ATI Radoen 9200 not working at full potential...or at all?

Hi guys,

I'm completely ignorant when it comes to graphics card and graphics in general. I bought a Radeon 9200 when I bought my computer about 8 months ago and installed it myself. I didn't do any tweaking. Just plugged it in and installed the driver.

Being at school, I haven't really played any games. The few games that I have tried on my system were pretty old and would run smooth on almost any computer. However, I just got Tiger Woods 2004, which isn't a really heavy game graphically, and it is pretty darn choppy. It is not showing me the graphics that i would expect to have.

My computer is a P4 2.56 GHz with 512 MB RAM. I have the latest Windows updates and ATI driver. Where would I begin to fix this problem?


A little more background:
I found a website with instructions on how to tweak my BIOS settings. It told me to disable: VGA pallette boost, Video DA snoop and video bios shadowing; as well as change the AGP Master to 1WS, AGP mode to 4x and AGP fast write wrtie control. This is basically all moot, as none of this appears in my BIOS setup. Any idea why this wouldn't be present?

Finally, is it possible the grphics card is just not functioning? About a month and a half ago, my computer halted, told me the graphics card wasn't reponding and just shut down. However, the computer has worked fine since then. I assumed it was a one time thing; however, now I'm not so sure.

Any help would be greatly appreciated guys.

Thanks.

 

Start > Run,
dxdiag

That should tell you about your graphics performance.

If you have the latest Catalyst driver, there is a SmartGart tab in settings. What does that say about AGP mode, etc.?

 

did you install it correctley
in the device manager uninstall the card
reboot pressing f8
from the boot options choose vga mode
when windows finishes reinstalling the card
then reinstall the drivers
look through the readme txt,in the drivers for any special instructions on installation before you start

 

I reinstalled the driver. Not much change. My graphics performance seems fine. Don't know why, but don't see the SmartGart tab.

Is it possible it is just the game? Maybe the engine is just really heavy?

Finally, any idea why those BIOS settings aren't appearing? I'd like to tweak, but can't find them.

 

Does Device Manager identify the card correctly?

SmartGart can control the BIOS settings concerning AGP speeds and fast write. You should try the most recent driver from ATI, including the Control Panel.
http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html

I don't believe the driver supplied by MS supports OpenGL graphics.

And try dxdiag to see if all is well.

 

The device manager does identify teh Radeon 9200.

Maybe I don't know where to look, but still not finding the SmartGart. I downloaded the driver from ATI. Like I said above, all is well according to dxdiag.

 

Look at Display in Control Panel, Settings tab, Advanced button. The ATI Control Panel should pop up. Many settings are there for your media player's overlay window, gaming options, and SmartGart that should tell you your AGP speed.

You'll also find settings there for DirectX and OpenGL that let you make adjustments on a scale from Performance to Quality. Choosing something in the middle, or even "performance" on both does not seem to appreciably degrade graphics quality while increasing speeds in games.

 

Ok, am I looking for something actually called SmartGart? There is nothing there called that.

My roommate just brought up something. It is going to hard to explain, but I will try. My monitor has been screwy since getting the computer. I always assumed it was a bad monitor, but he is suggesting the graphics card. When a move a window around quickly, the edges of the monitor seem to bubble - they move in and out. Also, there is a 'white shadow' to the left of everything. Is it all connected to the graphics card?

 

Did you follow this proceedure?

Installation Instructions:
NOTE: Ensure that you have logged onto the system with Administrative rights if you are using Windows 2000/XP

1.Uninstall the ATI Display Driver
2.Restart once prompted. If prompted cancel the installation of the display adapter upon boot up.
3.Close all other applications running, including any anti-virus software before attempting to install the driver suite.

Windows 2000/XP:
You can confirm that all applications are closed using the Windows Task Manager.
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL once and then click Task Manager. Select the "Applications" tab. If any applications are still listed on this tab, highlight the application and then click the "End Task" button at the bottom of the tab. Repeat this procedure until there are no more applications running.


Windows 98/SE/ME:
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL once. Highlight each application and then click the "End Task" button at the bottom of this window. Repeat this procedure until there are no more applications running except for EXPLORER & SYSTRAY. Do NOT end task on these two applications or your PC will shut down.


*Locate the Display Driver download and double-click on it.
*Restart once prompted.
*Locate the ATI Control Panel (if included) download and double-click on it.
*Restart once prompted.
*Locate the WDM Capture drivers and double-click on it. - ONLY download if you have an AIW RADEON or RADEON VIVO family product.
*Restart once prompted

 

You know. It may be getting clearer to me now. SmartGart controls BIOS settings related to AGP speed. You don't have it. You looked in BIOS and saw nothing related to AGP. Do you even have an AGP slot? In Control Panel under System Devices, do you have a CPU to AGP Controller or anything related to AGP?

I'm thinking you may have a PCI card.

Is it this one:
http://www.ixbt.com/video2/images/sapphire-4/r9200se-front.jpg
or this one?
http://www.ixbt.com/video2/images/sapphire-4/r9200-pci-front.jpg

 

The Radeon 9200 is a AGP 4X/8X card

 

This is a Radeon 9200 PCI:
http://www.ixbt.com/video2/images/sapphire-4/r9200-pci-front.jpg

 

The web site that you're getting those pictures from is in Russia

I don't think they sell that card in the US as a PCI. Let me do some snooping around to see if I can verify this...

 

According to what ATI says HERE it's a AGP card

However that doesn't mean that s/he bought a new 9200. It's possible that an older series 9200 was PCI

 

OK, just opened up my PC and took a look. It is definitely an AGP card. It does not fit into a PCI slot.

BUT, for some reason the computer seems to be reading it as PCI. When I open Device Manager and look at the Radeon properties, it says its location is PCI bus 1. Does that seem weird? Again, I know nothing about PCs here. I'm completely in the dark.