OpenGL Problem

[Tom Reade]

Okay heres the deal. I have played alot of games online
since I was young. Now this has ticked me off. I have a
Nvidia GeForce4 TI 4200 vidcard. I updated it to the
newest drivers. I can not even load Delta Force Black
Hawk Down. It Sysdumps on me right when it opens. I Tried
downloading the new Call Of Duty Demo and it will not
even open back up because it says it has a problem with
the OpenGL. Now I also play Battlefield 1942 with the
Dessert Combat Mod. I can play this just fine. I
downloaded Americans Army 2.0. When I got into that game
the ground is missing and stuff like the hummers wheels
are gone. Now Battlefield 1942 is a major resource hog
and sucks alot more out of a video card than the other 3.
Why wont the other 3 work?

I have uninstalled my vidieo card and rolled back my
drivers, I have even reformatted and still the same
problems. I have unistalled the card, deleted all Nvidia
software and even cleared my Driver Cache file and when
reinstalled still no go.. I have no clue. Any help would
be great. Thanks

 

[Jimmy S.]

Hi Tom,

You might just have needed to update your chipset
drivers first, here's instructions on how to do that:
http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits/Video.html#v11

Afterwards, once that's done, install the latest ForceWare drivers.

Updating video card drivers can solve most gaming issues. Here's some
rules of thumb though to always keep in mind. Shut DL accelerators, fire-
walls and antivirus programs off while downloading or installing drivers and
updates. Also check the game's website (or Fileplanet.com) for patches.

Before you update your drivers, I recommend that you install DirectX 9.0b*:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/9/c/c9c8a1d4-7690-4c98-baf3-0c67e7f3751f/dx90b_redist.exe

Here are the steps I recommend you use to update your driver. If you've
never done this before I recommend you also look over the Nvidia's FAQ: http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=support_faqs Release
Notes:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_52.16

2. Download the latest driver v. 52.16 for your Nvidia Card Win XP/2000:
http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/52.16/52.16_win2kxp_english_whql.exe

Win98/Me: http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/45.23/45.23_win9x_english.exe

3. Save the .exe driver in My Documents\My Drivers\Nvidia 5216

4. Restart the computer in Safe Mode by pressing the F8 key
about once every second as it's rebooting to pick Safe Mode.

5. Click Start / (settings) Control Panel / System / Hardware
Device Manager / expand +Display Adapters / right click on
the adapter, pick "Uninstall", and click No if asked to reboot.

6. Use Control Panel / Add-Remove programs to uninstall the
previous driver (exe)software which may have been installed.

7. Restart the computer in Safe Mode by pressing the F8 key
about once every second as it's rebooting to pick Safe Mode.

8. If Windows prompts you to install the adapter, click "Cancel".

9. Double click the 44.03 driver we saved to My Documents\
Drivers\Geforce folder in step 3 to install.it. If it complains about
Windows Logo Certification just click "Continue". This is normal.

10. After you reboot, go to Control Panel / Display / Settings and
choose 32 bit Color Quality, and 1024x768 Screen Resolution.

TROUBLESHOOTING:

Test your drivers using DXDiag: Click Start / Run / type: DXDIAG
Click the "Test" buttons in the Display, Sound, Music & Network Tabs;
If any of the Display options are Disabled and you cannot Enable them,
your most likely solution would be to update your Chipset Drivers as per
my website: http://www3.sympatico.ca/nibblesnbits/Video.html#v11

Along with your Video card, Sound Cards, Motherboard Chipsets,
and Video Monitors may also require updated drivers. Even your
motherboard's BIOS may need to be updated for compatibility with
your Video card. These steps are listed at: http://NibblesNbitsVideo.tk

Perhaps the old Nvidia drivers did not completely uninstall. If that's the
case, use this utility to completely uninstall the drivers and go to step 7:
http://content.guru3d.com/index.php?page=detonatorrip&menu=0

The latest video drivers sometime don't work with a particular game.
(Check the Video suggestions in the readme.txt file in your game folder/CD)
If there's no suggestions, try an older (WHQL) driver, and/or if you still
experience problems try a Beta driver, or even an Omega driver instead:

BETA Drivers: http://download.guru3d.com/
OMEGA Drivers: http://www.omegacorner.com/

There you have it, if you have any questions feel free to post them!

--
Cheers,
Jimmy S.

