Running Zsnesw with a crappy S3 card

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Tue May 31, 2005 8:24 am

Recently my video card blew up on me so it's off for repairs and that usually takes 3 weeks to be shipped back. So in the meantime I'm using my old s3 savage 2000... which crashes all the time when attempting to run zsnes. In order to get zsnes to run at all with this thing I have to run the direct x tests first, and when it does run it's choppy as hell. Anyone have any suggestions to increase speed while maintaining a filter such as 2xSAI. Also does anyone know why it requires Direct X tests to be ran first?

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Tue May 31, 2005 9:21 am

Could you post your compy specs?

Joe Camacho · Post by **Joe Camacho** » Tue May 31, 2005 10:32 am

Are you using Directx 8.1?

Which Zsnes version are you using?

Did you completely uninstalled the drivers of your last video card?

I wouldn't try to run any filters on that card.

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 5:55 am

Ah sorry forgot to post details. Well my comp is pretty old, here are my specs:

AMD Athlon 1.2ghz
s3 savage 2000 64mb
256 ddr ram
direct x 9c
zsnes 1.42

The video card may not seem that old but that is the main cause of my problems. A 1mb onboard video card would function better than this thing but sadly I dont have the drivers for my built on video card and I have no idea where I would get them. I didn't remove the old video card drivers... but I know removing my old drivers won't do anything since the last time my main card was off for repairs I tried and it did nothing.

Jipcy · Post by **Jipcy** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:10 am

What's the brand/model of your motherboard? It should be printed somewhere on the motherboard.

You can try going into your BIOS and telling it to use the onboard video. You may have to remove all expansion-card video cards, and plugging your monitor into the motherboard VGA port.

Go into Add/Remove Programs and remove any video-card specific software. Drivers in the Device Manager shouldn't be a problem. Regardless of all this other advice, you can still try to go into the Device Manager, look under "Display Adapters" and uninstall each entry under that. Restart your computer, and Windows may auto-detect a driver for your card.

What version of Windows are you using?

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:16 am

bitcopy wrote:What's the brand/model of your motherboard? It should be printed somewhere on the motherboard.

You can try going into your BIOS and telling it to use the onboard video. You may have to remove all expansion-card video cards, and plugging your monitor into the motherboard VGA port.

Go into Add/Remove Programs and remove any video-card specific software. Drivers in the Device Manager shouldn't be a problem. Regardless of all this other advice, you can still try to go into the Device Manager, look under "Display Adapters" and uninstall each entry under that. Restart your computer, and Windows may auto-detect a driver for your card.

What version of Windows are you using?

I'm using windows XP sp1. I can probably find the box of my motherboard and get the model but the problem is I don't know what site to get the drivers off of and google always just gives trash that will get you to sign up then spam your email with trash. The auto install thing doesn't work because it installs generic drivers. Generic drivers won't allow me to run any program which requires graphics.

Richard C. · Post by **Richard C.** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:32 am

if you know the brand and model of your motherboard, you should be able to go to the company's official site and get the latest drivers for your mobo, etc.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 7:03 am

You might want to try going to http://www.driverguide.com to try and find drivers for your Gfx.
Off topic: There any reason why you aren't using XP SP2?

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 7:09 am

adventure_of_link wrote:You might want to try going to http://www.driverguide.com to try and find drivers for your Gfx.
Off topic: There any reason why you aren't using XP SP2?

Actually yes. Whenever I download sp2, it properly installs and does everything without any problems then it does some crap (I forgot what exactly) after installing and that always locks up for me, no matter what I try. When that happens my whole comp is screwed in every way possible, from graphics, preformance, and well... pretty much everything. I ended up formatting 3 times in a row because I kept trying different things to see what the problem could be. My conclusion is that windows xp is shit and I should wait for something better... and there is no way I can learn to use linux, I tried using redhat once, big mistake. I couldn't even get firefox to work.

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 8:07 am

Well I managed to get the drivers for my built on video card and no matter what I do now zsnes runs at 60/60 frames. Thanks everyone

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 3:10 pm

FireKnight wrote:
adventure_of_link wrote:You might want to try going to http://www.driverguide.com to try and find drivers for your Gfx.
Off topic: There any reason why you aren't using XP SP2?
Actually yes. Whenever I download sp2, it properly installs and does everything without any problems then it does some crap (I forgot what exactly) after installing and that always locks up for me, no matter what I try. When that happens my whole comp is screwed in every way possible, from graphics, preformance, and well... pretty much everything. I ended up formatting 3 times in a row because I kept trying different things to see what the problem could be.

You can integrate SP2 into your install CD with nLite. It usually works much better that way.

