A Guide To Make Older Nvidia Drivers Work With Any FX Card.

[Kunaak]

Step One is to Extract a Zipped File for you to Mod.
you can extract it anywhere you want.
I just go to my desktop cause it's easiest.

then you wanna find the "NV4_Displ" file.
open it by simply double clicking on it.
go to the very bottom and find the card that closest matchs your card, in my case I am showing how to use the 5900 on drivers not meant for it.

all you need to do is find the card closest in line to your card.

for me, thats the 5800.

so thats the file I needed to find in the list here.

[Kunaak]

OK, Heres Exactly where you go to get the drivers.

in this case I am modding the 4330 driver to work with my 5900 NU.

[Kunaak]

if you look at the NV30 in this list you will see I renamed it to the 5900 ultra and 5900.

[Kunaak]

Alittle closer.

[Kunaak]

I am so sorry to you 56K-ers I know how you feel, I am on AOL Dial up at the moment and I just saw this is gonna take forever to load for you guys.

but I think it will be worth it ;)

Ok last step to renaming the driver.

save it :D

[Kunaak]

Step One.

DO NOT use the Set EXE, all you will do is screw this whole thing up.
also, Uninstall your current videocard driver to make this alot easier.

Now get to device manager.

(I had to leave the girl in this photo ;) )

[Kunaak]

In the device manager select your display card, and select update driver.

NOTE: in my case my card already has the driver on it, so it says 5900 here, but with no driver it will say VGA Adaptor or something similar.

[Kunaak]

Then you wanna install the driver manually from a specific location.

[Kunaak]

Choose the driver yourself, don't let windows choose one for you.

[Kunaak]

Select Have Disc...

[Kunaak]

Select Browse, and find the file you extracted the driver to.

in my case, the driver was on the desktop for easy finding ;)

[Kunaak]

then when in the driver browsing, look for the NV4_DISPl file that you modded earlier.

NOTE: in this case, the 4330 driver was named NVDW for some reason, I don't know why, but usually the file is called NV4_Displ.

[Kunaak]

then when you find the NV4 file that you modded the name of the closest card to yours, all you do is hit OK to end the browsing, then OK again to begin the update.

[Kunaak]

after hitting OK, your gonna be taken to a list of videocards.
if you didn't mod the NV4_Displ file, your not gonna find your card in this list, thats why you Mod the NV4_Displ file.

so... now just scroll through here and find the card you have, highlight it, the say "next"

[Kunaak]

From there its gonna say thee driver your installing has not passed the windows logo blah blah blah...

just hit, continue anyways.

Now....

you should be done.
but if you just updated the driver you already had, there will be a few more pop ups saying something like "the source file is newer then the original, overwrite yes or no?"

just hit yes, that will come up 4-5 times.

then Reboot.

If for Any reason this doesn't work, and you boot into windows at 800x600 with 4 bit color, then the driver is screwed up.
in that case, you need to reboot, hit F5 before windows loads and enable basic VGA mode.
uninstall the driver normally from the control panel, and reinstall a driver.

This is a Experiment, so use at your own risk.
I have had some problems here and there, with things like very old drivers like the 4201 not working with my 5900, so sometimes, no matter how much you try, a driver just may not work when modded.

generally, from 4300 up should work with any FX card, if it worked with the 5800 then it can be modded to be used with any FX.
most of the time, it will work.

if you download a driver, and it's nothing more then a set up EXE, you can't mod it, theres nothing to mod.
you need drivers that have a million little files to it.

you can find these at www.guru3d.com and www.Nvplanet.com
look for the winzipped files, generally those have the right things to do this ;)

so far I can say the 4351, 4330 and 4303 all worked on my 5900 :D

[Poki]

Wowee kunaak, that's one hella write-up. Well done!

