Graphic card errors?

I need openGL 1.4.0. I got geforce fx5500 on Windows XP. I understand that i need new drivers but every time in install them the graphics completley crashes! Can someone help me fix it or something? I cant run almost any game now :(. Is there any possibility that i can download OpenGL 1.4?

Couple thoughts. This is an ooold card, and NVidia’s latest drivers don’t support older cards. If you go here, it indicates the latest drivers you can install for 32-bit WinXP on that old card are 175.19.

Second, IIRC many years back I noticed a problem with WinXP with SP2 or higher (I think that was when the NX bit stuff was pulled in) on older drivers (such as oold NVidia drivers) that used self-modifying code at the time (or some such). This brought down the OS whenever you tried to install SP2 because the NX bit stuff was enabled. I don’t remember the trick for getting around this, but eventually newer drivers “just worked” and you didn’t have to fiddle with it.

Finally, let me caveat this by noting that I’m hardly ever in MSWin anymore, so others can probably give you better advice.

Newer low-end cards are so crazy-cheap nowadays, it might be worth swinging by your local Fry’s and picking one up for $30 just to try, so you can install the latest drivers and see if that’s the issue.