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#1
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
I want to upgrade the video card in my old PC. I am doing this for two
reasons: (1) Need to use a wide screen LCD to set it at its native 1680x1050 resolution. (2) Need hardware assisted decoding MPEG-2 video. The catch is that my Dell Dimension XPS T450 PC has an old Intel 440BX mother board that can only handle AGP 2X (AGP speed is 66MHz or 133MHz) (I believe it has a 3.3 volt AGP slot based on the appearance of the existing AGP card). This seems to suggest that I can only use AGP card that is 1X/2X or 2X/4X, right? If this is true, I am in trouble because I don't seem to find any 2X/4X AGP cards that can support hardware assisted video decoding. For example, I can find ATI Radeon 9250 that can supports 2X/4X; but it doesn't have hardware assisted video decoding. On the other hand, ATI Radeon 9550 has hardware assisted video decoding; but it seems to come in a 4X/8X AGP card, not 2X. I would like to ask several questions regarding this issue: o Am I limited to 2X/4X AGP because the motherboard only supports 2X AGP and the APG slot is 3.3 volt? I am asking this despite the odd is against me. The reason is that somehow ATI "Product Advisor" suggests me a 9600-Pro (that is 4X/8X) to match up with my old Dell PC that is 2X AGP only. This makes me wondering may be I have mis- understood this. o If I must buy 2X/4X AGP card, can someone suggest a good 2X/4X AGP card that has hardware assisted video decoding? I really hope that I can put a 4X/8X AGP card like ATI Radeon 9600-XT in the old PC to make the old PC a bit alive. Thanks in advance for any info. Jay Chan |
#2
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
"Jay Chan" wrote in message ups.com... I want to upgrade the video card in my old PC. I am doing this for two reasons: (1) Need to use a wide screen LCD to set it at its native 1680x1050 resolution. (2) Need hardware assisted decoding MPEG-2 video. The catch is that my Dell Dimension XPS T450 PC has an old Intel 440BX mother board that can only handle AGP 2X (AGP speed is 66MHz or 133MHz) (I believe it has a 3.3 volt AGP slot based on the appearance of the existing AGP card). This seems to suggest that I can only use AGP card that is 1X/2X or 2X/4X, right? If this is true, I am in trouble because I don't seem to find any 2X/4X AGP cards that can support hardware assisted video decoding. For example, I can find ATI Radeon 9250 that can supports 2X/4X; but it doesn't have hardware assisted video decoding. On the other hand, ATI Radeon 9550 has hardware assisted video decoding; but it seems to come in a 4X/8X AGP card, not 2X. I would like to ask several questions regarding this issue: o Am I limited to 2X/4X AGP because the motherboard only supports 2X AGP and the APG slot is 3.3 volt? I am asking this despite the odd is against me. The reason is that somehow ATI "Product Advisor" suggests me a 9600-Pro (that is 4X/8X) to match up with my old Dell PC that is 2X AGP only. This makes me wondering may be I have mis- understood this. o If I must buy 2X/4X AGP card, can someone suggest a good 2X/4X AGP card that has hardware assisted video decoding? I really hope that I can put a 4X/8X AGP card like ATI Radeon 9600-XT in the old PC to make the old PC a bit alive. Thanks in advance for any info. Jay Chan As long as it runs on the 3.3v spec you would be fine. It would only run at 2x (maybe 4x if your MB supports it. Many 440bx boards did), but I don't think you would see much of any difference whatsoever. Ed |
#3
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
Jay Chan wrote:
I want to upgrade the video card in my old PC. I am doing this for two reasons: (1) Need to use a wide screen LCD to set it at its native 1680x1050 resolution. (2) Need hardware assisted decoding MPEG-2 video. The catch is that my Dell Dimension XPS T450 PC has an old Intel 440BX mother board that can only handle AGP 2X (AGP speed is 66MHz or 133MHz) (I believe it has a 3.3 volt AGP slot based on the appearance of the existing AGP card). This seems to suggest that I can only use AGP card that is 1X/2X or 2X/4X, right? If this is true, I am in trouble because I don't seem to find any 2X/4X AGP cards that can support hardware assisted video decoding. For example, I can find ATI Radeon 9250 that can supports 2X/4X; but it doesn't have hardware assisted video decoding. On the other hand, ATI Radeon 9550 has hardware assisted video decoding; but it seems to come in a 4X/8X AGP card, not 2X. I would like to ask several