Please, have a look at this, too: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprohardware/thread/daeb959a-f24a-4bd4-bf17-9cc24b94a9d1/#6356e6ec-462e-4580-86c9-c83187a0c840 I am aware that my video card is not officially supported by Microsoft for Windows 7. Nevertheless, I managed to get it fully working (with directx and opengl hardware acceleration), in a) windows 7 beta version b) windows 7 RC c) windows 7 (before SP1) It is an old geforce 3 ti 200 (AGP) and I needed to find a specific version of the nvidia xp driver and install it in XP compatibility mode as an administrator. What I noticed immediately after installing service pack 1 is: - directx is still hardware accelerated: playing any directx (direct3d) game still works, for instance half-life with good enough acceleration - opengl on the other hand is no longer of any use: all the opengl based games still start (quake1,2,3), but they only run in an unaccelerated software mode (Microsoft's opengl, obviously). Moreover, the console output of the games shows: gl_renderer: agp/sse/3dnow!/forcesw The important change (as compared to the situation before SP1) is the last text output: forcesw Something in SP1 forces software rendering for opengl! (what patch/update, and why? Please, tell me, if you know about it). Apparently, opengl now only runs in the extremely slow (and unusable) software mode. So here are my questions: 1) Is this just an issue with SP1 and my unsupported video card? (my individual problem or a universal problem for everybody?) Which means: Do other people still have fully working (accelerated) opengl applications, even after SP1? (especially those people who have *supported* video cards) Does opengl still work, for instance in quake? 2) Is there any expert here who could/would like to tell me which of the countless updates/patches inside SP1 is responsable for the change in opengl support? Why is software rendering forced and by what? I am urged to stay away from SP1 or use some other system (XP, Linux) where the old video card still works flawlessly! (not speaking of buying another video card) Is this opengl issue intentional since SP1 or can other people still use opengl games/programs after SP1? ( = my main question here) thanks for your time, egman

check this: This setting appears to be controlled by this registry key... HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\OpenGL\Debug If the value Renderer is set to 1 (it's a REG_DWORD) then forceSW is enabled... Source: http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=180588#Post180588 "A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/

check this: This setting appears to be controlled by this registry key... HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\OpenGL\Debug If the value Renderer is set to 1 (it's a REG_DWORD) then forceSW is enabled... Source: http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=180588#Post180588 "A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/ Thanks for answering. Unfortunately, this does not work. I did exactly what you described to no avail. Moreover, I just restored my windows 7 image from before SP1; the registry does NOT contain these entries, but opengl acceleration does work in this case (not having installed service pack 1)! I also compared the registry of my windows XP installation, and those entries are not there either, and likewise, opengl acceleration does work! So, I have to repeat myself: Something inside SP1 disables opengl acceleration and forces software rendering (which is completely useless, it is extremely slow). I wonder why... And may I ask the readers again: Is there anybody out there with SP1 installed and having a working opengl acceleration? (perhaps even playing games such as quake1/quake2/quake3 in full opengl acceleration) Yesterday, I did a lot of testing with my windows 7 images, and I even uninstalled SP1 again (after I had installed it), and hey, voilà: after uninstalling SP1, I had opengl acceleration again! SP1 clearly disables opengl acceleration - at least when using such an old video card (gf 3 ti 200), even though the card is fully capable of opengl (proven by windows XP, 7 pre SP1 and Linux). more ideas, experiences? thanks again, egman

the problem is you are running agp... agp was never supported under win7... the fact it worked at all is amazing.

