2X agp?

[throdgrain]

Last night i went back to the Leadtek original drivers for my GF3 ti-200.They are much better than the latest NVidia drivers from the website,completely fixing the image "tearing" problem I was having on RTCW,and occasionally on q3.They are a bit slower,but you cant have everything now can you?
Anyway,one thing I notice is on the Winfast information panel it says my card is 2x AGP. Surely it's meant to be 4x?? Is there any way I can enable it,or does it not make any difference?

 

[Testin da Cable]

well, if your bios says it's on 4x it should be 4x.
if the driver says otherwise two things may be happening imo. a)summat strange is going on -or- b)the driver is a badly coded bit of crap and shouldn't be on your system

good luck matey

 

[Xavier]

sounds like a via chipset... if poss could you post your full machine spec so that we can try and figure it out for ya

 

[throdgrain]

Well its a p3 1000mhz processor with 384mb ram and a jolly nice GF3 ti-200 video card.
I've never even looked into the bios and tbh don't know how to
I just would have thought it was 4x agp not 2x.The thing is what difference does it make?If the answer is none then it aint a problem,but if i can speed things up then I', all for it

 

[FuZor]

Originally posted by throdgrain
Well its a p3 1000mhz processor with 384mb ram and a jolly nice GF3 ti-200 video card.
I've never even looked into the bios and tbh don't know how to
I just would have thought it was 4x agp not 2x.The thing is what difference does it make?If the answer is none then it aint a problem,but if i can speed things up then I', all for it

It will increase your data transfer rate to your graphics card. THUS making it faster!!! I had mine set to 2X at first, wacked it on to 4x and there is a noticable difference. Better frame rate!

Max it out man! 4X

 

[throdgrain]

just the sorta thing i want to hear
but how???

 

[FuZor]

Originally posted by throdgrain
just the sorta thing i want to hear
but how???

Easy! you get into your Bios at boot up. With the black screen with all that funky info...

Its often 'DEL' key, but most Bios say Type 'DEL' ( Or Whatever) to enter bios etc etc.

Do what it says, and you are in, look in all the menus for AGP, change the value to 4x. Save and exit.
NOTE: Your M/B has to support 4x!!!

AND!
When you install M/B drivers, you are telling it to install 4X AGP drivers??? if not thats also why you are in 2X mode

 

[throdgrain]

throdgrain is now computer expert shocka!
well i been in bios and it says 4x agp is enabled ,like i thought.looks like maybe the drivers are misinterpreting something...

 

[FuZor]

Originally posted by throdgrain
throdgrain is now computer expert shocka!
well i been in bios and it says 4x agp is enabled ,like i thought.looks like maybe the drivers are misinterpreting something...

Must be your M/B drivers!!!
Re-install em, and choose AGP 4X or turbo!!!

Must be drivers, graphics or M/B!

 

[Xavier]

/me smells via

 

[throdgrain]

aha ! Two bits of info in one day!
Mainboard is Gigabyte Technology.co ltd 6VXC7-4X and the chipset is (as you said!) VIA Technologies inc. VT82C691/693A/694XApollo Pro/133/133A System Controller.
Phew!

 

[Embattle]

Get the 4-in-1 drivers or just the AGP driver.

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

 

[throdgrain]

Good morning Embattle
Yeah I'm at work now but downloaded the 4-1 driver set this morning.I'll install it when I get home methinks.Must say i've only lost about 3 or 4 fps since using the Leadtek video drivers ,and they look so much better its amazing.
Are there any other issues I sohuld know about when i install the 4-1 chipset drivers?
(That by the way was a "Am-I-going-to-bugger-up-my-pc? type of question )

 

[Embattle]

Shouldn't do, this version is currently on my PC and works all right.

 

[throdgrain]

Went on the Leadtek webby tonight theres a FAQ thing.Looks like the 2x agp thing is fairly well known,theres a very small download that sorts it out a treat.
And on Q3 demo i've gained...wait for it.....
about 2 fps.
La-Di-Da

 

[old.D0LLySh33p]

Do they make drivers for my lil'ATi Rage 8 meg?

