my 9600xt and Call of duty.

[revol68]

hi just got my new 9600xt this morning but i have a few questions.

Call of duty opens in a windows window (hmmm)

and a wee bit curious as to whether my onboard graphics card is actually disabled.
I went into the bios but the options for the display were agp/onboard, with no option for just disabling the onboard, im guessing that putting a card into the agp does this automatically

So i went into system info (in the windows xp accessories bit) and it says i have total physical memory of 512 mb (which i do) but that available memory is 356 mb, is that normal or is my geforce4 onboard still suckin in some ram??

thanks alot

[Allen]

What mobo ya got?

[revol68]

its a k7ncr18g by leadtek and the gfroce4 used 128mb of system ram.

hope that adds clairty lol

thanks

[acidrainy]

You wouldn't get a reduction of RAM if your card was disabled properly...

Have a really good hunt around your bios for the disable on-board GFX bit.

[Allen]

its a k7ncr18g by leadtek and the gfroce4 used 128mb of system ram.

hope that adds clairty lol

thanks

Hmm, I don't know that mobo in particular, but it definately sounds like your onboard graphics is not disabled. I have a mobo with onboard graphics that needed to be disabled and it was clearly maked in the BIOS under advanced settings iirc..

Have you looked in the manual how to change it? Have you checked their website for FAQ's?

[revol68]

presently downloading the 4.1 drivers to see if that sorts out the call of duty openin in a window thing..

the mobo manual says this about the only display option i could find in the bios "Init Display First (PCI slot); if u install an additional pci display card, u can select either a pci display card or the onboard/agp display to activate the display boot up screen" but what those the agp/onboard mean surley the two are seperate???

the manual tells me jacksh*t about disabling the onboard (unless i wanna use a pci card) and thre is nothin i can find in the bios that seems to refer to it.

[revol68]

gotta love the way onboard gaphic cards seem to think they will be there forever, and why isnt there a wee option saying simply disable onboard graphics? suppouse that would be too bloody simple...
oh yeah just noticed what looks to be the onboard graphics fan still running ... what if i was to just rip the onboard out with pliers, seriously tho u'd think this would be simple

[Ferral]

Look for the option in the Bios for where you set the amount of memory for the onboard graphics. There will be something there for it and set it to disabled. If you select disabled it should disable the onboard graphics and shared memory (I believe that it will actually be called Shared Memory if my mind serves me correct, should be in the onboard peripherals / features menu in the bios near the bottom)

As for Call Of Duty there were issues with it and the ATI cards. Catalyst 3.9 you had to get a fix but build 3.10 and the brand new 4.1 its works fine.

[revol68]

okay did the obvious and attempted to plug monitor into onboard output.. no signal... but does this mean the onboard is disabled or is it just not givin a signal ??

[BlackSheep]

hi just got my new 9600xt this morning but i have a few questions.

Call of duty opens in a windows window (hmmm)

and a wee bit curious as to whether my onboard graphics card is actually disabled.
I went into the bios but the options for the display were agp/onboard, with no option for just disabling the onboard, im guessing that putting a card into the agp does this automatically

So i went into system info (in the windows xp accessories bit) and it says i have total physical memory of 512 mb (which i do) but that available memory is 356 mb, is that normal or is my geforce4 onboard still suckin in some ram??

thanks alot

For CoD try holding down Alt and pressing ENTER this usually allows you to toggle from Full Screen to Windowed (works on mine - CoD is quake3 engine so copes with this np's).

Putting a card into the AGP slot doesn't normally automatically disable the onboard gfx - to do this you need to find out in BIOS where you disable it ... I'm guessing that if you cannot find it under "integrated chipset features" (or similar) then you might be able to disable it by toggling the AGP/ONBOARD feature you mentioned - this might toggle to AGP only ... but tbh it's usually found elsewhere in BIOS ... it will be there - also the amount of RAM the onboard gfx card uses should also be there (this is usually configurable), although if you have disabled it properly it won't use any.

[SilentDeath]

theres no disable option, think about what would happen if you disabled it without aother card in there... it would be b0rked!
the option for it is called "init display first" and it will have option for agp, onboard, or pci usually.
if windows knows that your comps total RAM is 512mb then you can be sure the gfx isnt using any, as with all the onboard cards ive used, the bios takes the amount the gfx is usuing away from the total, and passes that number to windows - so windows can only ever use the amount available to it...

[revol68]

yeah i was beginning to expect this myself as it say's total physical memory is 512mb but available is 372mb but the available seems to be variable is it taking out the amount needed for windows xp?

thanks

p.s the init dispaly has an option for agp/onboard but not agp or onboard which made me think that it automatically disabled the onboard but how could that be?

[revol68]

okay other graphic options i have found are

Frame Buffer size: disabled, 128m, 64m, 32m or 8m

AGp aperture: 32mb, 64 mb, 128mb, 256mb 512, but no disable option

video ram cacheable: disabled or enabled.

now none of these to me seem like can disable my onboard graphics.

why is the init display option got agp/onboard stuck together??

[BlackSheep]

theres no disable option, think about what would happen if you disabled it without aother card in there... it would be b0rked!
the option for it is called "init display first" and it will have option for agp, onboard, or pci usually.

... you would be saying "doh!" and promptly resetting CMOS
... I wouldn't call it borked - just a motherboard *without* onboard gfx

[SilentDeath]

yea could do that.. first thing that came to mind would be sticiing an old pci gfx in there but ur way would be easyer

relo68 what options does the init dispaly have? agp would mean card inserted in slot, onboard meaning your gf4 - unless theyre stuck together, as the onboard would be using the agp bus when its enabled.

iirc frame buffer is the mem used for output to the screen, before it gets converted into analoge by the RAMDAC which then outputs it to vga. try disabled

agp aperature isnt important really, stick it to 128mb - this would apply to any agp card in there if its onboard or not.

video ram cachabel shoudl not be enabled - often causes problems. the reson the option is there is some old cards had reallly slow video mem, so copying it to normal mem first was sometimes quicker. todays cards the mem is a few times faster than normal mem (my card having about 22GB/S, while my ram is about 3.2GB/s) so it would be slower to have enaled.

run 3dmark 2k1 quick. it should say which card its using in the options for it, and if it doesnt (im very sure it will) a quick benchmark will make clear which card it is

[SilentDeath]

also if you have 2 monitors, try conencting them to both cards. it should eb posssible for using two displays as you have two cards. i used to be able to do that with my sis530 onboard gfx