Hello all,

I have Geforce 8800 GTS Graphic card, so like many of you - I was experiencing difficulties while playing my favourite game - Settlers IV. (Black box bug).

After reading all possibilities and fixes that manage to delete this "box" from our vision - I've managed to do something with it myself.

I've been debugging S4_main.exe while playing game, trying to modify GFX files to find "black" layer that is responsible for this bug.

Next - I deeply analyzed S4 logs, finding some usefull information in them. Also checking every process task & logs while playing on VirtualBox.

I installed Fedora 10 Core to check Linux drivers compatibility in real (no Virtual) - game works fine.

After all of those checks, and lots more (editing game files, changing direct X BLITTING options by Riva, nHancer, or even adding special compatibility options to DirectDraw registry entries)

I've managed to create working fix for Geforce 8800 GTS & GTX Cards.

I've edited and compiled combination of new 190.15 Beta Nvidia drivers and some old ones from 2006 - making them support new G8 Cards and support "z-buffer wireframe" that is missing in newest Nvidia Drivers.

Here's download link for Settlers IV Modified Nvidia Drivers:

http://rapidshare.com/files/26...8/SIV-ModDrivers.rar

Happy hours playing Settlers IV Gold Edition without "Black Box" bug. : )

P.S Remember to uninstall your current driver first!

P.S2 Unfortunatelly I do not have Rapidshare Premium Account and my internet connection is not so fast, so please reupload file for other hosting sites/servers.

Greetings,
Darkzax

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Darkzax,

Originally posted by hiswitzend1969:
If you want i could host the file for you, i have my own domain and lots of space.

And very much appreciated the fix for the Nvidia cards

I have just swapped out my dads 8600 due his pc freezing up and got a basic radeon 3450 512MB PCIE DVI which works fine too

http://www.hiswitzend.com/dls/SIV-ModDrivers.rar

Hi stranger

Hi Megg,
Seem to have lost my username but this is near enough yeah it has been along time indeed, i still dabble in good old settlers 4. I still refuse to buy the 5 and 6 too much like aoe for me.

What a fantastic fix Darkzax has done, it is very appreciated and as i had room on my domain a little payback to all that helped me over the years by popping it there. I still have an old geforce 6800 so am unaffected but my dad dont

I am really happy that you appreciate my work
I've also tried Resident Evil 5 benchmark on it and I haven't seen any artifacts or lack of FPS.

Thank you for hosting a file

Does this new Driver work for the Nvidia 9x series?

This drivers have support for Geforce 6,7 cards, but I am not sure how it will work, so if someone would like to check this out - I will really appreciate it.

Also for Geforce 9x cards - you can try. If installation will not allow you to install drivers - just add Geforce 9x support to the .inf file.

Hello
Can you make a modifid Driver for my Geforce GTX 260 and Geforce 8600 GT with the new Nvidia Driver 190.38. I have this Model put to the .ini and it will not work. :-(

Thank You

sorry for my Bad English

Greetings LordSchranz

Yeah, I didn't see any of the 9x or newer series in the .inf either, and didn't really know what to add or change.

This is great, but doesn't work with my 8500GT.

Could we have some information on how to hack existing drivers to work?

Hello,
what do you mean by saying "doesn't work"?
Drivers do not want to install, or you have very low graphic after computer restart?

Basically - what you can try is to force your system to accept this driver by installing it manually - via device manager.

Remember to uninstall your current driver first, if you would not do it - You will have 16 colour windows after restart + some graphic errors - and you will have to reinstall everything properly.

Thanks for the response. My problem was with the installer saying that there's no driver here for my card. I'll try out the manual route.

No - sorry - still doesn't work with my 8500GT. The device manager won't accept your drivers as an alternative.

So can we hack newer driver with stuff from your install, or add things to your install that will allow other cards to use it?

Tried cutting and pasting the manufacturer and language settings from another driver, but that didn't work.

Does this fix also work for 8800 GT? I wanted to install this driver, but it wont let me... i always get an error and then the installation closes.

From what I can tell, it looks like this should work for the 8800 GTX & 8800 GTS.

There appear to be other entries for a plain 8800 (no GT, GS, etc.), but I don't think there is a plain 8800.

Hmm, then Darkzax could make one driver fix for 8800 GT? That would be really great

Hi,
Basically - sure - I can, but the problem is - I do not own 8800 GT so I wouldn't be able to check the process of my work...

I can try to create a fix for 8800 GT's too, but it can be unstable as I cannot check it on my computer.

Then you will use it at your own risk.

Btw. at the moment I have like 5 assingments for my studies (Games Development), so it will come out a bit later, sorry for that : ( .

Darkzax

Could You write how modify this driver? I have 9600M GT.

How can I make my own Fixes for my Graphic Cards?

I know that in the new Nvidia Drivers the z-buffer -wireframes is missing. So how can I include this?

I Have tryed Virtua Box and VMWARE nothing made a real positiv result.

I found something Try This

http://www.3dcenter.org/download/3d-analyze