Help please!

[BladeRunner Profile]

Camel, just for fun can you post an image of your irq's?
here is what my irq's look like at work:

[Camel toe joe Profile WebsiteYIM]

Originally posted by BladeRunner
Camel, just for fun can you post an image of your irq's?
here is what my irq's look like at work:

I'll post when i get home but where/how do i get to that menu?(thats avaliable in xp right?)

[BladeRunner Profile]

Originally posted by Camel toe joe
I'll post when i get home but where/how do i get to that menu?(thats avaliable in xp right?)

one way to get that menu is to search and run
msinfo32.exe, another way is to run dxdiag.exe then
click the far right tab labeled "more info", then click the box
labeled "msinfo...".

[RCinator]

ACPI IRQ Steering negates the need for separate IRQs except in extremely rare situations. I play on a laptop on which my sound, nic, usb, and vid card (9600 pro) all run on the same irq. Disabling ACPI is a large PITA that likely won't help anything.

I'm _still_ not a fan of that software firewall . . . have you tried killing it and your AV before running BF?

[CharlieDontSurf]

I have and it still is a no go. I was hoping Tommy Boy would have chimed in as he indicated his problem (same as mine) was resolved by clearing up IRQ problem.

[Bullhead]

Originally posted by CharlieDontSurf
I have and it still is a no go. I was hoping Tommy Boy would have chimed in as he indicated his problem (same as mine) was resolved by clearing up IRQ problem.

Yeah, but Rule was having similar issues, and we tried EVERYTHING to fix it, finally ended up doing an install of XP, and he still had issues.....he gave up and upgraded his mobo/proc/mem.....

Originally posted by Camel toe joe
I'll post when i get home but where/how do i get to that menu?(thats avaliable in xp right?)

Camel, to get that menu is easy:

1. Right-click My Computer icon, select manage.
2. select Device Manager
3. at the top, change the view to "Resources by Type"
4. Click on IRQ

[CrazyBri]

In most cases shared IRQs shouldn't create noticeable problems. However if it involves a creative sound card I'd have to say otherwise. XP has much better ACPI/IRQ management than 2k but your motherboard also needs to support the newer ACPI standard to take full advantage of this. I highly recommend to anyone with a creative soundcard that they set it up with its own unique IRQ.

Charlie you can force your PC from ACPI compliant to standard PC but there is a risk that you corrupt your windows installation. Also, if you disable ACPI you better make sure you don't have too many devices connected and unnecessary ports enabled or else you might not have enough IRQs to assign to everything. (ie disable your com1 and com2 ports if you dont use them)

Camel if you discover that your soundcard is sharing an IRQ with a major device (ie vidcard) then you need to disable your sound in bf1942's options menu and play some games on ecgn1 to see if there's a noticeable improvement with it off. If you're unable to switch it to its own separate IRQ there are many other steps to take such as toning down your hardware channels slightly and adjusting buffer sizes.

Also do you remember when you installed your VIA motherboard chipset drivers? (they seem pretty dated in that dxdiag.txt but that's not necessarily a bad thing) Did you only install them off a cd when you bought the motherboard? Check this document and see where your drivers are and look at what updates were made after your version:
http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/4in1/Hyperion451_4in1release.doc

Have you messed with anything in your BIOS btw such as disabling onboard sound ? The BIOS might have settings that need adjusting. However I wouldn't recommend doing too much in there at this point because of the risks involved.

To summarize...At this point, the most important things you need to do are figure out what your IRQ settings are and disable your SW firewall and AntiVirus before launching bf1942. Basically what others have already recommended.

[Spirit of Me Profile]

You can always play IRQ lottery.
These re-arrange the IRQ order and may help if indeed the problem is IRQ related. Personally I blame drivers for everything. lol

First way is to:
Enter your BIOS Setup. Look for RESET PLUG IN PLAY IRQ
SAVE, then Reboot.

