I restored an old Alienware "area 51 m9750" with Windows xp sp3 (32bit). It runs dual Geforce go 7950 GTX's in SLI configuration.I managed to find drivers for most of the hardware but the GPU drivers are giving me a bit of a problem. The latest version I've been able to find (that will install) is 6.14.0011.7948. On Nvidia's site, this file is called 179.48. It seems to be the latest available driver from Nvidia. When I start EQ, a popup tells me I should be using driver version 8185. I searched all over and couldn't find a 8185 that would install. The Nvidia installer just says no hardware was detected that can use these drivers.
If I continue EQ anyway, the game will load up but I get texture errors that stretch from the front of an NPC or PC model across the entire clip plane. The EC tunnel looks like a solid mass of colored spikes shooting off in all directions. Also some textures are just invisible. Here is a pic I found online that looks just like my character select screen.
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I'm hoping somebody better at internet sleuthing might share me a link to better drivers or maybe somebody knows another way to solve the problem. I really want to give this old laptop a reason to live. Thanks if you can help.