Is it possible to have a PCI SLOT & AGP SLOT?
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mightyrocket
Banned
An AGP-slot is always on your motherboard, and if not, you've got to buy a new MOBO.
GogoTheMimic
Pimpin' Red Mage
The MSI mainboard that I have rocks. I've never had any problems with it and it's hella easy to overclock, you can do it while Windows is running. No more fumbling through the BIOS to change stuff. 
jollyrancher
New member
I think mightyrocket just meant that either the motherboard has AGP or it doesn't... you can't just stick it in an expansion slot or something. But anyway, there are plenty of decent PCI graphic cards.
I saw some ECS mobo AGPless, but, ports aren't like cards/ mem/ cpu/ ect. those things cannot be removed/changed/added. If you want to use an AGP video card but your mobo don't have any AGP, you need to buy one with it. Almost all recent (and few old ones too) have an AGP port. And don't be scared to loose your PCI, there is aways at least 3 on each mobo. the only one you cannot have is the ISA port. But you can have a AMR or CNR port on it (useless). get any mobo that fits your CPU and RAM and it should be ok, If you have a old PC (with CPU like a P2/P3/K6 old celeron, you will have to search in used mobo.
Anyway, Good Luck!
Anyway, Good Luck!
mightyrocket
Banned
Yep, that's what I meant (I have to say that I wasn't clear enough), otherwise I didn't say "and if not, you've got to buy a new MOBO"
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AlphaWolf said:
Well motherboards with AGP can be a drain on your resources and slow your computer down, so if you dont need it some people choose not to have it. The same is true with ISA (yes they still exist) but they slow down your computer when they are enabled and while AGP usually can be disabled, ISA usually cannot. I'm not sure of this but even disabling the AGP slot may not be enough to free up your resources. I believe that is why they sell all PCI mobos.
GogoTheMimic
Pimpin' Red Mage
Kahenraz said:
What model is it? I did tons of research before I built my comp and there was a miniscule amount of problems that people had reported from my model. I'm very happy with it and have not had a single bit of trouble except my slightly above normal NB temps which were caused by the NB heatsink being clogged with dust. ><
Flash
Technomage
Eagle said:
1. Wrong (partially)
2. Completely wrong.
1. AGP slot itself is only a fast PCI slot with some advantages and disadvantages.
Good it fast for video card (writing to card)
Bad - even if you make hdd controller for AGP slot it will be slow as hell because AGP is a bit one way bus - writing to device is fast but reading from it is slower than PCI
What makes such slowdowns on computers with 128 or less RAM and AGP cards with AGP enabled in DirectX settings - DiME (Direct in Memory Execution) Card is trying to fit textures to computer's main RAM and even trying to work with them directly in RAM...
But there's already not too much RAM so disk swapping is begun...
And even if there's enough ram so no HDD access - on older PC's RAM
is slower than video card's VRAM and you need to access it through AGP then system bus, long and slow way...
That's why cheap onboard video is always so sloooooooooooooow - they don't have VRAM, only shared computer RAM.
And if you disable AGP in DirectX it will not disable AGP bus but will refuse DiME and force PCI-like mode which is good if you have enough VRAM and don't want to slow your computer down.
Voodoo 3-5 video card don't use DiME (thy are just a bit faster versions of PCI cards) so there's no swapping with them.
Older Nvidia cards like TNT or GF1 have bug with DiME - they trying to use RAM even if there's enough video memory.
DiME is not too good feature - if you don't have enough VRAM playing game with 8-12 fps is not much better...
Thats why professional cards come with 384 or more megs of video memory...
2. ISA is a bit slow bus but itself it not causes any slowdown.
only if you use antique cards not capable to do DMA thing
Unlike USB which always drains some resources...
Main "brakes" in modern (home) computers is "economy features" such as softmodems, CNR or onboard software network cards, AC'97 (codec-only) sound, AGP texturing aka DiME.
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AlphaWolf
I prey, not pray.
Eagle said:
Where on earth did you get this idea from? Virtually all motherboards these days include an AGP bus; its integrated into the chipset whether the slot exists or not. Simply because they don't have an AGP slot does not mean they do not have an AGP bus. All it means is that the manufacturer wanted to make an el cheapo board for an el cheapo price to sell to some schmoe who doesn't know better than to look at price alone.