Beginner questions about Pci-Latency, WPCREDIT, and "Sandra Benchmark vs BIOS" Deathmatch. :)

[MannyC]

Beginner questions about Pci-Latency, WPCREDIT, and "Sandra Benchmark vs BIOS" Deathmatch.

[MannyC]

Hello!

I have a few questions, surronding the VIA chipset. I'll mention my hardware first if it would come up in the questions or needed to answer any questions.

Thank you for taking time to read my post!

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AMD Athlon XP +1800
Soltek Motherboard 75DRV-2
VIA Apollo KT266a Chipset
Inno 3D Geforce 3 Ti 200

SB pci 128
Windows XP

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1) PCI Latency (problems with choppy 3D graphics performance)

Is there any guidline one can follow to set up PCI latency for different PCI units? My soundcard is currently at latency 64, but my Relatek Ethernet card is very high at latency 128 which I might suspect is causing some of the choppy graphics as I play online. Also my AGP gfx card is at latency 228.

I'm also wondering if there is any way to initialize the pci latencies with an easy program that boots at start up but terminates after windows loaded?

I'm also unsure what my pci-latencies should be at, for example how much the CPU should have access and hard drives etc, or just leave them at default? (I'm very uncertain how this works)

2) WPCREDIT

Is there any documentation out there on kt266 chipset, specifically on what all the registers do? For example what register on a PCI unit is the latency register, so one knows for certain and don't mess up anything in WPCREDIT.

3) "Sandra Benchmark vs BIOS" Deathmatch

I notice a funny thin today, my Award BIOS for my Soltek 75DRV-2 says that my FSB is at 133MHz, which would make my CPU 1,533 GHz as the standard non overclocked Amd Athlon XP +1800 which I want it to be.

However, Sandra Sisoftwares benchmark and other software reports that my FSB is 134MHz and CPU then at 1,544+ Ghz. Which means it is a little overclocked LoL! I don't really trust my BIOS, and would like to try to get FSB down to 133MHz (not that it matters much, just out of principle).

Is it possible to edit with WPCREDIT to force my FSB to 133MHz again, which my BIOS is reporting? And if it's possible what register would this be in WPCREDIT?.

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If you are reading this sentence, I have to thank you again for your time and patience to have read through my post!

Sincerely,
Manny

[MannyC]

No one understands my questions?

[ricardjs]

First, what is happening to your FSB speed is perfectly normal. don't worry about it. Secondly, u can use WPCREDIT edit to any options that u have or have not in bios, but as i told u above, what is hapening to u is normal. If u want to know a bit more about WPCREDIT, i suggest u talk to George, since he is the expert in this matter. In exchange, u could help him name is son, he is having quite a trouble with that!  lol

The PCI latency of your Ethernet card does seems high, and i believe u may use the PCI latency fix from George in this case. (but if u r nor experiencing any problems, u should let it be...)

For last, using WPCREDIT along with WPCRSET, u can have the canges that u made be loaded at startup, but i don't know if there are the PCR files for KT266A (but i believe so).

Once again, all this we are talking about is a field where George Brease rules, and u should take this with him.

Hope this helps,

Ric.

[MannyC]

ricardjs, thank you, yes it helps!

That is great that one can edit ALL bios features, I just wish I had some webpage where you can see all registers and explanations what they are and do. )

And yes, I'm afraid I have a bit of trouble with my computer when playing 3d games... it some how stops for a milli second ever few seconds when I play online or maybe when it acceses or load things?

I really think it has something to do with the Pci latency somehow, but I'm not very good with these things yet.

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As for a son name I say Andrew! If anyone has read the best book ever written: Ender's Game, by Scott Card (Ender = Andrew Wiggin)

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Sincerely,
Manny.

[ricardjs]

Your problem while playing online games is most certainly due to your NIC's latency values set to too high, try the latency patch from George to see if it helps, i believe it will.

About more information about setting up all the registers, maybe Georce knows if there are some kind of manual available online. I don't think there are any, or at least, never heard of such, but as i said before, that is not my field...

Glad i could help,

Ric.

[Dragonplus]

PCR file for KT266a is available on this site: http://www.viahardware.com/download/viatweak.shtm

[RAIDzero]

PCI Latency describes how long the CPU will do other things before checking the status of the device.  For example, a latency of 128 means that the CPU will check the device for information or instructions, wait 128 clocks, then check again.  A lower latency means the CPU will be interrupted by the device more often.  If your device isn't sending much information or isn't sending it at a high rate, then a high latency will tell your CPU not to waste too much time waiting for the device, and is preferable.  Inversely, if the device sends information often, a high latency will not provide the device enough "windows of communication" with the CPU, so a lower latency is preferred.  This is why the latency of a video card is 16-32 clocks and that of a NIC is 64-128 clocks.  And ricardjs is right: don't worry about the "134 MHz issue."  133 MHz is actually 133.33 MHz, and Sandra rounds up to 134 MHz.  BTW, you don't have to use oct numbers for latency (You don't have to stick to 16-32-64-128 etc.)

[RAIDzero]

My bad!  I just saw this page: Text and I guess I had it a bit backwards.  Please ignore that part of my previous post.