questions regarding this issue: o Am I limited to 2X/4X AGP because the motherboard only supports 2X AGP and the APG slot is 3.3 volt? I am asking this despite the odd is against me. The reason is that somehow ATI "Product Advisor" suggests me a 9600-Pro (that is 4X/8X) to match up with my old Dell PC that is 2X AGP only. This makes me wondering may be I have mis- understood this. o If I must buy 2X/4X AGP card, can someone suggest a good 2X/4X AGP card that has hardware assisted video decoding? I really hope that I can put a 4X/8X AGP card like ATI Radeon 9600-XT in the old PC to make the old PC a bit alive. Thanks in advance for any info. Jay Chan My test record on a P2B-S with 440BX: Geforce3 TI200: Works (my current card) FX5200 : Works (tried two different brands and booted Knoppix OK, didn't test any 3D functions.) ATI 9800Pro : Fails (video beep code - no apparent damage) It would seem, while the 9800Pro was classed as a Universal type card (mine has both a 1.5V key and 3.3V key), that something still prevents it from working (maybe it simply cannot run at 2X, and only has 4X and 8X modes?). You might well find a number of apparently Universal cards of recent vintage, that might respond like the 9800Pro. You'll just have to Google up the combinations, as you think of them. This page has some info as well, but it cannot account for situations where a motherboard's local regulator doesn't have enough power to run the VI/O. Some particular older motherboards had bad hardware implementations (a linear regulator for VI/O) and while this page might declare a working combo, the actual motherboard design and BIOS design can also play a part. http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html I suspect many of the recent vintage AGP cards, use bridge chips like ATI Rialto and Nvidia HSI. These seem to be 1.5V only, and the cards only have one key cut. So those cards won't even fit in the slot, in theory. As for hardware assist, there are various levels. For at least five years, video cards of all kinds have had IDCT (inverse discrete cosine transform). Apparently IDCT and motion compensation are things used for MPEG2. But I'm not really up on the details, and instead I'll show you some performance results. I don't know of a way to get a modern card, to work in a 3.3V only AGP slot, so the things listed here will be out of reach. (A PCI version of a card might work, but would be lousy for gaming.) http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...-theory_6.html Actually, I see some ATI X1300 PCI cards here (starting at $110). Maybe these would be good enough for video (but lousy for gaming). The playback may be accelerated, but the frame buffer would be filled over the PCI bus. Maybe this would give a working 640x480 video window, or be able to drive a TV set via S-Video. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Subcategory=48 On balance, maybe the FX5200 AGP is the best compromise. More load on the processor during playback, but better bus performance for other things. It is really hard to say. Paul |
#4
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
Ed Medlin wrote:
"Jay Chan" wrote in message ups.com... I want to upgrade the video card in my old PC. I am doing this for two reasons: (1) Need to use a wide screen LCD to set it at its native 1680x1050 resolution. (2) Need hardware assisted decoding MPEG-2 video. The catch is that my Dell Dimension XPS T450 PC has an old Intel 440BX mother board that can only handle AGP 2X (AGP speed is 66MHz or 133MHz) (I believe it has a 3.3 volt AGP slot based on the appearance of the existing AGP card). This seems to suggest that I can only use AGP card that is 1X/2X or 2X/4X, right? If this is true, I am in trouble because I don't seem to find any 2X/4X AGP cards that can support hardware assisted video decoding. For example, I can find ATI Radeon 9250 that can supports 2X/4X; but it doesn't have hardware assisted video decoding. On the other hand, ATI Radeon 9550 has hardware assisted video decoding; but it seems to come in a 4X/8X AGP card, not 2X. I would like to ask several questions regarding this issue: o Am I limited to 2X/4X AGP because the motherboard only supports 2X AGP and the APG slot is 3.3 volt? I am asking this despite the odd is against me. The reason is that somehow ATI "Product Advisor" suggests me a 9600-Pro (that is 4X/8X) to match up with my old Dell PC that is 2X AGP only. This makes me wondering may be I have mis- understood this. o If I must buy 2X/4X AGP card, can someone suggest a good 2X/4X AGP