[Dissolved]

Great Job! :toast:

Altho im not sure tto the purpose of this? :toast:

[Kunaak]

say you have a 5700or a 5950 and wanna use faster drivers then the 5216...

then this is for you.

or if your like me, and have a 5900 and wonder if theres a faster driver then 4403 for 2001SE, a few tests later, I find the 4351 driver is really faster, just alittle.
but it is.

those are some uses ;)

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by Kunaak
say you have a 5700or a 5950 and wanna use faster drivers then the 5216...

then this is for you.

or if your like me, and have a 5900 and wonder if theres a faster driver then 4403 for 2001SE, a few tests later, I find the 4351 driver is really faster, just alittle.
but it is.

those are some uses ;)

makes sence now...

id try, but thats alot of work.. it takes me long enough just to oc let alone test 10 different drivers..

[zakelwe]

I'll give this a try when my 5700U arrives or with my 5200U if I get impatent.

Nice find that the 43.51's are faster .. how much did they give you ?

Regards

Andy

[Kunaak]

about 200 more then the 4403 did ;)

it's really alot easier then it looks, it only takes about 2-3 minutes from begining to end.
I am still just testing drivers though, finding good ones and not so good ones.

[Dissolved]

you can use the .exe drivers..

just use winrar to exact them :toast:

im testing the 44.03's out. see if i get an gain from 52.16's

[Dissolved]

OMFG!

Before with 52.16's:
19,628 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7220090


AFTER! With 44.03's:
20,992 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7235924


I GAINED 1300points!

im like shaking right now..

IS THIS LEGIT? Cuz i mean, this driver change Freaking rox meh.. i broke 220fps in nature and ive never seen over 140..

gawd i dunno if i can sleep.. i could break 21k.. :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

[Kunaak]

drivers vary that much on Nvidia cards, thats why I do this.
the newest drivers around aren't usually all that fast.
like I always say, Drivers really make or break the performance of a Nvidia card ;)

[zakelwe]

Originally posted by Kunaak
about 200 more then the 4403 did ;)

it's really alot easier then it looks, it only takes about 2-3 minutes from begining to end.
I am still just testing drivers though, finding good ones and not so good ones.

That's enough for me to not wait for the 5700U and test it out with the 5200U tonight, I'd expect about 70-120 with the 5200U I guess. I'll let you know. I'll have to use my P4 box as the AMD64 motherboard is off at the menders.

Dissolved, anything past 44.03 has been terrible for 3dmark2001 as the nature score collapses. For instance, with your 5900 and 52.16 you got 105FPS for nature, but my 5600U got 117 with 44.03. When you went to 44.03 you got 146 for nature, which is back high above my 5600U as it should be.

This is why nvidia benching is more fun than Ati IMO and that is why I keep buying midrange nvidia cards while I await NV40 to arrive.

Regards

Andy

PS As the 5700U seems to be locked to later drivers your workaround Kunnak will be a godsend :)

[Kunaak]

it's not that cards are locked to later drivers, just drivers are released before certain cards can be.
so they weren't around to be written into the particular older drivers.

unfortunatly in the case of the 5950 and the 5700-this is a drawback. the 5200+ drivers all seem to suck...

thats kinda where I began this idea.
I was planning on getting a 5950 myself, but I just can't afford it with christmas and such so close, so I just started wondering about the drivers before the 4403 for my 5900 NU.

basically, if a driver still has the temp sensor, then it should be able to work on the FX cards.
so I started with the drivers I new worked for the 5800 series.

so far I have tried most of the 4300 series cards.
I tried to fool the 4200 series with many tricks...
switching INF's from one driver to another, manual editing, adding the 9-10 driver files from the 4201 to the 4403, and a few dozen other tricks...
but as long as the driver can't read the videocards temp sensor, then the driver doesn't stick.
so I haven't figured out how to get a driver lower then the 4303 to work on the FX cards yet...

but so far, this project has been pretty helpful :D

[zakelwe]

It certainly has as 52.16 are rubbish for 2001.

I am sure I have run my 42 series drivers with my FX5200U and 5600U before and they have worked, though my memory might be faulty. If my memory is correct they did not score as well with 42 series as the 44.03 and so it might not be a great loss not being able to get the 5900 to work with 42's.

Optimisations for nvidia FX cards started appearing with 42.6X series for in 3dmark03 and so it might be that they also got a few optimisations for 3dmark2001 around this time as well, then got pulled after 44.03.

I wish my 5700U card would turn up, I think it is going to top 17K with a bit of luck.

