Cant run Serious Sam

[inquiring]

I have Windows XP Pro on and AMD 1800 with 512 Mb DDR RAM on 1024 x768 at 16 bit. I use and ASUS GeForce 2 GTS NVIDIA vid card with 32 mb. I updated the NVIDA drivers about 2 months ago. When I launch a Serious Sam demo, I receive the following message:

FATAL ERROR: Serious Sam was unable to find display mode with OpenGL acceleration. Make sure that you install proper drivers for your video card as recommended in documentation and set your desktop to 16 bit."

What dont I have that is preventing the Serious Sam demo from firing up here?

Thanks.

 

[dhlucke]

Read my response to your other post. I would use older drivers.

_________________________________________
<A HREF="http://skulls.sytes.net/tom/" target="_new">12 bit... The way games are meant to be played!</A>

 

[jmecor]

But wait i was able to work serious sam on my pc with the latest nvidia drivers and directx9.0b. with winxp. The video card is geforce 2 ultra.

<b>
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind.
<b>
-BAZ LUHRMANN

 

[mopeygoth]

With the GeForce 2 series you should never go higher than Detonator 30.82 as they simply stopped developing fixes and updates for that series of cards. Furthermore you will have a lot of games not working because you use a never driver. I experienced a lot of problems with quake3-engine based games. Take my word for it and degrade

Intel Pentium 4 - 400Mhz FSB - 2.4Ghz
- 1152mb pc-133 - Ati Radeon 9700 128Mb

 

[inquiring]

If I dare to upgrade my video card to avoid the driver downgrade, what ATI or NVIDIA products exist <$200 which will facilitate my game playing of the latest games?
Thank you.

 

[mopeygoth]

I would suggest Radeon9600pro. It will give you Directx9support at a nice speed. It is the best price/performance card on the market. Don't even touch the cheaprange GeforceFx cards, they perform very badly under dx9. If you don't want to play any dx9 games like halflife2 and other new ones. Get a Ti4200. But I would strongly advise you to get the 9600pro, you will not get dissappointed 😉

Intel Pentium 4 - 400Mhz FSB - 2.4Ghz
- 1152mb pc-133 - Ati Radeon 9700 128Mb

 

[mopeygoth]

While you are waiting, get the 30.82 drivers. The will run better (or actually run =). Degrade in this situation is not a bad thing at all... since you will not experience anything but trouble with never drivers. I have had a Gf2Pro for ages, believe me; I know the frustration 😉

Intel Pentium 4 - 400Mhz FSB - 2.4Ghz
- 1152mb pc-133 - Ati Radeon 9700 128Mb

 

[inquiring]

How are the ATI video drivers? Are they as rock solid stable as the NVIDIA?

 

[mopeygoth]

I never considered neither nVidia or Ati's drivers to be rock solid or stable 😉. But Ati release information of what was changed with each new driver and have less frequent releases since they go more indepth with them I would presume. nVidia .. well I do not want to be flamed, but they have a tendency to focus on optimizing for benchmarkresults or just to add another card to their line. They kind of leave and neglect the older cards as is they has never existet in their line.

I do find the Ati drivers faster to work with, more logical and easier to set up. Instead of the three or four pages in-depth they have more and easier accesible pages to work with. Thus the more advanced featueres are cut out so even my girlfriend can understand them =) Viel Glück!

Intel Pentium 4 - 400Mhz FSB - 2.4Ghz
- 1024mb pc-133 - Ati Radeon 9700@340mhz 128Mb@600mhz

 

[goblinking]

Since I got my new Radeon 9800 a couple of months ago, I haven't had a single crash that I've been able to trace back to the graphics card. Compare that with the crashes I used to get with various nVidia cards, a couple of times a week (sometimes more), when WinXP would finger the graphics driver as the likely culprit.

As far as I can tell, on my system and others, the modern Detonator drivers are just about as solid as they get.

 

[lisabob2]

I have the same video card with a xp1700, serious sam play great(but i get dizzy playing it lol) have you tried running it in d3d mode?
Anyway I am upgrading my video card to the tyan trachyon 9600 pro 128mb, I should get it in 2 days I will let you know how it goes. I guess the 9700 or 9800 would have been better but can't afford them:-(
Bob