How to set AGP Aperture/SBLive users

[Skynet8]

1. I know I really sound stupid here, but how do I set the AGP aperture size? I've gathered that it's in the BIOS, but I'm running PheonixBIOS which allows practically no settings to be changed. Bleah.

2. Are there any G400/SBLive! users who do NOT have any problems running games (with bus mastering enabled)?

Thanks.

[SCompRacer]

Skynet8, your question is not stupid if you need an answer to it.

I have a SB Live sharing an IRQ with the G400 MAX and also have bus mastering enabled. Have an ASUS P2B-LS. I tried temporarily removing my Hollywood + to give them seperate IRQ's with no performance increase, so back to sharing.

Yeah I know the G400 has a great software DVD, but the Sigma is better.

Don't know about your Phoenix BIOS. What kind of MB do you have and are there any BIOS updates for it? With an Award BIOS, it is under Chipset Features Setup, Graphics Aperture Size.

[This message has been edited by SCompRacer (edited 09-19-1999).]

[Excalibur]

SCompRacer --

My motherboard has an Award BIOS as well, but I do not have the Graphics Aperature Size setting, which I thought to be an odd omission. I'm running an Award BIOS v 4.51 PG with a date of 7/16/99 (BIOS update v3.3), which is the latest my manufacturer has (Giga-Byte). What's yours?

- Excalibur

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PII-450MHz @ 450MHz, Giga-Byte GA-6BXE MoBo (v3.3 BIOS), 128MB PC100 ECC RAM, MGA Mystique G200 AGP 8MB (8MB add-on PULLED!; not overclocked) PD 5.25 / BIOS v2.6 - 20, SB-AWE64 Gold, Windows 98SE, DX6.1 and lots of other goodies that would just be showing off to list.

[Kruzin]

My Live!/G400 combo work fine together, busmastering and all. (not sharing an IRQ here)

Not all BIOSes have AGP aperture settings in them. Especially if it was a pre-built (Dell or HP or something). You may be able to find an updated bios from whoever made the PC, or even better, one directly from the mobo maker to replace the dell/hp/whoever's BIOS...

[Zypher]

All oems, even motherboard oems customize their bios The 'Award bios' is just a subset, with supported commands. They can decide what they want to give end users. So tighwads like intel will never go and add coding to talk to hardware, such as sel#66/100. Well, they will add it, but you can't touch it...frickin cpu autodetect. Oems that seriously kiss intel ass will likely do the same.

Anyway, my abit has it. They put the kitchen sinks in their bios releases. I wish they would put out the Award 6.0 bios in their releases for the older boards though. [BH6] Some new possibilities to play with in that.

[SteveC]

"Award BIOS v4.51PG" is the same one that was used years ago, when we were all buying 486DXes. Zypher's right - The Award bios means almost nothing as each mainboard's BIOS is so different.

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[P. Adelt]

Just to get back to the original SB!Live problem: I've had it as one of the first people getting p** off (sorry, but it was that bad!) with it. Switching off busmastering was the first solution. No way.
The real solution (for me) was to get rid of my installation, install everything over and NOT install some of the SB!Live stuff that comes with it (SB!Live Experience in special).
The real reason was a DirectX issue.
The following information sent to me as a response to a Usenet post:
>Go into your C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32 and see if the version of
>VMCPD.VXD is 4.10.1413. If so, DX6.1 has overwritten the original and
>this can cause a problem with the PIII's floating point system.
>
>You must extract the driver of the same name from the Win98 CD which
>carries the version 4.10.1998. Reboot and everything should work okay
>- if this has been the problem.

You could try that. Best luck!

Regards,
Philipp Adelt
Bielefeld, Germany