fast-writes

Markius · Jan 29, 2004, 01:20 AM

what exactly is fast-writes and what does it do? should it be on or off? does it cause any problems? etc. etc. etc.

~~craig588~~ · Jan 29, 2004, 01:23 AM

aaaaaahhhh seizure inducing sigs! Isnt there some rule about that?

you shoudl leave it alone if your not having problems, it doesnt really do anything for AIT cards.

Markius · Jan 29, 2004, 01:54 AM

i am leaving it alone..i just want to know what its all about!

and there is a rule about the sigs...you need to be a gold member if you want to induce seizures with your sig

mainman · Jan 29, 2004, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Markius
i am leaving it alone..i just want to know what its all about!

and there is a rule about the sigs...you need to be a gold member if you want to induce seizures with your sig

tek · Jan 29, 2004, 02:38 AM

For some reason when I enable fast-writes on my card (BB ATI 9500pro bios flashed to 9700pro), SOFII freezes after a short time (one of my games) - maybe its cause of my overclock or something... but when I disable it no more freezes?

wierd

No_Style · Jan 29, 2004, 02:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Markius
what exactly is fast-writes and what does it do? should it be on or off? does it cause any problems? etc. etc. etc.

Like ppl say: "If it isn't broken, don't fix it."

What is Fast Writes? I cannot tell you what it does exactly, but I can tell you the advantages and disadvantages of it.

PRO: It can boost performance ever so slightly (1 to 5 FPS in certain games).

CON: It can cause some stability problems ie: Lock ups, stutter etc.

tek · Jan 29, 2004, 03:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by No_Style
CON: It can cause some stability problems ie: Lock ups, stutter etc.

And there lies my answer

Markius · Jan 29, 2004, 05:49 AM

i agree with you No_Style, thats why i dont mess with it atm...my games are running fine.

im just wondering if anybody here at DH knows the technical answers to my question

MajestacaL · Jan 30, 2004, 11:55 PM

I have a ATI AIW 9800 Pro running the new Omega 4.1 @ 8x AGP with all the setting turned up and Fast Writes on and I have great performance with my machine no problems with games either but the only 2 I play is Halo and FFXI online! I have read to have FW disabled I just wanted to try it anyways!

MajestacaL · Jan 31, 2004, 12:05 AM

Let me know if you find any more info on the subject thanks!

nuG · Jan 31, 2004, 03:56 AM

I believe Fastwrites speeds up memory writing from the chipset to the AGP device

I havent taken any performance hits from not having it enabled, so i dont really worry about it. I think that if you have a large amount of ram, than it doesnt really matter that much.

Zebra · Jan 31, 2004, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Markius
i agree with you No_Style, thats why i dont mess with it atm...my games are running fine.

im just wondering if anybody here at DH knows the technical answers to my question

It allows the processor to bypass memory and send data directly to the AGP port.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some sloppy implentations of it, and some boards are stable running it, while others are not. If you search google for "AGP 3.0"(use the quotes), you can find the spec in pdf form. It's 143 pages of technical data that will provide sleep to the insomiacs within the first 5 pages.

Markius · Jan 31, 2004, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zebra
[B] It's 143 pages of technical data that will provide sleep to the insomiacs within the first 5 pages.

rofl

cheers for the info. bud.

RebelWolf · Jan 31, 2004, 10:17 AM

Many boards have a lousy implementation of this. Fastwrites, Sideband Addressing, and even 8X AGP may or may not work well on your particular board.

The good news is, if they don't work well, they have almost no affect on performance, if your forced to disable them. On my K7S5A for instance, Sideband Addressing seems to not be supported at all, Fastwrites will lock the machine, and it never supported above 4X AGP, but since none of these features do much anyhow, it's a non issue.

As I understand Fastwrites from reading other forums, the previous poster was correct, it allows the CPU to write directly to the Vidcard. They also stated, that game developers don't use the "feature" in any case, so your performance has as much of a chance of going up if it's disabled than down, and in any case it's a less than 1% thing. If you do want to try it, apparently the later Intel Chipset's supported it well, since the Intel Integrated graphics tended to need it.

RebelWolf

Zebra · Jan 31, 2004, 05:36 PM

I think the reason the Intel boards work well with it is because AGP is an Intel Spec. It would look really bad to not be able to implement properly when you wrote the rules.

It figures that the software writers are not using the feature. Probably because not everyone uses it on their videocards. They would just have to write a routine to check for it's presence when the game boots up. (that's just the high level version of what they would have to do!)

