Fire GL 8800 Problem

[ludl]

Have a big problem.
I only get 4 colours.

[Shloppy]

Hello ludl. It sounds like your drivers aren't installed correctly.

Try the latest drivers, which I think for 32-bit XP / 2000 are here.

[ludl]

Thank you I will try, but what about Bios.
The funny thing is that I get the message, not enough resources.

[Shloppy]

Perhaps you could give a bit more detail on your computers components, OS installed and suchlike. It would make things considerably easier

[ludl]

Motherboard Gigabyte 6BXU
P3 450 Intel
Win XP

[Shloppy]

Thank you I will try, but what about Bios.
The funny thing is that I get the message, not enough resources.

It may be a possibility that because of your motherboards age/limitations, either it cannot allocate the requested memory address space that your card requires due to all of the current resources being utilised or you may have a resource conflict with another device, be it a conflicting IRQ or memory range.

If applicable, have you made sure you've installed the latest Intel chipset drivers? Does your motherboard have onboard video and if so are you positive it's disabled? If you have any expansion cards installed, have you tried removing them and/or disabling options in your motherboards BIOS to alleviate IRQ/memory resource usage?

If you open up device manager are there any exclamation marks next to any of your hardware?

Out of curiousity, whilst still in device manager, if you click on view / resources by type and expand the "Interrupt request (IRQ)" tree, what IRQ does it display to? 0-15 or 0-2x?

[Akumajo]

I don't mean to change the subject but how the hell did you get an ATI Fire GL 8800 128MB AGP 4X graphics card when you have a system that has a Intel P3 450?

I still own my ATI Fire GL 8800 128MB AGP 4X graphics card but in my case I have it setup with an Intel OR840 Workstation Mobo with Dual Intel Pentium III matched at 1Ghz or 1000Mhz and 768MB of PC 600 RDRAM in dual channel mode.

I feel an intervention is warranted if you want to use an ATI Fire GL 8800 128MB AGP 4X graphics card, I would recommend that you go to ebay or some place where you can get a nice ASUS or ASROCK motherboard for socket 478 Intel Pentium 4, then you can get yourself a nice Intel P4 2.4Ghz for about 100 bucks and get some help building it with at least 512MB or 1024MB of DDR-SDRAM because that is a workstation card you have and even though a P3 450Mhz meets the minimum requirements we are in 2006 where it does not make sense to use year 2002 workstation technology with a year 1998 CPU from ANY company of any type of even the simplest use.

Believe me, your ATI Fire GL 8800 128MB AGP 4X graphics card will greatly benefit from being placed in a nice motherboard that since RDRAM is still expensive I am recommending you to get at least a DDR-SDRAM Intel Pentium 4 socket 478 at least at 2.4GHz so you also get a nice affordable system to give you plenty of power for that ATI Fire GL 8800 128MB AGP 4X graphics card.

Did I mention that its a workstation card?

Either that or go on Ebay or somewhere that you can find a nice Pentium 4 rig with an AGP slot (very important) so you can have no problems and if you get lucky and get a dual channel mobo even better.

BTW as per my original question what do you plan to use the card for as far as programs anyways?

[ludl]

OK, but I got the card from a frien to replace my TNT.
Thats why.
Is it a way to come around the resourse allocation.
I have tha latest Intel Chipset drivers.
Latest Bios and the Card and the Graphics Card sould work together, regarding the VGA slot i question.

[Akumajo]

Motherboard Gigabyte 6BXU
P3 450 Intel
Win XP

Lets start of and this is just my opinion based on experience.

The Gigabyte 6BXU is a really old/obsolete motherboard technology compared to the FGL 8800 workstation card.

The Intel 450Mhz P3, is just too slow to the workstation card, I know you will probably find information out there about the minimum requirements for the card, however the problem is that you have a mobo and CPU that is just too slow.

You did not mention how much ram you had, but even if you had 2GB of SDRAM with your current system the FGL 8800 is still being castrated by you placing in such an enviroment.

Win XP, it does not really matter if its XP or Win 2000 (I have both) your problem is not operating system related, it is hardware related.

