Vid Card Switching

[Wassup393]

I have just upgraded to an Athlon 1800+ with a no-name mobo that carries an SiS chipset. The onboard graphics chip is an SiS 630/730 (or so it tells me). The motherboard has no manual apart from a basic jumper diagram. AMI Bios. What I need to know is how do I put my old graphics card in (NVidia Riva TNT V550 16MB) and disable the onboard. The SiS graphics has an adjustable amount of shared memory from 8mb to 64mb and if you feel that the SiS is better then tell me and I will leave it alone. I have tried placing the NVidia in the PC but when I turn it on it beeps about twenty times (with gaps) and neither card will give a picture. Please help.

Sam

 

[cdogg]

You need to find out if the SIS integrated video is using system RAM for its memory. If so, then this tends to be less efficient than a video card which runs independently.

On the other hand, integrated video isn't as bad as it used to be. It has gotten a bad rap over the past 5 years that has just stuck, despite significant improvements. It still cannot compare to the newest video cards like the GeForce4 Ti and ATI Radeon 9000+ cards, but older cards like the one you have may actually be worse.

It just depends. I don't know too much about the TNT Riva since I've never owned one or seen benchmarks. But given the fact that you could have up to 64MB with the integrated chipset, I'd probably stick with that for now until you buy a better card...


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[Wassup393]

The SiS does use system RAM, as if I set it to 64MB then Windows only recognises 192mb instead of 256 etc. I agree that I will leave it and maybe upgrade to a better card when they get a bit cheaper. I also think that I may have destroyed my NVidia in this process as it no longer seems to make a difference whether it's in or out.

Sam

 

[paparazi]

I agree with cdogg, you are going to have to buy something better than a GF2 MX to better the onboard VGA, the only benefit you would have though is that the PC would regain valuable resources lost powering the graphcs.
Most of these cheapy SIS 630 chipset motherboards automatically disable onboard VGA when a seperate card is used but you have to switch from first display device PCI to AGP in the bios to work.
Martin Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.