Tekk

Here's a wacky problem for you Nvidia freaks. I have an Asus V6600 Geforce256, and it crashes when you play .mpg video. It also also halts during the little video sequences that prelude levels on Descent 3, Motoracer, etc. There are no device conflicts except a PCI PCI-PCI steering conflict. This doesn't raise the yellow exclaimation point, and it is present in most video card device entries. Switching to a Riva128ZX fixes the video problem completely, but the device conflict (PCI steering) remains. The IRQs are set normally. The address range is correct. Any ideas? I was thinking of getting a Matrox G450 when it comes out but I don't wanna shell out the dough if it aint neccessary! I have talked with several other people and they have noticed the problem, but can't fix it. P.S. The CPU-DRAMM ratio and Vcore are at factory settings (Athlon 900mhz)

80FPS and 120FPS!! Lets be realistic. I challenge anyone to setup a system with the same game running at 40fps and 100fps. If you can tell the difference, I'll be suprised. Your eyes only work at 30 anyway! ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

Here is a topic that I think has been absent in the Klipsch BB for a while. It might be a little off-topic, but hey... I am going to pick my favorite video card in each of the above categories: Speed, Stability, Rendering, and Drivers. I'd be interested to see what other people have to say about my selections, and I'd like to see what other people pick! First off: *Speed I'm sure that this pick won't suprise anyone. The Geforce 2 Ultra renders more frames per second than any other card on the market. It rendered close to 90fps at 16X12 in the Quake3 OpenGL demo. I am sure that those of you looking to the Raedon might me dissapointed by the slower frame rate. However, The Raedon does an impressive DVD/Video application suite of products that other Geforce/Geforce2 cards lack. Also, look for the G450 from matrox to leap-frog Nvidia's top of the line card later this year. The G400 is more than a year old, and its still right up there with the 'big boys'. Read the press release from Matrox here. Matrox's upcoming card bosts two RAMDAC's 32MB or DDR SDRAM, and lost of TV/DVI options. Benchmarks are from Tom's Hardware The Geforce2 Ultra also performed well in DirectX7. *Stability When it comes to Stability, Nvidia doesn't immediately jump into my head. If your playing games that really work DirectX to its limit, I would still go with the Matrox G400. I have yet to see it crash a game, and it works well with DirectX 6.1 DirectX7 can sometimes cause problems with InstallSheild. When playing Motoracer/Rollcage, I couldn't get past the opening sequence with a Geforce256 unless I had Dx7. 6.1 works fine with the G400. *Rendering This is tough. Environment Mapped Bump Mapping makes all the difference here. If you refer to the post entitled 'Building a REAL Computer', Kblair posted an absolutely astonishing picture of a scene with water in it with and without EMBM. After seeing that, you'll never want a card without it. The only cards featuring it are the G400 and ATi's new Raedon card. I'd stick with the G400, but if you want slightly higher frame rates, and more options like TV-out and such, maybe you should look into Raedon. *Drivers Here, I think its a a tossup. I actually like the Detonator2 drivers, they seem to work on everything I've tried. The Det3 drivers have caused performance drops in some of the newer Nvidia cards, so if you go with nvidia, try both. The Det3 drivers post some impressive performance increases in nvidia's reports, especially in the older cards like the TNT2. In actually tests, they aren't quite a 50% jump, but it definately makes a difference. The G400 drivers are a sure thing, they are rock solid, and they will work with anything. I'd be interested to hear what you all have to say!! ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

Look for a new thread started by me, I am going to post some notes about released and upcoming video cards. Hooray, I am a fast newbie! ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

Your right about Dell and Ati geekysteve, I think you will have a hell of a time finding drivers for the - P in any of Dell's Inspiron laptops. Ati doesn't release them as Kblair pointed out. Dell won't be much better. I wanted to redo a inspiron 3500 that had windows98 on it, and put win95 on it because installSheild was flipping out. Luckily, the DVD player and the Zip driver were ATAPI, and I acutally found sound drivers on Dell's website, but I couldn't get the video. I tried the Rage1 and Rage2 drivers, but both didn't work. Drivers for laptops, thats something that needs to be fixed. ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

I think newbie goes away when get 100 posts.. ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

