HOW-TO: Install stable NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT Drivers in 1st Gen Mac Pro

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Level 2

250 points

HOW-TO: Install stable NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT Drivers in 1st Gen Mac Pro

For the people having trouble installing the official Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT drivers in Windows on their original Mac Pros, there's a way to manually install the drivers from within Windows. As it currently stands, this card is does not yet have Apple Boot Camp drivers (I even tried the 2008 Mac Pro 64 bit drivers), and the official NVIDIA drivers do not recognize the card.

These instructions are for Windows Vista.

1) Download the drivers for your version of the operating system at nvidia.com.
2) Run the installer. It will install the driver files in C:\NVIDIA, but the installer will fail saying it cannot find a compatible graphics card. That is expected.
3) Quit the installer.
4) Right click on your Desktop, go to Personal.
5) In the control panel window that appears, click Display Settings.
6) The Display Settings window will appear. It will show a generic VGA adaptor.
7) Click Advanced Settings.
8) Click Properties in the Adaptor Type section.
9) Click the Driver tab in th Properties window.
10) Click Update Driver.
11) Select "Browse my computer for driver software."
12) Click "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer."
13) Click the "Have Disk.." button.
14) Browse to "C:\NVIDIA\WinVista64\169.35\English".
15) Select nv_disp and click Open.
16) Now click OK.
17) Scroll down and select NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT.
18) Follow the rest of the prompts to install the driver. Windows will warn you that it cannot gaurantee that the driver you installed will work with the hardware, but I can because it works for
me. 😀
19) Reboot your computer.
20) Your new card should now be working properly. You can even access the NVIDIA control panel!

Regards,
Aaron Faby

Mac Pro Dual Dual-Core 2.66Ghz, Mac OS X (10.5.2), 8 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT

Posted on Apr 21, 2008 10:12 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 22, 2008 10:04 AM in response to Aaron Faby

Thanks for the post, this method works fine for me.

I received the card today and used the latest french release of nVidia's forceware drivers 169.25 for 8800 GT (but I couldn't run nVidia Control Panel).

Quake Wars is now soooo beautiful... I can't even play, there's so much new crazy details to watch :]

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Answer 2

Fjan

Level 1

10 points

Apr 23, 2008 6:41 AM in response to Aaron Faby

Thank you for those instructions!
Does anyone know if there is a difference between using this simple method or using the more elaborate one I read in another thread where you have to replace the .inf file with one from www.laptopvideo2go.com?
Does the Nvidia control panel get installed properly?

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Answer 3

Apr 23, 2008 9:15 AM in response to Aaron Faby

Hi Aaron, this looks very helpful indeed. I've tried to follow your points on XP and got to point 10) then got stuck, as there isn't an "Update driver" button to push. Any ideas? Appreciate that you may not have that operating system but you sound like a knowledgeable chap!

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Answer 4

Rainßird

Level 2

355 points

Apr 23, 2008 10:11 AM in response to Aaron Faby

For Windows XP Pro users with the 8800 GT, I downloaded the Nvidia Forceware 174.93 (beta) drivers and they work great. Vista drivers are also available. Just decompress the 7zip file and double click the Nvidia.exe file in the folder. Ignore warning from Windows that it may not work with your hardware. They will work and are available here:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

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Answer 5

Aaron Faby Author

Level 2

250 points

Apr 23, 2008 10:22 AM in response to Fjan

As far as I can tell there is no difference. The NVIDIA control panel is fully operational.

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Answer 6

Aaron Faby Author

Level 2

250 points

Apr 23, 2008 10:23 AM in response to simon critchley

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of XP, so I don't know what the differences would be. Vista is the first Windows OS I've used since 95. 😀

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Answer 7

Apr 23, 2008 12:50 PM in response to Aaron Faby

Thanks Rainbird! That did the trick!

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Answer 8

Rainßird

Level 2

355 points

Apr 23, 2008 2:09 PM in response to simon critchley

Glad you are up and running Simon. BTW, I did go about installing this a different way. I actually downloaded the Nvidia 32bit XP 174.93 driver using Safari in Mac OS X. I then copied the driver to a USB flash drive. I then booted into Windows and copied the driver from the flash drive to the Windows desktop and installed it from there. In any event the driver can be installed that way or the standard install using the directions provided on the website.

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Answer 9

Saiing

Level 1

31 points

Apr 24, 2008 7:18 PM in response to Rainßird

There's no Nividia.exe file in the Vista drivers version, or anything that creates the NVIDIA folder, so this method won't work.

It's no huge deal because I managed to find the 174.85 drivers, but I'd still like to get these ones installed since they're a more recent version.

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Answer 10

Saiing

Level 1

31 points

Apr 24, 2008 7:38 PM in response to Saiing

Problem solved:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/ForceWare-174.93-Vista-(32-bit)-download-1902.html

These Vista 32 drivers (174.93) installed straight away for me, without needing to do any of the long process above. All you do is double click the setup icon and it does the rest.

Edit: The forum doesn't seem to like the above link - cut and paste the whole line into your browser.

Message was edited by: Saiing

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Answer 11

Fjan

Level 1

10 points

Apr 26, 2008 9:54 AM in response to Aaron Faby

Apple posted updated bootcamp drivers, the geforce 8800 for 1st gen Mac Pros is now supported out of the box.
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

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Answer 12

May 1, 2008 7:37 PM in response to Saiing

Thanks for the link.

NVIDIA's drivers from their website wouldn't install correctly no matter what I tried, but these worked great.

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Answer 13

NHWolf71

Level 1

0 points

Jun 10, 2008 11:17 AM in response to Aaron Faby

As of the 175.16 (and possibly earlier, not sure), the drivers from Nvidia work (for those that don't read to the end of the thread and see that there are updated Boot Camp drivers for Vista).

After the download, when you run the installer they DO recognize the card and after the reboot you should be up and running.

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Answer 14

Jun 10, 2008 11:39 AM in response to NHWolf71

Try www.laptopvideo2go.com. They always have the latest and greatest with special updates to allow the latest drivers to install even on laptop chips sets. Alot of OEM vendors don't keep updated with laptop video drivers like the desktop ones are by nVidia.

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