Boot Camp + 64 bit Vista = Not recognizing video card.

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I installed boot camp on my iMac and then installed 64 bit Vista. Everything works fine except in the device manager it says my video card is the "VGA Standard Adapter" and not the regular card. The problem is that it won't accept Direct3D.

As for what video card is supposed to be in it... the box says it's an ATI Raedon, the Mac OS device manager says it's an nVidia 9400. I've installed ATI drivers, and it didn't make a difference, and it won't let me install nVidia drivers because it says there's no nVidia device.

I've searched and searched, done different things, nothing seems to work. Can anyone help me?
 

chscag

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I take it you've tried to reinstall drivers from your OS X DVD? You didn't say which version of OS X you're running.... but the latest version of Boot Camp which is found on the Snow Leopard install disk is 3.0. It supports 32 and 64 bit Vista (and XP).

You might try removing the display adapter in Device Manager, reboot, and let Vista 64 detect it again. If your System Profiler says it's an nVidia chipset, then that's what it is. Windows sometimes has a difficult time properly identifying integrated graphic chipsets. (your iMac has an integrated graphic chipset)

The other thing you can try... is boot into Windows via Safe Mode and try to install the proper drivers that way.

Regards.
 
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Yeah I tried the drivers there, same story. the NVidia ones still say there's not an Nvidia device. When I try to update the drivers it says that I have the right ones, but I don't.

I've removed, restarted, and redetected, and it immediately calls it the generic adaptor. I'm not sure what version of OSX I have right now, I'm not at that computer, but the computer is pretty new and I've updated it. I'll try to do the Safe mode thing tomorrow, but I imagine it'll still tell me that there's no nVidia device.

EDIT: I'm on that computer now.. it's 10.5.8.
 

chscag

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Hi again:

OK. You're using the Boot Camp version from your Leopard DVD (10.5.8) which is more than likely BC 2.0 or possibly 2.1. See if you can determine which version of BC you have installed.

If it's 2.0, download the Vista BC 2.1 update from Apple and run it while booted from Windows. Or, if you wish, buy a copy of Snow Leopard ($29) and use the Snow Leopard DVD to update BC. Boot Camp 3.0 is on the Snow Leopard DVD and has support for XP and Vista both 32 and 64 bit.

As long as Windows "thinks" your video adapter is something else, it's not going to allow an update even with the correct drivers. You might be able to overcome that in Safe Mode. Give it a try and let us know.

Reards.
 
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I actually patched it before I did the Vista install, but I just found out the problem. I had to install the Laptop drivers instead of the desktop ones. I guess the video card is crappy.

But it all works fine now, thanks!
 

chscag

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:) Glad you got it working. Have fun.

Regards.
 

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