the problem is you are running agp... agp was never supported under win7... the fact it worked at all is amazing. Do you have an official source to support this claim? Considering that lots of agp cards have driver versions available that support both windows 7 and agp (ati cards like hd3650, hd4650, for instance; but also some nvidia cards). Of course, my geforce 3 ti 200 is not supported, but as I wrote, it used to work (both with directx and with opengl acceleration - of course not with directx 10 or 11, and not with aero) BEFORE installing service pack 1. But anyway, I have some news to report: I could get the old gf3ti200 to work even with SP1 and with opengl acceleration! I just had to install even older drivers than the already old ones I used before: a version that does not even mention geforce 3 cards, just cards like riva tnt, geforce fx5200 and such... But I was amazed, that old nvidia driver version 45.33 (imagine that!!) works with my geforce 3 ti 200! And with opengl and directx for all the purposes I need this. I found the important clue here (just by googling for that "forcesw" message I got since SP1 in opengl games): http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Troubleshooting_problems quoting: "workaround is to downgrade your nvdia driver to 45.33 or 4.5.3.3. You can find it here : http://www.nvidia.com/object/pc_winxp-2k_45.33.html This 45.33 driver supports over five generations of NVIDIA GPUs - from TNT to GeForce FX(Geforce Fx = Geforce5). Don't use driver upper than 45.33, because in the upper version, there is a software OpenGL support." So, obviously, 45.33 was the last nvidia driver version which did not yet introduce software rendering support for OpenGL. Thus, forcing software opengl in SP1 (remember "forcesw" message) cannot (and this is fine this way) succeed! Bingo: hardware opengl! I still wonder what the point is to now force software opengl when everybody knows that it is waaaaayyyy too slow to be of any practical use! Why not at least give the user an option to choose either hardware opengl or software opengl...? To summarize: - even after installing SP1 for Windows 7 such old video cards can be tricked to work (of course, without any official support) - the fact that you have to use very old drivers and other negative aspects (not discussed here) after SP1 makes it more adequate to use Windows 7 *without* SP1 and just install all new updates (*) (*) I also tested with another agp card: geforce 7600 GT, which has windows 7 drivers and working aero (before SP1); after SP1, there were lots of problems, and aero did not work, instead I was left with a black screen and a white mouse pointer! - Moreover, while opengl worked with the geforce 7600 GT and with SP1 installed, the performance was drastically reduced compared to Windows 7 without SP1. I don't know what precisely inside SP1 contributes to degrading opengl, but I would advise agp card owners to stay away from it (perhaps, there will be some updates to correct those issues?) Hopefully, my lenghty article and my extended testing helps those few of us who still try to use new operating systems with archaic hardware. ;-) egman

Hi, Very useful information and analysis. Thanks for sharing. Regards, Niki Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I have exactly same problems!!!! But i have a ATI Card 9600 AGP!! Before to install Windows 7 x86 Sp1 OpenGL working....... ok no miracle because my pc it's old. After installation of this SP1 no more working!! Sometime i obtain an error... other time the games started but the game it's very slow and unplayable (about 0 or 1 FPS!!) !!! I have unistall and reinstall the latest Legacy Driver 10.2 for Vista and Seven but i obtain the same result!! If you know how i can fix this problems please say me!

A few more observations... a) In this thread, I had told you that my Geforce 3 TI 200 still works (with hardware opengl support) when using very old nvidia drivers. This is still valid. b) I also talked about my second agp card: Geforce 7600 GT and said that aero was no longer working after the installation of service pack 1. After lots of trying things out I found that even AFTER SP1 the 7600 GT can work with aero AND the black screen with mouse pointer after login can be overcome (I see lots of reports about this black screen after SP1, so I hope, some people find my post helpful...). Here is what helped for the Geforce 7600 GT issues AFTER SP1: 1) Don't use any new nvidia driver for Windows 7; I found that the ONLY driver that made my 7600 GT cooperate with aero and opengl was a very old *VISTA* driver: 96.85! But 1) was only a preliminary step on my way to success. ;-) The best solution for the 7600 GT AGP after SP1 appears to be: 2) - Before installing SP1 make sure to run your desktop at 16bit colour depth (not 32bit) thus avoiding the black screen issue after having installed SP1. - install SP1 - then run your Windows 7 SP1 (see above: in 16bit colour depth -> no black screen problem) - uninstall the nvidia driver, then without rebooting uninstall the AGP chipset driver too!! (in device manager), for instance something called "SIS Accelerated Graphics Port"... - reboot, Windows will automatically reinstall its AGP chipset driver and thereafter its nvidia driver and voilà: I could switch to 32bit colour depth again, activate an aero theme (and it worked!), have opengl support for games. Uninstalling the AGP chipset driver was the essential lesson to learn here!! BUT: In spite of all this good news, there is something that bothers me: The performance of my directx9-capable 7600 GT AGP is very poor (when compared to the performance in Windows XP). Frame rates in games (quake2, for instance) are at best half the fps in XP! In fact, frame rates are not much higher than the fps when using my Geforce 3 TI 200 in Windows 7 SP1 (with XDDM drivers, of course). And even if the fps are comparable, games run kind of unsmooth with the 7600 GT in Windows 7, while games with the Geforce 3 TI 200 run almost as smooth in Windows 7 as in XP for me! Conclusion: In old computer systems, you better use a weak Geforce 3 than a Geforce 7 - if you like old opengl games! Performance with XDDM drivers is WAY better than with WDDM drivers for such old cards. WDDM gives you Aero, but very bad gaming performance. To test this XDDM-WDDM contrast I even did the following: I installed an old nvidia driver for XP for my Geforce 7600 GT AGP! I had a very hard time finding a driver that did not refuse to be installed (via device manager, not via setup.exe). I found one: nvidia driver for XP version 84.21. This driver 84.21 is old enough to be installable (newer drivers cannot be installed) and not too old either (older versions don't support the 7600 GT yet!). What I found with 84.21 XDDM driver: - Aero does not work (XDDM, so nothing to wonder about) - game frame rates in opengl games like quake2 are very good, much much better than with the official Windows 7 WDDM drivers for this card! The frame rates are way better than with the Geforce 3 TI 200 and they are almost as good as with the Geforce 7600 GT in XP (not quite, but close). The downside of using this XDDM driver is saddening: You have to be very careful what you do, or you get a bluescreen crash (some error in nv4_mini.sys), for instance when launching vlc to watch a video or when using live tv software! Here is something to add to my wishlist (though it appears very unlikely that anyone still cares for these old systems): This clearly proves that XDDM drivers should still be provided for owners of old systems and old video cards. This would make them very happy. :-) Okay..., no Aero, BUT overall good Windows 7 performance! My experience has been that Windows 7 runs very well and fast even on very old and weak systems (not or not really worse than XP), if only video card performance were better. Good (not BSODing) XDDM drivers for older video cards would help a lot - or, well-performing WDDM drivers for such cards. Oh dear, this was long. Hope, a few people found a few useful bits... egman

