A few questions about AGP

[nFlare]

I have searched the net for awhile and have not been able to find answers to a few questions I have, so please bear with me. I would greatly appreciate any help at all anyone can give me. Thanks!

What I'm looking at getting is a Geforce2 ti 64 - heres the link:
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=geforce2ti64


1. My AGP slot can handle 1x and 2x, 66 and 133 MHz, respectfully. If I get this 4x AGP card, will it go down to 2x for me?

2. I have seen AGP 8x cards out there. Would these go down to 2x for me and work? Or is 8x just totally out of the question considered how old my motherboard and chipset is, it would go so slow it wouldn't even be worth it?

3. On my system spec sheet it says that my AGP connector data width is only 32 bits, but this card I'm looking at does 128-bit. Is this going to shoot the card down to 32-bit? Will I even be able to run a 128-bit video card?


My chipset is Intel 440BX AGPset, its AGP version 1.0, and my power supply is 3.3 volts. pentium3 700 with 512 MB. I would like to know if this new card will work at all, and if it does work is it going to just be brought down so low, that its not even worth the upgrade? Right now I have a Geforce 256 32 megs. Thanks!

 

[bedrocked]

8x is backwards compatible but you'll run into a huge bottleneck (not because of 8x) because ur motherboard and system just isn't up to par with something like a 9700Pro. before i got my 9700 pro i had a Geforce2ti 64mb and i thought it did a great job.

 

[nFlare]

So it is backwards compatible. Thanks. Others feel free to still contribute. So which Geforce 2 TI 64 would you guys say is better? A Visiontek Xtasy or a Leadtek?

 

[Guderian]

The AGP connector is always 32 bits wide no matter whether it is 1x, 2x, 4x or 8x. The multiplyer mainly reflects the transfer speed on the AGP, so your 4x APG card will work fine in a 2x slot, but of course you will be limited to 2x transfer speeds (2 x 66MHz x 4 byte = 328 MB/s)

The 128 bit width you refer to is internally on the graphics hard itself. It is a separate issue from the AGP port.

As you get a better and better graphics card, you will of course find that the bottleneck in your system will be more on the CPU side, so at some point you might consider an upgrade here too...

Hope that helped.

Best regards

 

[Boogak]

What's your current video card? While that GeForce2 Ti would work on your mobo (I had a GeForce2 Pro on my P3 800/Abit BX6 mobo for a year), your cpu is getting a bit long in the tooth. Plus for about $10 to $20 more, you can get a ATI 8500LE would be a much better performer than the GeForce2 card you listed.

 

[Malladine]

Interesting. I'll be receiving a 9700 Gold tonight. My CPU is an 800mhz T-bird and I have 640mb of PC133 ram. The mobo supports the card so i'll be able to find out just how big (or narrow, hehe) the bottleneck actually is!

I agree on the 8500 btw. Won't suffer from too much of a bottleneck either (I'm estimating that an 8500 requires 1ghz+ to run optimally.)

 

[nFlare]

I have a Geforce 256, 32 megs right now.

 

[PrivatePickle]

440BBX is ancient get sometin newer and more powerful, even thought they get awesome FPS in benchmarks that because the benchmark rigs are a lot newer and fast than your old hunk of junk...

 

[JBT]

That video card is decent if u use he coupon code GEEKTI64 you can get 20 bucks offso for 39 bucks, pretty good deal but the card is OOS right now though.

 

[nFlare]

But if I decided to get a Radeon 8500LE 128, I would be doing a whole lot better than my Geforce 256 32. Sure it's not going to perform like its suppose to. But I should at leasy be able to play games like UT2003 with it. My current card I get about 15-20 FPS with everything on the lowest setting, hehe. That really sucks! With the 8500LE I could hope to get what about 40-45 FPS with everything on about the middle setting?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

What resolution did you have UT2003 running at with all the details down to get up to 20fps? Better hope it was at a decent res otherwise you'd might as well opt to save up for a CPU/mobo/ram upgrade as a new video card wont do much else but allow you to crank up the detail/resolution for free.

 

[nFlare]

It was running @ 800x600 16 bit. UT2003 is a big HOG. I can run Quake3 and UT at 1024x768 32 bit with everything at max detail and it runs very smoothly, these games don't have fps you can just turn on, so I don't know exactly how many frames per second, but it was fluid motion, and to achieve that you are at 30+ fps. I remember running the Quake3 demo thing once where it gives your fps and I believe it was like 45-50 fps.

 

[Clauzii]

To calculate AGP speed: 66Mhz x 4 (32bit) = 264MB/s x AGP (x2 x4 x8).

In other words:

AGP x2 = 528 MB/s
AGP x4 = 1056 MB/s
AGP x8 = 2112 MB/s

I don´t know how you got 328MB/s unless U R running some kind of OCed AGP x1

I don´t think AGP x8 is needed yet...

 

[Guderian]

Clauzii, quite correct. Just a typo on my part. I had the factors right, but entered the result incorrectly

Guderian

 

[nFlare]

Thanks for all your help guys. I understand what I need to do now

 

[policy11]

Originally posted by: nFlare
It was running @ 800x600 16 bit. UT2003 is a big HOG. I can run Quake3 and UT at 1024x768 32 bit with everything at max detail and it runs very smoothly, these games don't have fps you can just turn on, so I don't know exactly how many frames per second, but it was fluid motion, and to achieve that you are at 30+ fps. I remember running the Quake3 demo thing once where it gives your fps and I believe it was like 45-50 fps.

Type /cg_drawfps 1 in the console to display framerate for q3.

 

[nFlare]

Thanks policy11, I did not know that. Would you happen to know how to turn on the fps for original UT?

 

[BenSkywalker]

Bring down the console

timedemo 1

For Unreal games that just enables the framerate counter, it's not like Quake.