AGP question

[ASL Veteran]

Okay, so I bought a Sound Blaster Annihilator 2 video card a while back (maybe a year ago?) and I was having lock up problems after I had it installed. Turns out my motherboard could only handle 2x AGP options rather than 4x so the 4x portion was greyed out (so I couldn't even use all of the super duper features of that new video card I got). However, running on 2x was not really possible either since after I switched from 2x to 1x the lock up problems disappeared. Ever since then I have been running on 1x just fine.

I recently downloaded a Direct X 8 upgrade of some kind from microsoft and now I have been having lock up problems again. Turns out that despite my every effort my computer keeps automatically resetting the AGP options to 2x, so now every time I want to run a game I have to manually reset the AGP option to 1x - kind of a pain in the shorts!

My question is this: Is there any way to make my computer run on AGP 2x without locking up or is there any way to make my computer quit automatically selecting AGP 2x every time I reboot?

Pentium III 550, Windows 98, HP Pavilion 8495.

[Schrullenhaft]

Your motherboard is based on the Intel 440BX, which is a very stable chipset that, as you mentioned, maxes out at AGP 2X. To be honest you're probably not losing very much by not having AGP 4X capability. It sounds like it would be twice as fast, but it really isn't (it helps with textures sometimes); it might be a 5% speed difference at the most.

I'm not sure what CMOS/BIOS settings you have for your AGP port. Sometimes you can change this in the CMOS/BIOS, though it may not state that you're exactly changing the AGP data rate. Look through any of your documentation on your CMOS/BIOS settings and see if there is anything that mentions AGP, unfortunately the online documentation doesn't indicate that any AGP settings exist other than to indicate the default bus for video.

What drivers are you using for your Annihilator (which I beleive is a GeForce 2) ? I know Creative has some additional applets for controlling side-banding, AGP rate, etc., one of which is called 'AGP Wizard'. However it only works with the Creative supplied drivers.

Here's the Creative downloads for the Annihilator 2, including the AGP Wizard. Note that Creative's last driver is based on Reference 6.34, while the latest Reference Betas from NVidia are up in the 27.xx range.

Your Pavilion uses a DSP-based combo sound/modem card called the Riptide. Here's the 4.17 driver which updates the audio driver to 4.12.01.2156 and the modem driver to 2.2.2.164.015.

Here's the BIOS Upgrade v. 1.09 dated 6-25-99 (though it may do nothing for your problem and you may already have it).

Here's the central download location for updates to the HP Pavilion 8495, but there really isn't much here.

Getting back to your question of changing the AGP rate. I can't remember if PowerStrip will do this with the shareware version or not. I believe it will do it if you purchase the software (US$25-35). You can get it from Guru3D (go to Videocard utilities > Overclocking and Tweaking > Powerstrip 3 or 3.14beta, etc.). You can also try out the other tweakers here such as GeForce Tweak, Riva Tuner, NVMax, etc. I can't remember all of the options each offers, but one or more of them may be able to control the AGP rate like Creative's AGP Wizard. However some of them may need newer Reference drivers in order to either work or offer full functionality.

[ March 03, 2002, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[ASL Veteran]

Thanks for the response Schrullenhaft. Looks like I am using the Creative Labs GB0010 dated 02/23/2001 (by checking properties in my computer). I am using the creative wizard display director to set the AGP between 2x and 1x. That's actually where the problem lies - I can't even use AGP 2x because my games all freeze.

However, there is another little thing that's been giving me trouble - and that is that I have some newer drivers that I have on my computer but I can't install them for some reason because I get a message saying that I need to get something from an NVidia disk (which I don't have so I get stuck). Perhaps I will try this in a few so I can put the message on here.

[ASL Veteran]

Okay, when I go to update drivers I get the message that some better drivers are detected. It then starts the upgrade process and goes to C:\Windows\INF\3DBGFW9X.INF and up pops the message "Please insert the disk labeled 'Creative (NVidia 3D chip series) Win 9x Driver and click OK" I only have two disks that came with the Annihilator 2 - the installation disk and Game Launcher disk. If I try to skip past this I get the message "The file '3dbgfw9x.inf on Creative [NVidia 3D chip series) Win 9x Driver cannot be found" and my attempt to upgrade the drivers ends in failure.

