eX_NihiLo
Here's Your Something For Nothing
Premium
join:2003-08-05
Louisville, CO
| AGP Isn't Done Yet! Noticed the AGP version Radeon 4650 and 4670 while perusing Newegg »www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi···hInDesc=
Wonder if the video cards off-load enough video processing off the CPU to allow older platforms to be used as HTPCs. | |
|
 nnaarrnn
join:2004-09-30
Nitro, WV | Re: AGP Isn't Done Yet! I use an AMD x2 4200+ 2gb ddr2 in an old biostar motherboard with an AGP 7600GS 256MB card running Vista Media center/Hulu Desktop and have ZERO performance issues. Wouldn't even try blue ray with it though. | |
|
asdfdfdfdfdfdfdf
@Level3.net | "Wonder if the video cards off-load enough video processing"
I think so.
How old a setup are you thinking about? | |
|
 |
eX_NihiLo
Here's Your Something For Nothing
Premium
join:2003-08-05
Louisville, CO
1 edit | Re: AGP Isn't Done Yet! Athlon 3000+ on a socket A nForce2 Ultra 400. Couldn't find any reviews on the 46XX AGP series. I'm going to hunt down some on the 3850 AGP which is similar to see what the CPU utilization is on old platforms for H.264 decoding.
Edit: Corrected MB. | |
|
|
| 
Juke Box
Free From Marketing
Premium
join:2001-01-29
Bar & Grill
 ·Comcast
| Re: AGP Isn't Done Yet! These cards are supported with the latest Catalyst Drivers. As of the 1950's and earlier series, AMD stopped updating the drivers since 9.3.
--
If you are having half as much fun as I am, then I must be having twice the fun than you are. Do The Math! | |
|
| 
howie
Premium,MVM
join:2003-04-08
Little Falls, NJ
| said by BA  :These cards could be troublesome. My experience with older AGP cards (Powercolor Radeon HD 3650) required the user to download the AGP driver from the Powercolor's website. The Catalyst hotfix drivers on ATI/AMD's don't recognize the device ID of the video card. The Sapphire HD 3650 (on my last biuild) required AGP drivers directly from Sapphire as well. The ATI Radeon drivers from the AMD website just wouldn't work. It was a PITA as many times the updated drivers lagged behind ATI's current release by a week or more... | |
|
| | 
salzan
Experienced Optimist
Premium
join:2004-01-08
WA State
1 edit | Re: AGP Isn't Done Yet! said by howie :said by BA :These cards could be troublesome. My experience with older AGP cards (Powercolor Radeon HD 3650) required the user to download the AGP driver from the Powercolor's website. The Catalyst hotfix drivers on ATI/AMD's don't recognize the device ID of the video card. The Sapphire HD 3650 (on my last biuild) required AGP drivers directly from Sapphire as well. The ATI Radeon drivers from the AMD website just wouldn't work. It was a PITA as many times the updated drivers lagged behind ATI's current release by a week or more... It seems all the AGP versions of the 3XXX and 4XXX cards share this same issue. If the drivers on the CD don't work, you're done. Sapphire offers no driver support and the ATI drivers won't recognize the card. From what I've read, the other manufacturers versions are not much better, if at all.
I did get the HD3850 running but the performance increase over the X850XT is less than stellar. I'm sure it depends on what you're upgrading from but unless you absolutely need a card with SM3, I doubt any of these cards are a worthy upgrade from an already high-end AGP card for gaming purposes.
The lack of driver support really is a deal killer.. | |
|
Octavean
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-31
New York, NY
| Well if I can, let me give you some perspective or at least my perspective.
I have a dedicated Microsoft Vista Media Center system that I have used and upgraded through the years (since about ~2004). Its specs are as follows:
Samsung 40" 1080p HDTV LN40A500 HDTV
HP m1070n MCE PC
Intel 520 P4 2.8GHz HTT
2GB PC3200
ASUS PTGD1-LA
eVGA 9500GT
BlackBird NTSC Analog Tuner
SiliconDust HDHomeRun QAM
NEC ND-3500
Seagate 750GB HDD
HP Media Smart Case
Vista Home Premium Retail SP2
Now the system is capable of playing Blu-Ray discs with GPU offload as well as AVCHD .ts / .m2ts files 1080i / 720p recorded TV from a Hauppauge HD PVR, however, it struggles with Hulu HD and SD. The problem there would seem to be the combination of the weak single core CPU and the fact that there isn’t really any GPU acceleration for Flash Video at this time. Apparently this is something that is being worked on as we speak but its not much help to us now.
So there you have it.
Your GPU will help when applicable but for the times it can’t you’re going to want a CPU that can get you over the hump. | |
|
salzan
Experienced Optimist
Premium
join:2004-01-08
WA State
| The X850XT in my daughter's XP3200 system finally hit a roadblock with shader model 3. I looked at the 4650 and actually ordered one and then cancelled the order and went with the Sapphire 3850.
From the specs the 4650 was a big downgrade from the X850XT with the exception of SM4.1 on the 4650.
Hopefully, the 3850 should provide the performance she's used to and give her SM4. If it weren't for the whole shader model thing the X850XT has been a great card.
