OpenGL issues with GeForce 8600 GT

Gyro · May 21, 2008, 10:10 PM

When I try to launch City of Heroes, it gives me a number of errors, saying that certain OpenGL extensions are not available. However, my card easily meets their minimum requirements, and should have OpenGL 2.0.

According to the OpenGL Extension viewer, I only have OpenGL 1.1, though DirectX works fine. The report says that my OpenGL renderer is "GDI Generic" made by Microsoft corporation, and goes on to say that I don't even have an OpenGL card. Here's the whole thing:

Quote:

Renderer: GDI Generic
Vendor: Microsoft Corporation
Memory: 512 MB
Version: 1.1.0
Shading language version: N/A
Max number of light sources: 8
Max viewport size: 16384 x 16384
Max texture size: 1024 x 1024
Max anisotropy: 0
Max samples: 0
Max draw buffers: 0
Max texture coordinates: 0
Max vertex texture image units: 0

Extensions: 3

GL_EXT_bgra
GL_EXT_paletted_texture
GL_WIN_swap_hint

Core features
v1.1 (100 % - 7/7)
v1.2 (12 % - 1/8)
v1.3 (0 % - 0/9)
v1.4 (0 % - 0/15)
v1.5 (0 % - 0/3)
v2.0 (0 % - 0/10)
v2.1 (0 % - 0/3)

OpenGL driver version check (Current: 1.1.0, Latest known: 1.1.0):
Latest version of display drivers found
According the database, you are running the latest display drivers for your video card.

No ICD registry entry
The current OpenGL driver doesn't expose the SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows (NT)/CurrentVersion/OpenGLDrivers registry entry. Unable to detect the driver version, driver revision name and filename.

No hardware support
Your current video configuration DOES NOT support hardware accelerated OpenGL.

No compiled vertex array support
This may cause performance loss in some applications.

No multitexturing support
This may cause performance loss in some applications.

No secondary color support
Some applications may not render polygon highlights correctly.

No S3TC compression support
This may cause performance loss in some applications.

No texture edge clamp support
This feature adds clamping control to edge texel filtering. Some programs may not render textures correctly (black line on borders.)

No vertex program support
This feature enables vertex programming (equivalent to DX8 Vertex Shader.) Some current or future OpenGL programs may require this feature.

No fragment program support
This feature enables per pixel programming (equivalent to DX9 Pixel Shader.) Some current or future OpenGL programs may require this feature.

No OpenGL Shading Language support
This may break compatibility for applications using per pixel shading.

No Frame buffer object support
This may break compatibility for applications using render to texture functions.

Few texture units found
This may slow down some applications using fragment programs or extensive texture mapping.

Extension verification:
GL_EXT_color_subtable was not found, but has the entry point glColorSubTableEXT

This leads me to believe that some Microsoft software OpenGL renderer is installed and is overriding the drivers for my card. However, the only display adapter that shows up in my device manager is the 8600. Also, DirectX games work flawlessly.

The previous card I owned was an ATI Radeon 9600. I didn't uninstall their driver before swapping the cards out and installing the new driver, but I did get around to it eventually and it seems that there are no traces of it left whatsoever. I checked the device manager and looked around a bit in the registry, so I'm fairly sure that it isn't the problem, but I could easily be wrong.

Another interesting fact is that, according to my device manager, the driver from the card is installed and is at version 6.14.11.6923, while the display section System Information window you can get to through the Help and Support center indicates this:

I tried uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it, but it just became impossible to reinstall the driver and I had to do a System Restore.

I'm willing to use DriverCleaner, but only if I know it will help instead of just messing things up again and forcing me to system restore.

I noticed that this post is way too long, so here's the tl;dr version: Everything's FUBAR. Sorry if I posted this in the wrong place.

CDsDontBurn · May 22, 2008, 07:32 PM

hmm, i would say that you uninstal the 169.23 driver you have installed, and then install a newer driver such as the 175.16.

be sure to do the whole uninstall/reinstall process through safe mode. also, when you uninstall the driver, to remove the NVIDIA folder from your C:\ drive as well.