help with 8x AGP on a 9800NP

[Cheesewarrior]

hi,
Ive just built my first system and no problems with it at all but for some reason I can't enable AGP 8x on my radeon 9800 NP, Its just stuck on 4x. Ive tried to change the setting to 8x in SMARTGART and it tells me to restart my computer, but once its restarted its still only 4x for some reason.

Ive had a play around in the bios and made sure the AGP setting is on 8x but still no luck is there something stupid i missing?

My system is :
2500 Barton
Abit NF7-s
PowerColor 9800 NP
512mb 3200 DDR
(everything is standard, nothing overclocked)

Cheers in advance

[Kezzer]

Have you set it in the BIOS?

[paradidle]

Im a novice, r u sure ur motherboard supports 8xAGP?? Cos that got me once.

[SilentDeath]

the mobo should support 8x, because mine does, same mobo. it may be a problem with windows, did you reinstall etc.. after you changed mobo? or is this your first one?
what OS is it?
tbh 8x agp will not make much difference, 4x agp has plenty of b/w for all current cards. i wouldnt put much effort into fixing this tbh, you wont notice in games any differences it will make, only benchmarks will tell you

[Austin]

Even benchmarks are unlikely to show more than a 1% perf gain, AGP4x is still more than fine. You should still get AGP8x, check the BIOS and latest drivers as mentioned.

[Cheesewarrior]

I'm running 3.8 CATALYST Drivers
My mobo drivers came straight from abits site so they should be up to date.
Bios is set for 128 aparture at 8x.
My 3d mark scores are 12000+ on 2001
and just under 5000 on 2003... Is that about right?
If its like you say and 8x isnt that much better than 4x I might as well leave it

[SilentDeath]

heh, i get 16.5k on 3dm2k1 with my slightly overclocked 9700np... something is wrong... dunno about 03 but i think ur card should manage 6k

[Cheesewarrior]

Originally posted by Cheesewarrior
I'm running 3.8 CATALYST Drivers
My mobo drivers came straight from abits site so they should be up to date.
Bios is set for 128 aparture at 8x.
My 3d mark scores are 12000+ on 2001
and just under 5000 on 2003... Is that about right?
If its like you say and 8x isnt that much better than 4x I might as well leave it

What res etc are you using to get that score?

[SilentDeath]

he shoudl be using the default in 3dm2k1, and unless hes purcahsed or warezed 03 he has to use default

[Kezzer]

I get 16k with my 9800 pro which is exactly how it should be with my CPU at 2.1 with the same setup basically.

[paradidle]

my 3dmark03 score was 5942 (highest)

my set up:

2.8 @ 3066mhz
1024 RAM
ATI 9800 pro 3.8 CAT drivers
MSI neo MOBO

damnit I expect more!

[Austin]

Originally posted by Cheesewarrior
I'm running 3.8 CATALYST Drivers
My mobo drivers came straight from abits site so they should be up to date.
Bios is set for 128 aparture at 8x.
My 3d mark scores are 12000+ on 2001
and just under 5000 on 2003... Is that about right?
If its like you say and 8x isnt that much better than 4x I might as well leave it

Definitely no worthwhile benfit to AGP8x although since both card and mobo support it it must be agrivating none-the-less. Your scores are about where they should be, perhaps closer to 14000 in 3DM2001 but certainly not far off. A 9700 @ 325/310 gives perf equal to a 9800 (should be at 325/310) so if the 9700 is clocked higher you'd expect it to turn in faster results. Much of the 9800 enhancements are to do with AA+AF and the DX9 T-buffer. BTW Abit's mobo drivers are probably a fair bit older than the reference drivers for your mobo.

[Cheesewarrior]

After spending a good few hours looking into it, it turns out that its a problem with Cat's.
Apparently the cat's have a problem with certain nforce2 chip sets but they don't know why its ok for some and not for (the very few) others but ATI are looking into it...which is nice

Thanks for the help anyway... its apperciacted