I know, time for a new setup... | |
|
|
xyxvv
@tds.net
| Re: AGP Isn't Done Yet! said by salzan :The X850XT in my daughter's XP3200 system finally hit a roadblock with shader model 3. I looked at the 4650 and actually ordered one and then cancelled the order and went with the Sapphire 3850.From the specs the 4650 was a big downgrade from the X850XT with the exception of SM4.1 on the 4650. Hopefully, the 3850 should provide the performance she's used to and give her SM4. If it weren't for the whole shader model thing the X850XT has been a great card. I know, time for a new setup...
Um... what? The HD4650 is 4 generations newer then the R400/X800 series GPUs, it should run circles around it just as a 1.8Ghz single core 2 duo based celeron will beat a 1.8Ghz P4 at literally everything.
If I remember right though the HD4670 is faster then the HD3850 at pretty much everything provided its the 128-bit GDDR3 version. | |
|
| 
Anonymous_
Anonymous
Premium
join:2004-06-21
127.0.0.1
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
·Time Warner Cable
 ·Time Warner VOIP
2 edits | said by salzan :The X850XT in my daughter's XP3200 system finally hit a roadblock with shader model 3. I looked at the 4650 and actually ordered one and then cancelled the order and went with the Sapphire 3850.From the specs the 4650 was a big downgrade from the X850XT with the exception of SM4.1 on the 4650. Hopefully, the 3850 should provide the performance she's used to and give her SM4. If it weren't for the whole shader model thing the X850XT has been a great card. I know, time for a new setup... x850 only has SM 1 and 2.1b
3xxx/4xxx has SM 1 to 4.1 | |
|
| |
salzan
Experienced Optimist
Premium
join:2004-01-08
WA State
1 edit | Re: AGP Isn't Done Yet! said by Anonymous_ :x850 only has SM 1 and 2.1b 3xxx/4xxx has SM 1 to 4.1 Which is exactly why SM3 was a roadblock.
I had to upgrade the X850XT card to get SM3+ | |
|
|
|
salzan
Experienced Optimist
Premium
join:2004-01-08
WA State
1 edit | Re: AGP Isn't Done Yet! These cards are not old cards. Looking for old drivers will not help if the cards didn't exist when the drivers came out. I know the INF file can be modified to install drivers but what a PITA.
Edit: So at the latest check, there are drivers on their site for the card. Odd that they were gone earlier but I have to retract the 'no drivers available' statement. | |
|
|
howie
Premium,MVM
join:2003-04-08
Little Falls, NJ
3 edits | said by ironwalker :I have had saphire cards and never once used the driver from there website.In fact every make of agp video card I owned I never use the manufacturers drivers. At the time I purchased a Sapphire HD 3650 AGP (a year or so ago) for my old P4 build, I'm sure that the available ATI drivers did not work. In fact, forums were full of Sapphire AGP users with the same problem.
[EDIT] I'm thinking this may have been an issue with the later 9.X Catalyst drivers. IIRC, AMD/ATI dropped AGP support
(driver-wise) at some point in the not-too-distant past...
AMD has a 3600 series Catalyst 9.6 driver but just try and get it to work with a Sapphire HD 3650 AGP card (Works fine with PCI-E, I'm sure). | |
|
| |
salzan
Experienced Optimist
Premium
join:2004-01-08
WA State
| Re: AGP Isn't Done Yet! said by howie :At the time I purchased a Sapphire HD 3650 AGP (a year or so ago) for my old P4 build, I'm sure that the available ATI drivers did not work. In fact, forums were full of Sapphire AGP users with the same problem. It's still the same. Even the 4650 and the brand new 4670 aren't recognized by the ATI drivers.
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···14125281
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···14131161
Since ATI is not officially supporting AGP, all the drivers are proprietary from the card manufacturer. It seems the only thing lacking is the product code in the INF files.
Apparently, you can 'trick' the ATI drivers into installing by installing the CD drivers and then copying all the install files from an ATI driver to the CD install directory and re-installing over the top... | |
|
| | |
howie
Premium,MVM
join:2003-04-08
Little Falls, NJ | Re: AGP Isn't Done Yet! Thanks for the info! I remember having to wait for weeks sometimes to grab the latest Catalyst AGP drivers from Sapphire. I now have a HD 3870 PCI-E, so no more worries.  | |
|
ctcurry
join:2006-01-25
Studio City, CA
| I just bought a AGP/4650 from XFX. The AGP drivers are from 8/2008. I tried the drivers from xfxforce.com (the maker) and from ATI/AMD and had no luck. Seems the hotfix is only for 2* and 3* variants.
I was able to update to Catalyst 9.7 (I think I did anyway) by downloading and extracting the latest CCC from the ATI website. Once expanded, I right-clicked each INF installation file. This updated the video drivers, CCC and I am assuming someunderneath files because there was about a dozen INF files after I was done. Then I rebooted and verified the drivers were updated.
The only problem I have is that CCC does not start-up when you right-click the desktop or try to run it from the taskbar. But, it is the updated version by the file-dates. I am not a gamer, so I am uncertain I will see any advantage to such an update because I just use it for 2D graphic rendering and watching my TV-Tuner while I work.
It's worth a try and curious if others can get this to work too. I would just make sure you set your CCC settings the way you want them; otherwise, you can use the Windows display properties to setup (in my case, multiple monitors, etc). | |
|
|
|
|
