ALi AGP Driver Version 1.80
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INTRODUCTION
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This file contains a variety of information you should read before
installing ALi AGP drivers. This setup program contains three drivers,
AgartD.VXD, ALiPCIMP.PCI and ALiAGP.sys. AgartD.VXD is the graphics
address remapping table(GART) management for ALi chipsets at Windows 95.
ALiPCIMP.PCI is the PCI miniport driver providing PCI miniport
services at Windows 98/98SE/Me. ALiAGP.sys is the PCI miniport driver
providing PCI miniport services for Windows 2000.
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CONTENTS OF THIS DOCUMENT
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This document contains the following sections:
1. System Requirements
2. Installation Instructions
3. Uninstallation Instructions
4. Manual Installation
5. Verifying Installation of the Driver
6. Verifying Validation of the AGP Functionality
7. Identifying the Drivers Version Number
8. Change List
9. Known issues
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1. System requirements
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Windows 95:
1. Microsoft Windows 95 OSR2.1 or later version
2. ALi AGP Driver (AgartD.VXD)
3. AGP VGA Card with Driver
4. Direct X5 or above
Windows 98/98SE/Me:
1. Microsoft Windows 98/98SE/Me
2. ALi AGP Driver (ALiPCIMP.PCI)
3. AGP VGA Card with Driver
Windows 2000:
1. Microsoft Windows 2000(build 2195) or later version
2. ALi AGP Driver (ALiAGP.SYS)
3. AGP VGA Card with Driver
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2. Installation Instructions
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Windows 95:
1. Install Windows 95 OSR2 or later version.
2. Upgrade Windows 95 to version OSR2.1 by running USBSUPP.EXE.
We can get this file from Microsoft (www.microsoft.com).
If you install Windows 95 OSR2.5, you still need to install USBSUPP.EXE.
3. Install Microsoft DirectX 5.0 or later version.
We can get this driver from Microsoft too.
4. Install ALi AGP Driver
- run this install program.
- this program will detect the Windows version automatically
and modify the registry to load the proper driver.
5. Install VGA driver for Windows 95.
Windows 98/98SE/Me:
1. Install Windows 98/98SE/Me.
2. Install ALi AGP Driver
- run this install program.
- this program will detect the Windows version automatically
and modify the registry to load the proper driver.
3. Install VGA driver.
Windows 2000:
1. Install Windows 2000.
2. Press "F8" at Windows 2000 booting menu to select
Safe Mode if Windows 2000 fails to boot into.
3. Install ALi AGP Driver
- run this install program.
- this program will detect the Windows version automatically
and modify the registry to load the proper driver.
4. Install VGA driver.
Important note:
Many systems instability are caused by OS drivers internal confliction after
changing mainboard, graphics card, or even upgrading driver or BIOS. It
strongly recommends user to format your hard drive and re-install OS again
after you have ever done system/driver upgrading operation and system is not
stable.
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3. Uninstallation Instructions
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Windows 95 and Windows 98/98SE/Me:
1. Open "Control Panel" folder
2. Invoke "Add\Remove Programs" icon
3. Choose "ALi AGP Driver" item
4. Click on "Add/Remove" button to remove drivers.
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4. Manual Installation
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After installation, the following drivers are stored as listed.
<Windows 95 directory>\System\AgartD.VXD
<Windows 95 directory>\System\ALiPCIMP.PCI
We can backup those files and install drivers manually in the future.
Windows 95:
1. Copy AgartD.VXD to "<Windows root directory>\System\" directory.
2. Add a key "AGARTD" in the registry:
KEY:"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\AGARTD"
with:
NAME:StaticVxD
DATA:"AgartD.VXD"
Windows 98/98SE/Me (M1541 chipset):
1. Copy ALiPCIMP.PCI to "<Windows root directory>\System\" directory.
2. Add a key "154110b9" in the registry:
KEY:"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\PCI\GARTMINIPORT\154110B9"
with:
NAME DATA
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Instance 00 00 00 00
Name "ALi M1541"
Path "ALiPCIMP.PCI"
Windows 98/98SE/Me (M1621 chipset):
1. Copy ALiPCIMP.PCI to "<Windows root directory>\System\" directory.
2. Add a key "162110b9" in the registry:
KEY:"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\PCI\GARTMINIPORT\162110B9"
with:
NAME DATA
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Instance 00 00 00 00
Name "ALi M1621"
Path "ALiPCIMP.PCI"
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5. Verifying Installation of the Driver
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Windows 95:
To make sure if the ALI AGP driver is properly installed,
We need run "Regedit" and check whether the key AGARTD exists in
the following path
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD"
for Windows 95
Windows 98/98SE/Me:
1. Run "Regedit" and find the NAME/DATA pair 'Path "ALiPCIMP.PCI" ' existing in
the following path
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\PCI\GARTMINIPORT\154110B9"
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\PCI\GARTMINIPORT\162110B9"
2. Find "System devices" category in "System"'s "Device Manager" tab of "Control Panel".
You can find "ALi M1541 AGP System Controller" or "ALi M1621 AGP System Controller"
device, depend on the ALi chipset you use. Click on the "Properties" button, select
"Driver" tab, and click on the "Driver File Details" button, you can find the driver
provider and driver file version.