Regards

Andy

[zakelwe]

Looking at in game values for dissolved's runs Dragothic went from 347 to 408 with the older drivers for low and 187 to 202 for high ... so nature and dragothic both had " optimisations" in the earlier drivers.

Should have run the AMD64 at 2150 for the 44.03 run dissolved, you would have got an even bigger score and made it apples to apples ( to quote everybody's favourite phrase nowadays ).

Regards

Andy

[Soulburner]

Kunaak,

This is awesome. Can you tell me which of the 43.xx drivers are the fastest for 3DMark2001? I see you like the 43.51.

[Kunaak]

well, all my tests are only with the 5900 NU.

from testing lots of Nvidia cards over the last year or so, I can only say, each card tends to have it's best driver.
so honestly I'd say just try a few drivers.
its not much work.
just mod the driver, run 4-5 benchmarks, reboot, do it all again.
add it all up and divide it by the number of benchmarks ran.
that gives you a nice average.

rebooting is simply to be alittle more thorough about the average ;)

it's well worth the effort if it gives you alittle upp hand against others with the same card you have :D

[Soulburner]

I use a 5900NU as well. I'll try the 43.51s. Look at my pitiful score...6 points...I am sure this will put me over the top :D.

[mikem]

Great job Kunaak!!
I wonder if the older drivers could help with the damn throttling at sub-zero temps??? I about killed myself out of frustration last weekend...

[Soulburner]

Hm I found these (http://download.guru3d.com/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=588)...i'm gonna try em out with the 41.09 since its the preferred driver for Nvidia for non-FX cards. I'll see what happens (not expecting it to work though) then try 43.51.

[Kunaak]

MikeM you can find the solution in the volt modding area.
just look for mickey mouses guide to volt modding the 5900/5900 ultra.
the solution to the sub zero issue of the 5900 ultra can be found in that post.

you can also try this mod, and simply use the 5900 Non Ultra driver.

I know the Non Ultra has no issues with Sub Zero cause I cool mine to about 30C below zero for benchmarks ;)

[Soulburner]

I just used the inf file above, and neither driver worked, both of them asked for files I didn't have? So I had to continue without installing certain files (?). I don't know.

41.09 worked until I started 3D, it just gave a black screen until it came back to desktop. Nature gave 60.0fps (vsync was off even). Whatever.

43.51 had all kinds of corruption and the display died a couple times, just uninstalled that junk. I'll look more closely at your guide.

[Soulburner]

Tried again your way and the install went fine this time. Rebooted, but I am still getting the corruption issues and the display dying on me. I have to reboot at that point.

I don't know what the problem is, I did everything the same.

[Kunaak]

I don't know what to tell you, unless your bypassing something or missing some part.

heres some proof it works.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7224250

[Soulburner]

I couldn't get mine working for some reason. I got all sorts of corruption on the desktop and then the display would just die so I had to reboot into VGA mode.

On a bright note though, I was able to squeeze out a few more points out of this thing. Finally got me over the wall :toast:.

What is the difference between 43.51 and 44.03? What tests gain and by how much? I would guess Drag Low and Nature.

[zakelwe]

I ran some tests last night and for my setup ( 5200U and P4 ) the 43.51 drivers were worse than 44.03 by about 100 points. Out of interest I tried the 53.03 drivers and they lost 700 points and so keep to the trend of poor performance of drivers after 44.03.

Regards

Andy

[zakelwe]

Couldn't get the 5700U to work with 44.03 using this method :( shame as the nature score stinks ...

The Gainward 5700U Golden Sample came clocked at 500/950 out of the box and is rock solid at 550/1000 :)

Got #1 in 3dmark2001 without really trying, not much competition at the moment in that class, I thought it would be like the 4200 class.

Nice card this, would have preferred a Gainward GS 5900 but not enough money.

Regards

Andy

[Kunaak]

Try other drivers going up from the 4403.

it may take sometime, but usually when one driver doesn't work, a few more tries, and you find one that will.

modding drivers is a weird tweak to learn, but it can pay off, as OPP and a few others from time to time have shown.
you are right though, that nature score is junk, my ti4200 does better then it.
that card definatly has some power under the hood, I just wish Nvidia would stop writing all thier drivers to be slow as dirt.

