well i found a fix for the CS problem... All i did was on the OGL and D3D settings in the advanced display seettings, i unchecked application preference for the AA AF settings and oddly that worked but when i go from the game back to main menu it takes like 6 seconds for it to go to menu/back to game.

E S

Thanks for the reply. I'm running SiS 1.15 AGP drivers i think, they were the only drivers i could find if there are others out there what are they?

The only similarities between our systems are the k7s5a rev 1 mobos and radeon 9600. Mine's GeXCube. I haven't run into trouble with any other games either, but as luck would have it NWN and C&C:G are like the only games I play atm anyway so it's a bit of a bummer.

Do SiS 735 mobos even support fastwrite? If they do maybe we need a bios which allows us to enable it since atm I can't. Seems from others that fastwrite is the key.

>Thanks for the reply. I'm running SiS 1.15 AGP drivers i think, they were the only drivers i could find if there are others out there what are they?

>The only similarities between our systems are the k7s5a rev 1 mobos and radeon 9600. Mine's GeXCube. I haven't run into trouble with any other games either, but as luck would have it NWN and C&C:G are like the only games I play atm anyway so it's a bit of a bummer.

>Do SiS 735 mobos even support fastwrite? If they do maybe we need a bios which allows us to enable it since atm I can't. Seems from others that fastwrite is the key.

I just downloaded from http://www.ecs.com.tw the 1.17 AGP drivers. I didn't test too much with them, they seem all right, will test more tomorrow.

C&C Generals, I finally got it working. In my case, I believe it was the following:
-uninstalled omega drivers
-disable PNP os in the BIOS
-installed AGP driver v 1.17
-installed cat 3.4's
Generals now works ok. Corrupted mouse cursor, and occasional choppiness, but it actually plays. I haven't tested the rest of my games, nor have I benchmarked or attempted to overclock or even reinstall Rage3dTweak. Will try to do that tomorrow. For now, I'm going to run folding@home on it and make sure it's stable with the new/old Cat's.

None of the CheepoBios's I've seen have fastwrite as an option in the BIOS, but OCworkbench was so frickin' slow today, I couldn't even get to it.

My third post in this thread

To the person above: yes, this problem DOES affect W2K, which is what I run (SP4).
BUT some hopeful signs, for me at least, on my Asus A7V600 (Via KT600 chipset) mobo. After upgrading to latest Audigy 2 drivers for my soundcard AND the 3.9 Catclysm ;-) drivers, I see some improvements (fast writes are on, AGP aperture set to 256 mb same as my card):

Neverwinter Nights hadn't locked up at AGP 4x after about 30 mins of play; still not tested at 8x

Fifa 2004 (not previously tested) will run at AGP 8x (set in display properties AND bios), although 3.9 corrupts pre-match loading screen in a way 3.7 didn't; the game otherwise seems totally unaffected.

I'm hoping to do more testing at AGP 8x shortly and will post back. I will be *very* happy if this 3.9 release is finally 'mature' but am still less than impressed with ATI ....

Hi!

I just to add a little something that might you help you guys out somehow. My Mobo (Asus K7) is limited to a maximum of 4x AGP, and the problems were still happening. It appeared, through uninstalling the 3.9 drivers, installing new Via 4 in 1 drivers, and installing 3.7 drivers for the "Pro", that this has some significant change.

I think that we can eliminate possibilities other than Motherboard / Graphics card compatability issues, as these seem to be the only reccurent themes.

I bought this card on the basis that it offered superior performance than the (not-so) equivalent Nvidia cards, for a lesser price. I regret not having checked the net for problems with this card before I bought it, but this can not be expected from the consumer at all. Shifting the (proper) attention away from creating functional drivers to what constitutes our hardware is an extremely rude way of saying that they couldn't be arsed and that it's our fault anyways.

ATi: you are ridiculous. People are slowly but surely catching on that your software sucks, and funnily enough, people buy things in accordance with how well they operate, not just whether you can beat your competitor when it comes to price and performance. ATi spends way too much time being scabs and cutting costs so that it can compete in the market, instead of making quality products and providing support for the consumer (and product) base which it is supposedely built on.

Ihave connect 3dradeon 9600pro
Epox KRA2+ mobo
XP2500+Barton @ 2000Mhz (12x166)
Using cataclyst 3.9 WITHOUT controlpanel ,video bios shadowing ,fastwrite ,agp read/write EVERYTHING ON HAHAA! works finally 100% OK!
512Mt ddr333mhz

solved my fu****! problem biaches!
3Dmark 2001SE gave @ 11000 marks
03 @ 3300!!!

FINECARD!

you know what guys... maybe hes right and maybe it is the control panel thats f**k!ng everything up. I ran counter strike fine turning application preferences off for AA and AF in the control panel and it works now. That's not really good news through since i like to change the graphic settings but if you really want your card to work with new drivers that might do it.

Jack:
I agree unchecking app pref in the 3D tab seems to have done the trick not only for COD but CS and other games as well from what I have seen, removing the control panel seems alittle strange...IMHO but if it works for you then...I am glad, but this simple fix mentioned by me and Jack should be given a try its too simple to just disregard.

if we email ATI maybe theyll actually look into it since were giving them something to work with instead of just complaining. I noticed that the control panels in my 3.5 driver have different OGL and D3D settings then the newer drivers. I thought 'application preference' in the AA AF settings just disables it completely but i guess not. I'm gonna send ATI another email about this and hopefully theyll do something because i still do want the control panel installed.

Well, I have freeze problems with my new 9600 pro in OpenGL games (DirectX is ok). I started with Cats 3.9, then Omega 3.9, then 3.8, 3.7 then down to 3.4, all with AGP Write OFF in SMARTGART...

Started to get desperate so I've also tried the latest Intel Chipset Drivers 5.02.1003, reduced the secondary monitor acceleration to nothing, unchecked application preferences in the OpenGL tab, AGP Aperture size to 256mb, and updated my BIOS to no avail. I still get a freeze in Quake3/Urban Terror after about 30secs. It lasts a bit longer in JDoom (an openGL Doom) but its still as choppy and gives me the same machine freeze.

So, for me anyway, its not the drivers. I tried setting Fast Writes off in Powerstrip and setting AGP to 4x from 8x but Powerstrip doesnt remember the values when I reboot for some reason. I cant disable FastWrite in the BIOS because the setting doesnt exist (Asus P4P800).

Frustrating thing is that I bought a 9500NP-128mb about 10weeks ago and took it back because of similar problems. I've since then changed my CPU from an XP2000+ and mobo from Asus A7V8X and I still get the same problems!

Is there a utility to set Fast Write off and change AGP speed besides Powerstrip?
And does anyone else have any more ideas? I've read about 15 pages back of this thread...

My spec: Club3D Radeon 9600 Pro, Asus P4P800, P4-2.4C, 2x256mb PC3200 Dual Channel, Maxtor 60GB HD, SBLive.

settings your AGP aperature higher is worse. usually 64 or 128 is best.

Have ATI atleast acknowledged the problem???

BTw, i got this card working absolutely fine in 4x mode (Win98SE). But i want to run at 8x - or i would have got myself an nVidia GF4Ti 4600 or someother 4x card.

Lo
I've been tinkering with the card for ages and the only solution that seems to work best for me is reducing the vcore speed from 166 to 133. It means me 2.8xp barton is running a 2.2 but my system is as solid as a rock(i have everything except fastwrite at the highest settings, agpx8, AA and AFF on). My issue is that I bought a entire brand new system with this card making sure to match specs. I shouldn't have to lower the speed of my pc to get it to work. i want it to run at top speed and graphical detail maxed up to the nines.

I recently did a bit of tinkering and installed new bios and drivers for my Nforce2 PAPultra and set everything to top dogs bollocks(166mhz, agpx8 d3d & opengl set to quality) . i tested using Bf1942 (normal game no mods) and it seemed to run fine (i normally last 5 mins but i was playing for 15). i noticed that i had the game set to 800x600 at 80mhz(i think can't remeber the refresh rate) so i upped it to 1024xwhatever and after a few seconds my machine reset.

I think (but not very much) that it might be that i'm somehow overclocking the videocard. It seems likely as reducing the fsb solves the problem.

The only other werid thing i found was when i ran a little program that came with my MOBO that checks the temps and voltage's and sounds alarms if a voltages is above or below a certain theshold and it seems that
-5V is borderline when running at 133mhz and is dropping below it when 166mhz.

don't know if this issue is individual to me or what?

Again I shouldn't have to lower my fsb to get my hardware to work.

P.s.

During tinkering i noticed that the Radeon driver is somehow linked to a PCI bridge thingy (don't know much about this) with the card being AGP i thought this might be an issue.

just read another post on another site and someone mentioned it also.

Doe's anyone else have the same problem?

When i tried disabling the bridge thingy it caused the gfx to stop working. so i enabled it again.

i found when checking resources to see if there was a conflict.

The AGP is just a fast PCI slot dedicated to graphics cards.

BTW, i found the place in the registry to force AGP4x and FastWrite off for people who dont have the option in the BIOS.

Its at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ATI Technologies\CDS\0000\0\PCI Config

and the two keys are "AGP Transfer Rate" and "Fast Write".
I set them to "AGP 4X (0x00000004)" and "No (0x00000000)" but Powerstrip, Options...Adapter Information still lists Fast Write and AGP 8X as being on, even though the registry settings are like I just listed. That makes me wonder what settings are actually being used by windows.

As for AGP Aperture size I set it back down to 64MB anyway because 256MB didnt make any difference.

Problem:
Some games (but only a few) notably C&C: Generals, Age of Mythology and Warcraft3 would freeze if the mouse was used. If the mouse wasnt used the game would keep going for hours. This would happen after using the mouse for 1-2 secs.

Solution:
Uninstall SiS AGP chipset driver.
Note that previously all computers had GeForce4 Ti and SiS AGP chipset drivers installed with NO problems!

Thoughts:
Problem seems to be an incompatability between the AGP drivers in the Catalyst package and the SiS AGP drivers. Seems that the SiS AGP drivers are redundant and just cause problems...
This might actually be the case with people having problems with Via chipsets. I havent had any reason to try it, but you might want to try removing the Via AGP chipset drivers (can be done with via 4in1 installer) and that might help.

Computer Configuration:
Tyan Radeon 9600
2.4Ghz Pentium 4
Elitegroup P4S5A/DX+ motherboard (SiS 645DX chipset)

Drivers tried:
SiS AGP driver 1.7
Ati Catalyst 3.5, 3.8, 3.9

Catalyst 3.9 on its own with SiS AGP drivers uninstalled works perfectly.

The above solved my problems... Hope it will be useful to others!

The whole Fast Write, AGP 4x, downgrading drivers stuff limits the problems I have. There are a few such as Contract Jack Demo, Hitman 2 demo when i go to the option screens in these games. Same for Max Payne 2. Maybe the VIA will finish of all my problems. Gonna check in a sec.

Ok... what usually crashes my computer in 3 seconds flat... doesn't. It seems there are no problems. I'm still suspicious of you ATI. If this thing works with 3.9 Catalyst, then I guess Morten Bjerre was right. Thanks.

thats not a good solution though... without the AGP drivers installed (motherboard drivers) youll loose about a 20 percent decrease in performance. Your motherboard drivers are very important so i wouldnt recommend doing that at all. I think your right though... ATI's newer control panels have compadibility issues with MOBO's, i dont think its the actualy driver, i think its the control panel and the pre-settings ATI has for them.

The control panel didn't solve my problem. Also, it's too inconvenient as i use my TV out a lot. Dang that much of a decrease in a performance? I'll check it out. Didn't really notice on the game I was playing.