Try 64bit windows drivers for smothing like a fx5200 or 5600? Believe it or not but 32bit at least drivers for such cards makes for a OK web browser machine under xp in my experience (btw was using Vista drivers under 7)

Think the card in question only supports up to DirectX 9.0b, if that makes a difference.

I tried running an FX5200 on Windows 8 x64 once... it sort of worked with the Vista drivers, but would freeze on a purple screen once in a while. I ended up ditching it for a GT 6600 and I did not have any trouble since, though I ended up dialing back to Windows XP anyway because even that card was slow as hell on Windows 8 or 7 (even 2D games were barely playable).

So, IMHO, if you are on an AGP system, just cave in and downgrade to XP. Your life will be much easier, and everything will be faster.

Logistics wrote:

Think the card in question only supports up to DirectX 9.0b, if that makes a difference.

No, I tried very old programs as well.
Just to clarify, this is specifically about PCI Express GeForce FX cards (or their Quadro version) under 64 bit Windows 7/8 with 64 bit Forceware drivers - for contemporary rigs.

Interesting. I've never run these cards on a 64-bit Windows as far as I can remember. The latest XP driver 175.19 works fine though with my AGP cards.

Have you thoroughly tested it with a XP setup? Maybe there is something wrong with the card...

Putas wrote:

Logistics wrote:

Think the card in question only supports up to DirectX 9.0b, if that makes a difference.

No, I tried very old programs as well.
Just to clarify, this is specifically about PCI Express GeForce FX cards (or their Quadro version) under 64 bit Windows 7/8 with 64 bit Forceware drivers - for contemporary rigs.

My point was that 7 May not like your old card since iirc 9.0c is the base minimum in Win7, anyway and 10 if you want Aero. Its not an Nvidia driver problem, it's the hardwares' ability to support DirectX.

Logistics wrote:

My point was that 7 May not like your old card since iirc 9.0c is the base minimum in Win7, anyway and 10 if you want Aero. Its not an Nvidia driver problem, it's the hardwares' ability to support DirectX.

Win7 + Aero works on DirectX 9.0b cards. I've run it on various PS2.0 Radeons without issue.

I think I've run a FX 5900 Ultra AGP on Win7 32-bit without problems. I am not entirely sure though. Memory is foggy...

honestly you can run windows 7 on a Rage IIC without any issues, ask anyone with a server.

The problem with FX cards and x64 is that nVidia never bothered putting effort into making a good driver (isn't the Vista one a beta?)

try to XP 64bit driver

Logistics wrote:

Think the card in question only supports up to DirectX 9.0b, if that makes a difference.

GeForce FX supports DirectX 9.0a. 9.0b is R400-specific FP24 enhancements; it's an ATi thing. Windows Vista and up officially require DirectX 9 graphics with 128MB VRAM (can be shared, like Intel IGPs) and a WDDM driver to support Aero, however if you don't care about Aero, there are many <DX9 cards that are officially supported via XDDM drivers (Matrox, for example, provides XDDM drivers at least as far back as Parhelia). AFAIK the only DX9 card that won't work in Vista and up are the 3DLabs Wildcat REALiZM series, simply because 3DLabs went out of business before Vista was released (admittedly I've not had a mind to confirm this though).

GeForce FX under Vista, IME, is kind of half-baked though. The driver is officially a beta, and there's limited functionality available. I've never tried the x64 drivers, but I would not expect good things - nVidia basically abandoned everything pre-Vista once Vista was released, and 64-bit (from what I remember) had it even worse. I would either go with a Radeon 9 (or above) or GeForce 6/7 if you need to run Vista (or above) - I've had fine luck with a GeForce 7900 under 7x64, and afaik the 6 series can use most (if not all) of the same driver releases.

Logistics wrote:

My point was that 7 May not like your old card since iirc 9.0c is the base minimum in Win7, anyway and 10 if you want Aero. Its not an Nvidia driver problem, it's the hardwares' ability to support DirectX.

No it is not. DirectX 9.0c (SM3.0) is only required by some games. Aero requires any DirectX 9 card with at least 128MB of memory. GeForce FX 5200 PCI will fully run Aero just fine, at least under 32-bit Vista, and that's probably the slowest DirectX 9 card ever made. DirectX 10 is not required *at all* for Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, or 10.

To the Quadro FX at hand - I'm not sure if you can just run GeForce FX drivers on them, because I'm not sure if they need some hotfix/whatever due to the bridge. I say this because I know it to be the case with bridged ATi cards.