Additional Support Resources: My Zone.com Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk
Microsoft Online Tech Support: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=376
Game FAQ's: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

| Okay heres the deal. I have played alot of games online
| since I was young. Now this has ticked me off. I have a
| Nvidia GeForce4 TI 4200 vidcard. I updated it to the
| newest drivers. I can not even load Delta Force Black
| Hawk Down. It Sysdumps on me right when it opens. I Tried
| downloading the new Call Of Duty Demo and it will not
| even open back up because it says it has a problem with
| the OpenGL. Now I also play Battlefield 1942 with the
| Dessert Combat Mod. I can play this just fine. I
| downloaded Americans Army 2.0. When I got into that game
| the ground is missing and stuff like the hummers wheels
| are gone. Now Battlefield 1942 is a major resource hog
| and sucks alot more out of a video card than the other 3.
| Why wont the other 3 work?
|
| I have uninstalled my vidieo card and rolled back my
| drivers, I have even reformatted and still the same
| problems. I have unistalled the card, deleted all Nvidia
| software and even cleared my Driver Cache file and when
| reinstalled still no go.. I have no clue. Any help would
| be great. Thanks

 

[Rockin Ronnie]

Okay heres the deal. I have played alot of games online
since I was young. Now this has ticked me off. I have a
Nvidia GeForce4 TI 4200 vidcard. I updated it to the
newest drivers. I can not even load Delta Force Black
Hawk Down. It Sysdumps on me right when it opens. I Tried
etc.

I got call of duty to work because I was getting the same OpenGL problems
you are encountering. There are all kinds of "fixes" out there, but the
bottom line is this: something is busted in the opengl subsystem within the
WindowsaOS and just about the only solution is to do a repair install or a
reformat and reinstall. I went the repair route and everything is okay,
OpenGL games work fine but now my USR modem doesn't want to work. Seems the
repair kinda erased some of the settings as I have discovered.

Anyway, I am probably on my way to a full reinstall if I can't get the modem
to work, after I move some files around on my home LAN. Grrrr.

Ron

 

[Chris H.]

The problem really is only having the proper graphics card drivers. The
built-in drivers in Windows XP, furnished by the various manufacturers to
Microsoft in the summer of 2001, are "mini" drivers which don't include
OpenGL support. Updating your graphics driver to the current one available
from the manufacturer's web site should correct the issue.

 

[anon]

Unless you know what your doing or have a reason I would
not update hardware drivers too often! There are hidden
dangers in changing your hardware settings especially
with budget systems as many users have found out too late!

 

[Jimmy S.]

Hi,

This is actually a good opportunity to mention system restore.
By creating a restore point before updating drivers any hidden
dangers can easily be overcome.

Use Win XP's System Restore to return your system to a previously stable date:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gethelp/systemrestore.asp

--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S. http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

Game FAQs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
Visit my Zone.com / Gaming Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk or Call / Contact
MS Support at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

| Unless you know what your doing or have a reason I would
| not update hardware drivers too often! There are hidden
| dangers in changing your hardware settings especially
| with budget systems as many users have found out too late!

 

[Chris H.]

Very little "danger" that you're warning about since Windows XP has the Roll
Back Driver option in Device Manager. If a driver doesn't work or looks
like crud on the screen, the user simply needs to use the feature to return
to the "good" driver.

 

[Steve]

The problem I seem to be having is I recently upgraded from win2k to
winxp, and have an ATI Radeon 9700 pro with the latest drivers
Catalyst 3.9 (Nov 8th I believe). I am also getting the OpenGL
problems in both Call of Duty and Wolfenstein, but Quake 3 works fine.
I tried downloading older drivers, 3.8 and 3.7 Catalyst... same
problem. I have opengl32.dll in my windows/system dir which dates back
to 8/29/02. I have not yet tried reinstalling the games, or windows
XP, but the games were working fine in win2k until I think I upgraded
my drivers for my ATI from the 3.8 to the 3.9... well win2k didnt like
it and wouldnt show video in windows, so i upgraded to XP, and now
this problem. I do have an older TNT2 card, so I popped it in,
installed the drivers in XP, and Wolfenstein works fine now, but of
course Call of Duty wont load cause my vid card doesnt have the
features for the game... but its not giving me this stupid opengl
problem with the nvidia card... Im about to do a full reformat and
just install XP from scratch... I dont know what else to do.

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

The opengl32.dll file is for software OpenGL rendering. Chances are you will
need hardware support for the games you mentioned. You can check to see if
the drivers ICD is correctly identified in the registry. Go to this key and
there should be an entry for your card:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\OpenGLDrivers

If there is not a key (ati2dvag for ATI or RIVATNT for nVidia) then your
drivers ICD for OpenGL probably didn't install correctly for some reason. I
would reinstall your driver making sure you are an Administrator of the
machine.

Joshua Smith
DirectInput Test Lab
Microsoft