Installation Instructions in English for Windows XP
1) Remove any old 3DFX drivers
- uninstall any current 3dfx driver using standard uninstall process
- and/or revert back to standard VGA driver
- under XPSP2, you may not be able to revert back to previous driver, so you can just proceed with next step
2) Remove any leftover 3dfx registry folders and reboot
- run regedit
- locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\
- delete folder named "3dfxvs"
- reboot
- you may experience display corruption during reboot
3) Overwrite empty file "dxtn.dll" with compiled version
- the dxtn.dll file that ships with Amigamerlin 3.1 R11 is an empty placeholder file that should be replaced before installing R11
- download a compiled version of "dxtn.dll" from the link below
- overwrite the emply file "dxtn.dll" in the driver2k folder inside the Amigamerlin folder
4) Install the Amigamerlin drivers using Control Panel driver update
- you should not use the "Driver Setup.exe" installer for this release of Amigamerlin
- Control Panel -> Display -> Settings -> Advanced -> Adapter -> Properties -> Driver -> Update Driver
- If all that shows up is "VGASafe" and no driver update option appears, then go into Device Manager -> Display Adapters and select the VGA adapter, right-click, and choose "Update Driver"
- choose NOT to search for driver
- choose to select location manually
- when prompted for location point to "driver2k" folder inside Amigamerlin folder
- when asked, say to Continue Anyway even though driver is not XP certified
- reboot when told to
- an Italian set of control panel installation instructions with pictures of relevant dialog boxes is available on 3dfxzone.it
5) Install 3dfx Tools
- run setup.exe located inside Amigamerlin folder
- reboot when told to
Required Files
Amigamerlin 3.1 R11 Driver (includes 3dfx Tools files) - posted 2005-06-13
Compiled DXTN.DLL for Amigamerlin 3.1 R11 (from dborca) - file last updated 2005-11-02
[Original message accompanying post:]
Thanks to everyone for the wealth of information available on this forum and thanks especially to whoever should be credited with the ongoing development of these 3dfx drivers.
As a newbie to the 3dfxzone, I found it somewhat difficult to locate instructions for installing the latest Amigamerlin 3.1 R11 drivers. A search on the forum led to instructions for various earlier incarnations of the Amigamerlin drivers, but over the course of its development it appears to have had several different sets of instructions, and this led to some confusion in my small brain.
Is there a primary, flagged, or stickied location to direct newbies for instructions on installing Amigamerlin 3.1 R11? And in particular, the instruction for cleaning out previous 3dfx registry entries?
Maybe it is already located in a high visibility area that I just overlooked somehow. If not, could these instructions be stickied somewhere maybe the way the SFFT driver info is stickied?
Here are the instructions I used:
[instructions moved to top of post]
Phil.
Version history:
2006-01-17: Instructions moved to top of post, revised to include instruction to overwrite dxtn.dll file.
2007-05-10: Added new observations on issues that may arise under XPSP2 install.