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Forums -> Multiple monitors -> nVidia (AGP) and ATI (PCI)
Ian   2005-03-13 12:27
I have two cards installed and running: an nVidia MX440 SE AGP card and a Radeon 7000 series PCI card. My problem is that when I run dxdiag it reports that I am missing the DirectX features for the ATI card, i.e. no DirectDraw acceleration and no Direct3D acceleration.
If I remove the nVidia (AGP) card then the ATI card has the DirectX features available.
Has anyone seen this problem before? And, more to the point, has anyone figured out a fix??
Of course, the easiest fix may be to simply chuck one of the cards and replace it with one from the same manufacturer as the remaining card...
Crow   2005-03-13 21:50
I've got a GF4 Ti4200 AGP and a Radeon 7500 PCI installed in my system and I've got the same problem. Once both cards are aktivated there ist no DirectX acceleration for the ATI card. I haven't found a solution though.
Can anyone help?
Crow   2005-03-14 00:27
I have tried a lot of different things and finally found a workaround. I don't know which of the things I did solved the problem. But I've got full direct3d and directdraw acceleration for both cards now.
Here is what I did:
- uninstalled ALL ati and nvidia drivers and remove all leftovers.
- set PCI card in BIOS as primary display
- let windows install only the ati display drivers from the directory X:\y\catalyst\driver\ and reboot
- installed nvidia drivers via windows update (it didn't work with the non-WHQL drivers), set up the gf4 display as secondary in windows and reboot
- set gf4 back to primary display, install the ati control planel (if you need it to switch to tv-out etc.) and reboot
- set the AGP card back primary in the BIOS

After that everything worked fine.

BTW: I use catalyst 5.2 drivers
Ian   2005-03-14 08:41
Crow, you're a *star*
The key seems to be to get the ATI card running properly first - that ensures that the driver runs the necessary tests on first reboot and sets the card up correctly.
However, I could not get an nVidia driver to install correctly until the AGP card was set-up as the primary display (if PCI was the boot-up display then installing an nVidia driver gave me a -1 by -1 pixel AGP adapter that didn't display a whole lot (and messages saying that Windoze could not start the device - how true!!)
But once I changed back to the AGP card being primary I was able to successfully install the nVidia driver and the ATI card continues to have all the DirectX features.
Thanks for your help - I was on the verge of buying a yet another card from ATI or nVidia and chucking the odd one way.
Admittedly my setup is just for business use (I'm not much into games any more) so the performance is really not too much of an issue but it was bugging me that in principle it should work!!
loucfer   2006-01-16 05:53
Hi all,

I've a GForce4 Ti4600 (AGP) and a ATI Radeon 9250 (PCI) and the same problem. The ATI Card doesn't show hardware Directdraw and Direct3D acceleration into Dxdiag. (DirectX 9.0c and Windows XP SP1).

One tip before going forward. To clean the old drivers (ATI and NVIDIA) I've found very useful one little freeware app:
a href="http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745">Driver Cleaner Pro

First: I uninstall the ATI and NVIDIA Drivers using the Windows Control Panel and then I reboot into safe mode and launch Driver Cleaner Pro (DCP needs to run into safe mode) to clean the remaining files from ATI & NVIDIA drivers.

Second: Reboot normally with PCI Card (Radeon 9250) as Primary. With no drivers, the Windows Hardware WIZARD (**sic) will prompt for three Display adapters (9250 Primary, 9250 Secondary, Ti4600). I launch the installers from Catalyst 5.13 driver and latest Forceware but I cancel the install after It decompress the files into my HD giving the path of that files to the 9250 Hardware Wizard and canceling the Ti4600 wizard.
Ok. Reboot. Now I've the 9250 Card working. If I run dxdiag.exe NOW the card has hardware Direct3D and Directdraw capabilities up and running!.
Seems I'm going into the right way....

Third: Reboot. Set the AGP as Primary. When the Hardware Wizard comes I give it the path of NVIDIA Driver files.

Note: According the "Crow guide" I must use in this point the NVIDIA Drivers from Windows Update. It doesn't work at all to me so I tried with latest Forceware drivers from NVIDIA site.

Fourth: Reboot Again and now the big problem. The BIOS setting is AGP as primary.

When I run with NVIDIA as Primary display (Windows Settings, BIOS settings are always AGP (NVIDIA)) then the ATI Card runs perfect (Direct3D and DirectDraw activated) BUT NVIDIA card display is locked into an 640x480 4bit VGA-retro-look-
When I run with ATI as Primary I can change the NVIDIA resolution and color depth BUT ATI card has not DirectX hardware acceleration.

