Vista-stable med-hi AGP cards by Nvidia (not ATI :evil: )

I have a one-year old machine I made, with a GigaByte GA-K8NS-939 mobo that uses an Nforce 3 chipset and has AGP.

I have been running a circa 2.5-year-old Nvidia graphics card on it (I think the 5700LE or something like that). I have had Vista on the machine for about 3 months now (I had no idea the video cards would be so unstable this long...). Since the machine has been flaky, rebotting multiple times a day and the graphics sometimes freezing, I decided the first thing to try to fix was get a new graphics card. One known to be stable with Vista.

OK, I got recommendations that the ATI Radeon X1950Pro is the best bet here, and I got one. However, it will not install properly. The drivers just never get discovered and running with Vista so you are stuck in the defauls low-res safe video mode.

I did find that others have had the problem I have had at this site: http://itsvista.com/tags/Error, under code 43 (which my vista Device Manager compalined about for the video card). The info is below.

AGP should be AGP should be AGP, no matter who makes it. But it seems that some newer ATI AGP cards will not work with NVidia NForce3 chipsets. I looked both at my mobo and Nvidia for updates, and they were both 2005. So I am SOL here, will have to return the card and get another one.

So any recommendations for a medium-high (for AGP) card would be great. It would presumably have to be NVidia to be the safest. In case it matters, this runs on a machine with an AMD 64 x2 3800 (2.0 GHZ) and 3GB RAM, and is used a lot for TV recording (2 at a time) and it has a 37" 1080p LCD monitor.

Below is the pertinent info from the URL I gave above (it seems pretty final: nothing I can do about it). I am really, really disgusted about this whole situation. THis kind of incompatiblity should not have happened in 2004 with XP, let alone 2007 withVista. I gave up on NVidia a few months ago when I learned that they would not provide any drivers past Oct06 (Vista beta) for Vista. So nowI tried to go to ATI, but this dumb incompatibility (that seems irreconcilable) bites me. Arrrgh!

Thanks for any recommendations here.

CrimsonApostle

24498
June 2nd, 2007 · No Comments · 10 Views
The information in this article applies to the following configuration(s):

Windows Vista 32 or 64 bit
Catalyst Display Driver 7.1 for Vista
Radeon® X1950 AGP series
Radeon® X1600 AGP series
Radeon® X1300 AGP series
Radeon® X850 series
Radeon® X800 series
Radeon® X700 series
Radeon® X600 series
Radeon® X550 series
Radeon® X300 series
Radeon® 9800 series
Radeon® 9700 series
Radeon® 9650/9600 series
Radeon® 9550/9500 series
Symptoms
Attempting to install the graphics driver on a system containing an NVidia NF3 chipset and an ATI AGP graphics adapter may result in the driver failing to install and the 3D engine not activating.

In Windows Vista 32bit or 64bit versions, the Device Manager will show a (!) mark and the AGP card will operate in PCI mode only. When the properties of the device are shown, the error code will show as code 43.

This issue has been seen with other AGP chipsets such as VIA and SiS but has since been resolved by chipset driver updates from these manufacturers.

AMD's AGP adapters require correctly functioning AGP support from the operating system in order to run the WDDM driver under Vista. This WDDM driver has no way of working around the absence of AGP support.

The problem is not Vista (or even the card itself), but poor driver/chipset compatibility. Also, a PCIe crossgrade will more likely than not require new RAM and a new PSU, in addition to a new motherboard and new graphics card. Going to PCIe from AGP is not like going from PCI to AGP was; what *sounds* simple often isn't.

I've seen this before and the issue isn't with Vista or ATI, this is an nVidia chipset compatibility issue. In order to have the x1950Pro work and have the necessary WDDM driver support, nVidia needs to release a nForce3 chipset update that will make nForce3 based mobos and the x1950Pro compatible with Vista.

Given that the nForce3 is a "legacy" product, the chances of nVidia releasing chipset updates to increase compatibility are slim to none; especially since all the nForce3 drivers (Vista32, Vista64, XP32, XP64, etc...) available on the nVidia download site are dated July or November 2005.

This is how they get you and force updgrade. If you really want DX10 functionality without issues, then it is time to upgrade to a more recent platform. Or, you can always switch back to XP...

ATI:evil:...hahahahaha, that's just funny.

I would say there are no guarantees from nVidia for support of legacy products, at least that has been their past practice. If the nForce3 Vista drivers from the nVidia site were dated late 2006 or 2007, then there would be some confidence that newer AGP cards could work without issue. While it stands to reason that an nForce3 and 7600GT would have little/no issues because they are both made by nVidia, given the driver release dates that is still no guarantee.

You should easily be able to get fair a price for the x1950Pro off eBay. Depending on your usage, the 7600GT is a nice choice, but in the long run you may want to consider getting a new mobo, proc, memory, and GPU. As As I'm sure you've read thru these forums, between the 29xx and 89xx gpu's from ATI and nVidia, respectively, as well as Barcelona and Penryn and along with the subsequent price drops it is going to become an enthusiasts buyers market in the next 6-9 months. Sounds like a good time to upgrade if you can.

Good luck!

Evil ATi? It's the asses at Nvidia that refuse to release drivers for nforce 3 chipsets! Did you say that to pander to all the Nshittia fanboys here?

why do you not like the 7800, I have the bfg and have had great luck with xp and vista not one problem, currently oc'ed 100 mhz gpu and vram 150mhz.