Ati Video Cards

[Guest]

Hi Everyone - Just a quick question. I am running Vista Business and the
following computer specs
P 4 Processor at 3.06 Gh
ATI x800 AGP w/256 on board Mem
1 Gig of Memory
Two 300 Gig IDE Hard drives

All the latest drivers are installed and seem to function well (love the
Aero interface).

All seems to run fine and I am quite happy with the performance, given this
computer is a few years old, but when I run Performance index I am only
getting a 1.0 on the graphics and gaming index. I initially thought this was
due to the limitation on the AGP interface (motherboard does not have PCI-e
interface) but I have read elsewhere that others running similar set-up are
getting mid 4's on the graphic performance index.

Is there a way to get more out of this card?

 

[mikeyhsd]

have you updated to the latest drivers from ATI.
also just for a try, might look into the bios and allocate a little more memory to the video to see if it makes any difference. like 256.



(e-mail address removed)



Hi Everyone - Just a quick question. I am running Vista Business and the
following computer specs
P 4 Processor at 3.06 Gh
ATI x800 AGP w/256 on board Mem
1 Gig of Memory
Two 300 Gig IDE Hard drives

All the latest drivers are installed and seem to function well (love the
Aero interface).

All seems to run fine and I am quite happy with the performance, given this
computer is a few years old, but when I run Performance index I am only
getting a 1.0 on the graphics and gaming index. I initially thought this was
due to the limitation on the AGP interface (motherboard does not have PCI-e
interface) but I have read elsewhere that others running similar set-up are
getting mid 4's on the graphic performance index.

Is there a way to get more out of this card?

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

You might want to make sure that you have your motherboard's AGP port
drivers (generally referred to as GART drivers) installed. That and ATI's
drivers are all that you need. I only have an older Radeon 9550 AGP card
with 128MB and it scored a 2.2 and 3.1 in the graphics and gaming graphics
tests, respectively.

 

[Dustin Harper]

Are you getting a 1 on both the graphics tests? You need at least a 2.0 to
run Aero. It might be misreporting it, but make sure you have the newest
drivers from ATI (http://ati.amd.com).

You might try playing a game and see if it runs ok, or run a 3DMark
benchmark. If it goes a LOT slower than what it previously did, then there
may be something wrong. You might also have the hardware retested and see if
you get a higher score.

 

[Bill Leary]

Are you getting a 1 on both the graphics tests? You need at least
a 2.0 to run Aero.

I'm getting 1.0 on both and am currently running Aero.

When I installed this card (X1650 Pro AGP, 512M RAM) and it's drivers,
replacing a rather old Radion with only 64M using XDDM drivers, a number of
things started working correctly (DVD playback, for example) and it became
possible to turn on Aero.

I'd hoped the two graphics numbers would improve, but they retested and came
out 1.0 again. I was chaulking it up to my motherboard being old and only
going to AGP 4X.

- Bill

 

[Guest]

Thanks everyone for the tips - I do believe the graphics and gaming index is
in fact being mis-reported because I can and do run the Aero interface - and
it is not slow.

I did perform a clean install on a new drive and did not load any drivers
for the motherboard - so I am thinking the GART drivers (if I can find them)
might help.

 

[Guest]

Update - Downloaded and installed the latest ATI drivers from their site last
night (v7.4). Graphic and gaming performance jumped to 4.3. I am quite happy
with this rating since the box is 4 years old and AGP slot is only 4x. So
far drivers seem stable, but quite frankly I don't see much if any
performance gain.

 

[Steve]

After installing the software I noticed there is an ATI folder in the root
directory besides the ATI folders in the Program directory. Is it safe to
delete the directory C:\ATI? I am thinking that it is only for installing
the new software.

 

[Chris]

Hi, yes delete it...
ChrisC

After installing the software I noticed there is an ATI folder in the root
directory besides the ATI folders in the Program directory. Is it safe to
delete the directory C:\ATI? I am thinking that it is only for installing
the new software.