Richard Malcolm-Smith wrote:
> Magic wrote:
>
> > > does anyone have an idea what could be going wrong with this set up?
> >
> > Yes. Your expert knows sod-all about the PCI bus and video cards. This is a common
> > problem with PCI sound cards, and is actually caused by video card drivers.
>
> It also aflicts ISA cards.
It does? How very annoying... I thought it was just the PCI bus that was effected. I
nthat
case, could a similar problem be caused by an AGP card?
> > The video
> > card driver hogs the PCI bus (the data lines along which the various cards in your
>PC
> > communicate with CPU and memory) for longer than it should do. The result is that
>all
> > other cards in the system suffer timing problems.
>
> It is a result of the drivers sending more commands to the card then its
> input que can handle, meaning that the last command sits on the bus
> tying it up untill there is room in the card for accept it. All that for
> maybe 1 or 2 fps more.
Yep, that's what happens. Sorry, I was trying to keep it as simple as possible.
> > The only time you notice this is on
> > output devices such as sound cards.
>
> And software modems, which will usually disconnect. After all they are
> only a fancy soundcard that connects to a phone line.
How do you tell the difference between a hardware and software modem? Will they both
suffer?
>
> > THe solution isn't very simple. You can try
> > updating video card drivers, turning down hardware acceleration in the display
> > settings, or as a last resort replacing the video card. Unfortunately
>manufactureres
> > don't tell you if their drivers hog the PCI bus or not, so you need to find a
> > newsgroup dedicated to video cards and ask for recommendations.
>
> No, Nag the video card vendor about it not being PCI compliant. Its
> great when both sound and video are made by the same people (Diamond) -
> they cant pass the buck.
But if you don't know much about PCI hardware, how can you argue this convincingly?
THey
can spout of any old nonsense about timings and specifications and you wouldn't know
any
different unless you know a lot about the internal systems in a PC.
--
Magic
Location : Portsmouth, England, UK
Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk
EMail : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"A book judged by it's cover makes for a very shallow read."
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