can't get nvidia riva tnt2 model 64 to display over 16 colors in win98SE

[Soviet Conscript]

figured i'd ask here since I cant find an answer on the internet. i have a PC rinning windows 98SE with a nvidia riva tnt2 model 64 as the video card. ive installed the drivers (ver. 71.84) from Nvidia and Display detects the card under display options and device manager but I can not get it to display more then 16 colors and any resolution besides the lowest. I have the option to set colors to 256 or 32 bit high as well as higher resolutions but when change them it asks me to restart. i restart and on windows loading i get a message saying the adaptor or display is incompatible. the card and monitor work fine in higher colors and resolution when I run them on the same PC under windows XP. any ideas?

[alec006]

I think it's an internal driver issue with Windows 98, being at the time most monitors were either 640x480 or 800x600 and most graphics cards only allowed up to 16 bit colour at higher resolutions since they didn't have the processing power nor the memory to display 32 bit colour at higher resolutions.

Also if that's an older card, it may be a driver limitation put in by nvidia for the same reason Microsoft would put the limitation in being that again most monitors and graphics at the time weren't able to run 32 bit colour at high resolutions.

Being that it's Windows 98, there's really not much difference in running at 32 bit colour since most applications and games at the time ran in 16 bit or lower and were programed to be ran in that colour depth. Windows 98 pretty much was met to be ran in 16 bit colour depth.

[Soviet Conscript]

well, its a card from 98/99. i'm pretty sure the TNT2 is capable of better resolutions and 32 bit high color. i'm also pretty sure i've used cards just like it in 32 bit color under win 98 before, even older less capible cards. when i use newer drivers i get a message that no nvidia cards were detected, when i use the older drivers it detects the card fine but as i said only works at lowest resolution and color depth (won't even do 256 colors) though the options are avalible they reset at restart. when i throw in a newer geforce 4 for example it all works fine.

[NayusDante]

You might want to uninstall all video drivers, then try normally installing the right ones. I remember there used to be issues with having multiple versions of video drivers installed, and there were tools to remove previous versions.

Optimally, I'd do a fresh install of Windows with the card installed. You should always install Windows on a machine with all your intended hardware attached, then only install the drivers you need.

[CapnCrunch53]

I've got a TNT2 M64 in a Win98SE machine as well (my Voodoo2 SLI rig to be exact 8-)). It works fine at higher resolutions and color depths. It might only let me do 24-bit at 1280x1024 though... not sure if that's this machine or a different one. But regardless I don't have any issues running higher resolutions or color depths on it. I'm pretty sure I just grabbed the driver off the Nvidia site, so it should be the same 71.84 that you're using. I'd try completely uninstalling the video drivers, and make sure you don't have the drivers from any other cards leftover as well.

Something else that might be worth checking is what your display is set to. In Display Properties, on the Settings tab, you can specify what type of monitor is hooked up; usually it's just on Default Monitor. It might be worth manually selecting "Standard Monitor Types" in the left column and then picking the SVGA monitor that matches your's resolution and refresh rate. Seems unlikely that's the problem but hey, worth a shot right?

If you're still having problems with it I can pull my machine out and confirm what drivers I'm using, and see if there's any other weird stuff I can notice that might be able to help.