Graphic Accelleration problem

[S. Parks]

OK, built a new system, bought another license to run Hoster on it. Now when I run hoster, on most songs it appears that from the beginning of the osng to the end the scroll of the lyrics gets ahead of the proper timing. The sytem I am running is a Shuttle XPC system, with an I-Will RAID PCI card, plextor 48 CDW/RW, 512MB of memory, AMD 2200 processor, configured in a Raid Mirrored set set up. I have the latest drivers for direct-x, and Ihave not every experienced this problem on my other computer, with similar settings. Anyone have any suggestions of where to start to adddress this problem. I don't want to put this system on the street untill I get this resloved. Thanks for you help in advance.

[MTUSUPPORT]

Steve,
Did you run all of the Windows uPdates? There are later drivers for the NVIDIA video chip on this site. If not then please run the updates and then try again.

I also am not familiar with the IWILL Raid Card. I have had lots of testing on different Raid cards to find one that works correctly. I was finally able to get one that seems to work in all aspects that we were looking for.

[S. Parks]

Yes I had just installed all the latest windows updates, (28 total) and I went to NVIDIA's site and downloaded the latest version of their drivers. After installing the drivers, there seems to be improvement, but the problem still persist. I estimate that now the lyrics progressively gets about a half a second ahead of the music by the end of the song. Any suggestions? Any recomendations would be appreciated.

Sincere Thanks,

Steve

[MTUSUPPORT]

Steve,
How much Ram do you have allocated to the Nvidia chip as Video Memory?

This is a setting that is in the CMOS, you can get to it by hitting the Delete Key when the system boots up. It is then located under the Advanced Chipset Features (Page 55 in the manual). I always leave our systems set at default for the Frame Buffer Size = 32M and AGP Aperture Size(MB) = 32M.

You could try playing around with this and changing it up to 64 for both to see if that will make any difference.

You can check this to make sure the change took, by running the DXDIAG in the Run command. Then click on the Display Tab, it should show Total Aprox Memory as whatever you have changed this to.

Let me know what you find.

[S. Parks]

Thanks Bryan, I'll give that a shot when I get home tonight.

[MTUSUPPORT]

Ok, Let me know if you find anything with that.

[pcgumshoe]

Why at default?

I normally allocate about 1/2 of my ram to my HDD. As he has 512MB ram, in the system I would allocate 256MB. Is there something in Hoster where allocating this much ram is bad?

If not, my suggestion on the AGP allocation in the bios is 1/2 of the physical ram.

I also seem to remember that with 512 ram you could almost turn of the page file. Might try looking at that. My systems all have 1GB Ram so I don't use the page file, but I don't know if that would help him.

ALSO, be careful with those NVIDIA website drivers. The drivers that you SHOULD be using on some of the cards are the ones from the manufacturer. I hear last week that someof the FX boards need OEM drivers rather than the generic drivers.

I don't recall seeing the fact that he even had the NVIDIA chipset but I guess that comes with the shuttle, doesn't it?

[MTUSUPPORT]

PcGumshoe,
The drivers are actually updated to the Windows Update Site by Nvidia for the chip.

The shuttle will not allow you to allocate anymore than 128mb of Memory to the Video. It will do no real good to give it anymore than that.

I would never give the Video more than 64-128 depending on what you need it to do. For what the Shuttle does 32mb is plenty, from the tests that I have run on it.

Not sure about the PageFile. I just leave that as Default, normally. I haven't found any differences with it larger or smaller, that I can pinpoint to that.

[pcgumshoe]

I just bought last week a new Graphics Card for my 3RD ranking computer (that is third down on the totum poll). When I bought that the technician, who is a patron of my bar, recommended staying away from the NVIDIA site. I wasn't sure if you guys support the Shuttle because you sell it or not. I keep hearing about it, but I am anchored in the old days where a computer needs to be a big ugly box under my desk

As far as the graphics, I allocate the 1/2 because I do gaming and other graphics intense stuff. I can't do just karaoke all the time! After all, if I didn't shoot things on my computer I might have to shoot a karaoke singer who expects me to know all 9200 songs in my library!

As to the pagefile, I always look at ways of speeding up the system. A pagefile isn't always needed with so much memory. Anything the computer is using at one time could be loaded into memory which is a lot faster than the HDD where the page files is stored, nanoseconds versus milliseconds.

I went to NVIDIA's site and downloaded the latest version of their drivers.

This is where I got concerned over the NVIDIA drivers... I would surely trust the drivers made available from Microsoft because they are by manufacturer of the board (usually) and it usually means it has been checked out by Microsoft. Doesn't change that he claims to have gotten them from NVIDIA direct. That doesn't mean that there is the problem, just it could be suspect.

Hope there is some help in what I said.

