NVidia drivers 82.69

[Drugwash]

4 hours ago, schwups said:

So far I thought upper and lower case doesn't matter.

Theoretically it shouldn't, in normal operation. AFAIK Windows doesn't care about the filename case as Linux does, but I'm not 100% sure how this works in DOS mode. It's been quite a while since last tinkering with DOS and 9x, and my memory is failing rapidly. Besides that there is an admittedly slight possibility that the comparison code in the patch would be very strict. Long gone are the days when I would quickly disassemble the code to see how it works, so can't say anything for sure. But an all-caps filename would easily chuck this off the list.

Well, that's about it, can't think of anything else. Hope you get to the bottom of it one way or another. Viel Glück!

[deomsh]

I just tested the PATCHNVC.EXE on NVCORE.VXD renamed to NVCORE.BAK inside Virtual Box 7 in MS-DOS safe mode (no Windows installation).

No errors.

I found about 5 patched locations, seems to coincide with HEX-strings inside PATCHNVC.EXE.

The last one for instance:

If I repeat the proces with patched NVCORE.VXD renamed to NVCORE.BAK I get a message:

I have no 512MB 7xxx NVIDIA card, so no testing possible FOR ME...

[defuser]

I suspect that your problem may be related to the wrong file name. The patch works correctly, even if I execute it like this:

D:\PTCHNVSZ>PATCHNVC 1 NVCORE.VXD

or even so:

D:\PTCHNVSZ>PATCHNVC 1 2

The driver versions that I successfully checked with this patch are 82.69, 81.98 and 77.72. I applied the patch to these files under Windows XP (From there, it's easy to immediately replace the driver files in the target system, so as not to do it under DOS). The patch worked correctly in all cases and there were no more 512MB issues with these fixed versions. Some time ago, I just tested all three versions with a 512MB card.
 

[schwups]

I found my mistake. Setting the command path beforehand on system seems crucial.

On 8/20/2024 at 11:07 AM, Drugwash said:

- the command path (either in pure DOS mode or Safe mode DOS window) is set to [C:\]WINDOWS\SYSTEM;

Until now I thought it doesn't matter and I could enter the entire path starting from the command path C:\, which apparently doesn't work in this case. In any case, the new file was created without comment and confirmation. Thanks to you all again.

[deomsh]

Congratulations.

But: according to step 6 of the manual you should have been in 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM' already (or 'C:\%windir%\SYSTEM' in case of another WINDOWS-directory). So changing PATH shouldn't be needed.

[Drugwash]

35 minutes ago, schwups said:

Setting the command path beforehand on system seems crucial.

There is this concept of working directory. In your case you launched the executable with a full path from a different directory than the one the executable lied in, and it worked for running the exe, but the working directory remained the one where you launched the command from. As the exe most likely works with relative paths it was looking for the source file NVCORE.BAK in the working directory, that is C:\ (or whatever the DOS path was in the command window), instead of C.\WINDOWS\SYSTEM, and obviously it couldn't find it there. :)

Anyway, glad you finally figured it out. Good luck ahead!

[schwups]

Completed with NVSIZE BIOS PATCH: Now DXDIAG gives 506MB VRAM. It has reduced available 32bit RAM by 512MB.

3008MB => 2496MB

POST: 7104MB => 6592MB

Edited August 22 by schwups