Integrated Graphics Card

[Neon Apocalypse]

I have a question: I have an intel mobo. I also have an intel 64mb integrated extreme graphics card. People are telling me that an integrated card is bad. Im not sure why. I am planning on getting a new card, Radeon 9600 XT. Now to install this new card, would I have to get a new mobo? If i do that really sucks.

[Rbstr]

no you would not need a new mobo, jsut lok in your instructioins on how to disable the onboard chip.


PS It is not an integrated CARD BTW its a part of the chipset hence its INTEGRATED (can't remember underline) graphics. A card by deffiniton is a card loking thing you put in a PCI or AGP slot.

[Spee]

I have an integrated AGP slot.


Someone please tell me how the frag does that make sense?

[Ait'al]

Integrated card just use your IRQ DMA like a normal card (they are software) and you ahve to disable like he said but are not physical cards. So you can put a new card in. I have a compaq presario that only allows you to turn it on on the software side (making windows not recognize its there and skipping over it) and it hogs up the IRQ channels that the new card had to use and caused errors till i set it right because someone was a prick at compaq and set it so you couldnt even change it between available channels.(the new card couldnt either)

And what makes an AGP an AGP is the software. that should mean yo can run something on the software side like an AGP without needing hte full connector unless that was stating htat theres a physical AGP slot available. A physical slot is needed to connect teh card to the board. The thing about a physical slot is just that you need better ones to make the speed of hte information faster between the card and hte board, IE more to what the speed form stuff runing from pard of the board to anothe part of the board.(Because connecting anything to the board that isnt physically a part of it is slower than running it from the board alone). And you need better ones to use better cards(which are needed to transfer larger amounts of info faster), but if you have an onboard one like i said above you can still run anthing that the a card can run in any other way. Whether thats faster than a physical card or not(likely it is in Mhz, because it takes more(or longer) to get stuff form a card to the board to the ram to the processor etc hence the emphasis on the speed of your pci agp slots) You just dont get the extra ram on the physical card on an onboard that you get whit a card, making it only useful to physically run the software or compatability side.IE so you can use stuff (once again the physical connection is slower than the stuff running form just the board itself) People use card though because the lack ram form not useing a card with it to pick up the slack is less affective performance wise than useing hte board alone. And only takes away from the boards performance (when using the board) as is because everything that would be used in the cards ram and processors is dumped on the boards limited resources.


Hope htat made sense.

If someone would be kind enough to fix that, please do. I have a head ache and didnt say half of that right. To much editing! Er, its screwed up now please help!

I was trying to explain how cards came to be and how they work compared to other things, in this instance an onboard AGP, to answer his question. How whenever you connect somehting to a board like that it slows down the connection etc. HELP! Im getting dumber and i cant type.

Your turn to post Daelon. You know what i meant! Give him Whatever the most appropriate word is 101. My memorys short again. :doh: Old electronics 101! lol

[NoSurrender]

Basically A AGP video card has its own memory and its off the motherboard. What you have is a little chip on your motherboard that runs along the PCI bus and "Claims" system memory as its memory. SO if it "64" mb of memory it means its taking 64mb from your computer and using it as its own. Also AGP4x gets like 1-2 gigs of data while PCI goes alot slower and cannot send enough data. Also the intergrated lacks any special graphics features that are common on even budget cards.

[Ait'al]

thats not what i meant!

he was asking about an onboard(nonphysical APG slot) and how it can exist.

I was talking about the "old" why is a card more effecient than software cards when it is slower to use an AGP/PCI etc to data to form it to the motherboard and other system components in the first place and how that came to be way back when. Its all very interesting and i thought it would be a nice thing for newer people to get to hear.

It doesnt seem like theres enough explenations of the stuff form back then. And they pretty much are the key to understanding all modern computer advances.

[Rbstr]

agp, or Advanced Graphics port, is not only a software thing.

The thing that makes AGP better then PCI, is that the AGP bus has only one channel that is dedicated to the Graphics device plugged into it giving it gtreater bandwidth, unlike the PCI bus witch has to share its abdnwith between multiple card's /slots, even the PCI express bus (the new one coming next year or so) shares the bandwidth is has though it has enough to still beat the AGP's bandwidth by a ton and a half.

The AGP also has more bandwidth to begin with than the PCI and more power going to it, even though some new cards need an extra input anyway.

The onboard chip just redirects the AGP bus to a diffent place not to the Physical port that you can plug the card into and you can switch the agp bus back to the card port if you want. Intell extreeme graphics actualy do use the AGP 4x bus jsut not the card port, IE 2 grphics use the agp8x bus (basicaly the newer version of AGP that has more band width giving it batter preformance)

[Ait'al]

Nm, you havent been around long enough to know what i mean. i know AGP has a physical connector.

And it doesnt redirect teh bus. It just uses it!(IE the physical brown slots that you call AGPs are just using it! ther just how they decided to connect something seperate from the board to it.) AGPs are not faster thatn the board itself the stuff on hte cards are. The 8X 4X is just how fast they can get the conection to get off the card to hte board. Which is why they have ram. The bus is redirected when you use a card. And two peices of metal allowing electricity to run through them is not what defines an AGP. Theres the programming that tells it to send data a certain way. Thats what an onboard card uses. It just uses the systems resources instead of having its own. This is how this stuff evolved in the early 80's

that probly didnt make sense again.

[Daleon]

LoL, its not that important and to many crazy ideas already flowing here for me to add 10 pages to this. Onboard AGP Video cards do take advantage of whatever AGP bus your mb has. Also not all use system memory but have dedicated DDR even. The performance is obviously improved some but its still a cheap solution.

To put in your new card, first make sure you got an actual AGP slot, then disable the onboard card. It will either be a jumper, in which case try to find a manual for the mb. If you can't find one, try the mb manufactuer's website. Or look in the bios for onboard video disable.

[Neon Apocalypse]

Ok thanks guys. Good thing is im not the person actually installing the card. And im not the person who is supposed to find out which card to buy. I just wanted to know if i needed a new mobo or not. Before some said i was screwed because i had an integrated card and i got scared.

[Haych]

Mate your never alone in the quest for tech nivana.

Unless you have an obsure BIOS that wont let you toggle the integrated video off, and you have either a free PCI and AGP, then your 95% there to sucess. 95% is an estimate but you could yet still run into IRQ sharing issues if you have a cheap motherboard.

Best of luck mate ;)