card that has hardware assisted video decoding? I really hope that I can put a 4X/8X AGP card like ATI Radeon 9600-XT in the old PC to make the old PC a bit alive. Thanks in advance for any info. Jay Chan As long as it runs on the 3.3v spec you would be fine. It would only run at 2x (maybe 4x if your MB supports it. Many 440bx boards did), but I don't think you would see much of any difference whatsoever. Ed Thanks for the comment about I won't see the difference even if the video card has AGP 4X capability because the motherboard doesn't support it and the video card ends up will running at 2X anyway. I will keep this in mind and adjust my expectation accordingly. Luckily, I am not looking for high 3D score anyway. Jay Chan |
#5
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
Paul wrote:
Jay Chan wrote: I want to upgrade the video card in my old PC. I am doing this for two reasons: (1) Need to use a wide screen LCD to set it at its native 1680x1050 resolution. (2) Need hardware assisted decoding MPEG-2 video. The catch is that my Dell Dimension XPS T450 PC has an old Intel 440BX mother board that can only handle AGP 2X (AGP speed is 66MHz or 133MHz) (I believe it has a 3.3 volt AGP slot based on the appearance of the existing AGP card). This seems to suggest that I can only use AGP card that is 1X/2X or 2X/4X, right? If this is true, I am in trouble because I don't seem to find any 2X/4X AGP cards that can support hardware assisted video decoding. For example, I can find ATI Radeon 9250 that can supports 2X/4X; but it doesn't have hardware assisted video decoding. On the other hand, ATI Radeon 9550 has hardware assisted video decoding; but it seems to come in a 4X/8X AGP card, not 2X. I would like to ask several questions regarding this issue: o Am I limited to 2X/4X AGP because the motherboard only supports 2X AGP and the APG slot is 3.3 volt? I am asking this despite the odd is against me. The reason is that somehow ATI "Product Advisor" suggests me a 9600-Pro (that is 4X/8X) to match up with my old Dell PC that is 2X AGP only. This makes me wondering may be I have mis- understood this. o If I must buy 2X/4X AGP card, can someone suggest a good 2X/4X AGP card that has hardware assisted video decoding? I really hope that I can put a 4X/8X AGP card like ATI Radeon 9600-XT in the old PC to make the old PC a bit alive. Thanks in advance for any info. Jay Chan My test record on a P2B-S with 440BX: Geforce3 TI200: Works (my current card) FX5200 : Works (tried two different brands and booted Knoppix OK, didn't test any 3D functions.) ATI 9800Pro : Fails (video beep code - no apparent damage) It would seem, while the 9800Pro was classed as a Universal type card (mine has both a 1.5V key and 3.3V key), that something still prevents it from working (maybe it simply cannot run at 2X, and only has 4X and 8X modes?). You might well find a number of apparently Universal cards of recent vintage, that might respond like the 9800Pro. You'll just have to Google up the combinations, as you think of them. This page has some info as well, but it cannot account for situations where a motherboard's local regulator doesn't have enough power to run the VI/O. Some particular older motherboards had bad hardware implementations (a linear regulator for VI/O) and while this page might declare a working combo, the actual motherboard design and BIOS design can also play a part. http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html I suspect many of the recent vintage AGP cards, use bridge chips like ATI Rialto and Nvidia HSI. These seem to be 1.5V only, and the cards only have one key cut. So those cards won't even fit in the slot, in theory. As for hardware assist, there are various levels. For at least five years, video cards of all kinds have had IDCT (inverse discrete cosine transform). Apparently IDCT and motion compensation are things used for MPEG2. But I'm not really up on the details, and instead I'll show you some performance results. I don't know of a way to get a modern card, to work in a 3.3V only AGP slot, so the things listed here will be out of reach. (A PCI version of a card might work, but would be lousy for gaming.) http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...-theory_6.html Actually, I see some ATI X1300 PCI cards here (starting at $110). Maybe these would be good enough for video (but lousy for gaming). The playback may be accelerated, but the frame buffer would be filled over the PCI bus. Maybe this would give a working 640x480 video window, or be able to drive a TV set via S-Video. