Okie i ACCEDENTLY installed the wrong driver for my card and when I:

1. installed the kernel (ok)
2. downloaded *probably the wrong (not sure)* driver from nvidia.com
3. installed it
4. editted /etc/x11/X86Config-4 file and replaced the 'nv' with 'nvidia'

then, i booted into x and it failed. i changed it back to 'nv' and it worked though apps crash on a regular basis, what do i do?

use XFDrake and then try to fix the proprietary driver problem...

The problem might be that with the TNT2 cards, there was a real problem with AGP. You need to use AGPgart rather than nVidia's built-in AGP support. It also depends greatly upon the motherboard chipset as to whether you can use nVidia's AGP or AGPgart. I hate to say RTFM, but you really need to read nVidia's tech document.

Okie, Few more helpfull things:

the dirver i installed fits me (32 when i thought it was 64 so its ok)

my X version is 4.3.0.1
on Linux 2.6.3-3mdk i686

using /etc/x11/xf86config-4

problems:

(EE) NVIDIA (00): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device!
(EE) NVIDIA (00): *** Aborting ***
(EE) NVIDIA (00): Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration

--------
lsmod shows that there is a module called 'nvidia' up.

I changed the "nv" in my xf86config-4 file to "nvidia" -- that makes it fail ("nv" works ok -- yet apps crash)

anything you would like to know post and i'll get it

thank you.

I have the same setup except the kernel, obviously you do not have module support for the tnt2 in your kernel do you? After I installed the nvidia drivers I had crashes regularly. Turned out that both drivers were loaded simultaneously. Try looking at the XFree86config as well, I know that it should not have any effect but I think that is what my problem was.

It seems like your right, I tried to dig in syslog and I found that NVIDIA has a module of its own to AGP, NVAGP, and my machine automaticaly loads AGPGART, syslog says It wont load NVAGP cuz AGPGART is allready running, I tried to rmmod agpgart and all regarded modules but when I type 'startx' the problem occours again and agpgart is loaded again along with the nvidia module.

There is an option you can pass in one of the config files to enable or disable the AGPGART and enable nvidia´s agp driver, XFree86config I think. Look in the readme that comes with the driver.