I'm having similar issues with my MSI 694D. Mine will flat-out BSOD with fast writes on. I tried the same combination of drivers I used on my ECS P6VXA (also Via apollo) witch works great at AGP4x with fast writes on and it just won't work on the MSI regardless of what video card I used. I tried with a GF4 ti, GF3 TI and a GF2 MX - no dice.

P.S. - isn't the 6800XT way overkill for a PIII rig? I can't even max out a GF4 Ti using a 1333MHz tualatin... I get about 7600pts in 3dmark 91 vs the 14000 I get on a A64 3200+... Personally I think anything more then a GF 3 Ti is wasted on a PIII machine, multi-cpu or not.

interreasding... I'm not the only one with this problem.
And for the 6800xt being over kill, well it's better then my fx5600ultra. I get about 60fps playing SW battlefront
with the 6800 and far less with the fx 5600 ultra. I'll probably swap it out for a 5900 or a 5950 some day. I only paid 10$ for It so I can't complain
Biohazard 4 is unplayable with the fx 5600 and more than playable with the 6800. But I know the 6800 is being held back by the P3's. Now daul 1.4ghz P3s would not be that much of a hold back if the game can use 2 cpu's.

Well I have "retro PCs" and "retro gaming PCs" - the first are period correct machines with hardware you would find back in the day - like my 1333Mhz Tualeron / abit ST6 / gf3 ti 500 or my Pentium MMX 233 /w S3 virge, tekram i430fx and 8mb voodoo 2. My retro gaming machines are what I use every day. My dos rig is a 550Mhz K6-III+ with a Voodoo Banshee - it runs Duke 3D @ vesa 1024x768 w/o effort, or my A64 3800+ / 6800LE@XT / V2 SLi win98 rig - I played Black and White and Dungeon Keeper 2 at 1920x1080 on these 😁. I guess My retro gaming rigs are for playing games with maximum possible details enabled / max resolution the game allows with or w/o hacks while my retro pcs are for nostalgia and period correctness. Sure, my P1 233 will play duke3d at 800x600 but it will struggle at places, while the K6-3 doesn't even feel it 😁.

I've been in contact with some friends that own dual slot 1 or socket 370 boards and they all said the same thin - regardless of chipset, be it intel or via, there are problems with the AGP implementation. Intel boards lack AGP4x and fast writes whatsoever even tough the chipset supports it while via boards will bsod with fast-writes enabled and some AGP4x cards.

One friend said he can run ATi cards reliably on his vp6 -he's using a 9800xt in it. My 9500 @ 9700 pro seems to work at 4x /w fast writes enabled on my MSI as well. I think the 9500 won't even post unless it runs at 4x.

What games actually truly benefit from fast writes? That is usually best left disabled in my experience.

Radeon 9xxx cards are usually fine with AGP 1/2x. People liked to use them on all sorts of old motherboards. There are some 0.8/1.5 volt-only 9600/9800 cards though. The keying makes it pretty obvious.

saturn wrote:

Would this bo to the agp bridge chip?

You have a 6800XT with a bridge chip?

Yes it do, it's a xfx card. The bridge chip is that small chip that alows a newer pci-e gpu to be used with agp right?
For me I have to have both 4x and fast writes for the card to work.

I looked up XFX 6800 XT and yup there's one with a bridge chip. I believe that bridge is 1.5/0.8v only, meaning 4x or 8x.

Fast writes is strange. I didn't think that was ever required. If you look around you'll see it was usually recommended you disable it because it can cause strange problems.

There's quite a perfomance hit on some systems with fast writes off. Especially when using newer graphics cards that can take advantage of the technology.

swaaye wrote:

I looked up XFX 6800 XT and yup there's one with a bridge chip. I believe that bridge is 1.5/0.8v only, meaning 4x or 8x.

Fast writes is strange. I didn't think that was ever required. If you look around you'll see it was usually recommended you disable it because it can cause strange problems.

Funny, I have strange problems with it off.
Stuff like this happens.

Yikes. You should try that card on some other motherboards if you can.

swaaye wrote:

Yikes. You should try that card on some other motherboards if you can.

Yikes it right. I don’t have another system to test it in, but every card with a bridge chip other than a 7600gs I have does the same thing in the system. The 7600gs had bad caps. and it's only with 3d games too, and only the 3d part. 2d and the desktop is fine.

swaaye wrote:

I looked up XFX 6800 XT and yup there's one with a bridge chip. I believe that bridge is 1.5/0.8v only, meaning 4x or 8x.

Fast writes is strange. I didn't think that was ever required. If you look around you'll see it was usually recommended you disable it because it can cause strange problems.

That's odd. I thought the 6800 was native to AGP?
So there was some 6800 AGP GPU that was converted to PCI-E and then connected to a bridge chip for AGP again? lmao!

Perhaps this 6800 has NV42 GPU (+ HSI bridge of course). NV42 is native PCI-E part, just like NV43.