3Gb switch + Nvidia update = loss of fonts

NickHope wrote on 2/4/2009, 5:06 PM
Having noticed that a bunch of my fonts had gone missing in Vegas. I've just done an all-nighter rooting out the problem.

I had updated the Nividia Quadro FX1600M driver on my Dell Precision M6300 to 6.14.11.7575, downloaded from the Dell website. However if you have the 3Gb switch set in Windows XP, this new driver causes some OpenType/TrueType fonts to go missing in some programs, including Vegas Pro 8.0C. This happens both under XP SP2 and SP3 (I tested both because at first I blamed SP3). I tried deleting all but a couple non-stnadard Windows font but those fonts still wouldn't appear.

So I rolled back the driver to 6.14.11.7421 in the control panel and all is well again.

In my research I read about similar problems with other graphics cards including ATI.

Hopefully this can help someone.

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/4/2009, 6:36 PM
very strange it would happen with new drivers from both ATI & nvidia... sounds more like a DX/windows thing then.

can you download drivers direct from nvidia? I know for all ATI devices you can get drivers direct from ATI or the maker of the product.
Jeff_Smith wrote on 2/4/2009, 7:49 PM

I was thinking about enabling the 3Gb switch for my XP SP2, but I was considering doing it for another program. How does this help Vegas? I have 4 1Gb sticks and I did a memory remap in my BIOS so windows now shows 2.93 GB RAM. I assume this is different than enabling the 3GB switch, but how? I have read how to modify the boot.ini file to do this. I have an nvidia XFX 7600 video card.

Jeff
NickHope wrote on 2/5/2009, 6:43 AM
>> can you download drivers direct from nvidia? <<

No, if you go through the Nvidia support pages they instruct you to download the drivers direct from Dell. It effectively said the drivers are customised for the Dell.

>> I was thinking about enabling the 3Gb switch for my XP SP2, but I was considering doing it for another program. How does this help Vegas? I have 4 1Gb sticks and I did a memory remap in my BIOS so windows now shows 2.93 GB RAM. I assume this is different than enabling the 3GB switch, but how? I have read how to modify the boot.ini file to do this. I have an nvidia XFX 7600 video card. <<

Not sure Jeff but you can read more about the 3Gb switch in this thread.

I actually haven't hacked my 8.0c to be large memory address aware. I think I might have hacked earlier versions to be. But I'm guessing the switch is still worth having for heavy duty Photoshopping, and I have a whole bunch of external encoders, some of which might be using it. My laptop's been very stable with it until this new Nvidia driver.
rmack350 wrote on 2/5/2009, 9:46 AM
My understanding of the switch is that it asks windows to allow programs to access more memory (if they're Large Address Aware) but that it tends to starve the OS. This was acceptible for things like database servers because they usually didn't need resource intensive hardware-so more memory would be available in the upper ranges.

Hardware (including DIMMs) needs addresses in order to be used. Those addresses get assigned out of the upper ranges of memory starting at 4GB and working down from there. The remaining address space is used by RAM. The more hardware you have or the more address space might be set aside for it by the BIOS before Windows loads. Graphics cards with lots of memory will need lots of address space. Variations in hardware setups accounts for why one system might see 2.93 GB available while another might see 3.2 GB available.

Some modern graphics drivers will scavenge system RAM to supplement their discrete RAM (But I thought that was just Vista drivers) so that might be a potential problem with a new driver. Maybe. The main thing that appears to be happening in Nick's case is that the OS is being starved for resources and is dumping unnecessary things like fonts. That's be my guess anyway.

BTW, if your BIOS and chipset are 64-bit capable then your surplus memory is actually getting assigned to addresses above 4 GB (in most cases). The hardware resources MUST get assigned in the <4GB area. Anyway, the RAM does get addresses, they're just not in a range that a 32-bit OS can use.

Rob Mack