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BX vs VIA chipset

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First post, by PlaneVuki

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Hello.

Two mobos:
1) Gigabyte GA-BX2000 with intel 440BX chipset (slot1 + slotket) not using any chipset driver
2) Matsonic MS7127C with VIA VT82C694X (Apollo Pro 133A) chipset (socket370) using 4in1 4.43v chipset driver (without chipset driver it was very slow)

Using win98se, agp graphics card: geforce2 mx400 64bit 64mb and benchmarking quake3 at 640x480x16bit, driver 45.23, the result:

via + mendocino 458 = 50 fps
via + pentium3 600 = 77 fps

(mendocino runs at bus 83.33mhz*5.5=458mhz)

bx + mendocino 458 = 65 fps (30% faster than via)
bx + pentium3 600 = 100 fps (30% faster than via)

So it is true that VIA chipset is slow?
Or is it possible to make via mobo faster by using better chipset driver or some other trick?
Is there something I am missing here?

**************************************************************************

Is there a possible speed up in what AlphaWing explains here:

Socket 370 - VIA Apollo Pro 133 vs Intel 440BX
"Main downside is AGP issues for that chipset.
Usually can get around them with the last 4in1's like 4.49 (before they turn into Hyperions) and installing the AGP driver manually.
Then disabling fastwrites\sideband addressing and setting it to 2x\1x."

I don't understand what they try to explain here, can someone explain me this please?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: for both mobos the gpu is running at agp 2x.

Last edited by PlaneVuki on 2024-07-22, 18:45. Edited 4 times in total.

Reply 1 of 38, by PD2JK

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What are the AGP speeds (1x / 2x / 4x) on the VIA system?

Did you select AGP Turbo Mode while installing the VIA chipset drivers?

i386 16 ⇒ i486 DX4 100 ⇒ Pentium MMX 200 ⇒ Athlon Orion 700 | TB 1000 ⇒ AthlonXP 1700+ ⇒ Opteron 165 ⇒ Dual Opteron 856

Reply 2 of 38, by rasz_pl

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30% is normal Via 693 suck, supposedly 694X can be tuned to almost close the gap

https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module for AT&T Globalyst
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 memory board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS MFM-300 Monitor

Reply 3 of 38, by dionb

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Aside from chipset, you're comparing a flagship motherboard from a top brand, Gigabyte GA-BX2000, with a PC Chips (Matsonic is one of their many synonyms) bottom-feeder board. I'd assume the Gigabyte BIOS is likely to be a lot more optimized than the PC Chips one. For an apples vs apples comparison you'd be better off comparing boards from same brand and product line.

That said, 694X is simply a lot slower. Take a look at these benchmarks:
P3-600 (100MHz FSB) on i440BX performs identically to P3-600B (133MHz FSB) on 694X https://www.anandtech.com/show/397/7
Apples-for-apples P3-866EB comparison across platforms, BX performs 11% faster than 694X with same FSB and RAM https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/showdown … fsb,170-12.html

Reply 4 of 38, by PARKE

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PlaneVuki wrote on 2024-07-19, 06:13:

So it is true that VIA chipset is slow?
Or is it possible to make via mobo faster by using better chipset driver or some other trick?

You could try an older driver. Here a review that refers to the issue in a(nother) Apollo pro 133A board:
ooooooooooooo
As far as speed goes, this board is fast very fast. Don t complain to me about speed if you are using
anything other than the VIA 4.17 drivers. Versions 4.19 and 4.20 will kill performance by as much as 30%.
The 4.17 drivers are the ones included by ASUS on the CD. If you search really hard on the net you can
confirm that the VIA 133A is within around 3% of the speed of a BX board. OCWorkbench, AnandTech,
BXBoards, Firingsquad are just a few sites with some info on the performance of the VIA133A. As you
will see, 3% is fairly accurate. Checking AnandTech s latest article on the KX133 (part2), you will see
that the VIA 133A beats the BX and Irongate on a few bench marks and loses to them on a few others.
ooooooooooooo
http://www.overclockers.com/asus-p3v4x/

