VIA 4-in-1 drivers... Arg!

[dgp9999]

I seem to post here a lot... Anyway

Oh dear! I turn on my computer today and it screws up. Details:
The BIOS loads fine, then after the second 'Starting Windows 98' screen, the DOS looks corrupted, like another DOS has gone over it, 2 layers but 1 shifted a bit. I can hear Windows loading  (startup WAV) but it stays at DOS with a blinky line. This has happenned before when I installed the 4-in-1s, it works the first time, then screws up the second time.
So, I went into DOS, 'scanreg /restore' restored yesterdays backup before 4-in-1s were installed. Works, but AGP is now disabled again.

Could a fellow VIA user help me? I've looked at the user documentation and it seems fine.

MSI K7T266 motherboard if it helps.

-Dan

[Alhexx]

I've got an Elitegroup K7VZA ... also using Via 4-in-1 drivers - I had some problems with my components, too. Then I've installed a BIOS Update and everythig  worked fine ... but I'm not sure if that is what you need ...

(BTW: Whoa my first post in the tech forum for weeks ...)

 - Alhexx

[dgp9999]

I just installed the AGP VxD on it's own, and it's been going fine so far, damnit, I should have waited till my birthday for an Intel setup. Sure, I like AMD, AMD's MIPS and MFLOPS way out rank Intel's but this is annoying.

BTW: Is it worth me upgrading to a GeForce Ti500 from my GeForce2 Pro? If I had the dough, of course. Guru3D's review of Ti500 said that the Ti200 was $199. Over here it's £300! i should import. I paid £180 for my GeForce2 in early September. Disgraceful.

[Sephiroth 3D]

IIRC, the review I read (I'm pretty sure it wasn't on Guru3D) said that the GF3 Ti500 kicked the a$$ of every other NVidia card on the market, and was (at the time) currently available for about $330.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm gonna get one. My CreativeLabs Annilator 2 has been sucking majorly lately. But I'll probably get an 8-channel capible soundcard first.

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
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[dgp9999]

Seph 3D: What's the difference between Creative Labs' GeForce 2 and Annilator 2?

[Sephiroth 3D]

The Diff between the GF2 and the CL A2 isn't much AFAIK. The CL A2 is a tad bit more powerful than the GF2 card it was based on, but lately (and I don't know if this is cause of the referance drivers I'm using (the 12.41 W2k version), but it probably is) but sometimes when I boot into an intensive DirectX or OpenGL game like Star Trek Armada, Armada II, Empire Earth, and sometimes Counter-Strike, the card tends to stop sending signals to my monitor, forcing me to reboot my system. It's a pain in the ass.

Nice part: Supports full-frame 4x AA, Bumpmapping (I'm waiting for this to be supported by Half-life & therfore CS ) all the good stuff.

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
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[dgp9999]

Cool, I didn't know that, I thought the difference was Europe and the US. Annilator being US respectively. A quick question about Unreal engine games. Detail Textures, what actually is this, I've noticed big quality enhacements in Deus Ex when I turn this on, but it's a rather intense slow down. Is this a form of Bump-mapping? It looks familiar.

-Dan

[J*** H*******]

Message.

[Sephiroth 3D]

As I've said, I'm looking forward to the GF3 Ti500. That sucka kicks the ass of everything right now... (Keywords: Right now.)

Edit: Ok, I've dug out my box, so I can give you some more info on my card.

1) My Annihilator 2 is based on the GeForce 2 GTS card, and boasts being the first gigatexel card in the world.
2) It has 32megs of DDR ram, "providing 5.3 GB/sec of dedicated graphics bandwidth".
3) It has "the new NSR", allowing it to "perform per-pixel shading and complex pixel operations in a single pass".
3) It also has "per-pixel bump mapping, hardware anti-aliasing and cube enviroment mapping".
4) It includes support for MPEG1 & 2 Playback.
5) AGP 4x with Fast Write support.
6) 256-bit graphics architecture.
7) "the entire 3D pipeline onboard" lets you "process up to 25 million triangles per second".
Max screen rez of 2048x1536x32-bit @ 60hz.

Those are just the highlights from the back of the box.

So why get a new card if this one kicks so much ass? Cause the GF3 Ti500 is a LOT faster, it can do a TON more, and cause my current card is giving me problems. That's why.

