I have the same problem. Det. 43.45 makes the computer crash before it even shows the Microsoft logo, det. 41.09 works fine. I'm also on Win 98, with a Creative GeForce 4 Ti 4400. I guess the only thing to be concluded from this so far is that if you're going to update to 43.45, make sure you have a copy of the 41.09 driver handy if it doesn't work.

geez,

i guess the problem probably lies with win98 pcs using 43.45. i sure hope
microsoft or nvidia are listening...

my specs:
p3 733mhz
win98se
384mb pc133 sdram
gf4mx 440 128mb ddr pci
sblive 5.1 se
wintv go

Do you honestly think Microsoft, Nvidia, or anyone cares about us win 98 users??? I think not. Many software companies assume things so they can save money. So when you have the old OS and hardware, you get shafted for profits.

I did as many did, and loade the 41.09 driver back in. I also noticed that my microsoft joystick driver got messed up too. Had to reload it to fix.

Miral: Ahh. that's where you went.

Yup your pretty much right about beta driver and Carmack.
He's not the entire industry, but it is his products that are the ones that define what card and driver features that are installed into a peice of hardware.

This is not so much that he is better than everyone else, because he's not. What sets him apart is that he's not afraid to do something totally new with graphics engines.

About the drivers: Not beta's, Reference. Big difference. Reference drivers are designed to cover all cards carrying a particular chipset. They carry none of the exclusive features of a particular video card. Detonator Drivers are reference drivers that Nvidia releases for exclusively D3D apps. They are full driver sets so GL drivers are included, but they are whatever happens to be most recent with no optimisations. It's visa versa for GLsetup. There's D3D support, but it's generic. Even more so now that ATI has started to develop for opengl.
The drivers from glsetup are typically more stable than Detonator (if slower) and can easily become a preferable choice if the Detonator series has come up with a fairly long series of bum releases.

Reguardless, If you have an Nivdia card, you should have both sets installed. They are designed not to conflict with each other so if both are installed, your game (if it supports both forms of rendering) will default to the best set for your machine. Use to be that Nvidia chipsets were primarily opengl optimised (back in the TNT days). Now all 3d cards (Except all Voodoo cards, which can't handle opengl without a special driver set) support both pretty much equally.

When it comes to drivers I have one rule: Whatever works best is what is on my machine. Currently for me that is Guillimont's current opengl driver for my card and Detonator 41.09. When I hear from all you voluntary guinea pigs that a new driver set performs better than the one I have, I will upgrade.

You may think I'm full of bull, but realize this. I am not having problems with Freelancer running, and I seem to be the only one here doing extensive research to get it running for others. Do you see anyone from Microsoft or D.A. on these boards trying to help out? If yes, let me know who and I'll step back so the real experts can do their work. If no, quit your bitchen and let me try and figure out what will fix Freelancer for the players. Any idea that works is a good one, no matter how outlandish it may seem.

Not trying to rag on you here, but please don't respond to a helping hand by hitting it.

Nog, just wanna go back and quote you from a previous post:

>> I recommended the GLsetup utility because the latest detonator drivers do not contain the latest Nvidia code release (March 13, 2003) where as GLsetup does<<

Det. 43.45 drivers are dated March 20, 2003 - in code not on release.

I'm not trying to bite your hand off, but with what you just said in your previous post -- WHY would you want to use a NON-Direct3D optimized driver set on a Direct3D title? And No, GLSetup does not provide reference drivers, they provide mixed beta drivers - mixed with the current NVIDIA reference set. And finally, GLSetup hasn't been updated in about a year and a half - last update on their website is September of 2001. OpenGL.org doesn't even mirror the GLSetup program anymore.

Anyway, continue on with the advice, and I apologize to the thread author for hijacking the thread - I'm done here.

I've been beta testing NVidia drivers for a couple years, now. Sure, I've had my share of system crashes --> OS reloading, but that's a risk I choose to take and accept. Call it a form of learning. I know which drivers work great, I know which one's really bite. I currently use the Detonator 43.45 derivative. Freelancer works awesome. Here are some tips to updating NVidia video drivers:

1. Before installing ANY new driver, make sure your Anti-Virus program is disabled! Drivers embed information into the registry, and some virus scanners may prevent the setup program from doing so, causing severe system/boot problems.

2. Make sure you have the latest chipset/AGP driver installed from the motherboard or chipset manufacturer.

3. Uninstall your current video drivers completely and reboot! Failing to do so may leave trace files that will be trying to access older versions of driver files, thus causing problems.

4. Install the newer driver set, reboot, (re)install the latest version of DirectX, reboot again - even if the system doesn't tell you to. A newer driver set may include files/components/features that a previous DirectX installation has not yet authenticated itself with.

5. Again, and not to sound redundant but it's very important; Make sure your virus scanner is disabled when updating any and all drivers!

6. Enjoy!

Hope this helps out some of you.

Well, if I've learned anything from this experience, it's that I've realized I'm going to have to get XP sooner than I thought. I've held off for a while as I've been waiting for the kinks to be ironed out and I'd still like to be able to play some of my older games, notably the Fallout games, Battlezone, and the Windows versions of X-Wing and TIE Fighter. I understand that some service packs have been released to make XP more compatible with older games, but I haven't heard anything official. And I'd rather not do a dual boot configuration as it would mean having two sets of drivers for everything not to mention 98 wouldn't recognize things like extra RAM or disk space when I boot up with it.