[S. Parks]

Yes I downloaded the latest drivers directly from NVIDIA, and there was a small but noticable improvement in the problem. I checked the graphics setting and there is 32 MB aloccated in both places. I played around with this a bit, and it really seemed to make no difference. I noticed when I import directly from CD it does the same thing. I continue to tinker with it, but any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks for the help so far, you guys are great.

[pcgumshoe]

Did some checking around on this Shuttle thing. Here is what I found out.

First, I am assuming that the shuttle that MTU is offering is the SN41G2 and for the sake of this discussion, I am going to address this Shuttle. Although the model numbers may NOT be correct, there may be a springboard from these notes.

Bios: I see that the bios has been updated many times. I see a lot of references in the Bios updates to VGA bios, Video, etc. I would check and see what version of the Bios you have. The current version that they have released for this system is FN41S019 Dated June (but the website lists July). Updating a Bios for a novice and be tricky and RISKY so, if you plan on doing this, at your own risk, ask someone for instructions. They are also available in your manual (I downloaded a copy of that too).

Drivers: Shuttle lists a lot of drivers coming out on the same day for this system. If you only updated the video, you could be having problems elsewhere. Here are the updates, Chipset Drivers, VGA Driver (meets Windows compliance) and Bios. These all show the date of July 17, 2003.

I cannot stress enough that you use the drivers from the manufacturer. They have tested them and made modifications (sometimes) to the drivers to meet or exceed their expectations. You do need to update them all otherwise it is like getting a new paint job on a 1969 Pinto, it still could blow up! (I don't know if that was the year they had the problem, I just know that they made them then )

Going to NVidia or Going to VIA or any other original maufacturer may defeat your purpose. I don't recommend going to them UNLESS you are a power user and you are TWEAKING your system. For everything else, go to who made it.

The Video Card on the SN41g2 is the Geforce4MX (FYI). When I downloaded the drivers and looked at the readme file they are using the NVIDIA display Drivers version 41.14 dated 1/10/03... maybe they don't like anything later.

Again, please try the originals. Now that you have installed NVidia's latest drivers you may have a problem downgrading, maybe not. No matte what, when you do try these other drivers you will surely get a message that says, "The Version of the file you are trying to copy is older than the current version, do you wish to continue?" Say Yes and overwrite the old files.

Good luck, let us know

[S. Parks]

I have experienced this problem with the driver versions you spoke of. When I downloaded andinstalled the new drivers, the problem decreased by half, but still persist. Any thoughts

[pcgumshoe]

What version of the bios are you operating? Have you made any changes to the bios?

To understand:

You reinstalled the VGA drivers from Shuttle Directly (overwriting the NVidia Files)
You Installed the updated Chipset Drivers
And You ran Microsoft Update and got all the updates.

And you have a current version of the Bios?

[S. Parks]

I am running Bios version V6.00PG. I have also tried installing a ATI Radeon 7500 AIW video card, still get the accelleration problem, so evidentally it's not rooted in the onboard graphics card. Depending on what lable of CDG is playing the accelleration is mild to bad, for instance, Lengends Series disc get a whole line ahead by 3/4ths of the way through the song, chartbuster, and soundchoice only advance a half a second or so throughout the song. Any thoughts?

[gduns - with the Lord]

it seems it is with only a few shuttle systems....... is it possible that the system bios or the built-in chipset firmware needs updating. it could be that shuttle had a problem, and they have since corrected it. it is definately no a hoster problem or everyone would have it.

[pcgumshoe]

S. Parks and Whoever Else is having this problem:

What I need to know is this, HAVE YOU UPDATED THE CHIPSET DRIVERS?

The Shuttle Board uses the NVIDIA chipset. That has NOTHING to do with the Video Card or the AGP Card. Other chipsets include VIA or SIS. This has to do with the Northside Bus and the Southside Bus.

As Gduns points out and I HAVE BEEN ASKING FOR CONFIRMATION ON, is the Chipset. I think I even linked to the Chipset download location sometime back.

S. Parks has said that he updated the NVidia Drivers for the Graphics card, and He has also updated the Bios. Nobody has said, "Yes, Ashton, I downloaded the current version of the 'CHIPSET' Drivers and that worked or didn't."

For the last time, go to NVidia and find the Chipset Drivers, NOT the VIDEO drivers. And, the AGP "Port" drivers have nothing to do with the AGP Card. I think I need to find a different way to communicate this.

[jaddams]

If it means anything, I concur with Pcgumshoe in connection with this problem. It would be surprised to find out how many problems could be solved with a simple chipset upgrade.

Regards,

Jon

[S. Parks]

This problem has been solved, due to the great work of MTU's forum readers, please see MTU's thread addressing the solution
http://forum.mtu.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2836