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Old June 23rd 03, 01:46 PM
Alceryes
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"Derek Wildstar" wrote in message
news:uyxJa.65554$vq.14719@sccrnsc04...

"Tech Support" wrote in message
...
I ran PCIlist and it made mention of the fact my video card may be
hogging the PCI bus. I was runnign the beta 44.65 drivers and noticed
in XP that on boot up the start sound would slightly stutter. I have
an Audigy2. Did a bit of digging around on Google and found others
with the same issue, including people using 44.03 drivers and up.
Seems the fix is to isntall 43.45 and down drivers. I did this and
sure enough it fixed the stuttering sound on XP boot up. This does
imply to me that the more recent Nvidia drivers may well be hogging
the bus and causing a problem for my Audigy2 as they are both bus
mastering cards. Anybody else seen similar issues?



Yes, there are potential issues with the Audigy 2 XP drivers and the
Detonators you mention. You are lucky that you found a version that works
well for you.

I'm not sure if you're looking for an explanation as to what causing the
stutters, or why, but I can share with you and any other reader what I

have
found, and potential workarounds. I can report this, there are some beta
Audigy 2 drivers that have attempted to address this issue, among others,
and I can report that I have seen some improvement by just swithcing to

the
beta drivers. However, better results came from BIOS optimizations and
careful review of all device drivers for their timeliness.

You can find them he

http://www.tomshardware.fr/download.php


More technically, the AGP requires a period of 255 clock cycles (clks) set
in the BIOS. I can not think of a technical reason why you would set it to
less. Also check that the Audigy 2 has at least a 32clk window to hold the
bus. Since the Audigy 2 is a bus-mastered card, there is no conflict, in
theory, between the "hoggy" AGP and it's more meager requirements.

Keyword:
theory.

My suspicion, yet to be proven, is that the real problem lies in the DMA
portion of the Audigy 2's bus-mastering. Ultimately solved only by new
drivers. I suspect this only because everything else I've tried, every
possible combination of components and settings, driver revisions and

other
people's efforts have yieled such inconsistent results. It's a sometimes

on,
sometimes off problem, and it seems like it's something that's specific to
the affected machine, which DMA access can be, machine specific. Did I say
Keyword: theory?

Ensure your chipset drivers are up to date, and your BIOS is configured as
above, make sure you have an advanced APIC running, make sure your DirectX
is functioning perfectly, and lastly, but potentially vexing, make sure

your
'audio hardware acceleration' slider is set one tick less than max. That's

a
whole issue in and of itself.







I'm currently using a 9700Pro but I do remember that with my Ti4600 I had
the same stuttering issue (I too have XP, Audigy Plat., and used the latest
reference drivers). I fixed it by killing Nvidia's unnecessary startup
proggies. You won't find them in msconfig...you'll have to look in the
registry under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run
and possibly:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Run
I also remember getting rid of unnecessary Audigy startups in the registry
as well...

*CAUTION* - Editing the registry has been known to cause involuntary
keyboard face-plants and Tourette syndrome...
--


"I don't cheat to survive. I cheat to LIVE!!"
- Alceryes

(check out my modded/OC'd system at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/alceryes)