[Soulburner]

Obviously Nvidia doesn't care about 3DM01 anymore (big mistake).

I could not get older drivers like 43.51 working on my system, and I followed the method by the book. Its not a big deal though as I got over 20k anyway without them and im selling this card.

[zakelwe]

I have to agree with both of you on the points you raised in regards to nvidia. I'm doing pretty well on the stock setup for the card, 590/1070 for the last run but the machines BSOD'd .

If you check the top page for the 2001 5700U clas you should spot me. Going for nearer 18k, have 17.7k on hard disk.

It's just that really low nature without using 44.03 is peeing me off as it would be well into the 18k's by now.

Regards

Andy

[Soulburner]

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7251793

Hmm if you could somehow get 44.03 working your Nature would be something like 140, not to mention your Drag Low...I think you would be getting 19k with that driver but only if you could get it to work.

[SPQQKY]

I have done this for a couple of years now. I did it when 3DMark2001 was pretty new and I was still trying to kick a$$ on 3DMark2000 while everyones focus was on 2K1. I needed older directx7 drivers to work with my GF3 and this was the only way to do it. Also, it's a neat way to get your driver description in 3DMark to say "SPQQKYs GeForce4 Ti4200" instead of nVidia.

:toast:

[SPQQKY]

Have you tried adding the entire line.....

NVidia.NV36.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra"

....under the last card description? This also works so that you don't have to change the description of another card.

[zakelwe]

Originally posted by SPQQKY
Have you tried adding the entire line.....

NVidia.NV36.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra"

....under the last card description? This also works so that you don't have to change the description of another card.

Hello SpQQky, thanks for the suggestion.

I actually cut and pasted lines from the 52.16 file to the 44.03 file but that did not work. I'll try your suggestion tonight.

I did wonder whether there was something else in the file that needed to go over as well. Interestingly in the 44.03 driver file I have it does not mention any FX cards at all, including the 5200U or 5600U, and it works ok with those. Very strange.

I'll have a peer at it this week and see if I can get it to work.

Regards

Andy

[Kunaak]

it's fun to see so many getting into the driver modding.

:D

[zakelwe]

Originally posted by Kunaak
it's fun to see so many getting into the driver modding.

:D

It's not so much fun having to reboot and it not working :D, but I know what you mean .. it's great to fiddle about and nVidia gives you more fiddling options than Ati.

Regards
Andy

[zakelwe]

Finally managed to get the 44.03's installed

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7261076

I'll crank it up tonight and see what she will do. Of course in the mean time a Bugarian team has got over 19k :eek: .

This is the second record I have lost to the Bulgarians in a week, a different team beat my 5600U result as well. I think the Bulgarians have it in for me.

When my AMD64 gets back maybe I'll be in with a shout again.

Many many thanks Kunaak for the tip on the drivers. It's appreciated.

Regards

Andy

[Soulburner]

Originally posted by zakelwe
Finally managed to get the 44.03's installed
What did you have to do to get them working? I don't know if its different than my 5900, but did you have to change more than one thing? I only did what Kunaak suggested which is renaming the 5800 line to a 5900, however it did not work...

[zakelwe]

Originally posted by Soulburner
What did you have to do to get them working? I don't know if its different than my 5900, but did you have to change more than one thing? I only did what Kunaak suggested which is renaming the 5800 line to a 5900, however it did not work...

Hi Soulburner,

I had the same sort of problem as you where the screen went black with " flashes and fizzles " on it, for want of a better word, but I rebooted and it was Ok.

This is what I found worked

1) Installed 52.16 and this made a 52.16 directory in the unzip win2kXP directory.

2) Copied the inf file over from 52.16 with all the later card names in it.

3) Uninstalled the drivers.

4) Rebooted, Microsft hardware wizard pops up, pointed it in the direction of the 44.03 folder. Various files are missing so you have to copy them over from 52.16 as well.

Then the install finished. I rebooted and it sort of worked OK though you can't use display control panel for the video card settings as they are not there, I am using Gainward expert tool.