EDIT: XDDM is bolded because the blasted forum software believes 🤣 is an emoticon, even with punctuation breaking it up. 🙄

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/2627 … indows-7-a.html

obobskivich wrote:

Aero requires any DirectX 9 card with at least 128MB of memory.

Aero works on 64MB cards. I've run Vista and 7 on a Mobility Radeon 9600 64MB. Seems to work without issue and perform fine. I'm sure there is some downside to having such little VRAM though.

Tried driver 175.19, does not work at all. Same for 163.75. Then 160.02 for Quadro only, works with Aero but OpenGL is failing, no improvement in DirectX.
Guess it is lost cause.

did you read the link i posted?

The link you posted does not specify if its for 32 or 64 bits, and it seems to be exactly what the OP has already done (beta Vista driver and modding INF files for later drivers).

I had a machine with an FX5200 running Win7 years ago--pretty sure it was x64.
Not a great experience with Aero enabled. The UI was always choppy, and full screen video--even plain old DVD--was not at all smooth. It ran a heck of a lot better with the basic theme. That particular FX5200 was one of the horrible 64-bit editions.

FWIW, the GeForce 6150 IGP built into many older 939 and AM2 boards also has trouble with Aero Glass, frequently dropping below the 60 fps mark (resulting in a choppy 30 fps UI, since Aero forces Vsync).

swaaye wrote:

Aero works on 64MB cards. I've run Vista and 7 on a Mobility Radeon 9600 64MB. Seems to work without issue and perform fine. I'm sure there is some downside to having such little VRAM though.

Official spec from Microsoft is 128MB, and that's what I'm quoting from. I'm actually kind of surprised it would enable with <128MB (it should fail the WEI check and refuse to start).

EDIT

A bit of searching and apparently there are some "odd duck" cases where it unofficially works on 64MB setups - usually laptops or other IGP solutions, and at lower resolutions and potentially with some features disabled (this last point I wasn't able to find a conclusive listing of, one example is "Blur" though).

obobskivich wrote:

GeForce FX supports DirectX 9.0a. 9.0b is R400-specific FP24 enhancements; it's an ATi thing. Windows Vista and up officially re […]
Show full quote

Logistics wrote:

Think the card in question only supports up to DirectX 9.0b, if that makes a difference.

GeForce FX supports DirectX 9.0a. 9.0b is R400-specific FP24 enhancements; it's an ATi thing. Windows Vista and up officially require DirectX 9 graphics with 128MB VRAM (can be shared, like Intel IGPs) and a WDDM driver to support Aero, however if you don't care about Aero, there are many <DX9 cards that are officially supported via XDDM drivers (Matrox, for example, provides XDDM drivers at least as far back as Parhelia). AFAIK the only DX9 card that won't work in Vista and up are the 3DLabs Wildcat REALiZM series, simply because 3DLabs went out of business before Vista was released (admittedly I've not had a mind to confirm this though).

GeForce FX under Vista, IME, is kind of half-baked though. The driver is officially a beta, and there's limited functionality available. I've never tried the x64 drivers, but I would not expect good things - nVidia basically abandoned everything pre-Vista once Vista was released, and 64-bit (from what I remember) had it even worse. I would either go with a Radeon 9 (or above) or GeForce 6/7 if you need to run Vista (or above) - I've had fine luck with a GeForce 7900 under 7x64, and afaik the 6 series can use most (if not all) of the same driver releases.

Logistics wrote:

My point was that 7 May not like your old card since iirc 9.0c is the base minimum in Win7, anyway and 10 if you want Aero. Its not an Nvidia driver problem, it's the hardwares' ability to support DirectX.

No it is not. DirectX 9.0c (SM3.0) is only required by some games. Aero requires any DirectX 9 card with at least 128MB of memory. GeForce FX 5200 PCI will fully run Aero just fine, at least under 32-bit Vista, and that's probably the slowest DirectX 9 card ever made. DirectX 10 is not required *at all* for Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, or 10.

To the Quadro FX at hand - I'm not sure if you can just run GeForce FX drivers on them, because I'm not sure if they need some hotfix/whatever due to the bridge. I say this because I know it to be the case with bridged ATi cards.

EDIT: XDDM is bolded because the blasted forum software believes 🤣 is an emoticon, even with punctuation breaking it up. 🙄

Thanks; that's some good info! I did a lot of searching around and as you suggested, much of it is a toss up. It seems the 128MB requirement is only for Aero, whereas the basic Home version only requires 32MB of video RAM. Kudos for mentioning the Parhelia.