nForce 123/WinXP Chipset Drivers and Remixes

[scott21]

i'm not terribly worried about them being whql certified, though you might think differently. i'd just rather have the latest version of the drivers in one simple installer if it wouldn't be too much trouble, perhaps you might want to make a whql complaint version (which i assume you're going for?) as well as a "latest and greatest / modified-to-work" version. All of this of course depends on your time containts and agenda.

what do you think about making a vista version of the remix? I know the ethernet driver is on the dvd, but the audio and motherboard drivers are available on windows update fwiw. I don't know if there are any newer ones for vista or if it would be just a lot of modifying to make newer drivers nf2 compatible. I plan on migrating my family's pcs and laptops to vista once sp1 hits and it would be nice to keep my girlfriends nf2 system up-to-date as well.

just wondering

Scott

edit: just got along to running to updated installer, and as the same as squalls, i have to go back to device manager and manually install the driver. also i wonder, if it wouldn't just be better to use realtek's ac 97 driver as it's much newer then the nvidia one. any comment on this?

[AdvModDev]

Yeah, a WHQL-only package would probably be a good idea.

I'm in no big hurry to upgrade all my machines to Vista. Maybe when SP1 releases it will be the right time. AFAIK, Vista includes all NF2 chipset drivers already. And I've heard nvmixer v4.51 can be installed and tweaked for 5.1 output. But I'll take a look at MSFT Update Catalog to see if there is anything available. I doubt it though cause NV stated publically that NF1-3 would not be updated for Vista.

That's the problem with nonWHQL audio drivers. Only 2 out of the 3 components get installed by the NV installer. The "Audio Codec Interface" and "MCP Audio Processing Unit" get installed, but the "nforce Audio" component is always a hit or miss. What makes it more confusing to people is that this third component is a "hidden" device in device manager. Do not use Realtek drivers with the NF2 because you would be losing the superior Soundstorm audio processing (Dolby Digital Live). Benchmarks also showed that Soundstorm is superior in performance in games.

Edit: The audio install problem has been resolved (by using NV installer v4.46). See the 12th post after this one for details.

[scott21]

I remember the benchmarks from long ago, but the latest nforce driver was from what? 04/05? Surely the landscape has changed and the realtek driver has evolved since then. Just wondering, especially since it might be the only way to go in the future since nvidia could care less about its older chipsets.

[AdvModDev]

However efficient Realtek audio drivers have become, it should never outperform Soundstorm. The reason for this is audio processing via Realtek AC 97 codec is handled by the CPU as opposed to the Soundstorm chip in our NF2 south bridges. So it's a software vs hardware implementation thing. But the ultimate appeal of Soundstorm is definitely Dolby Digital Live.

[AdvModDev]

I've been rereading old posts by Unbreakable and Squall concerning Audio driver v4.65 and comparing it to v4.66 and WHQL v4.62 (the last official NF2/WinXP driver). Turns out that v4.65 was released solely due to Vista. One other significant Vista change was that NV decided to lower the maximim number of allowed 3D sounds (Unbreakable speculated that it was due to performance reasons). The same change is also present in v4.66. So WinXP users of either of these drivers should get slightly better performance at the cost of quality. I don't believe the trade-off is worth it for WinXP users.

Anyways, I've decided to update "NVlatestRemix" with Squall's v4.66 Vista driver because it is essentially the same as v4.65 which MSFT Update Catalog has tagged as being WinXP compatible. But I have modified the INFs in both v4.65 and v4.66 to the same max allowed 3D sound parameters as the WHQL v4.62 so that quality is not sacrificed.

scott21 - hope you didn't do that slipstream yet There will be no further changes to "NVlatestRemix" unless something compatible gets released.

[scott21]

i just slipstreamed xp+sp3 rc1. I never include drivers unless they're sata ones to install windows with. drivers get updated so often (especially realtek/nvidia/ati) that by the time you install windows, within a month theyr'e out of date.

[AdvModDev]

I just uploaded a file called "OalInst203" that you may also want to download and install on your machines. It's the OpenAL Installer to install the latest OpenAL components. The two dlls that it installs to the system directory will take priority over the outdated OpenAL dlls included in the latest audio drivers. OpenAL games that make OpenAL calls will use these dlls (if for some reason the game doesn't already include its own).

[Maniaxx]

The ethernet driver 4.71 (beta) is faulty. It cannot be disabled in device manager or in any other network settings.

[AdvModDev]

It's a known problem and is caused by it not being WHQL. I can't remember if the fault is NV's or MSFT's. But I suspect it's "WinXP default behavior" because I've had that happen when I installed a beta Intel ethernet driver on my laptop's NIC. Anyways, if you want the ability to disable it then try "NVenet436xp" (the last known WHQL NF2/WinXP driver) at my page or directory.

[Maniaxx]

V4.36 is the last proper working one indeed.

But functionality is completely unaffected by certification. The 4.71 is buggy. You can render the digital signature of v4.36 invalid by changing just one byte in v4.36 to get a proof.