K7VAT
System Board 82
5-3 Video
Issues
Setting AGP speed
In the BIOS setup on the Advanced Chipset Features page you can set the AGP 4X mode
item to either enabled or disabled. It is not possible to select between AGPx1 and AGPx2
using the BIOS, this is selected automatically depending on the AGP card you use.
If you use a Creative graphics card the AGP speed can be selected using Creative's
agpwizard which is available for download at www.creative.com. Note that this utility will
not work with non-Creative graphics cards.
determining AGP speed
To determine the AGP speed, a utility such as WCPUID (available under downloads at
http://www.h-oda.com) can be used.
Setting the AGP aperture
The AGP aperture is the official name for the stretch of main memory that is reserved for
AGP. The size of the aperture can be set through the BIOS setup. Go to the Advanced
Chipset Features page and use the AGP Aperture size item to set the size. It is advisable to
set the AGP aperture to half the system RAM - i.e. set to 32MB with 64MB of RAM. The
default value is 128MB, which is best set back if you have less then 256MB of memory.
AGP driving control explained
The manual hex range (00h-FFh) allows the user to set the timing of the signal that the
video card driver uses to communicate over the AGP bus. Default for the AGP Driving
control is 'Auto', this is the lowest-common denominator settings that provides the widest
compatibility.
As for how to find out the specific settings recommended for various video cards, the best
recommendation would be to contact your video card vendor first (attempting to contact the
chipset provider as well may be advisable). Ask them what their recommended manual
timing is.