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Subcategory=48 On balance, maybe the FX5200 AGP is the best compromise. More load on the processor during playback, but better bus performance for other things. It is really hard to say. Paul Thanks for the very useful info and the links that you have shared with me. I especially appreciate your link to the web page about AGP compatibility issue: http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html Based on the info in that web page, I can tell that my option is not as limited as what I thought. Despite the fact that the motherboard only support AGP 1X/2X at 3.3v, it still can use the following types of AGP video cards that are likely to be compatible with the motherboard: o AGP 3.3v card o Universal AGP card o Universal AGP 3.0 card (_not_ Universal 1.5v AGP 3.0 card) Based on the info in that web page, I can come up with the following shopping strategy: o I should use the list of compatible graphic chipsets mentioned in that web page to greatly narrow down my selection. (And I find that nVidia chipset has a clear edge here). o I should examine the picture of the video card to make sure the bus of the video card matches the compatible AGP types mentioned above. That's to avoid any "surprise". o Because the old motherboard "may" not provide enough power to a demanding video card, I should avoid this problem by only looking for a video card that doesn't have a fan or it has a fan that gets power directly from the power supply. And this is one more reason to carefully check the picture of the video card. o I should buy from a local store that has a good refund policy just in case the video card doesn't work with the motherboard. o The video card will be limited by the motherboard speed (that is AGP 2X) regardless if the video card can do better than that or not. Moreover, the PC will also be limited by the low speed CPU (Pentium III). Therefore, this doesn't make sense to buy a powerful but expensive video card. Based on this, I have found the following candidates: o ATI Radeon 9250: It is cheap, fast enough for old games, has MPEG2-decoder, support LCD, support Win98SE, widely available in internet and local stores, and it doesn't need a fan. Not exactly sure if it can support 1680x1050 resolution that is the native resolution of my 20" wide screen LCD. o nVidia GeForce4 Mx-serie: It is cheap, fast enough for old games, has MPEG2-decoder, support LCD, support Win98SE. The catch is that I don't seem to be able to find it, and it needs a fan and the fan gets power from the motherboard. Again, I am not sure if it can support 1680x1050 resolution. Sound like I will likely buy a ATI Radeon 9250 video card from a local store. One question though: I don't quite understand your comments on nVidia GeForce FX5200 being the best compromise: On balance, maybe the FX5200 AGP is the best compromise. More load on the processor during playback, but better bus performance for other things. It is really hard to say. Can you explain a bit more on this? Thanks again for the helpful information that you have shared with me. Jay Chan |
#6
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
Jay Chan schrieb:
.... o nVidia GeForce4 Mx-serie: It is cheap, fast enough for old games, has MPEG2-decoder, support LCD, support Win98SE. The catch is that I don't seem to be able to find it, and it needs a fan and the fan gets power from the motherboard. ... My nVidia GeForce4 MX440 64 MB AGP card by MSI does _not_ have a fan; it does not need a fan. (But it runs with Vista - though, of course, basic, no Aero.) You will find those old cards second-hand only. You may wish to check the compatibility of a GeForce 6200 128 MB AGP (e.g. by Asus) with your system - I have that card, too, and it works with Vista Aero. Roy |
#7
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
Gert Elstermann wrote:
Jay Chan schrieb: ... o nVidia GeForce4 Mx-serie: It is cheap, fast enough for old games, has MPEG2-decoder, support LCD, support Win98SE. The catch is that I don't seem to be able to find it, and it needs a fan and the fan gets power from the motherboard. ... My nVidia GeForce4 MX440 64 MB AGP card by MSI does _not_ have a fan; it does not need a fan. (But it runs with Vista - though, of course, basic, no Aero.) You will find those old cards second-hand only. You may wish to check the compatibility of a GeForce 6200 128 MB AGP (e.g. by Asus) with your system - I have that card, too, and it works with Vista Aero. Roy Glad to hear that nVidia GeForce4 Mx440 by MSI doesn't have a fan. This means I cannot totally rule out GeForce4. But I probably need to get it second-hand from eBay. This is where the problem is because I prefer to get it from a local store when I can return it if it doesn't work with my motherboard. According to the AGP Compatibility web page that I mentioned in my last message, all the nVidia GeForce 6XXX-serie chipset (including 6200) requires 1.5v AGP slot; therefore, they won't work with my motherboard because mine has a 3.3v AGP slot. Oh well... Thanks for the suggestion though, and I will keep my eyes opened for any GeForce4 in local stores to see if I can find one that doesn't need a fan. Jay Chan |
