NVIDIA 7900GS AGP Drivers Advice Requested \ VOGONS

NVIDIA 7900GS AGP Drivers Advice Requested

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First post, by KT7AGuy

Posted on 2014-01-07, 05:54

KT7AGuy Offline

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Hi!

Here is my HTPC (and eventually my XP legacy box) setup:

Abit KV85
Athlon 64 3400 Venice
1GB RAM
XFX 7900GS AGP
ATI HDTV Wonder
Soundblaster Live! Value (SB0220)
Running WinXP Pro

I've decided that I'm going to build a new image for it in April, in time for Microsoft's end-of-life for XP. Currently, I run the v307.83 (final) drivers for the 7900GS. I haven't had any terrible problems with them. They basically work OK, but always felt a bit "heavy" for this card.

Is there a preferred version of GeForce drivers for the 7900GS? One that worked better for a gpu/cpu combo of this generation? My Athlon 3400 is probably underpowered for this card anyway, so optimization for the 2006/2007 era of gaming is probably correct. What do you think?

Of course, I could always leave the video driver out of my image completely, thus giving me some freedom to experiment later.

Thank you for you thoughts.

Reply 1 of 3, by Skyscraper

Posted on 2014-01-07, 13:59

Skyscraper Offline

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If your motherboard supports it you could get a Mobile Athlon 64 4000+.
http://starmicroinc.net/-p-1091.html $48
It would remove the CPU bottle neck.

When it comes to drivers I think it depends on what games you want optimal performance in.
Support for older games tend to get worse and worse as they optimize the driver for newer games.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 2 of 3, by KT7AGuy

Posted on 2014-01-07, 18:00

KT7AGuy Offline

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Location: Chicago

Skyscraper:

Thanks! I checked it out, but I can't figure out if that CPU would work with my board. Also, CPU World has this to say about such a possible upgrade:

Mobile Athlon 64 4000+ has faster internal frequency than the Athlon 64 3700+, but that mobile processor is not supported by many desktop motherboards. The Mobile Athlon 64 may work in some motherboards, and even then it may require different heatsink/fan due to different height of package type.

It sounds like it would cost me a bit just to try it out, without any guarantee of success.

I think I'm going to just build my image without a video driver. This way, I can even change out the card later if I want to.

Thanks again! 😀

Reply 3 of 3, by Skyscraper

Posted on 2014-01-07, 19:29

Skyscraper Offline

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I have never tried a "Newark" Mobile Athlon 64 but I have used Turion 64 Mobile CPUs.
Support depends on the motherboard and it is not easy to find out if it will work or not as you noticed.
If there isnt any bios updates from 2005 then that is a bad sign.
A bios dated july 2005 with CPU microcode update would be a very good sign.

I do not think any desktop boards officially support those CPUs.

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