Bavaria schrijft: "Bij Ars Technica vond ik een interessant stukje voor eigenaars van moederborden met een VIA chipset. Er wordt uitgelegd wat de mysterieuze "AGP driving value" nu eigenlijk doet".
Het blijkt dat je met de AGP driving value het signaal en daarmee de timings van de AGP bus kan wijzigen. Als je de juiste heximale waarde gebruikt kan het de stabiliteit en snelheid van je systeem ten goede komen. Het omgekeerde geld ook, je kan er zelfs voor zorgen dat je machine niet meer POST:
The AGP Driving Control allows you to control, quite specifically, the AGP driver signal strength. Due to the design of the AGP protocol (which specifies the bus as well) this is directly related to timing. So, by selecting a manual hex range (00h-FFh) we are setting the timing of the signal that your video card's driver uses to communicate across the AGP bus.
So an AGP Driving Value allows you to specify a concrete signal strength for your AGP driver. Hopefully, this will hopefully provide it with enough strength to remain stable, and function properly on your motherboard.
To see an example of just how important this is, consider the large-die (and rather inefficient) GeForce 256, which had many motherboard compatibility issues. Many motherboards wouldn't even POST with a GeForce 256 in them (Athlon and Via combos, most commonly). This problem stemmed from to two main issues: under-rated power supply, and motherboards that didn't really supply the specified voltage to the video card. Provided you are getting enough power to the motherboard, your machine will POST, but a VIA chipset still isn't managing your GeForce 256 AGP card properly.[break]Ook interessant, de redenen waarom informatie over deze optie erg zeldzaam is:[/break]Reason One: it points to the inferiority of VIA's AGP implementation vs. Intel's. Intel has an excellent auto-timing mechanism to control AGP signal-strength. I am not sure of the particulars on how it works, but it works well. VIA, in reverse-engineering AGP support, does not have this feature (at least, not done well yet).
Reason Two: one could really shoot oneself in the foot with this. I suspect, by playing with AGP timing and signal strength, you might greatly impair your performance. I am sure (as we have seen with Geforce256/underpowered Athlon combos) that you could even stop your machine from POSTing.