AGP X Problem

Already have that installed, no good.

Originally Posted by Electrolyte

I'm running Windows ME, i'm trying to get XP on but I got to find a place that sells it cheap. Iv'e also heard it's because of my hard drive being very old, so being very slow and so pulling the graphics card down. Could this be the problem?

how much physical memory have you got installed on your motherboard?

- a slow hard disk can be problematic if you need a large swap file, < 512MB of memory, may contribute to that, especially when you have 128MB mapped out for agp textures?

Iv'e got 256mb DDR memory. Should I put the AGP texture down to 64mb to help?

Originally Posted by Electrolyte

Iv'e got 256mb DDR memory. Should I put the AGP texture down to 64mb to help?

It's worth a try, allocating 25% of physical memory back to the 'pool' may reduce calling the swap file - if the HD is as slow as you say, that's a good thing

[keithwalton]

Do you notice your hard drive reading or 'seeking' as it is known whilst your playing your games (you can hear it usually and there should be a light on the case as well)
What resolution are you trying to play at and do you have any fancy effects turned on like fsaa, or anistrophic filtering.
What chip does the laptop have, it might be worth comparing the specs
to see if the performance is inline. oh and win Me = bad :-(
K

Heh, ME I know is bad, that's why i'm going XP. I think my dad is getting me a 512mb DDR stick and a new HDD thought (keeps talking about it).

Resolution is somit like 600X400, at 16-bit colour. No extra effects, everything is default.

I think the chip is the laptop is a VIA KN133A, i'm not totally sure. All I know is it is KN133 something.

Yes, the HDD seeks a lot while in game, especially when a sound is played first time.

[keithwalton]

hmm seeking is generaly bad news and an indication of a lack of ram. What cpu's does each computer have ?

K

Btw a link to the specs of your normal graphics card is here, http://www.sis.com/products/graphics/315.htm

Unfortunutly it does not say what your fill rate is but i doubt its that high with only a 166mhz core clock speed. It doesnt mention number of pipelines either i do hope it was more than the one

My laptop has a mobile AMD Athlon XP 1.6ghz, and this one has a AMD Duron 1.8ghz. My laptop has 356mb SD-RAM, and this one has 256mb DDR.

Iv'e heard theres a BIOS upate out for my motherboard (Syntax SV266A) that fixes this "Unknown CPU" problem with AMD Durons, but I can't find the correct update. Can any one help me find it? I tried the one on there website, but it says it doesn't match my motherboard.

[Matth]

For the KT266A chipset, the AGP driver is part of the VIA "4 in 1" / Hyperion drivers.
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=300

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=403 - direct to 32 bit OS version
Note:
1. 4.51 are the latest
2. 4.43 arre suggested for older chipsets (including the KT266)


http://whitebunny.demon.nl/hardware/....html#vgaxabre
You may find the Xabre (also supports Sis315) driver more satisfactory - either the 3.11 (performance) driver, or the 3.57 - for some reason, they dropped everything above 3.10 from the official site.

There's a SV266A and an SV266AD - simple recognition, the "A" has TWO pairs of DIMM sockets (PC133 SDRAM or DDR), while the "AD" has ONE pair of DIMM sockets and ONLY supports DDR

OK, I am now on XP Pro, with DirectX 9.0B, updated graphics drivers and updated AGP driver but still in 2X AGP speed. Any thing else that I could do?

I forgot to download the AGP GART driver for my chipset, so I'm downloading that now (it's 5mb, yeesh!).