Re: [Freedos-user] Nvidia GeForce 2 MX

[G.W. H. <fr...@ju...>]

Hi there,

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024, Daniel Doran via Freedos-user wrote:

> I got an Nvidia GeForce 2 MX AGP graphics card (256MB RAM), it’s in my
> Compaq Presario 6207EA PC. FreeDOS won’t boot with it installed, it  just
> freezes. However, I know the card is good as Haiku OS loves it, not only
> does it work but it gives me accelerated graphics on Haiku OS 32-bit… so I
> know the card is good. Anyone know why FreeDOS doesn’t like it?

Sorry, I can't offer any specific help but maybe there might be ways
around it.  Maybe.

Although I didn't have a lot of luck trying to find specs for the PC
it looks like the Compaq has Intel Extreme 845 graphics on board, do
you think FreeDOS might be trying to use that by accident?  Maybe you
could try disabling it in the BIOS or something?  I have no idea if
that's even possible on your PC.

In the brief search I did for your card I haven't found one with 256MB
RAM, they were all 32MB, but that probably doesn't matter anyway.

Do you *know* that FreeDOS isn't booting - or does it just not show
anything on the screen when you're trying to use the Nvidia card?  If
that's a plausible theory, maybe you could put something which beeps
the sounder in AUTOEXEC.BAT to confirm it gets that far, or otherwise?
If it does get that far, perhaps you've made some progress.

If it's just that FreeDOS is trying to use the Nvidia card but can't
drive it you *might* have luck by trying assorted DOS drivers for it,
including old ones, but it's likely to be very hit and miss.

Have you tried booting only with one single FreeDOS image?  It might
be worth trying others - particularly other versions.

Have you tried booting MS-DOS?

Have you tried any other video cards?

Have you considered trying to run FreeDOS in a virtual machine?
Obviously that would depend on being able to run the VM software
somehow - I don't know anything about Haiku but what little I've seen
tells me that might be a tall order, maybe easier with e.g. Linux but
I don't know how that might go on the Compaq.  How much RAM is in it?

-- 

73,
Ged.