Help me with tips about Nvidia 6200 PCI and ATI X800 XT PE work right in the same PC

[bozilla]

Well I have an ATI X800XT PE AGP video card and I just got an NVidia 6200OC PCI card so I can hook up the third monitor. I have an ATI card run a 24" dell and one 20" dell while NVidia is connected to the other 20" Dell through DVI.

Now, I managed to make both cards work but only after I changed in BIOS to make the system boot from PCI card first. This dramatically reduces performance of my main ATI card, but if I put AGP boot first, Windows won't work with the NVidia card properly. I get an error message like this:

"The display driver is written for an older version of Windows and won't work. Windows is default to VGA driver".

As I said when PCI is the first video device in BIOS everything works ok, but some things like games won't work right.

Do you guys have any tips on how to make these 2 video cards work right and to have my ATI AGP card be primary.

Thanks.

 

[dguy6789]

I have never done what you speak of before, but I know it is possible. Put your X800 in the AGP slot, and have the 6200 in the pci slot. Boot from the agp card. Extract your nvidia drivers into a folder. Goto the device manager(right click on my computer, click properties, then hardware, then device manager) and right click on the video card that is the 6200, and go to update driver. Click to install from a specific location, and tell it to look for drivers in the folder that you extracted the nvidia drivers to. This should properly install the drivers without installing any extra nvidia software.

This may work or it may not, but it is worth a try.

 

[Siwy]

Let us know if you resolved the issue and how. I also have ATI X850XT AGP and want to get PCI NVidia as a secondary card. I've tried PCI Radeon 9250 but 2d was slow as hell (choppy scrolling and resizing windows) so I returned it.

 

[bozilla]

Yeah Siwy, I have a Radeon 9250 in PCI here too but it just doesn't work right even with another ATI card in there. I've read through forums and ATI support and they say that problems with 2 ATI cards in the system are almost a certainty because the driver cannot handle two different cards at once and causes lockups, poor performance etc.

So I got the NVidia card and I get this crap. Aghhhhhh, I'm just thinking of getting the NVidia 7800GS in AGP and get it done.

 

[bozilla]

I think I found a solution. I'm successfully running the AGP card as primary now, no error in display properties and everything works cool.

Here's what happened.

I installed both Nvidia Forceware and Catalyst. After reboot I couldn't activate the NVidia card because the Forceware refused to load as a service.

I then launched the Catalyst and under SmartGart I disabled PCI Write and PCI Read.

Then I rebooted and the system now recognized Forceware first then launched ATI drivers after that. The primary AGP card was running really slow though after that. So I went back to Catalyst and re-enabled PCI Read and left PCI Write as off.

This actually solved the problem and now my cards run pretty fast. There's only one problem and maybe someone can help me out.

The NVidia card will refuse to launch the drivers if ATI Catalyst Drivers load first at startup. If there's a solution to create a dependencies between NVidia and ATI Drivers in terms of ATI Drivers loading after the NVidia Forceware, problem would be permanently solved.

Could anyone pitch in with ideas?

Thanks.


BTW, Drivers in question both latest drivers from NVIdia and ATI Catalyst 6.4 CCC version.

 

[bozilla]

bump

 

[Siwy]

So there is hope ~ ¬I will be getting 6200 PCI next week once my second 2405FPW arrives

I'm just thinking of getting the NVidia 7800GS in AGP and get it done.

I don?t think they make 7800GS or 7900GS with Dual DVIs.

This actually solved the problem and now my cards run pretty fast.

Define "pretty fast"? Does it feel slower than a single AGP card?

The NVidia card will refuse to launch the drivers if ATI Catalyst Drivers load first at startup. If there's a solution to create a dependencies between NVidia and ATI Drivers in terms of ATI Drivers loading after the NVidia Forceware, problem would be permanently solved.

You can control device driver load order in the registry. There is an article in Microsoft knowledge base: How To Control Device Driver Load Order

Thanks for the update, it?s greatly appreciated.

 

[bozilla]

Hey Siwy,

If you would be so kind and maybe post more clearly how I would define the order of services. I just can't figure out what they are saying there.

