Graphics windows standard AGP drivers??

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by h4r7y, 12 Dec 2004.

  1. h4r7y

    h4r7y What's a Dremel?

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    ok, ive got a driver conflict on my system, and so have others that ive been reading about on various forums too.
    its between the agp drivers (via chipset) hyperion drivers and the ati drivers for my grf card.
    ive read abotu installing the default windows agp driver but have no idea how to do that or where to find them.

    anyone got any ideas?

    cheers

    *thanks guys for the help regarding the 9700/9800 quibble*
     
    Last edited: 12 Dec 2004
  2. JuMpErFLY

    JuMpErFLY Minimodder

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    It's not worth the upgrade, total waste of money. Google for 9800 pro reviews and most will have 9700 pro in there too for comparison, little difference at all. If you want a noticable performance boost get a 6600GT or 6800
     
  3. |I.H|

    |I.H| What's a Dremel?

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    between 9800pro and 9700pro there's only 3-5% difference but most 9700pro's can overclock to 9800pro's speed or beyond and there wont be any diffenrence between 9800 and 9700. IMO if you want more performance look for a 6600gt or 6800nu. <<- This will be future proof aswell because of the advanced features and IMO 9800pro is getting old and in about 4-5 months it'll be like how mx440's are rite now.

    Hope That Helps :thumb:
     
  4. h4r7y

    h4r7y What's a Dremel?

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    cheers guys
    :)
    its all worth knowing, gonna stick with my 9700 for a bit longer then.
     
  5. Austin

    Austin Minimodder

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    ;) Well the 9800Pro isn't quite just a higher clocked 9700Pro, it had a few other minor tweaks to improve clock scaling, heat production, RAM tweakage, AA/AF, F-Buffer and most vitally a higher instruction length limit (160 instead of 64). However even with Doom III, HL2 and 3Dmark05 this all seems to make very little difference and there were plenty of rumours that the AA/AF optimisations were mostly (if not entirely) sw based and hance could be applied to the 9700 series as well. Apparently ATI drivers at the time didn't allow the 9700 cards to use the optimisation, probably to make the 9800's seem even better. The Omega drivers reportedly forced on this AA/AF optimisation with the 9700 cards but I never saw any evidence of it though. Anyway, if you have a 9700 there's very little point in upgrading to a 9800.

    :thumb: The conflict you have with your mobo's VIA chipset's AGP is with WinXP's SP2 and is a known issue. To use the default Windows AGP driver (which VIA rec with SP2) you simply reinstall the driver selecting the advanced (not quick) option and unchecking the AGP Driver. That's the easiest way. If you own a VIA chipset you have to expect silly issues like this.
     
  6. h4r7y

    h4r7y What's a Dremel?

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    ok, now i do have sp2 installed at the moment, but this problem was there before i installed sp2, i thought that sp2 might actually heal the problem but no.
    i currently have no agp driver installed with the newest cats, if i install the via agp driver i have to use the very first omega drivers, which dont cut it in HL2, leaves out some images etc.
    so your saying that if i install the 4in1's using normal/advanced option in there ill be able to install a default agp driver instead? or does it just do it properly? and whats that about unchecking the agp driver? thats the bit i want to install lol.
    i think i might have got it twisted round my neck though at the minute, any chance you could make it crystal?
    cheers austin :)
     
  7. Austin

    Austin Minimodder

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    :thumb: Unless it's changed very recently the info should be on ViaArena.com where you'll also find the latest drivers for your mobo. All you shoudl need to do is double click the downloaded file to install the driver, when prompted for Quick or Advanced (IIRC) select Advanced and you will be prompted which parts to install. Simply choose not to install the VIA AGP driver by unticking its box. You should then find the latest CATs from ATI's website work perfectly.

    :confused: It does seem unusual that you experienced problems prior to SP2. This could point to another issue such as a poor PSU, driver conflicts etc. One other incompatibility that used to be common was between VIA's first AGP8x mobos and the first AGP8x cards (9500/9700). The quick yet far from ideal solution was to disable AGP, ie in mobo BIOS change AGP8x to OFF (other settings AGP4x & AGP2x). You could also do that from within Windows in the VIAgart section of the gfx driver tabs. Sometimes simply setting AGP4x also worked and had no effect on perf. You should find the latest BIOS for both AGP and esp mobo resolve this incompatibility, probably the latest drivers do too.

    :( So your problem could be two fold (or more). So essentially reinstall the VIA drivers in advanced mode so you can deselect the VIA AGP driver. Next go to your mobo BIOS and try using AGP4x and/or disabling AGP. Disabling AGP is not good for the long term although it doesn't really slow your card as such but it does limit you to the gfx card's own RAM (ie no Aperture to utilise system RAM). If you found AGP4x works then that's all you need to do, if you find disbling AGP works then you would want the latest mobo BIOS and if still problematic you COULD try a new gfx BIOS too. If disabling AGP doesn't help you need to investiage other things such as RAM and PSU.
     
  8. h4r7y

    h4r7y What's a Dremel?

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    ive looked in the bios and i cant change the speed of the agp at all, its just blanked out and says auto.
    if i install the via drivers though without checking the agp option, then that wont install the driver either will it? or will that install the windows version?
     
  9. Austin

    Austin Minimodder

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    :thumb: That will use the default XP-SP2 AGP driver which is what VIA currently recommend using (until they fix their own). You could look for an expert or advanced setting in the BIOS, this may allow you to alter the AGP settings. In some mobos (eg Gigabyte) you need to hold down CTRL+F1 (IIRC) to get advanced options, so give that a try too. Another thing to try is the latest mobo BIOS which should allow you to alter this setting, or even fix the issue(s) completely. Other than that you'd be left with using Windows to disable/alter AGP, I know that's possible with VIA's AGP driver (VIAgart?) but since you can't reliably use that with SP2 you could be out of luck.

    :duh: Of course this VIA 8xAGP with an early 8xAGP card may not even be an issue for you, esp if you have something newer than the KT400 chipset. One thing I haven't covered yet, do you have ANYTHING o/c'ed in your system?
     
  10. h4r7y

    h4r7y What's a Dremel?

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    ive just updated my bios last week, problem was there before and still is, ill take a peek to see if theres any advanced issues in the bios.
    and no ive got nothing overclocked at all.
    :)
     
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