AGP Speed and Fastwrites issue

RWBRWB Icrontian
edited March 2004 in Hardware
I don't have a screenshot right now cuase I JUST reinstalled windows and finally got it working again.

I have a Radeon 9700 Pro which for some reason won't keep the settings for AGP speed and fastwrites under the SMARTGEAR tab in advanced settings for the display.... they won't stay.

The settings are STUCK at AGP Speed _OFF_ and fast writes are OFF also. When I do retest, it will turn on fastwrites, but keep AGP speed at OFF instead of 8x like it is supposed to be.

These are Cat's 3.10 WHQL if I remember correctly. I HAVE looked in my BIOS and I have changed the settings and hit apply to make sure that they "stick" which then it tells me to restart which I do and also check the BIOS just in case and I get NOTHING.

The BIOS has my AGP speed set to 8x yet the driver says OFF... god if it isn't one issue it is ANOTHER. This new system is a pain in the ass.

Comments

  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Some help please....
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Ignore smartgart.

    It's wrong.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    I hate ATi's drivers. I had an issue where when I install the drivers, it automatically turns AGP 8x and FW on, even though they are on in the BIOS, which makes it very hard to get into Windows without it freezing. BlackHawk said to uninstall SmartGart, but that doesn't help as the drivers themselves override the BIOS, which is plain stupid and shouldn't be done unless you explicitly tell them to. Not entirely related, but still....
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Well look, something is wrong... I have tried different drivers... I am only getting 13K points in 3D Mark 2K1... I WAS getting 18K.

    Something is very wrong.
  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    I had that issue once with that card - it came down to driver install order plus setting things up in bios prior to installing ATI driver + control panel. It was so long ago that I don't recall the exact fix unfortunately, but I did get it fixed after a reformat.

    Hey, HAPPY BIRTHDAY bro :wave:
  • zear0zear0
    edited January 2004
    RWB, I am having a similar problem...

    Was getting high 17k and now am stuck with high 14K to low 15K 3D Marks

    I have radeon 9700 Pro and just rebuilt XP a few weeks ago. I immediately installed the 96c Omega drivers for the Radeon. (I can't remember the whole version number, but I think the last three characters are the important ones.)

    I was getting 17K+ with a previous version. I think that was version 78A.

    I am planning to try and figure the problem out tonight and will post here if I figure anything out.

    If you have figured anything out, I'd appreciate it if you could post some info here.

    thanks and good luck...
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    It works now... I don't know why, but it does. Just started today. I reinstalled windows... and it continued to be OFF and all that crap. Then I installed the 4n1's and it came on.

    meh.
  • ginipigginipig OH, NOES
    edited January 2004
    Been there, done that, aint found diddley squat solutions.

    I tried uninstalling gart, reinstalling all the drivers in a specific order, sacrificing my next door neighbor's dog (an abhorrence of a pet.) Nada.

    I'll try to look around for some quick reg fixes.
  • croc_croc_ New
    edited January 2004
    Will fastwrites even help you? I heard they are more trouble than they are worth. One thing I know, Call of Duty locks up if you have it on.
  • ginipigginipig OH, NOES
    edited January 2004
    It's debatable, I think. Personally, I would like mine to be off all the time. Can't do it though.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    I ran a full test of 3DMark2001 and every single test got exactly the same results with and without FW apart from one. Envrionmental Bump Mapping, which was about 200% faster. Wierd, eh?
  • croc_croc_ New
    edited January 2004
    200%?!?!?!? Hrm weird. What exactly does it do? (BTW what was the score difference between off and on?)

    I know this is SORTA off topic, but maybe if its found to be useless you will only need to fix your AGP Speed setting.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Sorry, not 200%, 150% (Double and a Half) (I always think of 200% as twice as fast, but 100% faster means twice as fast).