#8
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
Jay Chan wrote:
Thanks for the very useful info and the links that you have shared with me. I especially appreciate your link to the web page about AGP compatibility issue: http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html Based on the info in that web page, I can tell that my option is not as limited as what I thought. Despite the fact that the motherboard only support AGP 1X/2X at 3.3v, it still can use the following types of AGP video cards that are likely to be compatible with the motherboard: o AGP 3.3v card o Universal AGP card o Universal AGP 3.0 card (_not_ Universal 1.5v AGP 3.0 card) Based on the info in that web page, I can come up with the following shopping strategy: o I should use the list of compatible graphic chipsets mentioned in that web page to greatly narrow down my selection. (And I find that nVidia chipset has a clear edge here). o I should examine the picture of the video card to make sure the bus of the video card matches the compatible AGP types mentioned above. That's to avoid any "surprise". o Because the old motherboard "may" not provide enough power to a demanding video card, I should avoid this problem by only looking for a video card that doesn't have a fan or it has a fan that gets power directly from the power supply. And this is one more reason to carefully check the picture of the video card. o I should buy from a local store that has a good refund policy just in case the video card doesn't work with the motherboard. o The video card will be limited by the motherboard speed (that is AGP 2X) regardless if the video card can do better than that or not. Moreover, the PC will also be limited by the low speed CPU (Pentium III). Therefore, this doesn't make sense to buy a powerful but expensive video card. Based on this, I have found the following candidates: o ATI Radeon 9250: It is cheap, fast enough for old games, has MPEG2-decoder, support LCD, support Win98SE, widely available in internet and local stores, and it doesn't need a fan. Not exactly sure if it can support 1680x1050 resolution that is the native resolution of my 20" wide screen LCD. o nVidia GeForce4 Mx-serie: It is cheap, fast enough for old games, has MPEG2-decoder, support LCD, support Win98SE. The catch is that I don't seem to be able to find it, and it needs a fan and the fan gets power from the motherboard. Again, I am not sure if it can support 1680x1050 resolution. Sound like I will likely buy a ATI Radeon 9250 video card from a local store. One question though: I don't quite understand your comments on nVidia GeForce FX5200 being the best compromise: On balance, maybe the FX5200 AGP is the best compromise. More load on the processor during playback, but better bus performance for other things. It is really hard to say. Can you explain a bit more on this? The ATI X1300 would accelerate video playback. But my understanding is, a program playing video, makes calls to the card to aid in the playback operation, but the final write to the framebuffer comes from the processor or from system memory. Which means the frame buffer data travels over the system busses. Flooding the PCI bus with frame buffer data, will use a substantial portion of available bus bandwidth. If you were to do that over the PCI bus, you might be limited in your ability to play a full screen movie at a high resolution. That is my concern. If video acceleration was so complete, that you could send a low bandwidth, highly compressed stream directly to the video card, and it handled all the details, then there would be no issue with the 110MB/sec bus bandwidth. (Now, in reading suggestions for processor requirements, your processor will probably be at 100%, before you get to the point of saturating the PCI bus. Maybe 640x480 video is a reasonable expectation for a 440BX system.) In that respect, AGP would be less