GGGGRRRRRR been trying to get this card to work ALL day

[kirk316]

System:

Duron 800 (not overclocked)
Abit kt7A
Crucial PC133 CAS2 Ram
sblive
Fireball plus as 20.5gig
Fujitsu 6.5gig
Pioneer DVD 115 16x
Mitsumi CDRW 4x8x24

Just bought an ELSA Geforce 2 MX graphics card, and a simple job turned into a nightmare (sound familiar?).

I've installed the card but have some minor + major problems:

MAJOR

1) With the system at default speed and voltage, the stupid card refuses to work in 3D at AGP 4x with fast write support enabled.

Only when I reduce the settings to AGP 2x does the thing run games - WHY? I'm under the impression that this card supports AGP 4x and fast write. Please help!

2) I get some fantastic drivers with the card allowing overclocking and performance tweaking extreme - fantastic. Only these drivers install off the supplied CD with the card, and when I try and use updated detonator drivers off ELSAs official site, I lose all the fantastic tweaking software no matter which route I take when installing them.

I'm stuck with a choice - old drivers fantastic tweaking tools or new drivers no tools - GRRRR what are they playing at!!!! Please help!

MINOR

3) Should I have video ram/bios L2 cacheable enabled? It makes no difference to the above problem, but these are the only bios settings I'm not sure about setting (this is NOT shadow into RAM, but telling the computer to allow access to the CPU L2 cache for bios and video ram)

4) Currently I've got the AGP size at 64Mb. Tried it at 128Mb and no difference to the above problems. Should I leave it at 128Mb (half my system ram).

Anyone who can answer any questions please, please help. This is my first system build and I've learnt quite fast but lack veteran experience. The whole build went smooth up to now (apart from a few issues with the infamous 686b sblive! which the new via 4in1's fixed) but this stupid vid card is really getting to me.

PS I've tried installing with the live! Removed but that does not help.

Thankyou for your time. Anyone who can help me here is a star beyond belief, all comments are much appreciated.

 

[NicColt]

where's Trooper when you need him.

>AGP 2x does the thing run games - this card supports AGP 4x and fast write.

the diff between 2X and 4X is about %2 or %3 it's really not an issue. Also do you have DX8 installed.

>Currently I've got the AGP size at 64Mb. Tried it at 128Mb and no difference

the AGP size should be twice the memory so if you have 32 make it 64. Again the diff between 64 and 128 are not worth talking about.

but what is the problem. All this is so minor.

 

[nitrousninja]

download NVMax for all the tweaks and overclocking stuff. Sorry but I dont have a link for it. BTW do you have the latest VIA drivers and any other fixes for your mobo?

 

[kirk316]

The bios are new on the motherboard and card, and the latest drivers are being used.

I can get the card to run agp 2x with fast write, so I think I'll leave it at that. The performance difference between 2x and 4x is not noticable anyway, benchmarks are the same - the card doesn't even come close to maxing out the port at 2x. Just look at the prophet 4500 kyro II, it runs 2x.

Anyone out there running an Abit KT7A with geforce 2mx at 4x ?

My system is not overclocked and the fsb is at 133 while the pci/agp are at default values (4 divider).

Funny thing is I had the same problem with my last system - getting a matrox G200 to run 2x on a SS7 system was impossible. Had to settle for 1x in the end, even though Matrox claimed it should be at 2x with my board. Slapped the G200 in the KT7A and it ran 2x from the off. Guess some people have all the luck............

 

[BFG10K]

Only when I reduce the settings to AGP 2x does the thing run games - WHY? I'm under the impression that this card supports AGP 4x and fast write. Please help!

Most likely it's your motherboard. A lot of motherboards (especially non-Intel chipsets) have problems with AGP x4. Don't worry about it.

Should I have video ram/bios L2 cacheable enabled?

Disable all of those options. All that caching stuff is for very old video cards and doesn't really apply to the new cards. It won't hurt to have those options enabled but they'll eat away at your RAM.

Currently I've got the AGP size at 64Mb.

That's fine, leave it at 64 MB. Most people go *way* overboard with what size they use and just end up wasting RAM.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

As always the universal answer(geting tired of saying this) is get the latest via 4in1 drivers