Jan 29, 2004, 01:20 AM	#1
Markius DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,350 Rep Power: 0	fast-writes what exactly is fast-writes and what does it do? should it be on or off? does it cause any problems? etc. etc. etc. __________________ DriverHeavens Aussie... "Lifes tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late"

Jan 29, 2004, 01:54 AM	Thread Starter #3
Markius DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,350 Rep Power: 0	i am leaving it alone..i just want to know what its all about! and there is a rule about the sigs...you need to be a gold member if you want to induce seizures with your sig __________________ DriverHeavens Aussie... "Lifes tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late"

Jan 29, 2004, 02:38 AM	#5
tek DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Boston, US Posts: 2,103 Rep Power: 0	For some reason when I enable fast-writes on my card (BB ATI 9500pro bios flashed to 9700pro), SOFII freezes after a short time (one of my games) - maybe its cause of my overclock or something... but when I disable it no more freezes? wierd __________________ [COLOR=White][/COLOR]

Jan 29, 2004, 05:49 AM	Thread Starter #8
Markius DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,350 Rep Power: 0	i agree with you No_Style, thats why i dont mess with it atm...my games are running fine. im just wondering if anybody here at DH knows the technical answers to my question __________________ DriverHeavens Aussie... "Lifes tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late"

Jan 30, 2004, 11:55 PM	#9
MajestacaL HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 68 Rep Power: 0	I have a ATI AIW 9800 Pro running the new Omega 4.1 @ 8x AGP with all the setting turned up and Fast Writes on and I have great performance with my machine no problems with games either but the only 2 I play is Halo and FFXI online! I have read to have FW disabled I just wanted to try it anyways! Last edited by MajestacaL; Jan 31, 2004 at 12:04 AM.

Jan 29, 2004, 01:23 AM	#2
~~craig588~~ Banned Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: In clothing Posts: 3,510 Rep Power: 0	aaaaaahhhh seizure inducing sigs! Isnt there some rule about that? you shoudl leave it alone if your not having problems, it doesnt really do anything for AIT cards.

Jan 31, 2004, 12:05 AM	#10
MajestacaL HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 68 Rep Power: 0	Let me know if you find any more info on the subject thanks! __________________ DESKTOP Antec Nine Hundred, Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe, Intel 805D 2.66ghz OC @4.00ghz Corsair Water Cooled, Raidmax 630 PSU, 2gig PC4200 @533, 2- 150gig WD RaptorX Raid0, 2- 300gig SATAII Raid0, Evga 8800GTX @576/1.80, SB X-Fi Fatality Edition

Jan 31, 2004, 03:56 AM	#11
nuG is having a sexy party Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: East Coast Posts: 1,779 Rep Power: 0	I believe Fastwrites speeds up memory writing from the chipset to the AGP device I havent taken any performance hits from not having it enabled, so i dont really worry about it. I think that if you have a large amount of ram, than it doesnt really matter that much. __________________ [COLOR=Black][/COLOR]

Jan 31, 2004, 10:17 AM	#14
RebelWolf DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 55 Rep Power: 0	Many boards have a lousy implementation of this. Fastwrites, Sideband Addressing, and even 8X AGP may or may not work well on your particular board. The good news is, if they don't work well, they have almost no affect on performance, if your forced to disable them. On my K7S5A for instance, Sideband Addressing seems to not be supported at all, Fastwrites will lock the machine, and it never supported above 4X AGP, but since none of these features do much anyhow, it's a non issue. As I understand Fastwrites from reading other forums, the previous poster was correct, it allows the CPU to write directly to the Vidcard. They also stated, that game developers don't use the "feature" in any case, so your performance has as much of a chance of going up if it's disabled than down, and in any case it's a less than 1% thing. If you do want to try it, apparently the later Intel Chipset's supported it well, since the Intel Integrated graphics tended to need it. RebelWolf

Jan 31, 2004, 05:36 PM	#15
Zebra DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: California,USA Posts: 198 Rep Power: 0	I think the reason the Intel boards work well with it is because AGP is an Intel Spec. It would look really bad to not be able to implement properly when you wrote the rules. It figures that the software writers are not using the feature. Probably because not everyone uses it on their videocards. They would just have to write a routine to check for it's presence when the game boots up. (that's just the high level version of what they would have to do!) __________________ My current system as of 04/20/06: M/B: ABIT K8U Socket 754 RAM: 1024MB Corsair Select CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (Clawhammer) VIDEO: ATI Radeon AIW X800 XT 256MB AGP8X AUDIO: SB Audigy 2 DISK: Maxtor 7200rpm 200GB 8MB cache SATA drive DVD/RW: Sony DRU-800A DL Dual Format DVD/CD Burner CD/RW : TEAC 48X CD Burner OS: WIN XP PRO w/SP2 VID DRIVERS: Latest Omega Radeon Drivers PSU: ANTEC 500W