restricting, as there is more bandwidth available. AFAIK, the PCI bus on the 440BX, not only drives the PCI bus slots, but it is also used to connect the Northbridge to the Southbridge. And that means, disk accesses are using PCI bus bandwidth, as well as anything else sitting on the PCI bus. Thanks again for the helpful information that you have shared with me. Jay Chan This page seems to suggest the 9200 series will work. The AGP description is more inclusive than for my 9800 Pro. I guess my 9800 Pro, while it doesn't have the right modes, still seems to be voltage compatible (which is why it didn't burn). But it is a puzzle to me, why they bothered to cut a 3.3V slot in my 9800Pro, since no good seems to come of it. Go ahead and give the 9250 a try. And post back your results, so others will benefit. As I said, when all reference material fails, users have to rely on real life testing. http://ati.amd.com/products/radeon92...200/specs.html http://ati.amd.com/products/radeon98...pro/specs.html To set the resolution to 1680x1050, you may need the services of Powerstrip. I don't know if the ATI drivers have an interface in the Catalyst control panel yet, to set it up. Powerstrip is a third party shareware program from Entechtaiwan.com, and it works with both Nvidia and ATI cards. Nvidia cards do have a custom resolution box in the Nvidia control panel interface. ATI supports resolution changes, at least accessible via Powerstrip. So you should be OK there. What I don't know, is if ATI has made this convenient. ATI did have "forcing" functions in the interface, but what I don't know, is if a res like 1680x1050 will be offered in there. When the card first starts up, you'll be running non-native resolutions at first, until either the ATI forcing functions allow you to get what you want, or Powerstrip does. It might help to install the "monitor driver" for your monitor, so the monitor information in the display control panel doesn't show as "generic" any more. When I connect my monitor to a video card, the monitor shows as "generic", until the monitor driver is loaded. I had to go to the NecMitsubishi site, to get a driver for my monitor, and it was a tiny download. 1680x1050 should be do-able via VGA, and the info here suggests the 165MHz TMDS on the 9250, should support that res over DVI as well. There are some resolution examples for single-link DVI here (single link DVI is likely to be the interface on the 9250 - for truly huge LCD displays, some of them need dual-link DVI, which uses more pins on the DVI connector). I don't expect a problem at the VGA/DVI connector level, so this article is for future reference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvi Paul |
#9
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
Jay Chan wrote: I want to upgrade the video card in my old PC. I am doing this for two reasons: (1) Need to use a wide screen LCD to set it at its native 1680x1050 resolution. (2) Need hardware assisted decoding MPEG-2 video. The catch is that my Dell Dimension XPS T450 PC has an old Intel 440BX mother board that can only handle AGP 2X (AGP speed is 66MHz or 133MHz) (I believe it has a 3.3 volt AGP slot based on the appearance of the existing AGP card). This seems to suggest that I can only use AGP card that is 1X/2X or 2X/4X, right? If this is true, I am in trouble because I don't seem to find any 2X/4X AGP cards that can support hardware assisted video decoding. For example, I can find ATI Radeon 9250 that can supports 2X/4X; but it doesn't have hardware assisted video decoding. On the other hand, ATI Radeon 9550 has hardware assisted video decoding; but it seems to come in a 4X/8X AGP card, not 2X. I would like to ask several questions regarding this issue: o Am I limited to 2X/4X AGP because the motherboard only supports 2X AGP and the APG slot is 3.3 volt? I am asking this despite the odd is against me. The reason is that somehow ATI "Product Advisor" suggests me a 9600-Pro (that is 4X/8X) to match up with my old Dell PC that is 2X AGP only. This makes me wondering may be I have mis- understood this. o If I must buy 2X/4X AGP card, can someone suggest a good 2X/4X AGP card that has hardware assisted video decoding? I really hope that I can put a 4X/8X AGP card like ATI Radeon 9600-XT in the old PC to make the old PC a bit alive. Thanks in advance for any info. Jay Chan Jay-- try this page: http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/Video...htm#agpsupport |
#10
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Can Intel 440BX Motherboard Accept AGP 4X/8X Card?
