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

[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

[Poki]

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

[Dissolved]

Great Job!

Altho im not sure tto the purpose of this?

[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

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..

[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