How to change AGP speed setting on ATI radeon card?

[Konnrade]

I'm getting the same problems as some other people are.

After playing the game for a little while, the GUI will have nasty distortions, flickering different colors and flickering garbled text. The models will flicker colors or briefly display visual artifacts.

Generally all the nasty video buggers that come with a badly designed graphics engine.

I've heard it might help to set my AGP speed to 4x, but I can't seem to find how to do this. I open the advanced display tab in windows XP, and peruse the tabs therein, nothing whatsoever about this.

Anyone care to help?

[Konnrade]

I found an app that let me change the setting, but it did absolutely nothing to help.

Same symptoms to the same extent. AntiAliasing is off, resolution is 1024x768

[TheHateMale]

Right-click on desktop Properties>Settings>Advanced>SmartGart

[Urban Ranger]

You can try RivaTuner. Be careful when you use it.

[Konnrade]

I used rivatuner.

It had zero effect. The results were as effective as asking the game politely not to do it.

[Urban Ranger]

Hm, the effects it has depend on your settings. What do you use?

[Tingkai]

I'm having the same image problems as Konnrade.

I can't seem to turn on my AGP.

When I run dxdiag it says AGP is not available.

I have a Radeon 9550XT, plugged into an AGP slot.

Except for the lack of AGP, my computer seems to work fine, but I think the lack of AGP may be why I'm having image problems with Civ 4.

Anyone know how I can get the AGP working.

[Konnrade]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Hm, the effects it has depend on your settings. What do you use?

my video card is a radeon 9700pro.

I also have:
~intel 4 3.0ghz processor
~1 gigabyte of corsair memory
~An intel D865BGF motherboard chipset
~Creative SB Live! audio card

[Urban Ranger]

AGP should start automatically.

How old is your motherboard? Does it have intergrated graphics that you need to switch off in BIOS?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Konnrade
my video card is a radeon 9700pro.

I also have:
~intel 4 3.0ghz processor
~1 gigabyte of corsair memory
~An intel D865BGF motherboard chipset
~Creative SB Live! audio card

Sorry. I meant settings for your application in RivaTuner.

[Tingkai]

The motherboard is less than two years old. A magic pro K7N-400.

How do I switch off the intergrated graphics?

I found this on a google search:

The solution is the same for you Joshua, but you need the chipset drivers for a non-Intel chipset. Try to find what make/model motherboard you have or what chipset your system has and install the appropriate chipset drivers.

Chances are you have VIA or NFORCE chipset if it's an AMD. You'll need to dig around in your device manager or any manuals you have for your system to discover which of the two you'll need to update.

Good luck


Can you explain what this means in basic English?

[Konnrade]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Sorry. I meant settings for your application in RivaTuner.

Which settings? there are many of them o.0

[Auldian]

Re: How to change AGP speed setting on ATI radeon card?

Originally posted by Konnrade
I'm getting the same problems as some other people are.

After playing the game for a little while, the GUI will have nasty distortions, flickering different colors and flickering garbled text. The models will flicker colors or briefly display visual artifacts.

Generally all the nasty video buggers that come with a badly designed graphics engine.

I've heard it might help to set my AGP speed to 4x, but I can't seem to find how to do this. I open the advanced display tab in windows XP, and peruse the tabs therein, nothing whatsoever about this.

Anyone care to help?

That the symptom occurs after you've played the game for a little while might indicate overheating. I've seen it suggested that underclocking the graphics card may help decide if this is the case. Lowering the memory speed may delay the onset of the corruption which may mean a bad fan or just old thermal compound on your card.
If your software doesn't offer memory clocking options, ATI Tray Tool is often recommended. You should be able to find it by googling.
Your AGP speed is set in the BIOS of your computer at boot-up. Often it's entered by tapping the DEL key. Retest all with Smartgart (ati control panel or catalyst control center) if you make a change there.

[Konnrade]

Intel makes a windows based control panel for overclocking, I'm sure I could probably download it and see if it can allow me to underclock. My system does tend to run on the warm side, but since I've installed a new mod case power supply with two high-speed performace 3.5" fans the large number of exhaust CFM's has kept it within tolerable levels.

I'd imagine active monitor would have alerted me if it was getting too hot.

Nonetheless I can try underclocking and see if that yields a diagnosis.

Thanks for the tip

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Tingkai
The motherboard is less than two years old. A magic pro K7N-400.

How do I switch off the intergrated graphics?

I found this on a google search:

The solution is the same for you Joshua, but you need the chipset drivers for a non-Intel chipset. Try to find what make/model motherboard you have or what chipset your system has and install the appropriate chipset drivers.

Chances are you have VIA or NFORCE chipset if it's an AMD. You'll need to dig around in your device manager or any manuals you have for your system to discover which of the two you'll need to update.

Good luck


Can you explain what this means in basic English?

First I wondered if your mobo can't support AGP 8x, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Is there a CD that comes with your graphics card? If so, run the setup program on the CD to install the driver for the video card, then reboot the machine.

If AGP still isn't working, press <del> when the computer is booting up. This puts you into the BIOS configuration utility. Move between different screens to check your AGP settings. I don't think the AGP slot could be disabled in BIOS, I could be wrong. If not, check the video settings to make sure AGP is given priority.