Paul wrote:
Jay Chan wrote: Thanks for the very useful info and the links that you have shared with me. I especially appreciate your link to the web page about AGP compatibility issue: http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html Based on the info in that web page, I can tell that my option is not as limited as what I thought. Despite the fact that the motherboard only support AGP 1X/2X at 3.3v, it still can use the following types of AGP video cards that are likely to be compatible with the motherboard: o AGP 3.3v card o Universal AGP card o Universal AGP 3.0 card (_not_ Universal 1.5v AGP 3.0 card) Based on the info in that web page, I can come up with the following shopping strategy: o I should use the list of compatible graphic chipsets mentioned in that web page to greatly narrow down my selection. (And I find that nVidia chipset has a clear edge here). o I should examine the picture of the video card to make sure the bus of the video card matches the compatible AGP types mentioned above. That's to avoid any "surprise". o Because the old motherboard "may" not provide enough power to a demanding video card, I should avoid this problem by only looking for a video card that doesn't have a fan or it has a fan that gets power directly from the power supply. And this is one more reason to carefully check the picture of the video card. o I should buy from a local store that has a good refund policy just in case the video card doesn't work with the motherboard. o The video card will be limited by the motherboard speed (that is AGP 2X) regardless if the video card can do better than that or not. Moreover, the PC will also be limited by the low speed CPU (Pentium III). Therefore, this doesn't make sense to buy a powerful but expensive video card. Based on this, I have found the following candidates: o ATI Radeon 9250: It is cheap, fast enough for old games, has MPEG2-decoder, support LCD, support Win98SE, widely available in internet and local stores, and it doesn't need a fan. Not exactly sure if it can support 1680x1050 resolution that is the native resolution of my 20" wide screen LCD. o nVidia GeForce4 Mx-serie: It is cheap, fast enough for old games, has MPEG2-decoder, support LCD, support Win98SE. The catch is that I don't seem to be able to find it, and it needs a fan and the fan gets power from the motherboard. Again, I am not sure if it can support 1680x1050 resolution. Sound like I will likely buy a ATI Radeon 9250 video card from a local store. One question though: I don't quite understand your comments on nVidia GeForce FX5200 being the best compromise: On balance, maybe the FX5200 AGP is the best compromise. More load on the processor during playback, but better bus performance for other things. It is really hard to say. Can you explain a bit more on this? The ATI X1300 would accelerate video playback. But my understanding is, a program playing video, makes calls to the card to aid in the playback operation, but the final write to the framebuffer comes from the processor or from system memory. Which means the frame buffer data travels over the system busses. Flooding the PCI bus with frame buffer data, will use a substantial portion of available bus bandwidth. If you were to do that over the PCI bus, you might be limited in your ability to play a full screen movie at a high resolution. That is my concern. If video acceleration was so complete, that you could send a low bandwidth, highly compressed stream directly to the video card, and it handled all the details, then there would be no issue with the 110MB/sec bus bandwidth. (Now, in reading suggestions for processor requirements, your processor will probably be at 100%, before you get to the point of saturating the PCI bus. Maybe 640x480 video is a reasonable expectation for a 440BX system.) In that respect, AGP would be less restricting, as there is more bandwidth available. AFAIK, the PCI bus on the 440BX, not only drives the PCI bus slots, but it is also used to connect the Northbridge to the Southbridge. And that means, disk accesses are using PCI bus bandwidth, as well as anything else sitting on the PCI bus. Thanks again for the helpful information that you have shared with me. Jay Chan This page seems to suggest the 9200 series will work. The AGP description is more inclusive than for my 9800 Pro. I guess