[Schrullenhaft]

Because you have drivers installed from Creative and their .INF files probably remain on your hard drive, when you go to reinstall some new drivers it defaults to those (because it re-reads the .INF files to find compatible drivers for your hardware). Since the Creative .INF files can uniquely identify the card compared to the NVidia Reference drivers, Windows recommends the Creative ones. Your best bet is uninstall your Creative drivers (hopefully it will actually remove the .INFs and all the other files). You'll lose the unique control panels and applets (such as the AGP Wizard), but you'll be able to run with the updated drivers.

I'd probably be unable to quantify the advantages of the newer drivers compared to the latest Creative ones (based on 6.34). There may be some newer, better or faster implemantations of FSAA, better performance (often sacrificing visual quality though) and fixes for compatibility issues (though coming from the version of the drivers you currently have there won't be any that affect CM to my knowledge).

You can download the latest BIOS that Creative has for your card (basically a GeForce2 GTS) here. More than likely however it is the same version that your already have (2.15.03.01.07). There are some newer Reference BIOS's you can check out on this site (for the GeForce2 GTS), but I'm not sure what stability or features these newer BIOS's will offer over the Creative version (which is still mostly a Reference design). If you do decide to experiment I'd highly suggest downloading the Creative BIOS (plus you'll need the BIOS programming app on this site). You'll also need to know what video encoder chip is on your Creative (Brooktree, Chrontel or Philips - I'm not sure what Creative used).

You can get the latest Reference BIOS's for the GeForce 2 GTS here.

[ March 03, 2002, 08:33 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[ASL Veteran]

What do you do with the BIOS things after you've downloaded them? They don't seem to have an install button. Just a file.

[Schrullenhaft]

You may not want to upgrade your video BIOS if you're not sure of what you're doing. There is a video BIOS programming appication on the website that you have to download and use it to flash your video card's BIOS with the file you've downloaded. If you decide to do this, then you'll want to read the flashing instructions very carefully otherwise you could end up with a 'dead' card (at least a corrupt video BIOS, which would make it unusable without additional work).

The BIOS updates for the video cards may do next to nothing for you. There are much newer versions than what Creative put on their cards, but I think any of the performance related settings in the video BIOS are mostly geared towards addressing compatibility problems with certian chipsets (old AMD's, etc.). Manufacturers will often change these particular settings for their video card's default and add their name to the BIOS (sometimes it's best to stick with the manufacturer's provided BIOS unless you know what the differences may be between the Reference BIOS and what the manufacturer has changed - there may be hardware reasons why a manufacturer has gone with certian settings).

Remember, you'll have to identify the video encoder chip on your Creative card if you decide to upgrade the BIOS. Each of the BIOS's is slightly different and you need the correct version to keep your NTSC video (TV) out capability.

[murph2]

Just a quick note. The .inf file you quoted your computer as using to install drivers is the same one you say it later says is missing.

This kind of thing can be quite common and can be caused by the .inf file being written a certain way (e.g. to look in certain locations for files or because of a slight mistake).

If you get the message that X file can't be found at this location you can either look in the disk/folder you got the driver from, your windows/system.. folders or run find and search for it. Once you have found it you can then browse to the location when the popup tells you it can't find it and offers the browse dialog (sometimes you have to let it try a couple of times before it offers this).

The above goes when your installing new drivers as well and you can often get by without using the windows CD for example, if you don't have it to hand, when it asks for it using this method. In fact I had to use this method when installing the vga drivers that came with a friends Nvidia based motherboard the other day because the supplied install exe (install shield) wouldn't work properly and the .inf decided that the windows CD was where some of the nvidia drivers should have been.

As for your AGP always going back to 2X can't you just go into your motherboard BIOS, by pressing Delete during booting perhaps, and set it to 1X there? When set from there it shouldn't be able to reset itself to 2X. Unless of course this has been mentioned to you already and I haven't noticed it or the card won't work unless it gets to boot at 2X.