Via "PCI Latency" patch..

[Mystik]

To Mods: Maybe this should be a sticky?

To everyone:
New patch that fixes various issues.. should be a "Must Download" for
those with VIA chipsets..

http://download.viahardware.com/vlatency_v019.zip

edit:
here's a clip from the FAQ file contained in zip:

If your computer has any VIA chipset made between 1997 and 2001, and if your computer has any of the following problems, then you might need this driver.

·Files copied from one IDE hard disk drive to another are corrupted

·The computer stops ("freezes", "hangs", "locks up"), or makes unusual noises when playing sounds, especially to a Creative-brand sound card

·The computer stops, or files are corrupted, when copying to or from an IDE DVD, CDROM, or CDRW drive

·Sounds played by the computer are distorted or have a "crackling" noise, especially sounds from a Creative-brand or Aureal-brand sound card

·The computer stops when playing 3D graphics or games, especially on an ATI Radeon series video card

[second edit]
I recommend installing this in SAFE MODE.. it gave me large problems
when I installed it right after I posted this..

also, i can't seem to see my harddrive in the System properties..
it also feels like my HD is a bit slower now..

[karlotta]

like i like to say; blame the game/ blame the soundcard/ blame your self/ blame the chipset/ blame your self/ blame your mommy/ blame the vid card.
i guess we should feel sorry for the people who took there 8500 back!

[alexmaz]

Originally posted by karlotta
like i like to say; blame the game/ blame the soundcard/ blame your self/ blame the chipset/ blame your self/ blame your mommy/ blame the vid card.
i guess we should feel sorry for the people who took there 8500 back!

Blame Canada...

Sorry, I'm watching SouthPark movie...

[Euphoria]

It did not work for me.
My Mouse still freezes when playying 3D Games, and when I check with SiSoft Sandra it still tells me that my PCI Latency is to big and it might cause problems.

I have not Idea what the **** did this patch fix....

[Peter S]

Get rid of the godd/\mn SoundBlaster Live!

I got rid of my SBLive! card and replaced it with Turtle Beach's Santa Cruz card. Since making the transition I have had NO freezes during 3D games, a problem which occured sporadically when my SBlive was installed.

If you don't feel like paying $55-60 for the Santa Cruz then consider the OEM version of Hercules' Fortissimo II sound card. The Fortissimo II uses Cirrus' 4624 DSP chip, the sibling to the 4630 found in Hercules' Game Theater XP and TB's Santa Cruz. The only difference between the two chips is the 4630 has built in hardware acceleration for mp3s (provided you use the proprietary software and/or Microsoft's Mediaplayer, a rather unneccessary feature if your processor is faster than 500Mhz). The OEM Fortissimo II sells for as low as $33.

All three of the above mentioned Cirrus chip based sound cards DO NOT HOG THE PCI BUS and therefore should not initiate system lockups or corrupt large data files being transferred from one drive to another. Best of all you will notice an overall improvement in sound quality when transitioning from a SBLive to any of these cards.

[Euphoria]

So you think is the SBLive that hogs the PCI bus?

**** I just got this card two months ago. I dont have any confilicts when I check the System Resources.

Damn, why cant they make this things right...

[Starla]

so it should fix my mouse lag- in RTCW under actions sometimes my mouse will go dead for a while.. killed me a few times well I will restart after a while..

[karlotta]

im not sure that the patch fix works for "input". The sb cards seem to be the issue, but change the placement of the card, away from the agp slot, and get the latest drivers!!! do a reformat if you can! start clean and defrag for a tight driver placement [after each driver]. i know it sounds extream but.....works great for me!

[Rasta Monsta]

Don't forget. . .

. . .if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

BTW, what does the patch do? What about latency controls in BIOS? Could this mean that adjustment there could help?

peace,

rasta

[hulleyrob]

Yeah Rasta there was suggeted latency bios setup for KT7 Raid in a late bios to solve all those prob, no experiance outside of that thow, dont have any trouble with my asus.

