Inspiron 8100 - GeForce2 Go � recommendations

[Guest olof]

Hi guys!

I was wondering if someone would give me some pointers. The performance of my laptops graphics card has been bothering me for a while so finding this great resource was a real life saver. Basically before I got cracking I was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers as to recommended drivers?

My sys info:

Inspiron 8100

1.2mhz

GeForce2 32mb

1600x1200

Specifications for LaptopVideo2Go

---------------------------------

[07/02/2005 - 14:47:30]

[Microsoft Windows XP - Service Pack 1]

[2600.xpsp2_gdr.040517-1325]

VideoBiosDate: 03/14/02

VideoBiosVersion: Version 3.11.01.44.B4 \0Version 3.11.01.44.B4 \0Version 3.11.01.44.B4 \0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0

SystemBiosDate: 03/03/03

SystemBiosVersion: DELL - 27d30303\0Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A15\0\0

Thanks in advance!!!

Rich

[mobilenvidia]

I'm quite happily running 67.02 with my GF2go.

Would be a good place to start your career in driver updates.

Enjoy and welcome.

[Guest BigA]

Hey folks,

I know most of the topics here are related to Dell and Toshiba laptops, but my girlfriend has an old 1Ghz laptop made by Elonex, a small UK manufacturer .

It's got a 32Mb Geforce2 Go in there and her drivers are from the neolithic so I'm looking to update them in the hopes of getting a few more fps out of the machine:).

Two questions:

- How generic are the inf files? Should your modded files work straight away?

- Det 67.02 seems to be my best bet....but does anyone have any experience on non-Dell/Tosh laptops?

Thx

A

[LSudlow]

It should work fine. Some laptops have funny quirks, but we can help you troubleshoot those. If worst comes to worst you can always revert to your old drivers.

[Guest Guest]

Thx for the response - that's seriously swift!

Just out of interest are the 67.xx quick? Used to have a desktop NVidia and from what I can remember the different detonator drivers were a real mixed bag. Is there any advantage in going for an older series?

Thx for the info,

A

[LSudlow]

Yes and no. The 48.xx series is probably the absolute fastest for your card, followed closely by the 53.xx series. However those are quite old now and lack support for XP SP2, DirectX 9c, and many games released in the past couple of years. Still, if you're in a mood to experiment, you might try them to see how they work.

Of the more recent drivers, 67.02 is the fastest. 67.66 is almost as fast and has many bug fixes, which makes it a worthwhile tradeoff.

Finally, the brand new 71.84 is an excellent driver, though the slowest of all the ones I've mentioned on cards with less than 128MB RAM. Still, it's not THAT much slower, seems almost completely bug free, and has a new driver for viewing DVD/MPEG video that works very nicely.

So that gives you several to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. If speed is you main concern, go as far down this list as you can without running into bugs. If compatibility and bug fixes are more importand, move up the list until performance falls below your tolerance.

All of this is an ongoing discussion, so let us know how you make out!

[mobilenvidia]

After the 40's series the GF2go performs at it's maximum level.

There are only a couple of points difference in the benchies, I gave up benchmarking as I was getting a similar score over and over again.

So any driver you choose will be just as fast as any other.

[Guest BigA]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the info - I still haven't gotten around to the update yet as the laptop's been away but we're getting it back tomorrow so I'll probably update the drivers then.

Just out of interest, has anyone got any good benchmarks for the different series on the 32Mb GF2GO?

I'm interested to see what we're going to get out of the update (assuming it's running something ancient in the 20.xs at present but I can't remember off the top of my head)

Thx all,

A

[mobilenvidia]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the info - I still haven't gotten around to the update yet as the laptop's been away but we're getting it back tomorrow so I'll probably update the drivers then.

Just out of interest, has anyone got any good benchmarks for the different series on the 32Mb GF2GO?

I'm interested to see what we're going to get out of the update (assuming it's running something ancient in the 20.xs at present but I can't remember off the top of my head)

Thx all,

A

Have a look here for some benchies with my GF2go, I havn't updated it since the 60's but will give you an idea.

http://laptopvideo2go.com/pages/oldinfs.htm

[Guest davisstraub]

I'm running the 61.94 driver on my Dell Inspiron 8100 with the NVIDIA Geoforce2 Go 32 MB chip. I have an external monitor at 1280x1024, and the laptop display at 1400x1050 (default for 14" screen), both 32 bit color.

The setup works fine in Dual Screen mode. When the laptop goes into Standby mode, the screens come up in Clone mode, instead of Dual Screen. The resolution on the laptop sometimes goes to 1280x1024. I can pretty easily get it back to Dual Screen mode, but can I stop this from happening?

Or is there some way to set up a Profile that forces this? I've tried this without luck.

Will the 67.xx drivers solve this? I've got "good" 3D performance now (15 fps in Treemark) so can I expect a big hit with the 71.xx drivers?

Thanks.

Davis Straub

http://ozreport.com

Quest Air, Groveland, FL, USA

[Bill]

Welcome to the forums!

You should try some 67s, or 71 series.

It really depends on what you run on that laptop, atleast as far as games are concerned.

You should try the 71.84 driver with this INF:

Modded Dell INF for 71.84

That works just fine for me over hear.

The only thing wrong with that driver for me, is that the TV out is messed up a bit, so if that bugs you, you should try the driver and INF linked too in my sig. (67.50)

All your games should run just as good with the 71.84 as they do with the 67.50 driver. (or other 67 drivers) But the 71.84 driver has a newer control panel layout, and the new VMR option, it also has some official 3D stereo drivers to go with it, but some of us Dell users are being plagued with TV bugs with this driver.