Btw, the cards seem to run in full speed. However, I just got sick and tired of screwing around and got a faster 7800GS SuperClock AGP to use with this 6200OC PCI. I just don't have time to screw around with this anymore and I wanted to buy a 30" Dell so I need a faster card anyways. I will be sellling this X800XT PE as soon as my 7800GS gets here tomorrow. And I will be upgrading to Woodcrest Xeons 3Ghz as soon as they come out so there goes AGP bye bye forever.

 

[Siwy]

Originally posted by: bozilla
Hey Siwy,

If you would be so kind and maybe post more clearly how I would define the order of services. I just can't figure out what they are saying there.

Btw, the cards seem to run in full speed. However, I just got sick and tired of screwing around and got a faster 7800GS SuperClock AGP to use with this 6200OC PCI. I just don't have time to screw around with this anymore and I wanted to buy a 30" Dell so I need a faster card anyways. I will be sellling this X800XT PE as soon as my 7800GS gets here tomorrow. And I will be upgrading to Woodcrest Xeons 3Ghz as soon as they come out so there goes AGP bye bye forever.

There are two ways of doing it but after taking a closer look at the article it seems that it will not work because the ?Start? tag for ATI driver located in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ati2mtag is 3 (at least on my machine at work) and it needs to be 0 or 1.

If it is 0 or 1 on your machine, let me know and I will walk you through the steps.

 

[Siwy]

Bozilla, do you know whether Nvidia driver can handle 2 cards at the same time? Won?t you run into the same problems as with 2 ATI cards?

 

[bozilla]

I don't think so..I think their drivers are actully optimized to support more then 1 card..even if it's AGP and PCI..They had SLI for a while now and they ironed out the drivers..ATI on the other hand did not, thus problems. Don't forget they also have X2 Quadros..so I'm pretty sure I won't have a problem with 2 Nvidias.

I'll let you know when I plug the 7800GS in the machine..I just got it today.

UPDATE:
I plugged the 7800GS instead of my X800XT PE and I gotta tell you I'm incredibly pleased. NO PROBLEMS AT ALL. Everything worked right away. I'm running super happily both 7800GS Superclocked and 6200OC in the same computer.

I will probably not go back to ATI anymore. I used ATI for almost 15 years now, all my graphics cards were ATI, but this definitely pushed me over to NVidia. Forceware is also much better then bloated Catalyst drivers.

Highly recommended.

BTW, 7800GS is one FINE card.

 

[bozilla]

bump

 

[Arkane13131]

is that 6200 any good in the pci slot? what kind of 3dmark05 does it get? My uncle has no AGP slot just PCI so im thinking about either buying him the 6200 or the fx5500 so he can play guild wars with me =P

any thoughts?

 

[bozilla]

6200OC seems like a VERY nice card. I had ATI 9250 in there and it was INCREDIBLY slow. 6200OC works great. Don't play games though, but read reviews on NewEgg or somewhere else. I think people are having solid framerates.

My card is BFG 6200OC 256 TurboCache DirectX 9.

 

[Siwy]

Good to hear you got it working.

I?m reluctant to go for 7800GS because it?s slower in most games than X850XT. Although I do not play games much anymore, it would feel like a downgrade

I will wait and see how 2405 VGA looks besides 2405 DVI. If the difference is not significant I will leave it as is, otherwise I will just go for PCIe motherboard and video card.

 

[bozilla]

Siwy, 7800GS SuperClocked is not slower then X850XT? I get around 100 fps in CS:S at 1680x1050 with 4xAA 4xAF all high. I got 60-70fps framerates on my X800XT PE at 1280 resolution.

Trust me it's actually faster.

I do agree that a lack of second DVI is a big drawback but the picture on my other monitor that goes through analog is pretty good. Honestly, with ATI I totally didn't notice a difference between analog and DVI connected monitors. There was some slight difference in color, but unnoticable and picture and text on both monitors looked sharp.

Btw, here's a dude that tested 7800GS against X850XT on stock and overclocked speeds. I got the overclocked version from eVGA at 480/1350. It kills X850XT.

http://ckturbo128.proboards4.com/index....dware&action=display&thread=1138544120

 

[Siwy]

I was looking at AnandTech comparison between X850XT PE and 7800GS at default clock of 375MHz.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2686&p=3

You?re right though, the over clocked 7800GS is faster.