And Now the weird thing. If I install and old Detonator drivers for NVIDIA card (Detonator 41.03 I think) patched with Softquadro4 and I activate the SoftQuadro4 tweak using Rivatuner (basically it turns the Gforce4 into a Quadro card) I can change the resolution and color depth of Gforce4 (now Quadro) and I've hardware Direct3D and Directdraw on both cards.

The nightmare. When I try to launch Maya to work after several hours rebooting and installing and deinstalling Maya reports an NVIDIA OpenGL driver size mismatch, exiting...

Same with every OpenGL app I tried.

Somebody can tell me a working combination of drivers or any tip? Pleaseeeeeeeeeee, my brain is about to explode.

Regards,
Krimson   2006-01-18 11:11
Glad I found this forum.

I just did this setup in the opposite direction. Radeon 9600xt on my AGP port and a GeForce 5500gt on my PCI port.

The same trick worked to get them both running (set PCI as primary, install drivers, set AGP as primary, install drivers). This was not the first thing I attempted and it doesn't seem like any other sequence would work. So I think the magic key is installing the PCI card's drivers first while it's set as primary.

Thanks Crow for saving me hours of frustration.
Krimson   2006-01-18 11:48
Definitely spoke too soon on this. One last reboot after everything was setup and working and now the nvidia pci monitor won't come on again. I knew this was going to be a pain in the ass.
Crow   2006-01-18 21:40
Hi everyone.

I've got two ATI cards running by now, but I have set up my computer a few times before getting the new ATI. So I had some more experience on setting up the drivers.

The key problems seamed to be the control panel and the driver versions.
It worked with some versions and didn't with others. So my advise on that is to try different combinations. Especially use older drivers for older cards.
I also experienced problems with setting up both control panels. The key here seemed to be to set up the ATI driver without control panel for the PCI card first, then install the nvidia drivers fully, then install the ati control panel and after that set the AGP card back to primary. It sometimes works with a complet ati setup from the start, but sometimes it doesn't. So this way is more complicated but seems to be more stable.

I haven't set up a system with the nvidia card being PCI. So I can't give you any experience with this. Sorry.

Greetz
Crow
Krimson   2006-01-19 01:06
I managed to get both cards working together by not installing the ATI control panel, and keeping the PCI card as the primary. I was even able to use the newest drivers for each. However, not having a control panel for my main card and not having it as primary is a pretty big downside, and certainly not an option for anyone intending to game with their system.

I also fudged my system up pretty badly on the way. I can't play any videos anymore, it looks like all my codecs were screwed up somehow, and re-installing them didn't help any.

I was trying to hold off reformatting till Vista was out, but doesn't look like i'll make it that far.
Johnny   2006-01-21 04:30
my computer came with a 32 meg vga card...pff...needless to say I purchased a 128 meg geforce fx agp. My computer has an agp slot but after i installed it and plugged the monitor into it the monitor goes to standby and wont come on. I've tried everything i can think of...HELP!
Crow   2006-04-11 23:21
Update from the ati-nvidia-mixed-system front:

I've got a PCIe system by now.
PCIe card: GF 7600GT
PCI card: Radeon 7500

So I'm back to getting this mixed system running.
The same problems occured as for "loucfer". With most settings I got either 3D support on the Radeon and vga 4 bit on the 7600 OR a fully working GF and no 3D support on the Radeon.
So I did quite a lot of experimenting over the weekend and finally got a solution.
There would be normal hardware acceleration on the Radeon when I used the drivers that came with Windows for it. The device manager then states "RADEON 7500 Family (Microsoft Corporation)".
This has got the downside of no control panel for the Radeon.
I found out through the version number that the used driver ist somewhere between catalyst 4.7 and 4.8. So I downloaded only the control panel for 4.7 and gave it a try.
You get an error message when starting it, but this has got something to do with the tray icon application. After deactivating this in "advanced settings" there is no problem and everything works fine and fully functional!

So in short:
- let WinXP install its own drivers for the Radeon PCI
- install Nvidia drivers (for me its forceware 84.21)
- install the ATI control panel for Catalyst 4.7
here is the direct download link for it: Control panel
- deactiveate the "ati taskbar icon application" in Display proterties->settings->advanced->options

DONE


Greetz
Crow
Crow   2006-04-11 23:24
Sorry, the link doesn't work.
You've got to search for it yourself through the "previous drivers" pages on ati.com.
Forums -> Multiple monitors -> nVidia (AGP) and ATI (PCI)

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