AGP card reported as being a PCI card??????

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npharrison

I have a Asrock K7S8X MOBO, and have been running an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
256mb card. It is an AGP card in the AGP slot. To cut a long story short I
found that it was being reported as being a pci card in the catalyst control
centre. I used smartgart, rebooted, pci. So I went into the bios, changed the
aperture setting from 64 to 256, and changed the setting from PCI to AGP.

Retested in Smartgart, back came the report, pci. So I removed the radeon
drivers, and downloaded omega drivers. PCI. So I uninstalled them, borrowed a
friend's nvidia fx5000 card (or something similar) AGP, put it into the AGP
slot, checked the bios, AGP. Checked the system info when everything had
loaded - PCI.

So the question is, with the PnP bios, why is the AGP card being recognised
as a PCI? How do I get Windows to recognise the AGP card as being AGP? Is it
a windows problem? Or could it be a mobo problem?

Owing to financial limitations I want to upgrade the graphics card, and was
going for a 512MB ati x1650 ddr2 agp. The extra ram would help, but I want my
AGP card to be an AGP card. So suggestions most welcome.

Thank you
 
npharrison said:
I have a Asrock K7S8X MOBO, and have been running an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
256mb card. It is an AGP card in the AGP slot. To cut a long story short I
found that it was being reported as being a pci card in the catalyst control
centre. I used smartgart, rebooted, pci. So I went into the bios, changed the
aperture setting from 64 to 256, and changed the setting from PCI to AGP.

Retested in Smartgart, back came the report, pci. So I removed the radeon
drivers, and downloaded omega drivers. PCI. So I uninstalled them, borrowed a
friend's nvidia fx5000 card (or something similar) AGP, put it into the AGP
slot, checked the bios, AGP. Checked the system info when everything had
loaded - PCI.

So the question is, with the PnP bios, why is the AGP card being recognised
as a PCI? How do I get Windows to recognise the AGP card as being AGP? Is it
a windows problem? Or could it be a mobo problem?

Owing to financial limitations I want to upgrade the graphics card, and was
going for a 512MB ati x1650 ddr2 agp. The extra ram would help, but I want my
AGP card to be an AGP card. So suggestions most welcome.

Thank you
Click to expand...


First off, if your video is working OK I would not worry about how Windows
specifies your card...
but since you are going to replace it...Why would you even care how it's
seen if you are going to remove it anyway.
 
The reason being is that I am playing Hellgatelondon, and the new section
called the Wild features mulitple mobs of demons, and the only way you can
survive is being part of a party, usually totalling 5 players. The result is
a very graphically intense environment, particularly when Marksmen start
using Electroshock guns. My fps slows right down then freezes.

I gather that AGP is better than PCI, so if the card is not using all of its
capabilities then it interferes with my gameplay and enjoyment. Getting a
512MB DDR2 card, would, I hope, improve things slightly, but how much better
if I could use the AGP setting? I've just downloaded a program called Fresh
Diagnose, and it tells me that I am using an AGP card, and it doesn't feature
in the PCI diagnostics. Yet when I click on the Nvidia control centre and
system info, it tells me it is PCI bus. That's why I want to know what's
going on.
 
npharrison said:
The reason being is that I am playing Hellgatelondon, and the new section
called the Wild features mulitple mobs of demons, and the only way you can
survive is being part of a party, usually totalling 5 players. The result is
a very graphically intense environment, particularly when Marksmen start
using Electroshock guns. My fps slows right down then freezes.

I gather that AGP is better than PCI, so if the card is not using all of its
capabilities then it interferes with my gameplay and enjoyment. Getting a
512MB DDR2 card, would, I hope, improve things slightly, but how much better
if I could use the AGP setting? I've just downloaded a program called Fresh
Diagnose, and it tells me that I am using an AGP card, and it doesn't feature
in the PCI diagnostics. Yet when I click on the Nvidia control centre and
system info, it tells me it is PCI bus. That's why I want to know what's
going on.
Click to expand...