 

[throdgrain]

Originally posted by throdgrain
Went on the Leadtek webby tonight theres a FAQ thing.Looks like the 2x agp thing is fairly well known,theres a very small download that sorts it out a treat.
And on Q3 demo i've gained...wait for it.....
about 2 fps.
La-Di-Da

oh ,and the image tearing on RTCW has returned .... ARRRGGGHHH

 

[old.D0LLySh33p]

Somethings are just never meant to be

 

[FuZor]

Originally posted by throdgrain
Went on the Leadtek webby tonight theres a FAQ thing.Looks like the 2x agp thing is fairly well known,theres a very small download that sorts it out a treat.
And on Q3 demo i've gained...wait for it.....
about 2 fps.
La-Di-Da

That sucks man
Still its probably fast enough

 

[throdgrain]

check the intel driver thread.i did a 3d2001 benchmark thing and the difference between 2x and 4x is 60 - odd points. as tdc said at the start of this thread,if its set at 4x in the bios its running at 4x.thats how im beginning to look at it.

 

[Embattle]

Well I know for a fact mine is

 

[throdgrain]

hmm yeah thats what i'm saying. I now have the facility to switch from 2x to 4x via the video drivers,and the results on 3dmark arn't very far apart.what I'm suggesting is that the thing is actually running at 4x regardless,as its in the bios as that all the time.
I did compare some results btw,although most people with 1gig p3's who have posted results appear to have scores similar to yours ,which I find a little confusing tbh

 

[Summo]

Throd - the tearing problem in Q3 based games (including RtCW and MOHAA) is quite common and hits me very time.

From meh research I have found out (and apologies if this is old hat to some peeps reading) that vertical synchronisation (vsync) is turned off in the Q3 engine by default. For some of us this results in higher FPS but ugly, ugly 'tearing' effects as you've described. The way round it is to enable vsync in the config file and (if necessary) cap FPS at your monitor's refresh rate.

For example:

r_swapInterval "x"
This is the Castle Wolfenstein equivalent of vsync. Vsync effectively limits the frame rate to your current refresh rate at a given resolution. Performance can improve with vsync disabled (Frames are rendered as fast as they can be regardless of refresh rate), although you can experience image tearing &/or controller lag as a result. With vsync enabled you won’t experience either image tearing nor controller lag, although frame rate will be limited to your refresh rate. As such I’d recommend enabling vsync for best image quality & disabling it when you intend to benchmark system/game performance. Set x to 1 to enable vsync, while a setting of 0 will disable it.

You can find this entry in the wolfconfig and wolfconfig_mp files (single-player and multiplayer versions respectively) in your RtCW Main folder.

Open them up with Notepad, search for swapinterval (which appears twice in each file) and change the numerical value from 0 to 1.

Sorted. No more tearing. For best results make sure your refresh rate in Windows is as high as it can safely go. For a decent newish monitor this is usually about 85Hertz. There is a way to force Q3 games to enable vsync and run at a scripted refresh rate but I think that's just confusing the issue.

I have the same mini-guide for MOHAA, if you ever need it but not for vanilla Q3. Still, now you know what to look for, Google should be able to do the rest.

 

[throdgrain]

Sorry for the delay in replying Summo I must have missed this post
The thing is for Q3 you really need a fps of 100 to get a bit competative.I know proper Q3 players like Ch@melion say 125 but there ya go.My monitor doesn't refresh at that speed im afraid
The problem with RtCW is the other way around.My capped fps is 50 (lightmap etc ,i like it all to look nice ) and mostly its within the 40-50 parameters that im reasonably happy with.But if I set swapinterval 1 it seems to slow it down a bit which i was trying to avoid.
With the Leadtek drivers I found all tearing to be gone,though it said I was running at 2x agp,hence this post.When i changed it to 4x agp via a utility of theirs i didnt loose much on 3dmark,but it was definatley slower on counter-strike.
Phew! The thing I'm playing with at the moment is upping the resolution in RtCW to 1024-768 from 800-600.I already use the bigger res for CS and Q3 and but didnt really want to for RtCW because its so slow anyway.However it seems to have improved it quite a bit,and for sure i only noticed the tearing on Q3 because I went back to check it at 800-600.It's not a factor at the bigger res at all.
I didnt know swap interval was in the config twice mind ,so I'll check again tonight.Thanks for the input mate