Quite simple: If a 3D card has AGP x2/x4 interface, does it work fine with motherboards that use x1/x2 ones?

It should, if your mobo supports 2x agp, and your card supports 2x agp... they should live together happily everafter.

That's exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks.

[ 11-07-2002, 04:17 PM: Message edited by: NiceWorg ]

They might not. The card may say it runs at AGP 2X, but it is far from certain that it will run in an AGP 1.0 slot.

Check the manufacturers site, they should have info. Also look in the fine print on the side of the box - if it says it needs and agp 2.0 slot, it needs an agp 2.0 slot.

A-ha. A nice surprise.. [img]smile.gif[/img]

It´s clear that if mobo 100% supports x2 AGP, it will also work with cards that use x2. Another words, x1/x2 mobo can configure itself to x2 (they are MODES that don´t run at the same time, right or wrong?), so that user doesn´t have to play with BIOS or tweak anything. How about that? Im sure that my mobo supports x2 too, and so does the card.

Yeah, AGP just isn´t my thing.

99 % of all AGP video cards from reputable manufacturers are backwards compatible. In other words if your card supports 4X you can pop it in a 1X or 2X with no problems. The only question being, why don't you have 4X support?

It's not one of the newest motherboards, and at the moment I have no cash or real interest to upgrade. Just for information, the mobo is Via, some early 2000 model I read, and the card is AOpen GF2pro 64 DDR VIVO.

But thanks!

I'm pretty sure you'll have no problem, the card will just default down to the fastest speed the mobo can support. Incidently, not many apps actually use 4X AGP anyway. I doubt you'll notice much real world difference between 2 and 4.

Uh, oh!! I have some bad news. VIA chipets are the bigest hunks of junk on the market. They might be configured to run , but their internal architecture is so haphazzard that they cause tons of conflicts and problems once they are actualy put into use. You can check out here for more info--> www.tomshardware.com

To make sure that the card is operating at 2x go into BIOS and look for something that says "AGP mode" or something to that effect. You'll then have a choice as to what mode you want the card to operate in. The wording is different for different BIOS' but the result is the same.

Older motherboards will generally have a 3.3 volt AGP slot while newer boards will have 1.5 volt AGP slots.

Its true that the card will adjust itself to what speed the board is running at, BUT you have to go into BIOS to tell the board what speed to run at.

Also you might need to adjust the "Graphics Aperture." If you have 512 meg of RAM you can pretty much safely set the Aperture to 256. However, If you have less than 512, you might want to set it at 128 or even 64. 25% of your RAM dedicated to the Graphics Aperture is the rulle of thumb. If you set the Aperture too high you'll notice a serious performance loss.

Besides www.tomshardware.com definitely check out www.guru3d.com and get the Geforce Tweak Utility if its a Nvidia based card. I use it and its and awesome little tool.