A few more observations... a) In this thread, I had told you that my Geforce 3 TI 200 still works (with hardware opengl support) when using very old nvidia drivers. This is still valid. b) I also talked about my second agp card: Geforce 7600 GT and said that aero was no longer working after the installation of service pack 1. After lots of trying things out I found that even AFTER SP1 the 7600 GT can work with aero AND the black screen with mouse pointer after login can be overcome (I see lots of reports about this black screen after SP1, so I hope, some people find my post helpful...). Here is what helped for the Geforce 7600 GT issues AFTER SP1: 1) Don't use any new nvidia driver for Windows 7; I found that the ONLY driver that made my 7600 GT cooperate with aero and opengl was a very old *VISTA* driver: 96.85! But 1) was only a preliminary step on my way to success. ;-) The best solution for the 7600 GT AGP after SP1 appears to be: 2) - Before installing SP1 make sure to run your desktop at 16bit colour depth (not 32bit) thus avoiding the black screen issue after having installed SP1. - install SP1 - then run your Windows 7 SP1 (see above: in 16bit colour depth -> no black screen problem) - uninstall the nvidia driver, then without rebooting uninstall the AGP chipset driver too!! (in device manager), for instance something called "SIS Accelerated Graphics Port"... - reboot, Windows will automatically reinstall its AGP chipset driver and thereafter its nvidia driver and voilà: I could switch to 32bit colour depth again, activate an aero theme (and it worked!), have opengl support for games. Uninstalling the AGP chipset driver was the essential lesson to learn here!! BUT: In spite of all this good news, there is something that bothers me: The performance of my directx9-capable 7600 GT AGP is very poor (when compared to the performance in Windows XP). Frame rates in games (quake2, for instance) are at best half the fps in XP! In fact, frame rates are not much higher than the fps when using my Geforce 3 TI 200 in Windows 7 SP1 (with XDDM drivers, of course). And even if the fps are comparable, games run kind of unsmooth with the 7600 GT in Windows 7, while games with the Geforce 3 TI 200 run almost as smooth in Windows 7 as in XP for me! Conclusion: In old computer systems, you better use a weak Geforce 3 than a Geforce 7 - if you like old opengl games! Performance with XDDM drivers is WAY better than with WDDM drivers for such old cards. WDDM gives you Aero, but very bad gaming performance. To test this XDDM-WDDM contrast I even did the following: I installed an old nvidia driver for XP for my Geforce 7600 GT AGP! I had a very hard time finding a driver that did not refuse to be installed (via device manager, not via setup.exe). I found one: nvidia driver for XP version 84.21. This driver 84.21 is old enough to be installable (newer drivers cannot be installed) and not too old either (older versions don't support the 7600 GT yet!). What I found with 84.21 XDDM driver: - Aero does not work (XDDM, so nothing to wonder about) - game frame rates in opengl games like quake2 are very good, much much better than with the official Windows 7 WDDM drivers for this card! The frame rates are way better than with the Geforce 3 TI 200 and they are almost as good as with the Geforce 7600 GT in XP (not quite, but close). The downside of using this XDDM driver is saddening: You have to be very careful what you do, or you get a bluescreen crash (some error in nv4_mini.sys), for instance when launching vlc to watch a video or when using live tv software! Here is something to add to my wishlist (though it appears very unlikely that anyone still cares for these old systems): This clearly proves that XDDM drivers should still be provided for owners of old systems and old video cards. This would make them very happy. :-) Okay..., no Aero, BUT overall good Windows 7 performance! My experience has been that Windows 7 runs very well and fast even on very old and weak systems (not or not really worse than XP), if only video card performance were better. Good (not BSODing) XDDM drivers for older video cards would help a lot - or, well-performing WDDM drivers for such cards. Oh dear, this was long. Hope, a few people found a few useful bits... egman