Post by **Nach** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 3:23 pm

Noxious Ninja wrote:
FireKnight wrote:
adventure_of_link wrote:You might want to try going to http://www.driverguide.com to try and find drivers for your Gfx.
Off topic: There any reason why you aren't using XP SP2?
Actually yes. Whenever I download sp2, it properly installs and does everything without any problems then it does some crap (I forgot what exactly) after installing and that always locks up for me, no matter what I try. When that happens my whole comp is screwed in every way possible, from graphics, preformance, and well... pretty much everything. I ended up formatting 3 times in a row because I kept trying different things to see what the problem could be.
You can integrate SP2 into your install CD with nLite. It usually works much better that way.

I already slip streamed my own XP CD to have SP2 and several patches installed, and I also made the volume label set to the bulk label, so I don't have to activate it on install.

Now nLite looks like I can remove some components from it which sounds great and I may consider doing, but can I add components too? Would be excellent if I could put FireFox, Putty, Unxutils, MinGW and possibly a few others on it.

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 3:40 pm

Nach wrote:I already slip streamed my own XP CD to have SP2 and several patches installed, and I also made the volume label set to the bulk label, so I don't have to activate it on install.

o_O The volume label should have absolutely no affect on the installation at all...

Now nLite looks like I can remove some components from it which sounds great and I may consider doing, but can I add components too? Would be excellent if I could put FireFox, Putty, Unxutils, MinGW and possibly a few others on it.

Nope. :/

You can add the setup files to the CD, but you can't have it automatically install them. I think you can also have it copy the files to your hard drive, but nLite doesn't automate that part.

Post by **Nach** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 3:42 pm

Noxious Ninja wrote:
Nach wrote:I already slip streamed my own XP CD to have SP2 and several patches installed, and I also made the volume label set to the bulk label, so I don't have to activate it on install.
o_O The volume label should have absolutely no affect on the installation at all...

It tells the difference between upgrade, full, full activationless and other stuff via the volume label. Idiotic I know, but makes it easy for us.

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 3:46 pm

So you mean I went to all the trouble of modding my CD with the corpfiles pack when I could've just changed the volume label? Do you have a list of all the correct labels?

Post by **Nach** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 3:50 pm

Noxious Ninja wrote:So you mean I went to all the trouble of modding my CD with the corpfiles pack when I could've just changed the volume label? Do have a list of all the correct labels?

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=342

I used: VRMPVOL_EN, and then I didn't need to activate it, so I think it's just the label.

Jipcy · Post by **Jipcy** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 4:48 pm

My god, I never knew Microsoft was so stupid.

Despite their best efforts, we always find a way!

Post by **grinvader** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 4:55 pm

bitcopy wrote:My god, I never knew Microsoft was so stupid.

You're talking about the guys who blindly identify a file and its permissions by its extension.

Post by **Nach** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 5:03 pm

grinvader wrote:
bitcopy wrote:My god, I never knew Microsoft was so stupid.
You're talking about the guys who blindly identify a file and its permissions by its extension.

That's fine. But we are talking about the guys who made the only OS to support hard locking, but it does it via pathname which can be changed during lock.

daft · Post by **daft** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 7:14 pm

Nach wrote: Would be excellent if I could put FireFox, Putty, Unxutils, MinGW and possibly a few others on it.

You can, just not with nLite. I don't reccomend this for the light hearted, as it requires a lot of reading and time.

http://unattended.msfn.org/

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 1:32 am

Nach wrote:
Noxious Ninja wrote:So you mean I went to all the trouble of modding my CD with the corpfiles pack when I could've just changed the volume label? Do have a list of all the correct labels?

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=342

I used: VRMPVOL_EN, and then I didn't need to activate it, so I think it's just the label.

I just tested it, with no luck. Here's what I did:

1) Dug out my original XP Pro OEM CD
2) Used nLite to integrate SP2 and RyanVM's update pack
3) Used nLite to create a bootable ISO with volume label VRMPVOL_EN
4) Installed it in VMWare with original key

It still bugged me about activation, and when I set the clock forward two months, it locked me out.

Post by **Nach** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 1:48 am

I don't know...

I just took out my CD, followed the directions on that site how to slipstream SP2 and other updates yourself, and I burned it with that volume label, and didn't have to activate it.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 1:50 am

bitcopy wrote:My god, I never knew Microsoft was so stupid.

Despite their best efforts, we always find a way!

And sadly this happens with anything else in this world, why do you think we got so many different modchips for every system?

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 2:39 am

What's the MD5 of the I386\OEMBIOS.BI_ file on your XP CD? Here's my two (XP US, integrated SP2)

Code: Select all

Non-corp: 8f8271959d5d81e12298e68a6d39f23d *OEMBIOS.BI_
Corp:     3af2173598c050ccc641dea661a17234 *OEMBIOS.BI_

Post by **Nach** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 4:32 am

3af2173598c050ccc641dea661a17234

Interesting...
I wonder if this had anything to do with the slip streaming process or if my original (from HP) isn't your standard CD.