Reply 5 of 38, by keropi

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interesting info about 4.17 VIA drivers... I always install 4.35 with my mvp3 mobos

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Reply 7 of 38, by NostalgicAslinger

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The VIA Apollo Pro 133A supports the memory interleave option for a much faster memory performance (not all VIA Boards have this option in the bios), so you could try out the tool George E Breese Memory Interleave Enabler.

https://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/rea … v015_readme.htm
https://soggi.org/files/misc/tools/Memory-Int … Enabler_0.15.7z

Reply 8 of 38, by The Serpent Rider

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Decent 694X/694T motherboards are NOT significantly slower than 440BX.

Fastest Tualatin Chipset / Best Pentium III Motherboard

That being said, 440BX can handle 150-160 MHz FSB with overclocking, which is harder to pull on VIA.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 9 of 38, by smtkr

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I'd investigate tweaking with wpcredit if there are still guides online for it. I'm guessing it's just not tuned correctly. When the apolla pro 133a first came out, some of the lazy mainboard makers didn't optimize their boards. You would see wild performance variance across manufacturers.

Reply 10 of 38, by rasz_pl

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PARKE wrote on 2024-07-19, 12:18:

Don t complain to me about speed if you are using anything other than the VIA 4.17 drivers. Versions 4.19 and 4.20 will kill performance by as much as 30%

you forgot to mention why VIA released slower drivers tho 😀 4.17 might be fast but you will be regularly crashing

https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module for AT&T Globalyst
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 memory board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS MFM-300 Monitor

Reply 13 of 38, by Joseph_Joestar

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PlaneVuki wrote on 2024-07-21, 06:22:

I can't find via 4in1 4.17 anywhere on the internet, can someone please send a link?

Try googling for 4in1417.zip

Sometimes it's easier to search by file name. I got a few hits on that, including an old FTP server, but I haven't bothered checking if they work.

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Reply 14 of 38, by keropi

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PlaneVuki wrote on 2024-07-21, 06:22:

I can't find via 4in1 4.17 anywhere on the internet, can someone please send a link?

https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/archive/Premio … V93T/index.html

4in1417.exe

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 16 of 38, by soggi

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NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2024-07-19, 16:32:

*NOT SUPPORTED URL*

Please don't link directly to a download file on my webspace, this won't work as hotlinking (inline linking) is not allowed - link to the page which contains the download you want to link to instead. So users even have the chance and advantage to find other useful things on the pages. Thanks in advance @NostalgicAslinger!

George E. Breese's Memory Interleave Enabler 0.15 is available from the tools section of my website (-> https://soggi.org/misc/tools.htm) and - of course - from his own website (-> https://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/).

kind regards
soggi

Vintage BIOSes, firmware, drivers, tools, manuals and (3dfx) game patches -> soggi's BIOS & Firmware Page

soggi.org on Twitter - inactive at the moment

Reply 18 of 38, by PlaneVuki

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Memory interleaver helped some!

What was 101 fps on bx

Was 76 on via, now is 86 on via.

(Bx is now 17% faster, down from previous 30%)

(With p3 600mhz cpu)

There is still some way to go.

What else can be done?

I am also thinking, is there way to manually install agp driver from 4in1 4.17? The executable won't install, it says "registry error, reboot pc". But after reboot, same.

Edit: swaaye, pci latency patch made no difference.

Reply 19 of 38, by swaaye

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PlaneVuki wrote on 2024-07-22, 16:52:

Edit: swaaye, pci latency patch made no difference.

It probably won't help with things like game and CPU performance, but it can help with sound card and storage problems/performance. Lots of these VIA boards have BIOSs that don't properly program the chipset registers.

Though I just posted it because I saw people talking about it. 😀

Anyway, if performance is worse than 440BX my suspicion would be CPU memory performance is worse. Latency and/or bandwidth. Are you running the VIA at 133MHz RAM / 100MHz FSB? Async is usually not faster.