If you have problems with your laptop screen and this driver, or other ones, please go here and choose the dell display fix. (make sure you select the right driver version)

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/enhancer

About your problem that I forget to address, :) you could try enabling the desktop manager, and go to the hotkeys section, and add the "show display scheme menu" and "toggle clone mode" hotkeys, they should make switching between all your different display modes much easier.

Hope this helps.

Bill

[Guest davisstraub]

Thanks Bill,

Before I read your kind note here, I installed 71.84 and after that didn't work out (1280x1024 max resolution on the laptop with max 16 bit color, no ability to do two screens) I tried 67.66. No luck so I'm back to 61.94.

Before I installed 71.84 I renamed the nv4_dsp.inf file that was extracted when I extracted the files with 7184.exe to nv4_disp.inf.old and then put Pieter's nv4.disp.inf file in my Temp\nVidia\7184 folder. I was never able to get an NVIDIA Settings icon in my Tray nor was I able to run any NVIDIA utilites.

The resolution started at 640x400, but after a few reboots improved to 1280x1024, 16 bit color, but with no ability to go to a two screen mode.

I then attempted to install 67.66, and I couldn't tell after a few attempts if that worked or not, but the same problem with 1280x1024, 16 bit and no NVIDIA icon in the system tray.

Things are much improved now that I'm back to 61.94.

I've put your nvdm.inf file in my Temp\nVidia\7184\OEM_INFs folder over writing the one that was previously extracted there. I'll make an attempt to go up to 71.84 later with your inf file.

Thanks for that.

I click the NVIDIA Settings icon in my System Tray, click nView Desktop Manager, click nView Properties, click Hot Keys, click the + next to Display Settings, click Show display scheme menu, click Add, define a Hot Key, click the plus next to Display Mode, click Toggle Clone Mode, click Add, define a new Hot Key.

Thanks for that help

[®®®]

i think here's the fix for the resoltution problem of your 1400x1050 screen: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?showtopic=6639 (oin the FAQ and also available at Teraphy's INF Enhancer page)

The other (new) thread, which is stickied in this section is here: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?showtopic=6958

The fixes might be the same, i haven't compared them.

[Guest davisstraub]

Thanks.

I assume that you add this line to the appropriate inf file (nvdm.inf) and I'd bet that Bill already did this.

True?

[Bill]

I didn't add the line, but I did link to Teraphy's INF Enhancer, which adds it for you, in my post above near the bottem of the post.

I can add it for you in the Dell INF if you want...

Edit: If I did add the line, would that mess things up for those of us that don't have that screen?

Well I could comment it out.....

[Guest davisstraub]

Indeed you did point to it, and I looked at it, but I sure didn't understand what it meant (for one thing I can't tell what screen I have as I don't have WMIC as I have Home not Pro).

So the enhancer installs it for you? How does it do that? How do I know if it is installed? Where is it installed? What file? Do I have to have 71.84 installed first?

I'll add it to my copy of your nvdm.inf.

Oops

Where do you put this thing?

HKR,, OverrideEdidFlags0, %REG_BINARY%, 3A,C4,00,00,00,00,FF,FF,04,00,00,00,36,12,30,2A,78,20,51,1A,10,40,30,70,13,00,31

E4,10,00,00,18

Also I only have a 14" screen, 1400x1050, not 1600x1200, so it didn't look like it applied.

Anyway, I'll give it a try now. Back soon.

[Guest davisstraub]

It worked. That is I used Bill's nvdm.inf and perhaps that was the reason it worked this time. Didn't make the change above.

We'll see if it maintains its dual screen mode through standby.

Thanks so much.

[Bill]

So you used my INF with the 71.84 driver, without adding anything, and it worked?

To use that INF enhancer page, you select your driver version from the top down box, then click on the dell display pulldown, select the 1400x1050 resolution, and click submit, you will then download a version of Pieter's moddified INF for that driver that you choose with the display fix.

You can also manually add the fix to my Dell INF for the 71.84 driver.

Hope your problems are solved, if not you know where to ask! :)

[Guest davisstraub]

>>So you used my INF with the 71.84 driver, without adding anything, and it worked?

Yes.

Thanks again.

[Bill]

No problem, I should stick a note about the INF fixing the problem in the thread with it.

Glad we could help you! :)

Edit: Done.

You now have your name in lights, well sorta......

[®®®]

Why not put your INF in a very own thread in the Utilities section like the others do :)

[Bill]

You think my INFs deserve a sticky topic? Or atleat a regular topic, maybe we should have a custom INF section, like one with custom INFs, could have a Dell subsection in that to start off with, I have to go now, but will put together a topic later....

[Guest davisstraub]

Back to the same problem.

Restarted Dell 8100, with external 1280x1024 monitor plugged in.

1280x1024 16 bit color first showed up on the external monitor (nothing on the portable) then restarted after unplugging external moniotr and got the same resolution on the laptop.

Device Manager shows 7.1.8.4 driver but Control Panel NVIDIS icon doesn't bring up any program and right clicking the desktop, clicking Properties, clicking Advanced, shows no NVIDIA installed.

Device Manager shows GeoForce2 Go (Dell 8100) as video card desginator.

I'll try that HKR line above in your nvdm.inf file although I have no idea where to place it in the file. I'll assume that it doesn't matter.

[Guest davisstraub]

Well, first I tried the enhancer and placed the modified nv4_disp.inf file (with the mod for Dell 1400x1050) in my \nvidia\7184 folder. Ran settup.exe. No change.

Now I've put the HKR line indicated above in the nvdm.inf file in the OEM_INFs subfolder (of 7184) and we'll see if that makes any difference.

[Bill]

First off, delete any and all INFs in the driver folder, including the OEM folder, then stick in either Pieters mod INF with the fix from the enhancement page, or my dell INF with the fix, then install it through the device manager.

Instructions are here:

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/pages/instructions.htm

and a video (divx) made by me on how to install it is here.