Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (
More info?)
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
<news:nospam-2604050614150001@192.168.1.178>:
> In article <5dXae.2798$Yc.1663@trnddc06>, "Alan 'A.J.' Franzman"
> <a.j.franzman@dev.null.invalid> wrote:
>
>> I'm in the process of copying my Windows 98 SE installation from an old
>> computer to a somewhat newer model, and I find that GLquake (I) looks
>> better (fog actually works right) but has a slightly lower framerate, but
>> Shadows of the Empire does not work properly. Starting the game, the
>> overlayed yellow text "crawl to infinity" does not appear over the star
>> background. Entering the first level, the only things visible are the
>> background sky and snow textures on flat surfaces, plus the overlays when
>> in first-person view. No friendly, enemy, laser, terrain contour, or
>> other 3D models appear. Running the Shadows.exe file directly to access
>> the FPS test sequence gives a solid bluish-white screen, though the music
>> and blaster sounds can be heard and the test terminates normally, giving a
>> somewhat reasonable 37.2 FPS or so. I have tried both the original and
>> patch 1.1 SOTE executable files with the same results.
>>
>> Computers:
>> original-
>> 1996 vintage Packard Bell PB680 (=Intel Orlando/Tampa) mb w/ MR BIOS,
>> PowerLeap adapter, AMD K6-III 400 MHz CPU, Voodoo3 3000, DirectX 9.0c (also
>> worked properly under 7, 8.0a, and 9.0a), 128MB RAM
>>
>> "new"-
>> ASUS A7V400-MX mb, Phoenix BIOS 1009, AMD Sempron 2800+ 2.0 GHz CPU,
>> onboard VIA/S3 KM400a UniChrome graphics (drivers 4.14.10.39 and
>> 4.14.10.45 tried), DirectX 9.0c, 512MB RAM
>>
>> I can't figure out if this problem is in the game software, drivers,
>> hardware, mb BIOS settings or what. I'm on the edge of trying the Voodoo3
>> in the new system, but swapping it over will be a bit of a PITA and I
>> don't see how it can possibly be any better than the ASUS onbard video -
>> isn't the Voodoo several years older?
>>
>> Please help.
>>
>> TIA
>
<snip>
> Built-in graphics, like the Unichrome, are not usually leading
> edge designs. Due to the power constraints, the Northbridge
> only has room for a few watts worth of digital circuitry, which
> will not be able to compete with 70 watt high end video cards.
>
> One problem with the built-in graphics, is you sometimes cannot
> get any concrete info as to exactly what level of hardware
> support is in there. I would expect a built-in to have T&L
> and maybe hardware support for DirectX 7 - and that is likely
> enough for your game.
>
> One issue with games, is the graphics API used. Games can use
> Glide (3DFX proprietary), D3D (Microsoft), or OpenGL. You will
> find occasional skunkworks efforts, to make translation software,
> like MESA offered to give OpenGL abilities, and I think there
> might also be the odd Glide project around somewhere (openGlide?
> - search on sourceforge.net).
The only info I can get from the box is that it requires DirectX 5 (included
on game CD), so it does not appear to be a Glide or OpenGL game.
> If your game was using Glide on the Voodoo3, Glide will not exist
> on your KM400. Only one of the shunkworks projects can add missing
> APIs.
>
> In the little reading I've done on the subject, it seems D3D is
> supposed to emulate missing functionality, while OpenGL drivers
> declare what functions exist, and then a game can use an alternate
> rendering method if something is missing.
>
> In terms of drivers, I see 98&me5-10-146-0.zip and 4IN1.zip :
>
>
http://au.asus.com/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=A7V400-MX&Type=All
If you go into that .zip file and view the file kmviaga.inf, you'll find that
the actual graphics chipset driver version included in the file is 4.14.10.39;
the same one that came with my mobo. 5.10.146.0 is the version of the
installer package. Confusing, isn't it?
> This page explains what you get in the Via chipset drivers 4IN1:
>
http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/4in1/HyperionDriverInstallationGuide2005.htm
>
> When you moved the disk from the old computer to the new, did you
> uninstall the old video card software, just before shutting down the
> old PC for the last time ? When moving disks from one machine to
> another, I like to have a scratch disk, so I can clone a backup
> copy, in case of emergencies. Then, if a transition step needs to be
> redone, I have something to work with. Removing the old video
> driver, will result in the new machine booting in some 640x480
> VGA mode, but as soon as your chipset drivers and video driver
> are added, the functionality should improve.
