Help me: What's my video limit?

#11

On 26 Aug 2006 18:29:31 -0700, meow2222 (AT) care2 (DOT) com wrote:

Quote:

kony wrote:
On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 09:42:03 -0400, Alex <a@b.c> wrote:
On 26 Aug 2006 06:29:48 -0700, meow2222 (AT) care2 (DOT) com wrote:

Might be worth a remark on how much difference a vid card can make.

That's why I was asking, since it'd be a long time before I could get
a new system. It would be helping me in everyday things too since all
cards now are also 2D accelerators. And, as a bonus, I'd be able to
play my older games just a bit better.

Keep in mind that his results can't be used unless you
ignore how much of a bottleneck your CPU is, and that it
wasn't even a valid test for any system if the PCI card
didn't have correct drivers installed, which it didn't.

It was not intended to compare the performance of 32M PCI with a 4x AGP
128M, but rather a late 486 style pci vid card to the agp.

It doesn't do that either, unless you have an odd
interpretation of what "486 style" is supposed to mean, that
has nothing in particular to do with it being PCI vs AGP.

Quote:

Once you use
the basic vga driver

Why would you use the basic VGA driver if the task itself
requires OS that has normal driver support?

Quote:

...it isnt going to make any difference what pci card
comes after it, as its operation is determined and limited by the basic
driver.

Which brings up the question, of what usefullness is such a
comparison? One could run an AGP card without driver, even
without AGP chipset driver if they really wanted to
interfere with performance but was trying to deliberately
cripple performance, the best way to a valid comparion?

Quote:

With proper drivers ISTR the 32M PCI running at somewhere roughly in
the region of 40fps, whereas the AGP was doing 90. This still doesnt
tell Alex what s/he will gain, since the task may have been different,
and ditto the other PC specs. But it does at least give some kind of
ballpark.

No, it's a wildly inappropriate comparison that applies to
no normal use.

#12

On 26 Aug 2006 18:32:53 -0700, meow2222 (AT) care2 (DOT) com wrote:

Quote:

kony wrote:
On 26 Aug 2006 15:48:06 -0700, meow2222 (AT) care2 (DOT) com wrote:
Alex wrote:

Well, I think I may have found an acceptable replacement for my
GeForce2 card: ATI AIW 9600PRO AGP 128MB.

But now I'm paranoid that my motherboard (A7V or A7V133) won't accept
it... I didn't realize there are multiple AGP configs. The ATI seems
to be 4x/8x only (it won't fit 2x boards) or something like that.

What would I need to check (I can't find the proper documentation on
my board on ASUS' web site) on my board to make sure the ATI card
would work?

whether it has an AGP speed the card also has, ie 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x. Dont
just plug and try, as destruction will occur with some wrong
combinations.

Rarely is this true. In general video cards are backwards
compatible, an 8X card will run on a 4X slot (as his 1GHz
based system probably is), and will merely run at 4X instead
of 8X. When there are exceptions, they should be noted on
ATI's website.

The generic version - If ATI doesn't warn against it, if it
fits in his slot it should not be a problem.

This explains the problem:

http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/a...atibility.html

yes, I'm aware of the issues mentioned.

What must be kept in mind is that an 8X card doesn't
"usually" only support 8X signaling voltage, and that OP's
AGP is most likely a universal slot.

#13

Quote:

Hmm, maybe. What was it then that was first implemented in
GF3? Dynamic hardware T&L instead of static T&L? Whatever
it was, it did substantially offload from the CPU.

The GF3 introduced the programmable vertex and fragment pipes. What are
dynamic and static T&L, never heard of those. I heard of dynamic and
static vertex buffer (objects) did you mean those?

#14

On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 20:52:38 -0400, kony <spam (AT) spam (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

Rarely is this true. In general video cards are backwards
compatible, an 8X card will run on a 4X slot (as his 1GHz
based system probably is), and will merely run at 4X instead
of 8X. When there are exceptions, they should be noted on
ATI's website.

I just checked my BIOS - I can set the AGP slot to 1x, 2x, or 4x (with
fast writes on or off). When I get the video card, obviously I'll set
it to 4x but do I turn the fast writes on or off? Does it matter?

--
Alex
atheist #2007

#15

On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 19:02:55 -0400, Alex <a@b.c> wrote:

Quote:

On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 20:52:38 -0400, kony <spam (AT) spam (DOT) com> wrote:

Rarely is this true. In general video cards are backwards
compatible, an 8X card will run on a 4X slot (as his 1GHz
based system probably is), and will merely run at 4X instead
of 8X. When there are exceptions, they should be noted on
ATI's website.

I just checked my BIOS - I can set the AGP slot to 1x, 2x, or 4x (with
fast writes on or off). When I get the video card, obviously I'll set
it to 4x but do I turn the fast writes on or off? Does it matter?

Turn it off to initially prove stability. There may be a
minor performance increase with it on, but not much... not
really enough to matter.

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Help me: What's my video limit?

Monitors / Videocards Video cards & monitors for the PC. (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video)

Re: Help me: What's my video limit? - 08-26-2006 , 10:10 PM

Re: Help me: What's my video limit? - 08-26-2006 , 10:11 PM

Re: Help me: What's my video limit? - 08-27-2006 , 11:01 AM

Re: Help me: What's my video limit? - 08-27-2006 , 07:02 PM

Re: Help me: What's my video limit? - 08-27-2006 , 10:32 PM