G-Force - nVidia Driver Components mis-match

horst-kuhn · Post by **horst-kuhn** » Sat May 13, 2006 9:01 am

System Information :
OS Version: Windows XP Home 2002 SP2, patches up to date
Version of G-Force Platinum 3.5.2 and higher
Version of media player: MS Windows Media Player 10
Other system information: Intel Pentium4 2GHz with 1GB of RAM
Display : 1280 x 1024 32Bit DirectX 9.0
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 460 Driver 4.5.2.3 28.Jul.2003

Description of Bug:
When starting G-Force Standalone 3.5.2 up to 3.5.4 or Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 (WMP) I get following screen error message:
"nVidia OpenGL Driver : Driver components mis-match. Exit is the only option." After this message Standalone & WMP is not working at all.
Is there an explanation or fix available?
Thanks for any help ...

Joe Hendrix · Post by **Joe Hendrix** » Sat May 13, 2006 12:38 pm

I'm having similar problems with my system. I get a severe banding problem when running through WMP. The screensaver doesn't work, and from within MCE, the G-Force bar shows up accross the top, but no visuals. Then after a minute, my system crashes.

Here's what my system looks like (probably more than you need):

CASE:
OrigenAE X15e HTPC Case w/TFT Touchscreen and IR Module, Black

MOTHERBOARD:
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum, AMD 64, Socket 939, nForce4, 4GB, ATX

VIDEO:
eVGA GeForce 6600 256MB TV-out/DVI/HDTV PCI-E Heatsink Edition

OPERATING SYSTEM/ANALOG TUNER:
MCE 2005 / PVR-150MCE / MCE Remote / NVDVD Decoder

MEMORY:
SuperTalent PC3200 1G (512MB x 2) DDR400 Dual-Kit CL3

HDTV TUNER:
VBOX Cat's Eye DTA-150 ATSC Terrestrial HDTV Receiver, PCI

PROCESSOR:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Processor

MEDIA STORAGE:
600GB SATA (2 300GB)

OS DRIVE:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3808110AS 80GB 7200RPM NCQ 8MB SATAII

DVD:
16x Dual Layer DVDÂ±R/RW Drive
Sony DWQ120A 16X Double Layer (8.5GB) DVD+-RW Dual Drive, Black

EXTRA:
Matching Aluminum 7-in-1 Media Card Reader
Microsoft Wireless Keyboard
Logitech MCE Remote

I'm also using the Purevideo decoder, but not the latest version. I just tried installing the latest version last night to see if that would solve the G-Force problem, and it only made things worse. The new decoder prevented me from viewing TV, DVD's, and of course G-Force. I was able to restore my system to a point before the latest Purevideo install, and got things back to where they were... except for G-Force.

Could I get an older version of G-Force until this one can run on my system? I purchased the Gold version back on January 13th of 2006.

Post by **andy55** » Sat May 13, 2006 5:27 pm

It sounds like there's craziness going on in the driver layer--this stuff is madding to deal with, as you know...

I did some Googling around... Here's some tidbits that may help:

http://www.joegrossberg.com/archives/001036.html
http://jalbum.net/forum/thread.jspa?for ... geID=33883
http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/forum_thread.php?id=532
http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/forum_thread.php?id=799

Perhaps a bios or driver update is order (maybe try nVidia's beta drivers?). If you do get any more leads or links, please post to this thread.

If you still have no luck, you can tell G-Force to not use openGL, although performance won't be as good and overlays won't be as nice. To do so, add the following line to the file C:\Documents and Settings\USER\G-Force\Preferences (*).txt:

Code: Select all

nOGL=1

This will cause G-Force to use non-opengl mode (ala G-Force 3.1).

Thanks,
Andy

JoeHendrix · Post by **JoeHendrix** » Tue May 16, 2006 12:42 pm

I bought this computer in October, 2005. It had the latest version of the Nforce4 drivers, and Purevideo drivers installed on the machine. I had been hesitant on installing the most recent drivers from Nvidia, because of all of the horror stories I had heard with the latest drivers , but I went ahead and tried installing the latest NForce4 drivers over the weekend(earlier I had tried the latest Purevideo drivers with bad results). The latest NForce drivers didn't fare any better. It didn't solve the problem with running G-Force (still had the banding problem on the lower half of the screen, and the visulazations were going a thousand miles a minute). The latest NForce drivers also caused stuttering on the HD Channels that were broadcating with 1080i (seemed to do Ok with the 720p channels).

I finally rolled back to a good point on my machine (using the older NForce and Purevideo drivers). Things got back to normal, but still had the original problem with the new G-Force. I went ahead and edited your text files as suggested, and this got G-Force working.

The one problem I'm still experiencing is a little flickering at the beginning and end of each song, right before and right after the MCE song information appears.