Look I don't know how your friend got the card or what rig did he have but my recommendation is that you put the TNT back in your computer and save some money and get help from your friend in putting a nice "cheap" as in currently affordable rig that has an AGP slot and since we are in 2006, try to get a Pentium 4 CPU that is clocked at least over 2.4Ghz and a bare minimum of 512MB DDR-SDRAM so that you can not only USE the workstation card the way its drivers are written for, but you can do your work faster.

There was a time when SGI Workstation computers used to come with custom mobos and Intel Pentium II (as in 2) and some type of workstation card that fit the era, however the FireGL 8800, even though today it is technically old it is way too advanced even for those SGI workstations that had to be used in clusters to render an image.

The FireGL 8800 is mainly a workstation card but since it was ATI's first card that supported both DirectX 8.1 and Open GL up to and over 1.5 depending on the drivers as a workstation card it is just powerfull enough (depending on your rig) to render even a movie like Final Fantasy Spirits Within in real time or at least get very close to doing it with just a single rig (with a fast CPU/lots of ram and a powerfull mobo)

I would say that you should look around (if you cannot build it) for an AGP based P4 box that you can get off of ebay from a reputable dealer that owns a store and has a good to great feedback history.

Most of the currently sold P4s are, if they are LGA 775 just not commonly know to the AGP slot based mobos unless its a special mobo that you buy of a store.

I would not recommend an Athlon XP for you unless you are an experienced rig builder or you have a friend that can do the work for you but most "used" Athlon XPs are unless you are lucky victims of owners who overclocked them and unless you got it new like I got mines off of Ebay for $125. US currency and you get the proc from an online computer store (again like me) but the biggest difference you may experience is that if you or your builder is not very knowledgeable, he may end up cracking your AMD CPU core and waste your money.

At least Intel Pentium 4s are very easy to install as long as you do not do something stupid like bend the pins of a socket 478.

I personally, like I said used to use my FGL 8800 on a system with a single PIII 1Ghz and 512MB of RDRAM, I also tested my card on my brother's Compaq Presario with a P4 2.0Ghz and 512MB of SDRAM+ an intel 845 AGP mobo and both times the card worked fine.

Since I have two PIIIs at 1Ghz and 133Mhz FSB I decided to get a workstation motherboard instead of a P4 or sticking it in my current rig because I just happened to find the BFG 6800GT on sale for 300 at bestbuy last year. So basically I made a gaming/dvd burning/video editing, etc rig and used my PIIIs and the FGL 8800 for some real affordable workstation SMP fun.

I would also mention that since I have PC 600 RDRAM and have a mobo from intel, the Intel VC820, since I had two of those mobos I first tried using the FGL 8800 on the "test" rig with just 256MB of PC600 RDRAM and the card would just not work, the driver would not install even though it was WinXP or 2000 and I had the last bios but when inserting it in the 512MB PC600 RDRAM machine with the only difference being that there were two sticks of 256MB instead of 128MB, the FGL 8800 immediately worked, I have ran all sorts of gaming and workstation benchmarks and it obviously works excellent with my old Autocad and other software as well as being able to play the Doom III demo at 1024x768 medium quality despite having a 1Ghz PIII.

Before removing the FGL 8800 off of my current gaming rig and replacing it with the 6800gt, all that would happen was that I just had far more speed, framerates and performance and I would basically be able to render more since I had over twice the Ghz in CPU speed and twice the ram, and of course amazingly or not (since I know its a really powerfull card) Doom III ran like butter all the way from the begining to the end of the full game.

Since both my former Intel VC820 RDRAM mobo and 1Ghz cpu just simply destroy your Gigabyte 6BXU and P3 450 Intel that is why I recommend to you to do as I say since being in 2006, memory, mobos and cpus that were superpowerfull compared to yours and mines PIII based systems from 2002 such as the Intel P4 over 2.4Ghz and at least a dual channel DDR Intel i865 based mobo with matching memory sticks adding up to 512MB or 1024MB you will have a really nice system and even be able to play and use the majority of the pre-2004 videogames and workstation software since that is the last year ATI made drivers for the card.

Also if you are a 3d artist and use software from pre-2004 or so like 3dSMax you will be able to render amazing things, models, areas and even dioramas depending on your knowledge of such programs.

And of course I ran SpecViewPerf 7 or so I forget and was able to run the workstation benchmark completely even with the VC820 and P3 1Ghz.