Another problem is that if I did a whole run it would drop to lower scores so maybe it doesn't handle 3d mode with the 44.03 drivers and so that is why you cannot use them ?? Not sure.

Just doing some more tests now.

Good luck.

Regards

Andy

PS Another problem is everybody reporting a "bugged" nature to Futuremark as they don't spot the drivers :) They'll probablty keep getting removed !

[SPQQKY]

BTW, which 5700U are you guys using and what were your OC's at stock, if you even bothered to try stock. :p:

Zakelwe, your 3DMark link is invalid. Did you get a better run or have they pulled the bench from the Orb due to the hacked drivers?

Soulburner, I am not sure why you cannot get the 4403's to work with your 5900. I simply installed them from the .exe and didn't have a single problem. They seemed to work pretty good, although I could only break about 18k.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7046973

[Soulburner]

No, I use the 44.03s for benching as indicated in my signature. I can't get anything earlier, such as 43.51 to work.

[SPQQKY]

Sorry, in your link to 3dmark2001 it says you have an R9800 and in the 3DMark2003 it says you are using the 5175s on the FX 5900. I no longer have the 5900 and wont get another for a few weeks. I wish I had it now to test some drivers.

EDIT: I just modded the 4251's and put them in a .zip , but I have no where to upload them. I don't even have the 5700 Ultra in my sig anymore to test them. I RMA'd them due to being poor OCers. Just have a Ti4200 for now.

[Soulburner]

Whoa how did my 3DMark link change? What the......

Fixed....I guess...:stick:

[zakelwe]

Originally posted by SPQQKY
BTW, which 5700U are you guys using and what were your OC's at stock, if you even bothered to try stock. :p:

Zakelwe, your 3DMark link is invalid. Did you get a better run or have they pulled the bench from the Orb due to the hacked drivers?

Soulburner, I am not sure why you cannot get the 4403's to work with your 5900. I simply installed them from the .exe and didn't have a single problem. They seemed to work pretty good, although I could only break about 18k.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7046973

I took it out SPQQKY as ai got a better 18300 score, see first page just below the Bulgarians. Although you gain lots on nature and drag low you lose out on a couple of the other games compared to 52.16, though you still get about 400 points or so.

The card did do 590/1070 with stock volts and cooler on it ( Gainward 5700U Golden Sample ) but last night it would only do 580/1060, maybe because of the drivers or it was a bit warmer.

Regards

Andy

[Schneider]

The 43.51's were kind to me, but my card was already supported :p This thread just reminded me of the speed i had in the past :D

[charlie]

Hey guys,
Interesting read... any possibilities in replacing my 9800XT with a 5950Ultra with those 43.51's, cooling it to -50C and juicing the heck out of it?? 250fps Nature with the FX-51 @ 2.9gHz??

C

[zakelwe]

Originally posted by charlie
Hey guys,
Interesting read... any possibilities in replacing my 9800XT with a 5950Ultra with those 43.51's, cooling it to -50C and juicing the heck out of it?? 250fps Nature with the FX-51 @ 2.9gHz??

C

Might turn in a nice result :) I still think 44.03's are slightly better, but that's in my rig, yours might prefer 43.51's.

Let us know how you get on !

Regards

Andy

[Soulburner]

I talked to OPP about that Charlie....he seemed to agree that it would turn very high numbers considering he had one at #1 back at 25.9k or so...and so did DJ...

But can you use an older driver with the 5950? FUGGER tried, didn't he? I don't remember if it worked or not.

[WannaGoFast]

Did anyone ever figure out how to install older drivers on a 5700 ultra and actually make them work correctly?
I have been tryin to do this all different ways suggested here and a few things I tried on my own.
If I do get them to install all it does is lock up when I run 3dmark, and the control panel won't function.

This is really starting to piss me off as I'm sure this card is capable of so much more,
if I could just get away from these POS 50x drivers.

Peace

WannaGoFast

[zakelwe]

Originally posted by WannaGoFast
Did anyone ever figure out how to install older drivers on a 5700 ultra and actually make them work correctly?
I have been tryin to do this all different ways suggested here and a few things I tried on my own.
If I do get them to install all it does is lock up when I run 3dmark, and the control panel won't function.

