nv4_disp.dll driver stuck in infinite loop.

[caravel]

I thought Windoze versions from 2k or XP upwards no longer messed up lilo/grub...

Unfortunately XP still seems to overwrite grub as far as I can tell. Vista probably does the same. The problem is that if XP installs and doesn't overwrite the bootloader then it cannot boot, nor can it manipulate the grub loader to add an entry for it self, so the boot loader is lost (equivalent of doing a fdisk /mbr from win9x or a fixboot or fixmbr from Win32. Simple as that really. The only way to get it working if it did install without overwriting would be to go into /boot/grub/menu.lst and edit it manually, adding a line for XP, but that's a moot point.

Also, IIRC, you can relatively easy re-write grub even if it gets messed up, as long as you either have some installation disk (you could make a floppy, but floppies (drives and/or disks) have kinda disappeared...). I don't know if Ubuntu actually explicitly offers the option to re-write/reinstall grub in its installation menu, but even if it doesn't, you can just run grub-install. It's not _too_ inconvenient.

Yep, this is why I still have a floppy drive - just in case. Rather than rewrite grub I'll probably install 9x to another HDD then add it to grub afterwards. This way I can keep everything on my other HDD as is. My TW games are on FAT32 partitions anyway, I took the liberty of moving stuff around, resizing partitions and doing that so that I could access them from Win9x if I did decide to install it.

I like the idea about trying win98
How do you plan to force the install for your card, though ?

I will probably give it a go. The installation can be forced by adding a line to the .inf file to represent the card and it's device ID. This will cause the old driver to be recognised by plug and play as the driver for the card. It will probably install, though whether it will actually work is another matter.

I can't help with your general issues, but iirc the problem with MTW is a problem quite a few people, including myself, get. It's some issue related to drivers being too new for the game or some such rubbish, which can't be cured without reverting to older drivers.

That's what I thought, but exactly the same crash occurs with RTW. I may have a go with even older drivers later, who knows. I now think there may be a few version I haven't tried.

[Blodrast]

Unfortunately XP still seems to overwrite grub as far as I can tell. Vista probably does the same. The problem is that if XP installs and doesn't overwrite the bootloader then it cannot boot, nor can it manipulate the grub loader to add an entry for it self, so the boot loader is lost (equivalent of doing a fdisk /mbr from win9x or a fixboot or fixmbr from Win32. Simple as that really. The only way to get it working if it did install without overwriting would be to go into /boot/grub/menu.lst and edit it manually, adding a line for XP, but that's a moot point.

Ok, I thought I remembered that it was able to chain the bootloaders - its own, plus whatever existing one(s) - which implied detecting their presence, naturally. I seem to recall that was working (from personal experience, not second-hand) - but perhaps it was only for some specific combo of windows and linux bootloader, or perhaps my memory is foggier than I am aware of.

I will probably give it a go. The installation can be forced by adding a line to the .inf file to represent the card and it's device ID. This will cause the old driver to be recognised by plug and play as the driver for the card. It will probably install, though whether it will actually work is another matter.

Cool, you learn something new every day - thanks for the hint.

[caravel]

Ok, I thought I remembered that it was able to chain the bootloaders - its own, plus whatever existing one(s) - which implied detecting their presence, naturally. I seem to recall that was working (from personal experience, not second-hand) - but perhaps it was only for some specific combo of windows and linux bootloader, or perhaps my memory is foggier than I am aware of.

Well the Ubuntu forums are always full of threads where the user reinstalled XP and wiped out grub in the process. I've never seen any option to keep the bootloader but I may be wrong of course. I don't think repair install touches it but a format and reinstall always does AFAIK.

Cool, you learn something new every day - thanks for the hint.

As I said I'll hopefully have a go at this next weekend and keep you posted, if it does work it may be an idea for those that want to get MTW running on a new machine. Dual booting of course.

[Blodrast]

It wasn't with Ubuntu - at that point in time, I don't know if it even existed, and if it was, nobody'd heard of it. I think my experience was with some RH (no Fedora back then, either), and Win2k, and I think it was lilo, not grub (which might make a difference).
Believe me, I'm aware that windows overwrites the bootloader, because I've been through that myself several times, but I'm just not sure how to reconcile that memory I have where it didn't - just that one time. Oh well, maybe it's just a sign that Alzheimer's is kicking in early.