[Yeuemmaimai]

thank God for other chipsets available to the Amd Athlon for example SiS and AMD. :-)

[Peter S]

Originally posted by Euphoria
So you think is the SBLive that hogs the PCI bus?

**** I just got this card two months ago. I dont have any confilicts when I check the System Resources.

Damn, why cant they make this things right...

Yes, the SBLive will hog the PCI bus. Go to numerous other tech forums and you will find this SBLive issue to be well documented (and a sore spot for many SBLive owners). Unfortunately, the problem is not limited to owners of AMD motherboards but those with Via chipsets seem to suffer the worst.

When I installed my SBLive I made sure it had its own IRQ and yet the sporadic system freezes persisted until I got rid of the card. I was using the latest SBLive drivers and also made sure not to use the most aggressive memory timings for my motherboard (i.e. I used the default '2T' setting instead of the unstable '1T' setting). I own one of the original KT266 motherboards so I have to be careful about which memory settings are used...

[Yeuemmaimai]

I have used the following chipsets with my SB Live

Intel 430 HX
Intel 430TX
Intel 440BX
SiS 735


Not a single problem with any of these chipsets. However I only install the drivers for the card and nothing else. there are programs that will independantly set PCI latency for you on each device.

[Coyote]

SBLive is a HOG?

Where on Earth are you guys getting off, that the SBLive hogs the PCI bus? When this card was released, no reviews ever mentioned it hogging the bus. All they said was it used considerably LESS CPU cycles than the Aureal cards. That's why a lot of people went with SBLive back then. Now people are saying it hogs the PCI bus. hmm...

I have Gigabyte 7DXR mainboard with AMD/VIA chipset. Is this patch also for these hybrid chipsets, or only for mainboards with only VIA?

[Yeuemmaimai]

they just complain that the Live makes max use of the bus and VIA cannot handle it so they blame creative.

[^b0rG^]

Re: SBLive is a HOG?

Originally posted by Coyote
Where on Earth are you guys getting off, that the SBLive hogs the PCI bus? When this card was released, no reviews ever mentioned it hogging the bus. All they said was it used considerably LESS CPU cycles than the Aureal cards. That's why a lot of people went with SBLive back then. Now people are saying it hogs the PCI bus. hmm...

I have Gigabyte 7DXR mainboard with AMD/VIA chipset. Is this patch also for these hybrid chipsets, or only for mainboards with only VIA?

CPU cycles are an entirely different animal from the pci bus. The card can use almost nil cpu cycles and still hurt performance of actual games by hogging the pci bus. This is a problem with all creative based cards.

About the patch though. I installed this thing and got no changes in benchmarks, but in 3dmark2k1 there were several tiny 'pauses' that always happened in the same spots. Not anymore though. SiSoft Sandra still says the pci latency is too high on my nic (Realtek RTL8139a), but not on any other devices. Any clue how I could fix that? I didn't see anything in my bios relating to pci latency, but I could be blind. hehe

[Starla]

dont instal if u have a via133 chipset.. made my sound screw up btw got sb128pci. looking at audigy oem.

[searchname]

Try reading your motherboard manual!

I have seen some various PCI card problems on VIA chipsets, as well as Intel chipsets. End users often buy an upgrade and just pop it into whichever PCI slot they feel like. This can cause problems! Take a look at your motherboard's manual. Asus is great about explaning that the PCI slots are shared. I don't have a manual in front of me, but I'll make an example:

PCI1 & PCI6 shared
PCI2 & PCI4 shared
PCI3 & AGP shared
PCI5 & USB shared

Well, something like that (although I recall some being unshared)! Basically, reference your manual and make sure your PCI cards are placed properly. Some "PCI cards" don't do too well if their resources are shared! By the above illustration, you wouldn't want to place your 3 PCI cards in slots, 1,3, & 6 (these are all shared), but rather 1,4,&5.

I'm not saying there is no validity to this VIA FIX, just saying that maybe you should start elsewhere (easier to undo), before you start messing with software!

Always start w/ Hardware, before changing software! Most problems are due to user error ... OH, and buggy drivers!