Later, I also noticed, after I had shut down MCE to get to the WinXP screen that the G-force screensaver was on. This had never happened before.

Any ideas on the above? Shouldn't my machine configuration be able to handle openGL?

Post by **andy55** » Tue May 16, 2006 2:09 pm

JoeHendrix wrote:Later, I also noticed, after I had shut down MCE to get to the WinXP screen that the G-force screensaver was on. This had never happened before.

I'm not sure what you mean there.

JoeHendrix wrote: Any ideas on the above? Shouldn't my machine configuration be able to handle openGL?

Yes, you machine should definitely be able to handle G-Force's (basic) use of OpenGL.

Given that you have fairly new hardware and what I've read on the web, I can comfortably say it's a driver issue. I mean, if G-Force is using OpenGL that works on other machines, the fact that it's having issues on your s typically suggests a driver issue unfortunately. In other words, in a situation like this, there's absolutely nothing I can try or do. My best recommendation is to submit a trouble ticket to nVidia (or whomever) to get their people to look into a driver issue. Meanwhile, I'll open a bug for this in our own bug tracking and see if I get anyone willing to hep in an nVidia forum (which will take a while, at best).

Andy

JoeHendrix · Post by **JoeHendrix** » Wed May 17, 2006 12:46 pm

Thanks, Andy.

Just to clarify the one note:

JoeHendrix wrote:
Later, I also noticed, after I had shut down MCE to get to the WinXP screen that the G-force screensaver was on. This had never happened before.

I was watching TV from within MCE for a couple hours. I then closed MCE, which drops you into the regular XP desktop. When I did this, instead of seeing the normal desktop, I saw the G-Force screensaver operating. This had never happened before. Normally, if I close MCE and go to the desktop, I just see the normal desktop.

What this indicates to me, is that the G-Force screensaver turned on because it "thought" that there had been no activity for 5 minutes (the time I set for the screensaver to turn on when there is no activity). The previous version (I'm assuming) recognized that when you are in the MCE interface, even though there may be no keyboard or mouse activity, there is activity of some type going on (because MCE is loaded).

Hope all that makes sense.

Post by **andy55** » Wed May 17, 2006 12:50 pm

JoeHendrix wrote:Thanks, Andy.

Just to clarify the one note:

JoeHendrix wrote:
Later, I also noticed, after I had shut down MCE to get to the WinXP screen that the G-force screensaver was on. This had never happened before.

I was watching TV from within MCE for a couple hours. I then closed MCE, which drops you into the regular XP desktop. When I did this, instead of seeing the normal desktop, I saw the G-Force screensaver operating. This had never happened before. Normally, if I close MCE and go to the desktop, I just see the normal desktop.

What this indicates to me, is that the G-Force screensaver turned on because it "thought" that there had been no activity for 5 minutes (the time I set for the screensaver to turn on when there is no activity). The previous version (I'm assuming) recognized that when you are in the MCE interface, even though there may be no keyboard or mouse activity, there is activity of some type going on (because MCE is loaded).

Hope all that makes sense.

Well, Windows has 100% control over when a screensaver starts, so this sounds like a Windows/MCE issue. Try switching to a different screensaver (with the same delay) and repeat your behavior--that screensaver will probably come on as well.

andy

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu May 18, 2006 12:47 pm

Thanks Andy.

The problem didn't exhibit itself last night, so it's probably a non-issue.

Any ideas on the flicker at the beginning and end of each song, right around the time when MCE displays the song titles?

JoeHendrix · Post by **JoeHendrix** » Fri May 19, 2006 4:20 pm

After a ton of trail and error, I was able to load most of the new Nvidia drivers. Got the newest Nforce4 driver, but not the newest Purevideo driver (kept bombing out on me). I then reset the Preference(*).txt files to 0. G-Force seems to be working now.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the original default setting for nOGL was 0?

Post by **andy55** » Sun May 21, 2006 7:06 pm

JoeHendrix wrote:After a ton of trail and error, I was able to load most of the new Nvidia drivers. Got the newest Nforce4 driver, but not the newest Purevideo driver (kept bombing out on me). I then reset the Preference(*).txt files to 0. G-Force seems to be working now.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the original default setting for nOGL was 0?

Yes, nOGL=0 (or if that line isn't present at all), G-Force will attempt to use OpenGL (it may still fail if you machine lacks necessary hardware). You can tell if you're in OpenGL mode if the console text color changes with the ColorMaps (press 'H' and then keep pressing next ColorMap every couple seconds)--if the text stays white, you're using OpenGL.

Andy

saintecho01 · Post by **saintecho01** » Thu May 25, 2006 4:56 pm

i had the same problem,i just updated windows media player (11)
and it sorted it sorted itself out.