Hi everyone,

 

I was having some lag issues with FSX and thought that it would be a good time to update my video card driver for my GTX 570 Superclocked.

 

While uninstalling the nVidia driver from Programs and Features my screen went black and did not recover although the default driver is installed (Intel HD Graphics 3000). The driver did not completely uninstall itself.

 

I pressed the PC reset button and the PC would only boot into safe mode. I saw the nVidia driver was still in the Programs and Features list. I then selected uninstall, used driver cleaner pro, rebooted back to Win7 and installed nVidia 306.23 Win-7 x64 driver using the custom install/clean installation.

 

I deleted my FSX.cfg so I could rebuild a new one and add the appropriate edits. When starting FSX I received this message:

 

"This graphics card does not meet minimum requirements for shader support. This product requires a geForce3/Radeon8500 class or better graphics card. FSX will now exit."

 

I used system restore again and FSX does not crash although it is very slow to start up. I am back at nVidia driver 306.23 and I do not plan on updating for now.

 

I would sure appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction.

 

Thanks,

 

Robert

 

I would sure appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction.

 

 

You said you did a "clean" re-install. Did you by chance you THIS method?

Hi Ben,

 

Yes but the uninstall was incomplete before my PC froze on the black screen.

 

**EDIT**

 

I am now reading the culprit could be DirectX11, however I did a dxdiag check and it did not report any issues.

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/364514-the-shader-version-of-your-video-card-does-not-meet-the-minimum-requirement/page__st__25

 

DirectDraw, Direct3D and AGP Texture Acceleration are all enabled.

 

I checked my nVidia folder on my hard drive under Display Driver it shows 3 driver folders:

 

296.10

301.42

306.23

 

A while back I remember reading that it was ok to install a new driver over top of an older one so that couldn't be the issue.

Well, maybe it is not DirectX 11 afterall. It seems to be working fine.

 

Here is something that I thought of... I have updated the drivers twice in the last year that I have had my PC. I had read some information that since the 270.xx series drivers one could simply install over top of the existing driver, I know this is false now as I have read the information directly from the NVIDIA site and it pertains to a 3D Physics driver if I am not mistaken and not the actual graphics driver. I checked my nVidia folder on my hard drive under Display Driver it shows 3 driver folders:

 

296.10

301.42

306.23 (this is the driver I installed today)

 

As I wrote earlier, I cannot uninstall the driver without my PC freezing up, could it be the fact that I have 3 driver version's in the NVIDIA folder. Obviously the latest driver is detected and I am wondering if it is possible to simply delete the other 2 folders and see if I can uninstall and reinstall the new NVIDIA driver.

 

Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

As I wrote earlier, I cannot uninstall the driver without my PC freezing up, could it be the fact that I have 3 driver version's in the NVIDIA folder. Obviously the latest driver is detected and I am wondering if it is possible to simply delete the other 2 folders and see if I can uninstall and reinstall the new NVIDIA driver.

 

Have you tried booting into safe mode and then uninstalling the video drivers?

Hi Ben,

 

I reverted back to 301.42 after performing a system restore and I was able to rebuild the FSX.cfg. I did not try to install in safe mode however. The sim run's stable although it takes much longer than it used to when it first loads after selecting the FSX.exe from the taskbar but I can live with that. i found out that the 3 driver folders contained in the NVIDIA folder are simply just the unpacked installer and it is perfectly fine to delete them.

 

I feared a complete format and reinstall because I run an SSD for a cache which is tied in with Intel Rapid Storage Technology and it needs careful attention when installing. I had a friend help install it for me but he has since passed away.

 

I found a good post written by a person called maniacvvv at the EVGA forums regarding uninstall/reinstall of NVIDIA display drivers, it is quite the read but well worth it:

 

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?&m=1174372&mpage=1

 

Thanks for your help.

As per another post, I went out and bought an EVGA 660TI. The first card wouldn't allow my PC to boot and the second one installed alright but I got the darned G3D.dll error after the "This graphics card does not meet minimum requirements for shader support. This product requires a geForce3/Radeon8500 class or better graphics card. FSX will now exit." message.

 

I have until November 12 to return it to NCIX so I will look around and see if I can find anything, wonder why I am receiving these messages all of the sudden? I am running Win7 x64 with DX9/11 installed.

Robert - I am really sorry about the problems that you are having. I am kinda out of ideas.... :unsure:

Something appears to have gone wrong during the driver uninstall... you need to clean out all remnants of previous drivers before attempting to install a new one.

 

A

Robert - I am really sorry about the problems that you are having. I am kinda out of ideas.... :unsure:

Thanks Ben, I'm going to post over at the FSDeveloper forums and see what they have to say there. And I did try using the vanilla FSX.EXE in the FSX root folder as well but I received the same error.

Something appears to have gone wrong during the driver uninstall... you need to clean out all remnants of previous drivers before attempting to install a new one.

 

A

Hi Andrew, I have tried everything including running driver sweeper in safe mode. I am at a loss to explain why this is happening with a new card and driver install as it was never an issue before.