!!! LET'S START AN OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE VIA-MATROX - CONFLICT !!!

[Joel]

I do partly agree with you Alfie. That now is probably the right time for a new upgrade. The question is do you go ahead and buy an available slot A Athlon system(which is on it's way out but cheap) or wait a few more weeks for the Duron system to start arriving?

Joel

[The PIT]

Probably best waiting for the new Amd chipset and run with that.

[Alfie]

I'll wait until all the dust settles and everyone using them posts their problems,and then I'll know the solutions!
Same deal with the next Matrox card.
Stay 6-12 monthes behind the times and avoid all the headaches!
As far as those knocking Via chipsets which now boasts 40% market share.
Via's new chant should be the one used by the gay community.
We're queer,We're here,get used to it!

[Elie]

Have you VIA users downloaded the 4 in one drivers from the via site?
You can also pick em up here.. http://english.aopen.com/tech/download/mbdrv/via.htm

That might fix all your problems.

Regards,
Elie

[MarkD]

Alfie: about your bat-file to enable or disable the viagart. In my opinion it is easier to apply it via a registry patch. The only problem I have is that I don't know how to remove a line from the registry (adding a line is no problem).
I'm quite sure there's enough clever people here that know how to remove a registry line, so guys: drop a note...
Then it would be as simple as double clicking the enable- or disable-patch, rebooting and start gaming/working.
By the way: with the new G400TV bios/drivers I don't have the BSOD anymore upon shutting down after removing the viagart.vxd reference. Which implies that now I'm continiously working now without the viagart.vxd, with just a small penalty in performance, but who cares when you're not gaming... :-)

------------------
AMD-K6-2-300, EPOX-58MVP3C-M,
Marvel G400, 64MB+64MB(PC100+PC133), Maxtor DM40PLUS 30GB,
W98 (no SE), currently no overclocking (FSB=100)

[Hunsow]

Up

Date problem with the forum again.

[Targon]

Ok, having a lot of experience with the hell that comes with using a VIA chipset based motherboard, as well as having experience with Intel and ALi(Acer Labs) chipsets, here's my own feelings(trying to be impartial):

Intel, being the force behind most of the standards in the PC industry(not counting the Apple or non Intel compatable systems), will obviously be able to design their chipsets to adhere to these standards better than anyone else. Of course, if they can't make a product WORK with that standard, they just make an all new standard and start again. So, they have an edge.

VIA can't come anywhere close to Intel for their chipset market. We've seen it over and over and over again. Their AGP support is HORRIBLE, slow, and buggy. Now, I don't blame them entirely for their chipset problems, because a LOT of the problems come from Windows 95/98. Until 98SE, Microsoft couldn't even correctly talk to the chipset, and would mis-assign IRQs without a miniport driver supplied by VIA. This shows that Microsoft may be at fault for MANY of the problems, but not all of them.

Acer Labs, known in the chipset and motherboard world as ALi tends to make a very solid chipset. I havn't heard much from them in a while since their socket 7 chipsets, maybe it's from lack of looking, but I remember having fairly good luck with them. Rumor has it that they are about to release an Athlon chipset(FINALLY). If/when it shows up on motherboards, we will hopefully have a proper benchmark between Athlon systems, and P3 systems. The rumors I've heard are that the new ALi chipset is due in June, and will support DDR SDRAM. It will also have a decent AGP implementation.

That's pretty much it, there have been some other chipset companies out there that generally provided poor performance, and because of it, didn't make much of an impact on the industry(except the small mobo manufacturers that went out of business because they chose them). If Microsoft would make a decent OS, that wasn't impossible to code a driver for, and didn't try to tweak the hardware as hard without doing proper identification, then no hardware company would have these sorts of issues. Let's face it, how many people have had problems under XFree86 under Linux on the same hardware combinations? Could it be that Microsoft is trying to put so much "acceleration" into the OS that it ends up breaking? I've seen problems on the old VIA socket 7 that would go away if you turned off acceleration. That indicates some fairly serious OS problems as well.

[The PIT]

How many people would know how to install hardware in Linux. Not very many. You've got to remember that Linux is a long way from a mainstream OS and still has a way to go until it's ready for joe public. It's improving I was quite impressed by Mandrake recently "apart from the horrid installer" yet I haven't had time to mess around with it further.
I think that the Mvp3 chipset wasn't available when windoze 98 first came out (Happy to be corrected on this)hence the reason why the patches were released for it to operate correctly. Remember Intel had to release patches for the Bx chipset so that operating system can Identify properly. The same is true for the 810,820 etc. Microsoft can't build an operating system for a chipset that doesn't exist.
The fact that Via recommends you to use the drivers in Windows SE says volumes for there ability to write drivers. I still remember Tape drives and Zip drives not working with there drivers. Theres still a comment about CD writers not working properly on their web site and your better off using Microsofts standard drivers. Via have made large inroads into the market up by 40%. If they made decent drivers that would be even higher. It time they paid attention to there drivers and they would chomp even more of Intels share. If Intel back away from Rambus and start supporting DDr Sdram, apart from Athlon boards, Via's share could well shrink again. Of course it's up to Via to close that door. Competion is needed but it's would be nice to have reliable competion.
Yes I know Intel made a balls up over the 8xx before any mentions it but chipzilla tens to get over these mistakes.

[Alfie]

Isn't that the right date,Hunsow?
This thread has been going on for so long I thought that's when I posted
The new Ali board looks promising,and it's nice to see a slew of mobo's ready for release using Socket A.(MSI,EPOX,and others.
Sure beats having to access sites via the backdoor and reading how a Mobo (socket A) supports Celeron's and Pentium III'S!

[Surfwienix]

do new via drivers (4in1-4.22, agp-4.03) solve this problem ???

[The PIT]

A new CPU might!