Windows 7: Drivers for older ATI cards in Windows 7!

Hello

I currently have an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 AGP card in my Dell Dimension 8200 Desktop PC and I was wandering about replacing that card for an ATI card something like the ATI radeon 9600 AGP card but I noticed that the drivers for that card are only for Windows Vista and are not Officially supported under Windows 7 and I was wandering just how good those drivers are for that Graphics card as they are Vista Drivers runnin in Windows 7! Do they get any laggyness in the Aero Display effects when you open and close some windows and also within media centre?

I only a few months back changed to the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 AGP card from the original NVIDIA GeForce 3 Ti200 Graphics Card my Dell PC Came with and I made a mistake with that card as the card is very laggy in Windows Vista and Windows 7 but does display aero but the Lag is so annoying! Its because the drivers for that card are from 2006 and were never official and they were BETA drivers and never came out as a fully operational set of Drivers!



If I was to buy the ATI Radeon 9600 AGP card I would like to have my mind set at rest that my PC would not have the lag of the drivers being too old or out of date or incompatible in both windows Vista and Windows 7!

Please Tell me what Card you think is worth the Money to buy (It has to be an AGP card that will run Aero and work well with a 250W Power supply and have drivers updated!)

I also have my Eye on the NVIDIA GeForce 6200 AGP card which I know is a really good card as I know someone with that card in their machine (and although it runs on XP the drivers are updated all the time) and even though their PC is a PCI Express Graphics Card Slot it still works perfectly and nearly every month NVIDIA updates the drivers for that card so your never outdated!

Please Help!

Hi and welcome.

Probably the Vista drivers would work.
99.9999999% sure.
I'd try that before spending money if you are tight at the moment.

Gareth you need to do some legwork and properly investigate this >

From what I remember
You need to find out what voltages are supported and AGP 2x 4x (8x) on your motherboard? Then match compatable cards.

The Nvidia 5000 series were the last gpu's made that could handle the higher agp slot voltages!

Nvidia 6200 gpu's and on can't handle high voltage AGP slots on older motherboards!

Ati carried on a bit longer making higher voltage capable (backward compatability) cards.

I think ATi 9600/9700/9?? series were the last line of GPU that could cope with older high voltage AGP slots AND were direct x 9.0 compatable.(educated guess) but you might need a more powerful Power supply to support this line (as they used more and ran pretty hot.)

I have never heard of such a thing.

Motherboards do not indiscriminately volt. The video card's bios tells the motherboard's bios what voltage to provide, and the motherboard provides it. Unless you tell it otherwise, you're in no danger of having your board over-volt your video card; that's something you can only do if you manually volt the card.

What I have heard of, and have experience with, is running video cards at a higher hz on the agp bus. Nvidia cards can handle a higher hz, up to 70hz, whereas ATI cards have always been problematic if you don't keep them at 66hz.

GarethS10, is there any particular reason why you're choosing the cards you are? Certainly there are more powerful AGP cards than the ones you've selected... and the last time I checked (about a month ago) they were fairly cheap?

The 96/9700's are on par with the Ti 4400/4600; thus, the 5x card you have is a later model. I would have said better, but the 5x line was a dog, as I'm sure you're aware.

Fumz this is what he was referring to with regards to AGP voltage,

Accelerated Graphics Port - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

which according to here,

Documentation

the motherboard in the Dimension 8200 came with the version 2.0, which will be fine with the 9600.

It's my understanding that what the Wiki article refers to is signal speed, which is different from the voltage given to the card; essentially, this has no effect on the card itself and is only relevant to the AGP bus. In short, you can't fry your card no matter what AGP version you use. If the card fits, you're safe... right?

AGP compatibility for sticklers

Unless I'm totally mistaken? Have you ever heard of something like that happening?

This explains it better,

AGP compatibility for sticklers

Yep fraid so! I've been building PC's since circa 1990!

AGP Nvidia 6200 onwards - you can fry your card as in the old days motherboard manufacturers did not keep to full AGP specs and if your card lines up with a mal-slot > instant fire and smoke!

Other reasons for card-frying from Stormy's wiki link>

Based on that article I linked, which Stormy also linked, the voltage their referring to has to do with agp bus signal speed... ie tranfering data on the bus, and not actual voltage to the card.

Besides, (and this is perhaps the biggest reason you can't fry a card) the cards employ different slots making it impossible to actually fit a 1x agp card into a 4/8x agp slot. There's little chance of frying a card that's sitting on your desk.

Not to mention that you can't find an AGP 1.0 card these days... and even if you could, it would not fit into the board.

**edit**

I'm really not trying to be argumentative... it's just that I've never heard of frying a card this way.

The OP's board is agp 2.0/4x. The card he's running is agp 8x. The two cards he selected are also agp 8x, so I see no reason why we should fill him with fear about frying the card. Am I missing something here?

A typical case study - he's darn lucky his 6200 card didn't match to a wrong key and FRY in an 'unconventional' AGP 2.0 slot!
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion...hp?t16738.html

Enjoy your little trolling session and convincing yourself for the rest of this thread!