This is really starting to piss me off as I'm sure this card is capable of so much more,
if I could just get away from these POS 50x drivers.

Peace

WannaGoFast

Bit tricky this, I managed to install them twice on two different hard drives but using a different technique each time but I didn't have your problem to get around, mine was no screen image.

Two things to note about the older drivers, you cannot clock your 5700U as high with them for some reason ( seen by both me and TodB aka mollov ) and also the card downclocks itself to 2d core and ram more easily.

Regards

Andy

[Soulburner]

Does this work for 5950?

[Kunaak]

it should.
I seen fugger doing this with his 27k score.

[Bra!nFreeZe^]

Zakelwe...would you recommend the FX5700U to any1 ? because Im really considering to buy it

[zakelwe]

Originally posted by Bra!nFreeZe^
Zakelwe...would you recommend the FX5700U to any1 ? because Im really considering to buy it

Hi,


If you are going to go for Xt9600 or 5700U then I would say get the 5700U because unless you are Mr Icee you will be able to overclock the 5700U a lot higher.

If you are just looking at cards in general for games and benching then I would say

Ati AA is a lot better than nvidia's AA
nvidia still do better drivers ( but not by as much as previously).

If you can afford more than the 5700U then I would seriously consider the Gainward Ultra/1200Xp Golden sample product code 4981

This has the same memory as the 5900U and although default clocks are 400/850 Gainward guarrantee 440/900. This is 5900U speeds more or less and you could probably get it a lot higher.

The 5950U is only 475/950, so with a bit of luck you could have 5950U performance for 5900 price ( which is cheap).

Also, 5900 is 4x2 and 5700u is 4x1, so that is a big difference in Dx7 games.

If I only could have one card then that is the card I would have.

Regards

Andy

[Soulburner]

Yup works with 5950U like a charm :D

[SPQQKY]

Has anyone tried the 45.32's on the 5700 Ultra? I just was browsing at 3DChipset in the unofficial nVidia drivers and downloaded them out of curiosity. These are the only 4x.xx drivers I have seen with the NV36 (5700 Ultra) in the driver files. It is only named NV36, so I am guessing these were a beta drivers before the official release of the chip. I edited mine to read as a 5700 Ultra, but I am just to damn lazy to test them out as I have just set everything up for DX9 and gaming using the 5303's and don't want to reinstall. Any guinea pigs. I am hoping they will give a balance of performance between the 4x.xx and the 5x.xx

[DMylonas]

I try 45.32, 45.23 on the 5700 Ultra. They recognize the card like NV36 but the scores with Aquamark3 are between 30.000 and 31.000. The best score I take it with 56.72 WHQL.

Chaintech FX5700U 128MB - 475/906@525/1020MHz (http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=1016698542)

[Minnyboy]

Thanks Kunaak,

Good to see that someone stepped up & did such a good job on how to "force" older nVidia drivers to work with the newer cards...

Makes me want to go back to the drawing board & do a "how to" for the ATI drivers...

/reminds meself to get my greasy little hands on an ATI X800 series VC...

Cheers,
Minnyboy

[Kunaak]

wow, this was a interesting read to see again...

thanks Minnyboy for the compliment :D

[zakelwe]

Agreed this is a very useful thread.

I want to see if the 6800 series can use 44.03 and whether the new architecture like those drivers or not.

First person to do it gets a beer.

Regards

Andy ( the landlord )

[Kunaak]

well, they do say the 6800 is the exact same card as the 5950 except it has some bridge chip on it...

[Noktar]

Can't find the 43.30 drivers.
Link?

[ctgilles]

OMFG, just type in "43.30" in Google and you have it... FFS!
I am a lazy POS (http://www.3dchips-fr.com/download/sendfile.php?DownloadID=1539)

http://www.ctgilles.net/images/ForumFun/Negative/masteroftheobvious.jpg

[p4z1f1st]

tried with 43.30 and FX5950Ultra to get Doom3 running without grey-screen-bug....but doesn't work....it loads....and crashs back to desktop :bsod: :shrug: