Does ECS K7AMA motherboard support Fast Writes?

[Farlander]

I am having a tough time finding out whether my motherboard, my screen card or drivers don't support these features:
Fast Writes
Sideband Addressing
AGP texture acceleration
The screencard is a Geforce 2 mx200 32M
The operating system is windows XP.
I have tried microsofts generic drivers for the screencard and the ali chipset.
I have used ali drivers from 1.73 to 1.91.
I have tried detonator drivers from 29.xx to 41.80.
This is why I think it isn't the drivers, but the motherboard or the card.
Since my card is only 32M, the absense of AGP texture acceleration is really hurting performance.

Any input on this issue would be appreciated. ECS support haven't replied to any of the three e-mails I have sent them.

 

[johnodq]

I believe that there is a problem in the Ali chipset with regard to AGP, there is a util to switch features on within windows, but at the moment I am trying to find the info I had stored regarding this problem, will get back to you asap.

Johnodq

 

[johnodq]

Firstly the card does not support sideband addressing or fastwrites, but there is a problem with ALI chipsets and AGP.


Here is the fix

1. Get RivaTuner (from

http://www.guru3d.com)

2. Ensure you have the lasted Nvidia drivers

3 Update your AGP driver should haven't already done so.

4. Extract RivaTuner into its own folder, then run it.

5. Go to the PowerUser tab, disregard the warning, then look at the bottom for the folder icons. You want the second one from the left which when selected displays "Open matched Detonator database." Click it.

6. Once it loads, find the fifth line, it should say, "NVIDIA Detonator XX.xx w2k(even if you have XP) System."

7. Once found, scroll down to "Enable Ali AGP." Right click it, click the lighted bulb, and make sure that "1" appeared in the right-hand "Value" column. Exit RivaTuner and reboot.

8.Once rebooted, initate a directx diagnostic and you should find that you can enable the AGP texture acceleration.



Please let me know if the advice I give is of use.

Johnodq

 

[Farlander]

I think my motherboard is stuffed. If I do the above fix, I am not able to start XP in anything but safe mode again, even when I disable the setting again with Rivatuner.
I recently got a Geforce 4 mx440 and it still gives exactly the same problem and a new one. Now my direct3d is completely stuffed. Opengl games are running at incredible speeds, but direct3d is slow as hell. When I run dxdiag, the direct3d test is slow and choppy. I've already tried disabling every service that doesn't look like it will keep windows from starting up and the problem still persists. My motherboard seem to have all the problems, but none of the solutions. I've ordered a Gigabyte triton motherboard, g7vax, but until that arrives, any extra input will be appreciated.

Thanks for your help anyway.