    The results were something like 100fps without and 250fps with (EMBM is used for enviromental effects such as reflections, such as some water, tiled floor reflectons etc).
  • croc_croc_ New
    edited January 2004
    I wonder what kind of real world difference that would translate to .... I know from my experience, I don't notice anything on or off, so I leave it off to be safe.
  • ginipigginipig OH, NOES
    edited January 2004
    I get a lot of problems with fast-writes on whilst playing my income-generating fav game of all time: Counter-strike. But that's just me. There are more knowledgable people on these boards that you could/should ask for theoretical differences. It all depends on how it affects the apps that you use.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Depends mostly on your Graphics card and Motherboard. With my old Mobo I couldn't go a few hours without getting an infinite loop error, but on this new motherboard it's fine. This card never wants to run at AGP8x though, had to run it at 4x on my old board and 4x on this board too.
  • TenchuTenchu
    edited March 2004
    Y have a similar issue: I upgrade my win98se to win XP. All games were right in win98se. But now the games in XP have something wrong: then pause avery 5 seconds. It seems some kind of trouble in the video speed. The games are NOT slw, it is just that they pause evry 5 seconds (aprox): for example in counter strike, i walk 5 steps aprox. and the game pause a little before continue walking. It is just a little pause (half a second?) but very distubeing.
    This happens in all games and I though it was a textures problems, but then I saw smartgarp... in that panel said my AGP speed was 1X ???? but in my BIOS was set to 2X
    I have a SOYO 6vbA133 motherboard, PIII 800EB, 356 MB RAM, radeon 7200 AGP video card
    Can anybody give help?
  • Omatic810Omatic810 Gainesville, FL
    edited March 2004
    I think I have the solution to your problem w/ the 9700 pro. I had the same prob until i intalled nVidia Nforce drivers for my mobo. All of a sudden, my score for Aquamark jumped a full 14000 points when i was able to keep the AGP speed at 8x. Try D/Ling those drivers, or if those don't help, other drivers for your motherboard.
  • TenchuTenchu
    edited March 2004
    tis the radeon 7200....
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Tenchu wrote:
    Y have a similar issue: I upgrade my win98se to win XP. All games were right in win98se. But now the games in XP have something wrong: then pause avery 5 seconds. It seems some kind of trouble in the video speed. The games are NOT slw, it is just that they pause evry 5 seconds (aprox): for example in counter strike, i walk 5 steps aprox. and the game pause a little before continue walking. It is just a little pause (half a second?) but very distubeing.
    This happens in all games and I though it was a textures problems, but then I saw smartgarp... in that panel said my AGP speed was 1X ???? but in my BIOS was set to 2X
    I have a SOYO 6vbA133 motherboard, PIII 800EB, 356 MB RAM, radeon 7200 AGP video card
    Can anybody give help?

    Wild Idea. XP Pro is not a Plug'n'Play OS, and leaving PNP O\S enabled or set to YES in BIOS can cause a misdetect-- or a series of them (PCI cards will bench to AGP 1X sometimes). Second, if you have reset the CMOS the default might have left you with a box that is sending video to AGP at PCI rates. In this case, just fixing BIOS settings MIGHT give you a doubling of video rate. Or MORE, if the card is an 8X card (from number, guessing a 4X). But, the Nforce drivers, latest from NVidia, will help also if this is an nforce chipset motherboard (HOPE it is since that was brought up).

    Given this is an older system, also try tuning XP to pull un-needed services or to disable them, that will save on RAM and leave your box not swapping the game to and from swap file on HD which might also be happening. AND, given the card, would NOT put DirectX 9.0 on the box.

    I think you meant 256 MB RAM, right??? If not, what are the DIMM sizes on your board???

    John D.
  • CyrixInsteadCyrixInstead Stoke-on-Trent, England Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    I've been having this prob I think with a Radeon 9200. So should I leave it at fast write off, 4x AGP (not 8x), and which drivers would people recommend for games??

    I also installed dx9b - is this the best one??

    ~Cyrix
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited March 2004
    just to be on the safe side cyric, the settings you listed are correct. for games, i'd honestly just go for the newest drivers, there are always lots of bug fixes and the benchmarking differences isn't profound. (if you were talking about a maker, i'd go omega if you can)

    keep dx9b, its what you want
  • KaluMinatiKaluMinati Calgary Alberta Canada
    edited March 2004
    some tips that i recieved for benching with 3dmark01 are to turn off fw as it is known to shave some points from your score... also... 3dmark01 is a dx8 based bench so updating to dx9 also takes friom your score, also... when your benching ... are you going into task manager and setting sdmarks process priority to "realtime" ? just some tips... also... as a few have mentioned drivers... your drivers can make or break your score... have u installed the exact same drivers you where using b4? (sry if thats been asked already) sometimes going with older drivers can be better for the bench just for the fact taht some of the new drivers are writing to handle the dx9 features better so they may score better on the new 3dmark then the old one
  • TenchuTenchu
    edited March 2004
    well. I didn´t konow WIN XP pro was not plug and play, .. my BIOS was set that way "plug and play OS". I will change this . Thanks
  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited March 2004
    From my experience fastwrites do absplutly nothing. I have read tweak guide after tweak guide on the fastwrite subject. I found nothing but inconsistancys.

    I would say leave it enabled if you can, but if you cannot enable it dont sweat it because it does nothing that i have found.
  • MedlockMedlock Miramar, Florida Member
    edited March 2004
    I never noticed any difference with fast writes. I used to get a LOT of infinite loop errors but my issue was resolved after looking at a particular thread somewhere in this place. I turned down agp speed to 4x and fast writes off and noticed no difference from 8x and on. It was only the 8x causing the problem, but after all of that, I think i'll stay away from fast writes too. I, btw, am using a 9700 pro.
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