First impressions of Gefart 4200

[Dogbert]

Ok, I'm a heretic.
I got myself a Gainward 650 goldenshmutz geforce 4200.
Why ? Cause here it costs 1/3 of a Parhelia and I don't have the $$$ nor the space for 2 more monitors.

My first impressions:
1. It doesn't work (garbled image and frozen computer as soon as the driver kicks in - w2k login screen)

2. An hour and a half later + a BIOS back to defaults it does work

Reason: The SOB doesn't like 256MB agp aperture shit, 64MB (default) works fine.

3. Getting 60hz in 3D games

4. Trying to fix that with various tools, eventually have to reboot in VGA mode cause as soon as driver kicks in (w2k login screen) my screen shuts down

5. Fixed that shit too

Speed - incredible, after using a G400 this shit is damn fast

Visual quality - In my MAG XJ700T (1024x768x32) almost anything (except for a Cirrus Logic 5446) would look good.

TV in: the stupid thing isn't recognised by TV apps and WinEncoder(?) doesn't support PAL60 for my Sega DC. Back to my PCTV-Studio and Dscaler.

Installation: Wasted too much time getting it to work and then getting it to work *well*.

Overall: It's fast, it's colorfull, it's a damn headache.

Fun parts: 3D Mark 2001 - first time I see the "Nature" bench, wow... cool !

[isochar]

Did you install the vanilla nVidia 30.82 drivers?

[Jammrock]

I know a lot of people who are hiving issues with the 4200's. They are mainly because the card does not like very specific, tweaked BIOS settings. AGP 4x, Fast wrties, 32/62 MB AGP Apeture and ... I keep forgetting the name of the last setting, but it's supposed to be DA (AGP something...).

Once the BIOS is set right, and good drivers applied, it works fine. Just make sure you turn off Video sync.

Jammrock

[Dogbert]

Isochar: I'm using the latest 30.82 drivers.

Jammrock: How and why should I disable v-sync ?

[Rakido]

from etestinglabs.com:

Typically, a 3D game builds an image in one of two (sometimes three) frame buffers. At any given time, the adapter displays the contents of one of the frame buffers (the front buffer) on the screen while the game renders to another frame buffer (the back buffer). When the game has finished rendering the frame, it asks DirectX to swap (flip) the buffers. Normally, the adapter's chipset delays this flip until the adapter sends the next vertical retrace signal to the display. This prevents the display from drawing the contents of two or more buffers in a single refresh period. This mode is called v-sync on, because the flips are synchronized to the vertical retrace signal.

In v-sync off mode, the adapter does not synchronize the flip of the buffers to the next vertical retrace, but instead flips the buffers as soon as possible. As a result, the v-sync off mode saves the adapter from having to delay a flip until the next vertical retrace. V-sync off mode allows the flips to occur at a rate higher than the refresh rate, but at a potential cost: that increase in speed may in turn introduce some visible tearing of the image. Most gamers will use v-sync on mode during actual game play, although those who want every last bit of frame rate will tolerate the tearing.

Rakido

[Dogbert]

You just gave the well known reason why to keep v-sync on. I'm curious to know why should I turn it off.

[Greebe]

In game play it's much smoother with Vsync off than on. Normally I leave it off unless watching a DVD, etc.

[Admiral]

You could try NVRT 2.0 to fix the refresh rates.
on MajorGeeks

Edit: It might not want to go over 85Hz at 640x480. Except that, everything's fine for me in XP with det 40.41.

[Wombat]

And happy overclocking! My Gainward Ti200 was stable at faster-than-Ti500 speeds.

[Agent31]

Dogbert, good to hear you got it running in the end, but I'd say you just struck one of those freakish hardware combinations where stuff goes wrong... either that, or I snagged the exact opposite with my rig!