3. Run "drwatson" from Start menu. Select "Advanced View" from "View" menu and click
on "Kernel Drivers" tab. You can find "ALiPCIMP" in the Driver list and associated
version. If you can't find "ALiPCIMP" in the Driver list, ALi AGP driver is not loaded
in this system.
We recommend Method 3 to check whether ALi AGP driver is actually loaded for Windows 98/
98SE/Me.
For users who have installed DirectX 7.0 or later:
Execute Dxdiag from Run command of Start menu. Click on Display tab. Check AGP support
is enabled or not under DirectX Features. Note that sometimes AGP support not enabled
doesn't mean ALI AGP driver is not properly installed.
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6. Verifying Validation of the AGP Functionality
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To check whether the AGP mechanism is able to activate, we can try the
following steps:
1. Install DirectX 7.0.
2. Double click Dxdiag.exe under C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\.
3. Click the "Display" tab.
4. Check "AGP Support" of DirectX features is enabled or not.
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7. Identifying the Drivers Version Number
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Windows 95 & 98/98SE/Me:
The version of the drivers can be obtained by querying the driver file's
properties under File Manager.
After installation, the following driver are stored as listed.
<Windows directory>\System\AgartD.VXD
<Windows directory>\System\ALiPCIMP.PCI
1. Invoke the "Explorer" application.
2. Select the driver file.
3. Open the "File" menu.
4. Click on the "Properties" item.
5. Click on the "Version" tab.
6. The driver's version should be listed in the "File version" or "Product
Version".
Windows 98/98SE/Me only:
See Windows 98/98SE/Me method 2 & 3 at Section 5.
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8. Change List
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V1.80
1. Improve 1.73 S4 resume functionality under Windows 2000.
2. Improve system stability for Ati Rage128 series.
3. Improve system stability for PCI TV card.
4. Add registry key to make Windows 95/98/ME/2000 driver communicates with
ALi AGP utility.
V1.73
1. Add registry key to make Windows 2000 driver communicates with ALi
AGP utility.
V1.72
1. Support Cyrix III Processor.
V1.70
1. Improve system stability for Matrox G400 DH in Windows 2000.
V1.68
1. Add Windows 2000 AGP driver.
V1.67
1. Correct frame buffer starting address to improve system stability
with some 1541 mainboards.
2. Improve 3D stability for Matrox Millennium II.
3. Improve system stability in PCI mode.
4. Enable K6-2/K6-3 Write-Allocate with TNT/TNT2/Geforce/G400 cards.
5. Improve system stability with Permedia3 cards.
6. Improve DVD playback issue on M1541 and ATI Rage 128.
7. Improve system stability with AGP cards without Side Band Address
on M1621.
V1.66
1. Add AMD K6 Write-Allocate feature
V1.64
1. Add support for Matrox G400.
2. Add support for 3DLabs Permedia3.
3. Fix some texture corruption syndrome seen on M1541 and TNT2 Model 64 based system.
4. Fix M1541 system instability after resuming from suspend in Windows 98SE ACPI mode.
5. Improve system stability with some TNT2 cards.
6. Improve system stability with some Savage4 cards.
V1.60
1. Fix nVidia TNT playing DVD frame drop.
2. Fix Window 95 system auto resets when using a PCI card and driver v1.53.
V1.54
1. Add support for ATI Rage Mobility AGP/Rage Pro XL AGP/Rage Pro XC AGP.
2. Add support for nVidia TNT2/Vanta.
3. Add support for 3Dfx Voodoo3.
4. Fix 3Dfx Banshee/Voodoo3 performance drop using ALi AGP driver v1.53.
V1.53
1. Support Windows 95(OSR2.1)/Windows 98/Windows 98SE.
2. ALi AGP Driver 1.53 add registry key to help Windows98 Device Manager to display proper
chipset driver properties, like Provider, Date, Version.
3. Support AMD K6-2 CXT core/K6-III MTRR feature. When ALi AGP Driver 1.53 detects a AMD CXT
core CPU, it sets up MTRR to enable this feature.
4. S3 Savage3D is not stable on M1621 system, ALi AGP Driver 1.53 has solved this problem.
5. ALi AGP Driver 1.50 does not work well in Win98 with the Savage4. System may turn into
BSOD(Blue Screen Of Death). ALi AGP Driver 1.53 has solved this problem.
6. System may turn into BSOD when executing Turok on Intel i740 and M1621 based system. ALi
AGP Driver 1.53 has solved this problem.
7. Solve system poor performance for Intel i740 in Windows 95. Need Intel i740 driver version
v3.2.
8. Asus P5A bios 1005 sets up M1541 GAT mode and this will cause problem in ATI Rage 128.
ALi AGP Driver 1.53 has solved this problem.
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9. Known issues
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Windows 95 & 98/98SE/Me:
1. Fix DVD playback issue of Rage 128GL and Rage 128VR on M1541 by setting
AGP data rate to 1X.
2. Fix some texture corruption syndrome of TNT2 M64 and TNT2 Vanta on M1541
by setting AGP data rate to 1X.
Windows 2000:
1. End users should download Windows 2000 VGA drivers from
VGA vendor web site to upgrade default VGA drivers if
available.
Note: If you do not want to set AGP data rate to 1X, you can use ALi AGP
utility to set AGP data rate to 2X but you may encounter some system instability
issues.
Acer Laboratories Inc. (ALi) web sites:
http://www.ali.com.tw/ (Taiwan)
http://www.acerlabs.com/ (America)
Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.