[friskyolive]

hmm, my sblive isnt a pci\irq hog at all, and its ok if irq's are shared with the soundcard. i've experienced no problems and had my sblive on a tyan cusl2 and now an epox, not one crackle pop into my gaming.

[Yeuemmaimai]

it has been reported that if you install the dos drivers, that is when you get screwed up in 9x. 2 solutions

1. use AWE 64 (SB Live will not install DOS drivers if a SB 16 or DOS card is detected and currently installed in the system)

or

2. do not install dos drivers

[Rasta Monsta]

Re: Via "PCI Latency" patch..

Originally posted by Mystik
should be a "Must Download" for
those with VIA chipsets..

That is, unless you are uncomfortable installing a completely unsupported driver on your rig that was produced by some random dude with no connection whatsoever to VIA, and warns of possible hardware damage. . .

Talk about rolling the dice, dude, holy cow!

rasta

[RedBadger]

Originally posted by karlotta
like i like to say; blame the game/ blame the soundcard/ blame your self/ blame the chipset/ blame your self/ blame your mommy/ blame the vid card.
i guess we should feel sorry for the people who took there 8500 back!

Not everyone who has the lockups or problems has a VIA chipset. Including me. And from reading the thread, people still have problems.

This IS a ATI problem whether you want to open your eyes and believe it or not, but it is. That is fact.

[e3art]

i just installed the patch and it works pretty well it solved most of my problems with stuttering, still there a little bit, but much better

thanks

[megatron]

I would just like to say I had trouble with this too and my current situation is that win98 works sweet with no mouse probs or sound card crackling after I applied this patch after applying the via 4in1drivers (which alone do not allow the system to post due to enabling DMA for ATA-100 transfers). How ever in win2k on the desktop alone I do experience mouse probs of the unresponsive kind but this disappears in Quake III . However they are still sound crackles still in win 2kpro which has something to do with the PCI bus not being freed up for enough time to allow the Audigy card to pass the sounds on uncorrupted. Here is an earlier post, with the 14k PCI latency patch aas an attachment to the post.

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showt...threadid=97072

[megatron]

Re: Via "PCI Latency" patch..

Originally posted by Mystik
To Mods: Maybe this should be a sticky?

also, i can't seem to see my harddrive in the System properties..
it also feels like my HD is a bit slower now..

I would like to say that I have tested this on my new rig with win2kpro and win 98se and that it is not some kind of virus or hoax as suggested in a post a few above this one.

Also I answer to the quote above I recommend installing a previous version of the IDE bus master out of the VIA 4in1 drivers and this is found at :
http://downloads.viaarena.com/driver...s/580_3012.zip
or here if you want a description:
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2
It says it is a performance version of the IDE drivers and also included is a utility to display the current transfer speed of your hard drive or DVD/CD-ROM/CD-RW ATAPI devce. It says your hard drive is working at ATA-100 speeds and the like and your ATAPI device will be displayed as working at ATA-33 which normal and also confirms that your are using DMA.
Thanks all. Out.

[karlotta]

Originally posted by RedBadger


Not everyone who has the lockups or problems has a VIA chipset. Including me. And from reading the thread, people still have problems.

This IS a ATI problem whether you want to open your eyes and believe it or not, but it is. That is fact.

No! this IS your problem. And you want to blame ati!!!

My system works as good as a win os sys. can! The real issue is anger
management!!

[hulleyrob]

I have to say my SB Live 5.1, Via KT266A chipset and Radeon 8500 all work fine together so if there was an underlying issue i would have it to. Which i dont so there isnt.

[Rasta Monsta]

Re: Re: Via "PCI Latency" patch..

Originally posted by megatron


I would like to say that I have tested this on my new rig with win2kpro and win 98se and that it is not some kind of virus or hoax as suggested in a post a few above this one.

I didn't say it was a hoax or virus, I said it was a patch put together by some random guy with no connection to VIA, and that the author put a warning in the enclosed README file about potential hardware damage. All true. . .

rasta

[Wolture]

It dosnt work for me

Hi I have just installed the patch, but I still get errors and lag in Diablo 2 LoD, anybody know what to do, when it comes to Diablo 2 and the Radeon 8500 ???

