Is There Much Difference In

DY357LX · June 2005

<div class="IPBDescription">AGP 4x and AGP 8x</div> I've just stepped my ATI drivers up to the 5.5's (Battlefield 2 doesn't like the 5'6's) and noticed that in the Control panel thingy, my AGP speed was set to 8x and i'm sure it used to be 4x on the 5.2's. (Before the upgrade.)

Is there much difference between 4x and 8x ?
Should I switch back to 4x ?
<More predictable AGP questions here>

RustySpoon · June 2005

I think it depends on what you have in your AGP slots.

So from what I've heard for example a 9800, which is a 8x card, runs pretty well in a 4x mobo (AGP slot?), whereas a Ti 4200 (or whatever, haven't delved deep into the NVdidia cards) performs noticably slower in a 4x than 8x slot.

But yes there still is a difference, and if you support 8x it's a no-brainer to set BF to run at it.

CForrester · June 2005

It has to do with bandwidth to and from the video card. I'll use an example I saw somewhere else:

Think of the AGP setting as a highway. At AGP 1x, you have one lane on each side. If a lot of cars are trying to drive on this highway at the same time, there won't be enough space for everybody and everyone will have to slow down so that they hit other cards.

At AGP 2x, you have two lanes on each side. This helps the traffic a bit more, making it easier to get to your destination.

At AGP 4x, there are four lanes on each side. This helps traffic a lot more.

And at AGP 8x, there are eight lanes on each side. This means that the cars can easily spread out. There is no worries about collision, nobody has to slow down and the cars get to where they want to go as fast as possible.

Definitely got for AGP 8x if you can. Not many games take advantage of the extra bandwidth provided yet, but in the near future they most definitely will.

Black_Viper · June 2005

And thats why you want PCI-e, 16X means 16 lanes, meaning more traffic, meaing HELLA COOL GFX!!!

CForrester · June 2005

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Black Viper @ Jun 16 2005, 03:10 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> And thats why you want PCI-e, 16X means 16 lanes, meaning more traffic, meaing HELLA COOL GFX!!!  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
More lanes != more traffic. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /> More lanes = more room for traffic to move.

DY357LX · June 2005

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Now thats pretty interesting.

My GFX card = Radeon 9800 Pro (128) and according to the back of the box (heh, yes I still have it - i throw all my boxes into one corner and it looks like a geek version of Jenga) it has 8 pipes and 8x AGP.

Time to go play Battlefield 2 on my updated drivers and see if there's much difference.

Thanks for the info people!

/me hugs everyone

neko1 · June 2005

How do I make my Radeon 9800PRO be on AGP 8x? I go into SmartGart and it shows that my AGP mode is off and the only selectable ones are 4x and 8x. When I switch it to 8x and click "Apply" it tells me to restart my computer. When I go and restart it and come back to the SmartGart screen it's on the off position again! When I choose to not restart and I go back it also goes back to the off position.

ProfLiebstrom · June 2005

do you have an 8x AGP mobo.

neko1 · June 2005

Yes it does. It's an MSI K8T800 and on the site it says that it is "AGP v3.0 compliant with 8X transfer mode"

Pulse · June 2005

Make sure it's enabled in your BIOS. If you don't know how to do that, restart your computer and press Delete or one of the F keys on the Power On Self Test screen (it should tell you which key you need to press), find the option and change it to AGP 8x; make sure you don't touch anything else unless you know exactly what it will do.

neko1 · June 2005

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Pulse @ Jun 16 2005, 04:50 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Make sure it's enabled in your BIOS. If you don't know how to do that, restart your computer and press Delete or one of the F keys on the Power On Self Test screen (it should tell you which key you need to press), find the option and change it to AGP 8x; make sure you don't touch anything else unless you know exactly what it will do.  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
It says that it's on "Auto" and it won't let me change it.

TychoCelchuuu · June 2005

With PCI-X
You do get more bandwidth, true
But you don't need it

There's only so much
Data that needs to be there
AGP is fine

But in the future
We'll need the extra data
For pixel pushing!

Tykjen · June 2005

neko: I had the same problem once, and installing new chipset drivers fixed that. Mine was Via i think, and i think the same goes for yours, the MSI K8T800 is Via based as well. Good luck.

<a href='http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=2' target='_blank'>http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=2</a>

look for the 4in1 drivers

DaJMasta · June 2005

The analogy for the most part works, just I got learned this lesson earlier so now you get to be skooled:

PCI:
Trail in the woods.

AGP:
1x 1 dirt road
2x Residential street (1 lane each direction)
4x moderate speed road (4 total lanes)
8x highway (8 total lanes)

This is the beauty of PCI Express:
16x Frigging huge-mega-super-uber-highway thing (16 lanes in each direction)

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' />

Tycho, you pretty much have it, but especially on higher end cards, there is a noticable difference. PCI-E is not only more bandwidth but a better architecture, so its marginally more efficient. I mean the SLi configurations basically make each 16x slot an 8x slot and no one can tell the difference.

In time the overhead will be filled.

Is There Much Difference In

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