8800 gtx not playing videos

hokie64 · February 21st, 2007, 03:56 PM

Hey guys,

After giving up on the SLI thing in vista, i was able to sell off the 7950's to a friend. With that and a little extra i got an 8800 gtx.

First of all, this thing is gigantic, I could barely get it in my case. I almost got out the tin snips before i figured out how to get it in safely.

But down to business...

I got it in, it booted fine. Went to nvidia's site, got the drivers.
Restart.

Loaded up WoW, its beatiful. Then I go to put on an episode of the office on my other monitor, like i'd done 100 times before on the 7950 (in vista too). I had had troubles once before so i figured i'd just play with it till it started working.

After some unsuccessful attempts, I closed wow and restarted to give everything a fresh go. It turns out it will not give me video even when it is the only thing being streamed. I re-downloaded VLC media player (which i've been using consistently) and it still doesn't work. The only difference I can think of is that the 8800 uses a different set of drivers than the older 7 series, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to release drivers that would not play a video.

Anyone have any ideas?

**GroundZero3** · February 21st, 2007, 03:59 PM

Did you remove the old drivers, then run something like driver cleaner first?

hokie64 · February 21st, 2007, 04:04 PM

As a followup, i went and grabbed real alternative and tried playing some RMVB files i have.

They worked fine.

I am stumped.

hokie64 · February 21st, 2007, 04:20 PM

Just went through some driver cleaner software "driver cleaner pro" it was called.

No dice. Precisely what was happening before. Wow runs, I can play rmvb files perfectly fine on the other monitor, just no .avi files. I was doing this yesterday with no problems.

hokie64 · February 21st, 2007, 04:26 PM

Are there any other programs on par with VLC that I could try? I am trying a couple other avi players out there but they don't seem to work either but that could be codecs or whatever my current problem is.

hokie64 · February 21st, 2007, 05:39 PM

Installed divx player. It works.

I am still stumped, but at least i can watch tv again.

I'd still love to know why if anyone knows.

hokie64 · February 21st, 2007, 06:04 PM

I am thinking it has something to do with changing it back to the "windows basic" color scheme. But i dont even know what that means, but both the rmvb player and this divx do something to change the color scheme, whereas vlc does not.

oh well, its fixed.

DeathWish187 · February 21st, 2007, 10:46 PM

i dont know what it would matter with themes, i have the themes process disabled on my gaming rig n its fine
altho i did notice the past month vlc hasnt played any videos for me, dvd or files

hokie64 · February 22nd, 2007, 10:49 AM

Yep. Switch to divx player and itll work, although you lose the "aero" features when its running. Same with media player classes and the rmvb files.

DanU · February 22nd, 2007, 03:35 PM

The vast majority of video card can only display hardware video overlay on ONE monitor. You have to toggle which monitor gets the hardware video overlay via the video card's control panel.

The easy workaround for displaying video on BOTH monitors simultaneously is to use software video overlay. This needs to be set for EACH application. There will be a slight performance hit without the hardwave video acceleration, but with today's computer, i doubt you'll notice anything.