All I can think of is it may be due to the way the drivers are written.
If you have the latest drivers for your card...I don't think you can do
anything more.

I won't be much good helping you set up a gaming machine though...
I have not gotten past the old win3.1 version of Tetris!



 
npharrison said:
The reason being is that I am playing Hellgatelondon, and the new section
called the Wild features mulitple mobs of demons, and the only way you can
survive is being part of a party, usually totalling 5 players. The result is
a very graphically intense environment, particularly when Marksmen start
using Electroshock guns. My fps slows right down then freezes.

I gather that AGP is better than PCI, so if the card is not using all of its
capabilities then it interferes with my gameplay and enjoyment. Getting a
512MB DDR2 card, would, I hope, improve things slightly, but how much better
if I could use the AGP setting? I've just downloaded a program called Fresh
Diagnose, and it tells me that I am using an AGP card, and it doesn't feature
in the PCI diagnostics. Yet when I click on the Nvidia control centre and
system info, it tells me it is PCI bus. That's why I want to know what's
going on.
Click to expand...

I can see an SIS AGP driver on this page ("SiS AGP driver ver:1.13").
Normally, you'd install the AGP driver first, and then install the
video card driver after that.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=K7S8X

After installing the AGP driver, take a look at Device Manager, and
see if there is some mention of AGP in the system devices. On my
Intel board for example, mine says "Processor to AGP Controller - 2579"
in the system devices.

The SIS driver package includes a program called AGPutil.exe . I don't
even know which OSes it is for. Using a hex editor, this is what I see
inside the program. (I won't run it, because it'll dump crap into
my registry.)

sisagpx.sys
System\CurrentControlSet\Services\sisagp
System\CurrentControlSet\Services\sisagp\parameters
Disable Enable
8X 2X 1X 4X

I had a similar experience with an old ALI chipset. What they do, is
provide a utility, that modifies some registry settings. In the case
of the ALI one though, only one of the registry settings did anything,
and the others were purely for show (to make you think they were flexible).

If the Device Manager shows an AGP entry, I'd fire up that AGPutil.exe
and see what it says. Alternately, you could use a registry editor, and
check to see what is currently stored in "sisagp".

The ATI SmartGART complicates matters, because it can override the
BIOS settings for the AGP slot. I don't know what will happen, if
the SIS driver chooses its settings, and the ATI software does the
SmartGART thing. I suspect, if ATI had a problem with the chipset,
they could always disable the AGP aspect if they wanted.

Plenty of possible outcomes...

Aren't graphics drivers fun ? :-)

Good luck,
Paul
 
By George, I think we've got it!

I downloaded as you suggested, ran the util, rebooted, but checked the bios
so it was running agp on auto setting. When everything was loaded checked the
nvidia system info setting, and it said it was agp bus, used fresh diagnose,
and it said the card was 8x AGP enabled.

So I can try this card on hellgate london later, see if it works, then order
my ati x1650 512mb and it should work :-)

Many thanks. Seems my bios is 2001, and this util was 2002 so there was a
problem with the agp recognition.
 
Find all this interesting, but rather benign.
Have an ATI 9200SE AGP card. I DO NOT have any ATI driver software
installed. Went with all that MS XP SP2 supplied as I'm not a gamer. Have
a circa 2003 motherboard, and using a 20.5" monitor.

All the drivers for the display card are ATI, the oldest one is 2002.
Newest 2004. Under AGP properties, pci.sys is one of the drivers for the
AGP bus on the motherboard. So, I'm guessing you're seeing something that's
really won't make any difference.

--
Dave

How about a tax to support any military conflict/police action over 3 months
old?

An actual war, we can do what's been done in the past.
 
To L'il Dave as well as BigJim, it had been at the back of my mind that agp
and pci were linked in some way. In all probability none of what I've been
doing has actually made much difference, as the game still crashed last night
and the pc needed rebooting 3 times.

However, it has increased my understanding a little, it is now all enabled
at 8x, and i'll be buying a 512mb card later of gddr3 so maybe it'll help a
little :-)

Thanks for all your help.
 
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