[leiteiro]

Originally posted by Radeonic2
dont instal if u have a via133 chipset.. made my sound screw up btw got sb128pci. looking at audigy oem.

How did you unninstall it? My sound is screwed up too
I have the same setup as you (KT133, sb128)

[hulleyrob]

Get rid of the SB128 mate more trouble than their worth, i got a SB 5.1 instead and had loads less problems since. The crackley sound went away after a bios update on me KT7 Raid and has never been there on me A7V266-E.

[leiteiro]

The crack sound only happens when i enable the "cool bit" in VCool.
Is there any way to unistall this patch???
I haven't got enough money to buy another sb...

[hulleyrob]

How much is a SB 5.1 live player there at the mo.

I bought mine for £68 and now they are £28 BUGGER.

But i can understand if you cant spare the cash, tried system restore?
ME

Driver rollback ????? is this the same thing in XP?

[leiteiro]

It's taken care of.
Thank god for system restore

[Nascar24]

Originally posted by Radeonic2
dont instal if u have a via133 chipset.. made my sound screw up btw got sb128pci. looking at audigy oem.

I have a Kt133a chipset and have had no issues at all with this patch. Probably didnt need it since I wasnt having any problems anyways but even with it no problems.

[Syl66]

I am running an Abit VA6(apollo pro 133 chipset), an SB live platinum 5.1 and a Radeon 8500. I have had no problems with this combination. The only thing that I can complain about is what seems to be an oddly low 3dmark2k1 score. I have a P3 800 running at 912 and my score reaches just over 4000. I have seen comparable systems getting into the high 6000's. If anyone can give me any insight into why this is I'd be most grateful. Here are my system specs:

Abit VA6 mobo (4in1 4.36)
P3 [email protected] (Slot 1, 100mhz oc'd to 114mhz)
512 mb pc133 sdram(generic I think, may be kingston. cas3)
Radeon 8500 Retail. (latest WinXP drivers from ATI.)
SB live Platinum (Latest WinXP drivers from Creative.)

Thanks in advance for any help.

[DClark]

I didn't have any problems, but I wanted to try the patch. I ran SiSoft Sandra, installed the patch, then ran Sandra again and here's what I got:

(my motherboard is an Abit VH6; Apollo Pro 133A north bridge, 686A (ATA66) Southbridge. I'm using the onboard sound)

Before:
Buffered read: 43MB/s
Buffered write: 30MB/s
Sequential write: 29MB/s

After:
Buffered read: 51MB/s (+8MB/s)
Buffered write: 37MB/s (+7MB/s)
Sequential write: 28MB/s (-1MB/s)

The other bench results (sequential read, random read, and random write) weren't affected, so I didn't bother listing them. All-in-all, the patch worked well even on my old chipset. Btw, my music still sounds great.

[nerdfragger]

Go to a form that has your MOBO listed. I used MSI's forum, and the amdmb forums, and I found the "sweet spot" configurations for my motherboard. Just look for setup guides.

[megatron]

There are new 4in1 drivers out, v437.
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

[HollywoodMike]

PCI Latency Patch Fixes Audio but Kills Video

I have the Radeon 8500DV with all the drivers/software installed from CD-Rom. I have the Soundblaster live card with latest drivers. When capturing TV, the picture is fine (less than 3% frame drop), but the audio is crackling, with static and popping.

After reading numerous posts, I decided to install the PCI Latency patch for VIA Chipsets. I already have the latest 4 in 1 drivers.

After restarting with the patch, captured TV audio is now PERFECT. However, I am now getting a 70% frame drop on the Video.

I've tried various record settings, all with the same result.

Without patch: Perfect video, horrible sound.
With patch: Horrible video, perfect sound.

Has anyone else experienced this? Solutions?

Intel Pentium III
Windows XP Home
Creative Soundblaster Live
VIA Technologies Inc VT82C691/693A/694X Apollo Pro/133/133A System Controller
Memory: 256MB
All-in-Wonder RADEON 8500 DV Edition