Fastwrites need to be disabled?

[Ol!ver]

I've noticed in threads where people are having stability problems, they're told to disable fastwrites in the bios. I've just noticed I have it enabled. Seeing as I have no problems, I'll leave it that way. It got me wondering though, what ind of performance increase does it give you, if any?

TIA

Oli

[DeathMonk]

I was getting artifacts in DOOM3 until I turned off fast writes.. It also enabled me to overclock my core another 15mhz.

[Rukee]

I have yet to see a system faster with it enabled, in fact I`ve found just the oppisite. It`s one of those.. "Must Do" things with a CMOS reset, to dissable fast writes. If someone has found a combo were it is actually faster enabled, I`d sure like to know about it.

[Soulburner]

I run it without problems here (haven't played Doom 3 yet though).

[Zeus]

I always ran my 3d mark benches with it enabled but it seems disabled gives better results.

Will try disabled next time i bench.

[-=TriX=-]

I was planning on doing some testing on this issue w/ a centerwood system and 9700. But, I have no fast writes option in the BIOS and the smart gear options seem to no longer be existant in the beta 4.9 cats :s

I may try going to cat 4.8s just to test this though. WIll post resutls if/when I do the testing.

Cheers!
TriX

[Blind_GI]

Yea I can't seem to find the fast writes option in my IC7-Max3's BIOS......

[OC_Newbee]

Originally posted by Blind_GI
Yea I can't seem to find the fast writes option in my IC7-Max3's BIOS......

I doubt there is any fast writes setting in the bios of any Canterwood base board. The only fast writes setting you have to disable/enable is the one under your smartgart tab within windows.

[Blind_GI]

You can't uncheck fast writes through windows... if anyone knows a way to disable fast writes on my board it'd be much apreciated.

[b|gf|sh]

erm... :stick:

[Blind_GI]

It would be good if I had a SMARTGART tab... or even an ATI card ;)

Whenever I click fast writes off it just goes back to on when I hit apply.

[b|gf|sh]

lol, sorry dude :rolleyes:

give this a shot then (should add fastwrites option to the nvidia cp)

[gaddster]

i think what he's saying is that he has the FW option in the driver panel but when unticking it and then hit apply it just goes back to enabled. Same for me too! Also nvidia here too... is this the same for all nvidia owners ?

[Poki]

I've always read that it should not impact the performance being disabled howerver in all the tests i've done with ATI cards i DO get a lower score with fastwrites disabled. This is with both AMD and Intel platforms.
Just ran 3d2003 to confirm and the results were 6910 on and 6889 off.
I remember 3d2001 taking a 150 point hit around 20k also.
Try both on and off and see what works better... I couldn't find any additional overclocking stabilty with it disabled.

[-=TriX=-]

I had the same problem on an old P4B Rambus system, I would enable it via the displayer properties, reboot, check the display properties again and it woud still be disabled. After some research, I found out this was because my mobo didn't support fast writes. But it looks like people w/ Centerwood boards cna enable this option, so I don't know what the hell is going on here. =\

edit: bigfish, what version of the cats are the drivers you are using?

[b|gf|sh]

Originally posted by -=TriX=-
edit: bigfish, what version of the cats are the drivers you are using?

Not running my gf4 just now so can't test it for you :(

But if it's running stable then it shouldn't need to be disabled I think.