[caravel]

It wasn't with Ubuntu - at that point in time, I don't know if it even existed, and if it was, nobody'd heard of it. I think my experience was with some RH (no Fedora back then, either), and Win2k, and I think it was lilo, not grub (which might make a difference).
Believe me, I'm aware that windows overwrites the bootloader, because I've been through that myself several times, but I'm just not sure how to reconcile that memory I have where it didn't - just that one time. Oh well, maybe it's just a sign that Alzheimer's is kicking in early.

lilo like grub resides in the mbr, and this what windows OSes rewrite on installation, so there should be no difference in this regard. grub is better in that the stage1 of the boot process is located in the mbr but the rest is on your ext2/ext3 or whatever partition usually in /boot/grub, so if it get's nuked by windows you can restore it more easily without having to rewrite the whole thing again, though with lilo you just kept a copy of you lilo.conf file and just did "lilo" and that would rewrite the mbr again.

Hmmm... It's so simple actually now that I think about it that I might find a bit of space for a Win9x partition on my existing drive and just write it into menu.lst, it's not as if a 9x install takes up much space either.

-Edit: I've been looking through the driver archive and can't find anything much older than the ones I had downloaded. Tried messing with hardware acceleration slider. MTW now seems to respond to CTRL+ALT+DEL now and again instead of BSoD. RTW exactly the same problem.

I have a feeling that whatever I do with this in XP it will always be the same due to my motherboard and the fact that all the Nvidia XP/2K drivers cause this issue old and new. Win98SE using the last drivers for the 6 series cards (81.98 w9x)seems to be the only possible solution left.

[caravel]

Well last night I tried the following:

1) Uninstall of VIA Hyperion drivers
2) Uninstall of Nvidia Drivers
3) Driver cleaner pro cleanup of Nvidia drivers
4) Driver cleaner Pro cab cleaner cleanup - reboot
5) Installation of Forceware 93.71 - reboot
6) Forced 2x AA
7) Moved hardware acceleration slider to the left about 2 or 3 notches, the option before Direct3D is totally disabled.
8) Test of MTW, crash to desktop.
9) Test of RTW... and this had me going for a while. Working for about 5 minutes. I was at the campaign map and even ended a turn. Then started moving around and next tried opening and closing the ESC options scroll menu a few times. On about the fifth time the options scroll stayed about 2 thirds open and the same BSoD.

I need to to test this again, as I'm not sure if my actions excacerbated the problem or if it simply waited longer before crashing. I haven't tested battles yet either.

Fastwrites are still on, so I will test with those off as well. AGP Aperture is still at 256MB and write combining is still unchecked. I may also update again to the latest drivers before trying anything else.

-Edit: -

1) Updated driver to latest version - worse than ever.
2) Fast writes on again - worse than ever.
3) Googled for hours to see if there's anything I've missed.
4) Given up - The Win98SE method is the last hope.

[caravel]

Absolutely no luck whatsoever with Win98SE. The second reboot and a file was missing "vnetbios.vxd" trying to do anything else caused more errors of missing files. I was installing on an old HDD purely for testing and so as not to have to mess with my main Ubuntu/XP dual boot setup. I finally managed to install the driver but after that it crashed every time I tried to go to display properties and wouldn't let me use and resolution apart from 640*480 16 colour.

I'm also having major problems with my internet connection which isn't helping matters one bit, this is one of the rare occasions I've been able to get online all weekend. I will probably have to call it a day as far as this approach is concerned. I doubt I'll be able to play MTW/RTW for quite some time to come.

Well who knows maybe it's for the best and will give me a chance to concentrate on other things.

-Edit: I've sort of worked out why some games work, of course it's because they're OpenGL! Doom3 and Quake4 worked and indeed Linux works with Fast Writes turned on (???). Anything Direct3D crashes after a few seconds or doesn't start at all. This proves that it's mainly the Direct3D components of the Nvidia driver that cause this.