New PC graphics board causes problems

I have been using WinUAE for some years now, with no problems.

For various reasons I decided to replace my old S3 ViRGE PCI graphics board with a GeForce FX 5200. Now WinUAE does not work.

Main symptoms are that the Amiga Workbench opens in the WinUAE window, has a very low res, probably only 8 colours and no programs run. Either they crash, freeze the whole machine, give recoverable errors or give "not enough memory" errors.

Does anyone successfully run WinUAE with this board, or can anyone offer any ideas as to what might be happening.

Oh, Yes, I did do the "Check 16 bit modes" test when switching boards. The problem is completely repeatable.

Bernd suggested slowing down the AGP speed. When I did that (from 4X to 1X/2X) the PC wouldn't go into Windows.

I have a Duron 1.1, 512Meg RAM, a GigaByte Motherboard.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Toni Wilen]

Bernd suggested slowing down the AGP speed. When I did that (from 4X to 1X/2X) the PC wouldn't go into Windows.

Make sure you have working motherboard AGP driver. Does any 3D game work? Complete motherboard model? ("Gigabyte" does not help because most manufacturers build motherboards based on different chipset and the chipset is the most important thing)

Hi, Toni

I've never tried a 3d game. I'm getting a copy of 3DMark03 for testing early next week and should be able to try that as a simulation.

I'm not sure of the MOBO details, I'll get back to you on that.

Thanks

[Toni Wilen]

Main symptoms are that the Amiga Workbench opens in the WinUAE window

In Picasso96-mode or native? Picasso96-modes are card-specific, did you check WB's display-prefs?

The MOBO is GA-7DXR.

Picasso mode.

I didn't know about the card-specific side of that.

How do I check and/or change it?

Thanks

[thomas]

Originally posted by TonyR
The MOBO is GA-7DXR.

Picasso mode.

I didn't know about the card-specific side of that.

How do I check and/or change it?

Thanks

Boot AmigaOS and on the workbench open System / Prefs / Screenmode and choose the one you like.

But at first you should check if Windows totally works with the new graphics board. E.g. I had some problems running the 3D tests in dxdiag. This was because I updated the BIOS and by default some options were reset to max performance which didn't work. I think I have the same mobo as you and a Geforce 2.

Bye,
Thomas

[jmmijo]

Here's the drivers page link on Gigabyte's website. This board uses the AMD761 for the northbridge and a VIA 686 southbridge. You may have to install two sets of drivers but check out their page first for the latest versions.

Also it wouldn't hurt to install the latest version of DirectX and the Graphics card drivers either. Nvidia has released v53.03 of their Forceware drivers.

I made a mistake in my last post.

My "old" screen mode is UAEGFX 15 bit PC, not picasso.

Dunno what the new one is as I can't get the screenmode prefs tool to open. Probably 640 x 480 3 bit :-(

Silli question

Can I leave both graphics boards plugged into the machine and simply swap the monitor cable?

Or would that do nasty things?

Regards

[7-Zark-7]

What version of Windows are you using for starters? Right click on your desktop, Select "Properties", then select "Settings", then Choose "Advance". From there, select the "Adapter" tab & see what your windows lists as your current display card.

And to answer your other question, you'll definitely have to only have one graphics card plugged into your PCI slots.

Are you sure your GeforceFX5200 card is PCI compatible? I thought newer PCI graphics cards were virtually non-existant,(At least in regards to the FX card range).

Incidentally, did you get a CD with the graphics card that contained the graphics's card drivers on it?

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by 7-Zark-7
Are you sure your GeforceFX5200 card is PCI compatible? I thought newer PCI graphics cards were virtually non-existant,(At least in regards to the FX card range).

Incidentally, did you get a CD with the graphics card that contained the graphics's card drivers on it?

Most new graphics cards have driver options/properties to support PCI graphics textures and other PCI specific options. Normally with nVidia cards you have to open the Advanced Display Properties to access these functions.

However in this case it maybe more the default refresh rates that the new card is setting up, along with the monitor.

Some cards do behave differently then others even when the monitor doesn't change

Thanks to everyone for their help, I <think> I'm home now.

Yesterday, the PC simply shut down and rebooted for no apparent reason and then went into a loop, getting halfway through Windows startup and rebooting.

I've reseated all cards, cleaned all dust out of the machine and sworn violently at the beast.

I don't know which worked, but all is now well and I'm successfully (almost) using WinUAE on the new graphics card. The outstanding problem is with a Blitz Basic matter and I don't think it is related to WinUAE itself.

Thanks again for all the advice and help

Regards

Tony