Run an AGP card in PCI compatibility mode??

[Optimummind]

Is there a way to run my PNY GF4-Ti 4200 AGP card in PCI compatibility mode? When I was looking through the manual that came with my card, I saw in the troubleshooting section that I could make the AGP card use system memory resources if I could run it under PCI compatibility mode.

Although it didn't say that doing so would improve the performance of the card, I would still like to try it since my card only has 64MB of DDR memory on it.

Thanks in advance

 

[Peter]

You got that the wrong way round - it's the AGP mode that allows borrowing system memory, PCI no can do.

 

[tcsenter]

IIRC, you might use a utility like Powerstrip to force AGP 0x mode, which is effectively rendering it a PCI card in an AGP slot. I don't know if there are registry mods to effectuate the same result, and I'm not even 100% sure that Powerstrip is capable of doing it. But as Peter alluded to, you'll be limited exclusively to local video memory.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Here's another way to run an AGP card in PCI mode

(and yes, that is a real product)

 

[BFG10K]

Although it didn't say that doing so would improve the performance of the card,

Because it won't - quite the opposite actually. You do not ever want to run AGP cards in PCI compatibility mode because your system will generate absolute slideshow performance. Usually if a card is running under PCI mode it means there's something wrong with the system's configuration.

If you're having problems, PCI compatibility mode is not the way to go about solving them.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

I would say that PCI mode is for troubleshooting, but not actual use. After running a 64MB PCI Radeon 7500LE card, and having an 32MB AGP G450 and an 16MB AGP TNT card utterly destroy it in terms of performance, I won't get any card over a TNT card for 3D performance capabilities in PCI. An AIW setup maybe, but the performance hit from the PCI bus and protocol sucks.