How to enable fast writes on GF3 Ti 200

[error_157]

First of all:
Thank you for your time!

I can't get fast writes enabled on my MSI GeForce 3 Ti 200 PRO-VT, although the card SHOULD support it!
However, this is what "cat" throws back at me:

osiris / # cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card
Fast Writes: Not Supported
SBA: Not Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
Registers: 0x1f000007:0x1f000104

osiris / # cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/host-bridge
Host Bridge: Via Apollo Pro KT133
Fast Writes: Supported
SBA: Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x

osiris / # cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status
Status: Enabled
Driver: AGPGART
AGP Rate: 4x
Fast Writes: Disabled
SBA: Disabled

Anyway, i tried to pass the "NVreg_EnableAGPFW=1" option to the nvidia-module which of course didn't change anything!

I'm using the latest nvidia-drivers (4191) and a 2.4.20-kernel from gentoo on (who would have guessed) gentoo linux.

Please let me know, if you need any additional information.

A BIG "Thank You" in advance

error

PS: Board is a Gigabyte GA-7ZX with a VIA KT-133 chipset.

[Wolfman [TWP]]

Have you enabled Fast Writes in your BIOS?? That can also be the reason why it won't enable with the drivers.

This is before Fastwrites is enabled in the BIOS. (On my System)

# cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card
Fast Writes: Supported
SBA: Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
Registers: 0x1f000217:0x0f000304

# cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/host-bridge
Host Bridge: AMD 760MP
Fast Writes: Not Supported
SBA: Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
Registers: 0x0f000207:0x00000304

# cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status
Status: Enabled
Driver: NVIDIA
AGP Rate: 4x
Fast Writes: Disabled
SBA: Enabled

After the Fastwrites are enabled in the BIOS.

# cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card
Fast Writes: Supported
SBA: Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
Registers: 0x1f000217:0x0f000314

cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/host-bridge
Host Bridge: AMD 760MP
Fast Writes: Supported
SBA: Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
Registers: 0x0f000217:0x00000314

# cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status
Status: Enabled
Driver: NVIDIA
AGP Rate: 4x
Fast Writes: Enabled
SBA: Enabled

Wolf

Edit: Oops, Just noticed from your post that the board may not support Fastwrites. See your /agp/card output. As it states that it's NOT supported. I'd still try enabling it in the BIOS and see what happens. As you see from the output of my system, it states that it's supported, regardless if it's enabled in the BIOS or not. But then, my card is a GF4 Ti4600.

[error_157]

"Fast writes" is enabled in BIOS.
The MoBo supports fast writes and so does the graphics card according to MSI and Nvidia.

But a cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card returns a "not supported" (see above...)

[bwkaz]

/proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card reports what the video hardware is telling the driver that it supports.

So you either got a buggy card (try flashing the video BIOS maybe?), or MSI is lying to you about the support. Take it up with them.

Not all MSI cards report that they don't support SBA and FW, though. My MSI Ti4200's output:

$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card
Fast Writes: Supported
SBA: Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
Registers: 0x1f000217:0x1f000314

$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/host-bridge
Host Bridge: Via Apollo Pro KT266
Fast Writes: Supported
SBA: Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
Registers: 0x1f000217:0x00000314

$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status
Status: Enabled
Driver: AGPGART
AGP Rate: 4x
Fast Writes: Enabled
SBA: Enabled

[merlin42]

My PNY GF3Ti200 reports FW and SBA not supoorted
My PNY GF4Ti4200 reports FW and SBA supported

Both cards have been tested on a KT400 MoBo and an i850 mobo. Both MoBos have no trouble w/ FW or SBA when using the GF4.

I head somewhere(cant seem to remember where) a while back (when I was doing the above mentioned testing) that FW (and SBA i think) were disable by many board makers with the GF3 cards due to stability issues with many MoBos that were in common use when the GF3 came out. I think that the logic was that it was better to disable a feature that provides effectively 0 real world benefit (have you ever seen a benchmark where AGP was the bottle neck?) and would cause returns/bad impressions by people who were not up on all their HW TLAs ;)

[error_157]

+#*#@*!!!
So, I suppose that there's no way to work around this, since it is a HW-issue?

Thanks for your help anyway...

SeeYa,
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