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From: RR on 31 Dec 2007 21:43
I have a K8N motherboard and nVidia Geforce FX 5200 video card and
minimum video requirements for this computer game I just bought is a
geforce 6600. When I start the game a window comes up and my video
controller doesn't support separate alpha blend. I just updated my
drivers but still no luck.

My question is... since my K8N motherboard only seems to have "PCI" and
AGP video slots, how different is PCIexpress and would I be correct to
assume that my motherboard would would not support the PCIe video card?

I think I am going to have to get a new video card and I'm looking at my
options.
From: daytripper on 31 Dec 2007 22:11
On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:43:04 -0800, RR <yourspam(a)blocked.com> wrote:

>I have a K8N motherboard and nVidia Geforce FX 5200 video card and
>minimum video requirements for this computer game I just bought is a
>geforce 6600. When I start the game a window comes up and my video
>controller doesn't support separate alpha blend. I just updated my
>drivers but still no luck.
>
>My question is... since my K8N motherboard only seems to have "PCI" and
>AGP video slots, how different is PCIexpress and would I be correct to
>assume that my motherboard would would not support the PCIe video card?
>
>I think I am going to have to get a new video card and I'm looking at my
>options.

PCIexpress is a whole different beastie from PCI. Radically different
connector, completely different transport and protocols. If your motherboard
doesn't sport any PCIexpress slots, you may be looking for a new motherboard
(and processor, memory, etc, etc)...

/daytripper
From: Paul on 31 Dec 2007 22:21
RR wrote:
> I have a K8N motherboard and nVidia Geforce FX 5200 video card and
> minimum video requirements for this computer game I just bought is a
> geforce 6600. When I start the game a window comes up and my video
> controller doesn't support separate alpha blend. I just updated my
> drivers but still no luck.
>
> My question is... since my K8N motherboard only seems to have "PCI" and
> AGP video slots, how different is PCIexpress and would I be correct to
> assume that my motherboard would would not support the PCIe video card?
>
> I think I am going to have to get a new video card and I'm looking at my
> options.

You can get X1950Pro AGP cards. They draw a fair amount of power,
and also perform pretty well in DX9. (There are both PCI Express x16 and
AGP versions, and both cards have the same clocks.) You could check here
for some benchmarks.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html

There is a claim that some day, the HD3850 or HD3870 may become
available in AGP, but that hasn't happened yet as far as I know.
Nvidia has made some pretty fast AGP cards in the past, but for
the most part, has given up on that market segment, which is
why they're not mentioned in this answer. (Ebay may have some
of their products though.)

The K8N doesn't have PCI Express, and instead has PCI slots
and an AGP slot. So there is no opportunity to use a PCI
Express card there. To use a PCI Express would require a motherboard
change.

PCI Express is an entirely different protocol. It is a bunch of
high speed serial lanes, that are "teamed" together for additional
bandwidth. A single lane is 250MB/sec and 16 lanes gives a
max of 4GB/sec. AGP 8X on the other hand, is 2.1GB/sec.
AGP (and PCI) use parallel busses, with a common clock shared for
clocking all the bus signals. In fact, there is nothing wrong
with AGP (as AGP only has one device on the end of the bus, which
is a good architecture). But once PCI Express was invented to fix
the issues with the low speed PCI slots, it was a no brainer to
scratch AGP.

Paul
From: RR on 31 Dec 2007 23:50
Thanks for the reply. I see a few new AGP cards I think might work but
are only 256MB. I would assume that they would still make some of my
other games move faster then my geforce 5200... right?

Paul wrote:
> RR wrote:
>> I have a K8N motherboard and nVidia Geforce FX 5200 video card and
>> minimum video requirements for this computer game I just bought is a
>> geforce 6600. When I start the game a window comes up and my video
>> controller doesn't support separate alpha blend. I just updated my
>> drivers but still no luck.
>>
>> My question is... since my K8N motherboard only seems to have "PCI"
>> and AGP video slots, how different is PCIexpress and would I be
>> correct to assume that my motherboard would would not support the PCIe
>> video card?
>>
>> I think I am going to have to get a new video card and I'm looking at
>> my options.
>
> You can get X1950Pro AGP cards. They draw a fair amount of power,
> and also perform pretty well in DX9. (There are both PCI Express x16 and
> AGP versions, and both cards have the same clocks.) You could check here
> for some benchmarks.
>
> http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html
>
> There is a claim that some day, the HD3850 or HD3870 may become
> available in AGP, but that hasn't happened yet as far as I know.
> Nvidia has made some pretty fast AGP cards in the past, but for
> the most part, has given up on that market segment, which is
> why they're not mentioned in this answer. (Ebay may have some
> of their products though.)
>
> The K8N doesn't have PCI Express, and instead has PCI slots
> and an AGP slot. So there is no opportunity to use a PCI
> Express card there. To use a PCI Express would require a motherboard
> change.
>
> PCI Express is an entirely different protocol. It is a bunch of
> high speed serial lanes, that are "teamed" together for additional
> bandwidth. A single lane is 250MB/sec and 16 lanes gives a
> max of 4GB/sec. AGP 8X on the other hand, is 2.1GB/sec.
> AGP (and PCI) use parallel busses, with a common clock shared for
> clocking all the bus signals. In fact, there is nothing wrong
> with AGP (as AGP only has one device on the end of the bus, which
> is a good architecture). But once PCI Express was invented to fix
> the issues with the low speed PCI slots, it was a no brainer to
> scratch AGP.
>
> Paul
From: RR on 1 Jan 2008 00:06
I do have a 400W power supply as well



> You can get X1950Pro AGP cards. They draw a fair amount of power,
> and also perform pretty well in DX9. (There are both PCI Express x16 and
> AGP versions, and both cards have the same clocks.) You could check here
> for some benchmarks.
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