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VIA Apollo Pro bad AGP performance?

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Reply 20 of 27, by link

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okenido wrote:

Find the reference of the memory chips on your card (by just looking at them). Search google to find if they are 16 or 32 bit each (most of time there is a "16" or "32" in the reference so you don't even need searching)

Multiply by the number of chips on your card and you have the total.

Most of time cards with 8 memory chips are 128 bit and those with 4 are 64bit if they don't have the big chips with legs on the four sides. Most low-profile cards are 64 bit too.

4x16. So my card is just a low budget garbage. I'll try finding something better. How about GeForce 4? Is it still compatible with older (DOS) games?

Edit:

Okay. I bought MSI GeForce 4 460 MX on 128bit bus. It's basically re-branded model (not really a GF4) and it should be nice replacement for GF2.
https://imgur.com/a/qgUJcdj
I spent around 15USD with shipping (they were selling PCI USB 2.0 controllers so I bought one too) in my country for brand new model with 2 year warranty (!) so it's not a bad price. If this card will be laggy too, then it means that this board is just a piece of junk. I'll report tomorrow when I receive my package.

Reply 21 of 27, by link

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Gf4 is performing really bad as well, so it's MOBO.
I bought MSI MS-6309. It has VIA Apollo Pro133A chipset (VIA 694X).

Reply 22 of 27, by dionb

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link wrote:

Gf4 is performing really bad as well, so it's MOBO.
I bought MSI MS-6309. It has VIA Apollo Pro133A chipset (VIA 694X).

Be careful with the caps on that one. It's from MSI's worst period, and I've seen mess from the caps shorting out MOSFETs which got so hot they melted through the board. If your caps are good though, it's a fine 694X board.

Through sheer coincidence, I just picked up a pile of motherboards with these old Via Chipsets - an ApolloPro (691) and ApolloPro+ (693). If they work, and I have time & motivation, I might see what happens if I bench them versus each other and my 694X board. I'm pretty sceptical of seeing much difference, but one way to find out...

Reply 23 of 27, by okenido

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i guess you already tried various BIOS settings ?

Reply 24 of 27, by ODwilly

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Id say a recap is in order. Bad caps can kill performance. For example my old 2.4ghz P4 never performed great and would craah at 100% cpu load due to blown CPU VRM caps.After they were replaced my benchmark scores actually increased dramatically. It still had some issues, but once the full recap is done I think it will be trouble free again

Down to the last 8 tiny caps after having some wrong sizes and values sent out instead of what I needed. Cant wait to for it to be finished!

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 25 of 27, by link

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okenido wrote:

i guess you already tried various BIOS settings ?

Of course 😀

dionb wrote:
link wrote:

Gf4 is performing really bad as well, so it's MOBO.
I bought MSI MS-6309. It has VIA Apollo Pro133A chipset (VIA 694X).

Be careful with the caps on that one. It's from MSI's worst period, and I've seen mess from the caps shorting out MOSFETs which got so hot they melted through the board. If your caps are good though, it's a fine 694X board.

I asked seller for high quality photos of this board before I bought it and capacitors looks fine (unlike to previous board mentioned in this thread earlier - and unfortunately, I don't have a proper equipment to replace it at home and my soldering skills are way too bad for doing anything with multi layered circuit boards like motherboards). They are even giving 6 months "service" warranty (it's a shop with tested retro computer parts).

Reply 26 of 27, by link

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Just to confirm. New motherboard solved all problems. GF2 is performing as it should (even if it's 64bit version), GF4 too. I don't know if it was a bad chipset, or capacitors, but MSI MS-6309 MOBO is working as it should and as I remember from past.
I have only 1 problem with it. It's AGP 4x motherboard, I has AGP 4x enabled in BIOS by default, but Nvidia drivers (all versions) are showing AGP 2x. I don't know why.

Reply 27 of 27, by schmatzler

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link wrote:

I has AGP 4x enabled in BIOS by default, but Nvidia drivers (all versions) are showing AGP 2x. I don't know why.

The chipset has problems with AGP 4x, so Nvidia disabled the support in their drivers.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"