For you guys who just got the gf2 or are looking forward to the new Ati card, I would advise to wait for a while after it comes out. I think the frame rates that these new cards support is so beyond practical that the extra dough just isn't worth it. I mean, what is the difference between 80 and 120fps?? Your eyes only take 30 fps anyway (or something low like that) I know that actual performance is lower than bench marks, but if your gonna get a new card, at least get one that has features and good drivers. Ati has had some questionable drivers in the past, but maybe they are getting better. And if it supports EMBM, go for it. Me personally, I am gonna wait for the Matrox G450 comming out in Q3 or Q4 of this year. Ill post more info on this ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

Sorry Distec, I beleive you have been mistaken for quite some time. Fifo does not euqal Bus Mastering. Think of Fifo as a 'dumb' protocol, every instruction or message sent by the IDE controller to south bridge must get a reply from whatever device it is directed to before another south bridge device can send any instruction over the bus. With Bus Mastering: -Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controllers -Primary Bus Master IDE Controller -Secondary Bus Master IDE Controller An IDE device can not only send messages over the PCI bus faster, but other devices don't have to wait for the IDE message to return before they can send messages over the PCI bus. Like I said, alot of users are confused about Bus Mastering. Check out a page on Bus Mastering: http://www.overclockers.com/tips01/ Get drivers and articles regarding all chipsets: http://www.bmdrivers.com Kblair: You have the Via KX133 Chipset, don't you? Yeah, VIA's notation is a little off. Bus Mastering is installed (Because the daughter devices say 'Bus Master') I'm not sure why is says Fifo as well. I installed the VIA IDE Update on my K7V at home and I got the same deal. Allthough, I went to run defrag, and after that I was sure it was installed. (I had just installed windows, office97, and some games, and i defraged 5 partitions totaling 46GB in 1.5 minutes!) I ran a test, a re formated my drive, and installed the same apps, but didn't install bus mastering, and it took 15 minutes. There really is no comparison! Distec: While I've tried to explain that Fifo and Bus Mastering are different things, it doesn't appear to have worked. I'd like to see where your getting your info as well. What I am most confused about is how you think that Fifo is bus mastering. Please explain. ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

View a properly Bus Mastered Device Manager here: http://www.crosswinds.net/~tekknikal/index.htm

Intel says Piix3 won't work on 98 right here Look at the section entitled 'Do I need to install the Bus Master IDE Driver' Intel says, "The Intel Bus Master IDE driver should be used only with the retail version of Windows 95(4.00.950) or OEM Service Release 1 (4.00.950a). Users running Windows 95 OSR 2.0 or later (4.00.95c) or Windows 98 (4.10.1998) should NOT use the Intel Bus Master IDE driver." Now Intel also says that Windows98 should have native bus mastering, but that is crap. Windows 98 uses the same Single/Dual FIFO technology that was implemented in 95. By the way, With Bus Master, my drivers run in UDMA, not DMA. ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake. (TA DAO!)

Distec, Do you know when FIFO was invented?!?! Like in the early 80's, when there wasn't even a south bridge! I think your timeline is a little messed up. Bus Mastering came out after the south bridge, FIFO came out before the south bridge. And don't even try to say that FIFO is more advanced. Go find a Win95 machine, defrag, install some apps, install Piix3, then defrag again, and tell me which one went faster. ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

Yeah, Distec is right. But make sure that you go with a company that will actually give you the drivers for your system. I do tech support, and Sony is the worst company I have ever had to deal with. They won't email or mail you drivers, unless you buy the 'Recovery Disk'. And the drivers on it aren't even updated... Dell is slightly better, but I would go with IBM. ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

P.S. Distec: You can install Piix4 on 98, but that won't install Bus Master. Piix4 is added support for the PCI Bridge and other Southbridge related motherboard devices. Piix3 will not install on 98.

No, the Matrox G400 is the ONLY card with Enviornment Mapped Bump Mapping. Other cards, perhaps the GF2 have Cubic Bump Mapping, but that won't simulate water, lighting, or clouds. You won't (admittedly) get the ridiculous frame rates of the Geforce2, but everything with look so much better!! Distec, you proved my case an point about Bus master. Your snapshot shows that you have a Busmaster controller, but that your IDE drivers are interfacing with Dual FIFO, the older and slower technology. This is what is should look like: http://www.crosswinds.net/~tekknikal/index.htm The reason that I don't have the primary listed is because it got burned during a power surge Notice how the daughter devices say Bus Master and not FIFO. A Bus Master controller does you no good if your not actually using it!! ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.

I forgot the closing ':' on my smiley face! Yeah, so Its not really FREE, you give your soul to the DEVIL and submit to TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION. Maybe that's going overboard... ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake.