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Nvidia Riva TNT2 model 64 - crashing when under load in 98/2k, works fine in xp

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First post, by kotel

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Hi

So I pulled this card out of my storage to play around and after installing drivers for it and running the default 3dmark00 tests, it just freezes the entire PC right at the start of test 1 (the one with the helicopter).

What I tried so far:
Different driver versions (71.84, 45.84, 5.31)
Cleaning the edge connector
Running MATS 3.41 on it, which reported that end memory location (04200000) is greater than top of RAM (02000000), forcing it to test 32MB max passes with no errors
Trying different boards (same issue)
Trying it under 2k (for the life of me I can't get 3dmark to detect dx9 correctly so it just errors out saying I need to have dx7 or above, with a good card it works fine)
Trying it under XP where it works perfectly fine
Trying a different BIOS for the tnt2 m64

I have no idea for such weird behavior, why does it only work under xp with 3dmark00 and 01SE, but it doesn't on 98 with 3dmark00? It works fine under 3dmark99 tho.
I tried another tnt2m64 which doesn't have these issues and it just works.

Any ideas?

Always has the weirdest issues happen, and always is all alone with them

Reply 1 of 2, by MagefromAntares

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Hi,

The different 3D Marks use different DirectX versions:

  1. 3DMark99 - DirectX 6.0
  2. 3DMark00 - DirectX 7
  3. 3DMark01SE - DirectX 8.1

If the other TNT2 M64 wouldn't work I would think that the answer is that the card in HW only supports DX 6.0 (https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/riva-tnt2-m64.c1304), and it is possible that the WinXP version of the driver-stack emulates the newer DX version's features properly (or simply disables them), while the Win98 version of the drivers tries but fails for some reason. However then the other card should show the same symptoms.

One difference may be is that TNT2 M64's came with two memory sizes 16 MB or 32 MB, does the two cards you have tried use the same memory size? It is possible that the two memory versions are handled differently by the drivers.

Do you use the NVIDIA version of drivers or vendor branded drivers that made explicitly for the card?

"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it." - Dune

Reply 2 of 2, by kotel

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MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-10, 20:25:

[...]
One difference may be is that TNT2 M64's came with two memory sizes 16 MB or 32 MB, does the two cards you have tried use the same memory size? It is possible that the two memory versions are handled differently by the drivers.

Do you use the NVIDIA version of drivers or vendor branded drivers that made explicitly for the card?

Nope, both TNT2 M64's have 32MB of VRAM. The vBIOS states that and I checked with hwinfo if they report the correct size.
I use the Nvidia version of the drivers from phils computer lab website. They work for the TNT2 M64 not having any issues.
Couldn't find any HIS drivers for the tnt2 having problems.

Although, on a second thought, maybe this card was bios swapped by the previous owner to a 32MB bios from 16MB? That would kinda make sense with the MATS error messeage but then it would report errors above 16MB, correct?

Always has the weirdest issues happen, and always is all alone with them

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