Edit2: Here's the GF3 Ti500's Specs:

GeForce3 Ti 500 Video Card Specifications:
Graphic Engine: 256 bit
Core Clock Speed: 240MHz
Memory Chip Speed: 3.5ns
Memory Capacity: 64MB
Memory Interface: 64MB DDR RAM/128-bit wide
Memory Clock Speed: 500MHz (DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 8.0GB/sec.
Fill Rate (Pixels/sec.) 960M pixels/sec; 1920M texels/sec.
Fill Rate (Peak-AA pixels) 3.84 billion AA pixels/sec
Triangles/sec. (Peak) 40M Triangles
Max. S-Video Out Resolution: 640x480
Max. Resolution: 2048x1536 @ 32-bit color @60Hz
Universal nVidia Driver: Yes
Driver Cert. (WHQL): Yes
Warranty: Lifetime Replacement

See the Diff?

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
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[edited] 135 2002-01-25 23:49

[ficedula]

I see the difference ... but I don't see why you need one.

I'm probably fighting a losing battle here, but the *only* purpose of the GF3 is faster games. Pure and simple. And I'm not willing to spend that amount of money just to play Q3 faster...

On a related note, don't know about your needs, but it really, really annoys me when I see PC stores selling 1.4GHz machines as family computers. ExCUSE me? Since when did *anything* need that? For IE, mail, word processing, DVD playback, CD writing ... a 600MHz machine would be *over*specified. The GF3 is like that, only even more so, since you don't even see a benefit in your general work.

[J*** H*******]

Message.

[Sephiroth 3D]

Hey! I have one of those "famous 300A" chips! Got it overclocked to 450mhz, and it's been stable as hell, considering it's been that way for about 2-3 years now.

I also understand the need to be cheap, and $330 is nothing to laugh at... However, that's what Ebay is for. I found a GF3 Ti500 for about $130 (right now). That's not bad at all. (I also found a few AMD & P4 systems prebuilt for $1 (starting bidding price, NR) + $60 S&H. Not too bad!)

ficedula:
The GF3 is like that, only even more so, since you don't even see a benefit in your general work.

Make that YOUR general work. I work in 3D, and I need those faster display times. Hell, we have "supercomputers" that are sluggish while displaying some of our 3D work. (Supercomputers = AMD & P4 1.2Ghz - 1.7Ghz w/ 256-512megs of SD & DDR RAM. All have (roughly) the same video card.)

Plus I hate the fact that my card likes to comp out on me. So unless you hear offical info about GF4's in the next month or two, I'm gonna be watching that thing like a hawk, and when I can get it... I'll strike!

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
[email protected]

[J*** H*******]

Message.

[Sukaeto]

Damn . . . when I bought my Asus V7700 Geforce 2 GTS about a year and a half ago, I remember hearing that it would be years before a game would come out that could use all of that card's features and push it to it's limits . . .

I believed that to be true (I'd give it 2 years or so, considering PC games have to be playable on an array of hardware and can't be optimized to push any one configuration to its limits) then, and I still believe it now.  A Geforce 2 is probably over kill for any game on the market today, let alone a Geforce 3 . . . and they're already planning the Geforce 4 . . . wow.

[Sephiroth 3D]

Actually, yeah, it does help. Being able to display more polygons per second can greatly increase your display time. This is VERY helpful when modeling or animating a scene.

As for the GF4, keep in mind that they haven't released anything offical yet, so those capacitors may not be on the final version. On the other had, they may need those capacitors for some of the powe that thing can handle...

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
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[edited] 135 2002-01-26 05:01

[ficedula]

Yes ... but the extra power of GF3 still won't be noticable. Not over an GF2 anyway. Consider the amount of polygons in an average game ... and remember people with GF3 want to run those games at >100FPS.

If you want to buy a GF3, fair enough, but don't kid yourself you'll be improving your general work efficiency by enough to make it worthwhile. I wasn't aware you needed more than 25FPS in the preview on a 3d designer...you may speed up the preview, almost certainly, but will it really be by much? And will it actually make you work faster, other than being able to say "Look, it's less laggy".

[Sephiroth 3D]

Believe me Fice... it REALLY makes a difference.

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
[email protected]

[ficedula]

How much of a difference?

[dgp9999]

Really, no game demands a GeForce3.

-Dan

[atzn]

On 2002-01-26 17:30, dgp9999 wrote:
Really, no game demands a GeForce3.

-Dan

Well, you should take a look at this link:
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/games/ghostrecon/page5.asp

Look at the Pros graphics. And look at the con.
 

But I do agree with fice though........... seph3d,  there's no point changing your GF2 to GF3..... there won't be a HUGE difference.... I've seen before the Ti500 scores..... not too impressive IMO. Wait for a better one... maybe something like GF4.... unless you have money to burn