AGP "Fast Writes" Consensus w/ Radeons

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tony DiMarzio
  • Start date Start date
T

Tony DiMarzio

Hello everyone. I'd like to start a thread that serves as a compilation of
different people's experiences with "Fast Writes" with respect to
performance and stability on their Radeons.

Please respond to:

1. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
performance?

2. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
system stability?

3. and on which Radeon card with which motherboard?

Thanks!
 
Tony DiMarzio said:
Hello everyone. I'd like to start a thread that serves as a compilation of
different people's experiences with "Fast Writes" with respect to
performance and stability on their Radeons.

Please respond to:

1. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
performance?
Click to expand...

Enabled or disabled had NO measurable impact on performance.
2. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
system stability?
Click to expand...

Disabled positively impacted game stability. When it was enabled games would
sometimes crash to desktop without an error message even being reported.
3. and on which Radeon card with which motherboard?
Click to expand...

Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb 256bit
Asus A8V w/ Athlon FX53-939
 
1. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
performance?
Click to expand...

Negatively .. producing extremely washed out colors in Far Cry.
Simply turning it off fixed that problem.
2. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
system stability?
Click to expand...

Yes. I immediately noticed jerky screens in the OS.
3. and on which Radeon card with which motherboard?
Click to expand...

Gigabyte ATI 9600XT ... Gigabyte 7ZXE rev 9

johns
 
Tony DiMarzio said:
Hello everyone. I'd like to start a thread that serves as a compilation of
different people's experiences with "Fast Writes" with respect to
performance and stability on their Radeons.

Please respond to:

1. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
performance?
Click to expand...


This I don't know because I haven't tried both settings on either of my
machines.

2. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
system stability?
Click to expand...


I have two computers. Machine #1 has a 2.8GHz P4 Northwood C processor
with a Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro motherboard and a built-by-ATI Radeon 9800
Pro with 128MB. Fast writes are enabled on that system and I've had no
problems except for stuttering/lag in Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour
on larger skirmish maps.

My second system is an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ with a Gigabyte GA-7N400-L
motherboard with an Asus Radeon 9200SE 128MB. Fast Writes are disabled
and overall system stability is terrific.

Hmm, you've just given me a thought. I may have to re-visit Zero Hour
with Fast Writes disabled on my big computer and see what happens.
However, I'm not entirely sure the BIOS on the GA-8IPE1000 Pro allows you
to change the setting since I've never seen such a setting in there.

3. and on which Radeon card with which motherboard?
Click to expand...


Heh, I guess I answered questions 2 and 3 in my comments above!
 
Tony DiMarzio said:
Hello everyone. I'd like to start a thread that serves as a compilation of
different people's experiences with "Fast Writes" with respect to
performance and stability on their Radeons.

Please respond to:

1. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact

Neither

2. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
system stability?
Neither

3. and on which Radeon card with which motherboard?
Click to expand...

9800Pro. ASUS P4P8090
 
Tony DiMarzio said:
Hello everyone. I'd like to start a thread that serves as a compilation of
different people's experiences with "Fast Writes" with respect to
performance and stability on their Radeons.

Please respond to:

1. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
performance?
Click to expand...
No noticeable difference.
2. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
system stability?
Click to expand...
Enabled - while playing 3D games, monitor will occasionally appear to enter
suspend mode and won't wake up

Disabled - PC is totally solid

3. and on which Radeon card with which motherboard?
Click to expand...
ATI 9800AIW on Asus P4B533
 
Tony said:
Hello everyone. I'd like to start a thread that serves as a compilation of
different people's experiences with "Fast Writes" with respect to
performance and stability on their Radeons.

Please respond to:

1. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
performance?
Click to expand...

Don't know, not enough to notice without benchmarking.
2. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
system stability?
Click to expand...

HUGE gain in stability. As in, it would lock up and/or give a corrupted
display in 2D if I didn't get to it to set FWs off quick enough. Need to
re-check this now though, as a lot of general 3D lockup problems (not
FW-related) were fixed by updating the motherboard's chipset drivers.
Might have affected 2D with FW on.
3. and on which Radeon card with which motherboard?
Click to expand...

9800 Pro, and a manky old PC Chips M810L.
 
PC-(1)
Asus P4R800-VM 2.8GHz P4 (800Mhz FSB) 2Gb PC2700 Dual Channel
ATI 9800Pro 128mb - fastwrites on, no glitches or problems. Never had to
disable it.

PC-(2)
Asus P4P800-VM 3GHz P4 (800Mhz FSB) 2Gb PC2700 Dual Channel
ATI 9800Pro 128mb - fastwrites on, no glitches or problems. Never had to
disable it.

PC-(3)
CF 968L SFF 2.4GHz P4 (533Mhz FSB) 1Gb PC2700 Dual Channel
ATI (Visiontek) 9500Pro 128mb - fastwrites on, no glitches or problems.
Never had to disable it.

All currently with Cat 4.4's - XP Pro SP1
 
Hello everyone. I'd like to start a thread that serves as a compilation of
different people's experiences with "Fast Writes" with respect to
performance and stability on their Radeons.
Click to expand...
AthlonXP 2500+ @ 3200, K7N2-L MSI nForce2 Mobo, SB Audigy1
Please respond to:

1. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
performance?
Click to expand...
w/ 9800 Pro, 1 Gb Corsair Dual Channel XMS RAM fastwrites *on/off* no
difference
w/ 9600 Pro, 512 Mb Corsair Dual Channel XMS RAM fastwrites *on/off* no
difference

2. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
system stability?
Click to expand...
w/ 9800 Pro, 1 Gb Corsair XMS RAM fastwrites *on* caused stability
problems, with fastwrites *off* no problems since.
w/ 9600 Pro, 512 Mb Corsair XMS RAM fastwrites *on* fixed problems in a
couple games, didn't seem to cause problems anywhere.


I had fastwrites enabled for the entire time (except for a couple of
tests) I had my 9600 Pro, I turned fastwrites off two days after
installing the 9800 Pro and have left them off.
The only comparison tests I ever ran were 3DMark and the results were
within the 5% margin of error.
 
Hello everyone. I'd like to start a thread that serves as a compilation of
different people's experiences with "Fast Writes" with respect to
performance and stability on their Radeons.
Click to expand...
Please respond to:
Click to expand...
1. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
performance?
Click to expand...

Nothing either way after the 8500 series KT7-Raid & NF7-S v2.0
2. Did enabling/disabling AGP "Fast Writes" positively or negatively impact
system stability?
Ditto

3. and on which Radeon card with which motherboard?
Click to expand...

Some MOBO's can run with ' fastwrites ', many can not and introduce
instability.

Radeon cards do support fastwrites, but there is no ' speed gain ', so
cost / benefit analysis suggests that :

- cost = instability
- benefit = none, there is no gain, turn em off.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
BoroLad
 
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