There is an update to the via chipset. Which will fix a number of video errors that have been blamed on video cards, decal and AC itself. If you have a via chipset and are experiencing problems this is probably the cause.


The website to get the update is:


www.viaarena.com


I was getting a lot of system lock ups and stop errors. After doing some research on the internet I found that a lot of people were experiencing the same difficulty because the older via drivers are unstable.


After installing the updated system drivers I am able to run AC in high video mode at 1152x864 with all the detail filters and also run eight decal plugins in the background without a crash and everything runs smooth now.


Prior to this I tried everything and even went so far as to replace my video card. My old video card was a ATI 9600XTb and my new video is a Radeon 6200 and both were running unstable so it is not the fault of ATI which is what a number of people swore to me was the problem. The only thing I like better about the Nvidia is that it runs incredibly cool at a constant 44C at max load. The ATI was running around 98C or higher to give you an idea of how hot they run.


Hopefully, this post will prevent someone from purchasing a second $200 dollar video card like I did and also prevent them from going through the same frustration that I went through.


Cheers,


~Duri

well, it cant hurt hehe


updating mine now.


edit:


I think it did help, will test more later...

 

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As a side note:


After the update you will have to go into your bios setup and reconfigure the chipset. After the update it will change some of your settings. For me it changed the video card to PCI instead of AGP which caused some problems. It also changed some of my overdrive options.


~Duri

VIA have always been less than good, this really doesn't surprise me and gratz for sourcing this one out :-)

 

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Sucamarto,


I agree there are better chipsets out there but at the time it was a low cost solution to a new motherboard. The guy at the computer store told me he just built a gaming machine with one and it worked great. I threw my system together with spare parts so was not going to go out and buy a $200 dollar motherboard. This board cost $60 dollars (my cost).


Originally, I was running a P4 2Ghz with 1GB DRAM and a 128MB Radeon on that board.


The board itself is ASRock an ASUS Clone with the Prescott Socket with the VIA Chipset. I think VIA has made a lot of improvements over the years. It does not nearly as suck as much as it use to. The board itself has some nice features including thermal throttling and it monitors the temperature of the mb and cpu and controls fan speed.


I am currently running 3Ghz, 2GB DRAM, 256MB 6200 Radeon, 80GB 7200RPM, and a Cable Modem. It is a decent system for my current needs and it cost under $500 dollars which is the cost of mb, memory, cpu and video card.


~Duri