Second Way is to:
If your BIOS supports Plug and Play IRQ based on a OS, you will see a selection that ask if you want the OS to Automatically control the IRQ Addresses. Turn this off. Reboot
Enter BIOS setup and turn this back on.
Then reboot to windows.

Third you can:
Remove a card from your MB if you can. You can even remove your AGP Video card. With all in safe place (static electricity is everywhere so says Mr. Wizard, I loved that show)
Then power on your computer. (if you removed your video card it may beep a few times) Now turn it off.

Place the cards back into the MB, switch around sockets if they are PCI.

After all are re-seated turn on the system and once it boots new IRQs will be sent from the bios to the OS. You may even see the old loading or updating drivers popup... I'm sure you have seen that a lot.

Hope this helps.

Yeah btw I know this is an old buzzards way of changing IRQ's but it works

[BladeRunner Profile]

info on irq sharing:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/apic.mspx

to me the link is saying APCI is the way to go however even
with APCI if heavy resource devices are sharing an irq your
performance will suffer.

i agree with CrazyBri, sound cards and vid cards sharing the
same irq even with APCI is a bad thing.

[residue Profile]

personal experience tells me that fiddling with irqs (shared or not) is a bad idea 99% of the time. i'd suggest exploring the other suggestions first.

it starts with cleaning up the system by disabling unnecessary programs and services. turn off zone alarm and av if you need to. run ad aware and spybot. then determine how much memory is being used when the game is loaded and which, if any, processes other than bf are hogging your cpu. list all of your bf video and sound settings as well.

how about borrowing a better video card from a friend and trying it out?

[CrazyBri]

BF1942 shouldn't be eating up more than 400mb of RAM. Even if he has a lot of clutter he should still have some RAM to spare. The most important thing is dealing with the processes that are the most cpu intensive: antivirus and software firewall. Also I don't want him to start changing IRQs right away. He just needs to see if the IRQ sharing involves his vidcard + soundcard sharing and then disable the soundcard to see how much that helps his frames.

If none of the other suggestions helped and he can isolate that the soundcard is the culprit then he can go about giving it its own IRQ (if that's even the case). Messing with the BIOS and IRQs should be your last resort. However, looking at your BIOS and IRQs is not a risk and should be done asap.

Residue he shouldn't need to try out a better videocard imo. That's overkill. As long as his radeon 9800pro settings (mipmap quality , AA, AF) and resolution aren't too high, he will have plenty of power for bf1942's visuals on that motherboard.

Camel to play it safe when testing your system after these suggestions you should run bf1942 at 1024x768 with graphics quality on medium, effects quality on low, shadows, env maps and lightmaps disabled. Disable your anisotropic filtering and anti aliasing in your ATI menu. Look for a performance option for graphics quality (or mipmap ).

[residue Profile]

eh, you're right about the video card. i think i was thinking of someone else. actually, the ram shouldn't be an issue either. i think i'll go stick my head in the freezer now.

[CharlieDontSurf]

Well, I followed the instructions for changing the ACPI and upon reboot the system gave me the 'found new hardware' routine on pretty much everything. I reloaded mobo disc for the AGP slot, then the 9800pro disc and finally the Audigy 2 disc.

When I went to device manager and looked at the IRQ assignments now, they were automatically split up. The vid card is sharing IRQ 5 with some minor thing and Audigy is still on 11 with Ethernet. So it appears to have worked and will give it a try on #1 here in a little while. Thanks guys.

[BladeRunner Profile]

Roger that Charlie, i hope you have better luck than Camel.
last night on ts Camel said he does not have any vid card/
sound card sharing but he is still having frame rate problems.

Charlie and Camel how does your systems do on the 3dmark
2003 program?

for comparison: http://forums.powervs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6955&highlight=3dmark

[CharlieDontSurf]

I haven't tried running that yet. I'll run it for the hell of it and post the results.

I did get on the #1 server last night but there were only a couple people on so I can't say it cured the FPS problem yet. I guess I can claim a small victory in that everything is working properly and I can still play BF42.