on the back that appear to cross some of the circuit paths. Maybe they're harmless, but maybe not.

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Reply 1 of 10, by 386DX40

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This particular Dell card is very fussy about working on Socket 7 motherboards in my experience with it, and quite frankly I'm surprised it's working at all on a 430VX chipset. This card came in Dells with the i810 and i815 chipsets as I recall, and it really seems to work best in those and newer. I've had it work correctly in some 440BX boards, but not all......

So unfortunately I'd suggest looking for a different TNT/TNT2 PCI card, as most all other TNT/TNT2 PCI cards besides this Dell seem to work fine in Socket 7. I'm not sure if it's a BIOS issue, voltage issue, or PCI compatibility issue with this Dell variant and Socket 7.

There is probably nothing wrong at all with your card though, so it may come in handy if you ever come across a newer system that's PCI only with an i810, i815, 845 chipset etc.

Asus A7V8X-LA - Athlon XP 1800+ - 512MB - Geforce FX5200 128MB - SoundBlaster Live - 80GB HDD - Win98SE
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Reply 3 of 10, by pentiumspeed

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I have same TNT2 M64 as yours with buffer chips and this works on AN430TX motherboard, but not the earlier boards.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 5 of 10, by Ydee

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I have the same card, only revision A. On Asus P/I-P55SP4 boards with SIS 5511, PCChips M590 with SIS 5595 and Compaq with i440BX no image, only black screen. On boards with newer chipsets (i810, i815, VIA KT333 and 400) functional without problems.

Reply 6 of 10, by Tetrium

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Iirc I ran my s370 Celeron 400 on a PB MS-6159 and one of these Dell TNT2 M64 PCI cards. 440LX chipset. I don't think I ever tried them on older Pentium 1 boards but it definitely worked on the MS-6159 (unless it's not actually a Dell TNT2 M64).

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Reply 7 of 10, by Dracolich

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I'm so stupid sometimes! My QDI board is a 430TX. I think it's VX sometimes because I spend a lot of time in PCem with cloned images of my CF cards. Lol

Two days ago I decided to swap back to my trusty old S3 Virge/GX. Wouldn't you know, I'm getting the same problem with it! Paired with a Voodoo1 the Virge is working fine on the desktop and 2D stuff but when trying a game that uses OpenGL or D3D the screen is just blank. In addition, launching DXDIAG.exe is doing the same thing.

This Win98 installation is an upgrade on top of WfW 3.11 and has scattered driver files from several video cards, office and development programs. I'm doing a clean install of Win98fe with the Virge+Voodoo. If that works I can make a quick backup then try the TNT again. If the TNT still has issues I'll stick with th Virge. Besides, Virge/DX/GX+Voodoo1 is a classic combo, right 😀

Reply 8 of 10, by Jackal1983

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I was considering picking up one of these for my MediaGX (ECS P5GX-M + GX1 @300mhz + 64mb PC100 @CL2) based Dos to early Windows 98 rig but if it's this testy I'll keep my money. I already have 1 card that may or may not work (Chinese FX5500 PCI w/256 megs of DDR 266), I don't have the space to add another.

Reply 9 of 10, by Dracolich

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I finished my clean install of Win98fe with Office97 and DX8.1.
With the Virge everything worked. In dxdiag the ddraw tests worked but were slow, and the D3D7 test passed but not the 8. Mageslayer ran in D3D but slow, and in 3dfx at good speed. The only OpenGL I tried was the pipes and flowerbox screensavers.
Just now I tried the TNT2 with driver 6.31 and it works now. All of the dxdiag tests passed, Mageslayer runs well in D3D and 3dfx, and Heretic2 runs well in OpenGL.

Reply 10 of 10, by Dracolich

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Just a brief update. I have so far only tested D3D/OpenGL games in Win98fe using Detonator drivers (version 6.31 chosen arbitrarily)
In addition, I have installed VESA drivers and set 1024x768 16bit desktops in:
* Windows for Workgroups 3.11 using the patched SVGA driver
* Windows NT 3.5 using VBEMP
* OS/2 Warp 4 using Scitech Display Doctor