my 9800 Pro, while it doesn't have the right modes, still seems to be voltage compatible (which is why it didn't burn). But it is a puzzle to me, why they bothered to cut a 3.3V slot in my 9800Pro, since no good seems to come of it. Go ahead and give the 9250 a try. And post back your results, so others will benefit. As I said, when all reference material fails, users have to rely on real life testing. http://ati.amd.com/products/radeon92...200/specs.html http://ati.amd.com/products/radeon98...pro/specs.html To set the resolution to 1680x1050, you may need the services of Powerstrip. I don't know if the ATI drivers have an interface in the Catalyst control panel yet, to set it up. Powerstrip is a third party shareware program from Entechtaiwan.com, and it works with both Nvidia and ATI cards. Nvidia cards do have a custom resolution box in the Nvidia control panel interface. ATI supports resolution changes, at least accessible via Powerstrip. So you should be OK there. What I don't know, is if ATI has made this convenient. ATI did have "forcing" functions in the interface, but what I don't know, is if a res like 1680x1050 will be offered in there. When the card first starts up, you'll be running non-native resolutions at first, until either the ATI forcing functions allow you to get what you want, or Powerstrip does. It might help to install the "monitor driver" for your monitor, so the monitor information in the display control panel doesn't show as "generic" any more. When I connect my monitor to a video card, the monitor shows as "generic", until the monitor driver is loaded. I had to go to the NecMitsubishi site, to get a driver for my monitor, and it was a tiny download. 1680x1050 should be do-able via VGA, and the info here suggests the 165MHz TMDS on the 9250, should support that res over DVI as well. There are some resolution examples for single-link DVI here (single link DVI is likely to be the interface on the 9250 - for truly huge LCD displays, some of them need dual-link DVI, which uses more pins on the DVI connector). I don't expect a problem at the VGA/DVI connector level, so this article is for future reference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvi Paul I have bought ATI Radeon 9250 video card, and installed it in my computer. But the result is mixed: On one hand, it fits into the AGP 3.3volt slot without any problem and and it works fine in my computer. It supports 1X/2X/4X/8X AGP, and that is the reason why it doesn't have any compatibility problem. And this is exactly what the AGP Compatibility web page that you have asked me to check has correctly predicted. On the other hand, I don't get any benefit from buying this card -- meaning I don't fullfil my original purposes of replacing the existing video card with a new one: My primary goal is to get a video card that can support the native resolution of a LCD panel, and that is 1680x1050. Unfortunately, ATI Radeon 9250 doesn't support that resolution out of the box. Based on ATI knowledge base, seem like their X-serie video cards can support that resolution; but that serie of video cards are not compatible with 3.3 volt AGP slot. I have thought of getting a copy of PowerStrip to get a custom resolution. But the cost of a copy of PowerStrip is close to the cost of a video card. This means I can forget about using a ATI video card to fix this problem. My secondary goal is to use the hardware-assisted feature of the video card to help decoding MPEG2 video and offload the job from the CPU. But when I play back recorded videos using the new video card, I cannot tell any difference. This is a minor point because the videos probably are not recorded at high bit rate anyway. The major problem is that the video player (MS Window Media Player) starts acting up after I have installed the ATI card -- it refuses to stop playing video. At this point, I am going to return the video card, and try to get a nVidia GeForce4 Mx (like MX4000). It is supposed to compatible with the 3.3volt AGP solt in my PC; it is supposed to be able to display up to 2048x1536 resolution; and I probably can find one that doesn't need a fan. But this means I need to order it through internet instead of from a retail store -- I guess I just have to try my luck in the web. Oh well... Jay Chan |
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