Actually, I cloned the old 30 GB drive to the new 80 GB drive (in the old
system). Not an exact clone of course, since the minimum cluster size is quite
different - 4k on the small one vs. 32k on the big one. Then I swapped the
drives in the old system and made sure the old system would boot and run
properly on the new drive. Then I "made my list and checked it twice" for what
needed to be uninstalled or disabled before moving the bigger drive to the new
mobo, and I remember the 3dfx stuff was a large part of that. I think I did it
right, had no problems during the "finding new hardware" stage of setting up
on the new system. Anyway I still have the list of what I did, could dig it up
if you think it would be helpful.
> One thing I'm not sure of, is how the built-in graphics hardware
> looks like to a game. For example, if you plug in a 3D graphics
> card into the AGP slot, the AGP bridge gets used on the Northbridge,
> and there is an AGP GART driver, where the GART translates AGP
> addresses from the video card, into addresses inside main memory.
> The built-in graphics may not go through the same translation
> steps, and since some games seem to know a little too much about
> the hardware underneath, this may prevent certain games from
> running properly, if at all.
SOTE is pre-AGP; the box says "3D Accelerated PCI Graphics card required".
I'm sure the game uses DirectX to access graphics functions so this shouldn't
matter anyway. (?)
> On one of my older computers, I do remember one game demo ending
> up with a lot of graphics distortions, after I upgraded DirectX
> versions, so I could run another game. And Microsoft doesn't
> officially spport downgrading to older versions, so a clean
> install is the only practical answer for that. So much for backward
> compatibility...
There is a program available online to uninstall it, called "DirectX Scrubber"
(or "...Cleaner" or something like that), and I've seen a website that has all
the redistributable DirectX installer executable versions, so going back to an
earlier version is not such a big problem after all, provided the OS can run
without it during the changeover. I believe Win98 is safe in that respect,
possibly WinME too (as the final evolution in that product line).
> This article discusses the state of integrated graphics. While the
> KM400 is not discussed here, it will have similar performance
> characteristics to other built-in graphics solutions. (I cannot
> find a spec for the KM400, that describes its feature set in
> any detail, so this is as close as I can get.)
>
>
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030903/index.html
>
> As for your Voodoo3 3000, in Google I see mention of both
> PCI slot and AGP slot versions of the card. Apparently, 3DFX
> didn't really use the AGP features that much, so the AGP slot
> was likely only offering a little extra bandwidth for commands
> and data. From a slot perspective, if your card is an AGP
> card, your AGP card will have a slot cut in the edge card,
> indicating operation at 3.3V only. The AGP slot in your
> motherboard has a key for 1.5V only (or universal card) operation.
> A 3.3V card should not plug in there, due to the key preventing
> it. If your Voodoo card is PCI, then there won't be any drama.
> (Don't forget to unplug the computer, before adding or removing
> any hardware - unplugging prevents damage via +5VSB.)
My Voodoo3 3K is PCI, the rare version with SGRAM which you probably didn't
find mentioned as even existing. I remember it usually took me a while to
find the right BIOS for it every time they updated...
> If gaming is important to you, you could get a low end
> AGP video card, starting at about $50-$60. There is a list
> here, that allows comparison of basic features. To do better
> than your built-in graphics, I would want a card with
> DirectX9 hardware support (something that might come in
> handy if you were to run Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn
> operating system).
I'm trying not to spend any more money, but I do like to play the half-dozen
or so older 3D games that I have now and then. If all else fails I will
definitely steal the Voodoo3 from the old system (and put back one of the
older cards that I have, either Savage4 or Voodoo Banshee) before buying a new
card.
> This page lists the characteristics of the cards. If the first
> link is dead, use the archived version. A card better than or
> equal to Radeon 9500 is an option, while in the Nvidia camp,
> an FX5200 or better would work. (I have a FX5200 in one of my
> computers, and it is not a high performance card, by any
> stretch of the imagination. I got it because it is fanless,
> so allows a quiet office PC to be constructed. I've tried
> a couple of old games and it wasn't too bad with those.)
> The DirectX9 cards differ in which version of programmable
> vertex and pixel shaders they use, and the supported version
> is shown at the bottom of this page.
>
>
http://www.benchmark.pl/artykuly/zestawienie_GPU_2/skala_wydajnosci.html
>
http://web.archive.org/web/20041012050302/http://www.benchmark.pl/artykuly/zestawienie_GPU_2/skala_wydajnosci.html
>
> This article will allow you to rate the actual performance of
> the cards:
>
>
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/index.html
>
> Maybe you could try running DXdiag from Start/Run ? Dxdiag is
> included with DirectX, and has some test buttons you can play
> with. Maybe Sisoft Sandra or Lavalys Everest utilities can
> tell you more about your hardware.
I've done the DXdiag bit already, it finds no problems and all tests work
perfectly.
> HTH,
> Paul
Not much help so far, but thanks for trying.
--
--------------------
Alan "A.J." Franzman
Email: a.j.franzman [ A T ] verizon [ D O T ] net
--------------------
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