Patrick Vervoorn wrote:

In article <473ae4c3@news2.actrix.gen.nz>,
~misfit~ <misfitnz@yahoot.com.au> wrote:

[snip]

Hmmm. This board has Intel's ICH9R southbridge which has 6 SATA II
connectors and supports RAID. There is also a JMicron SATA II chip
that has two eSATA connectors on the backplane and also supports
RAID. However, I can't find anything in the drivers where I can
switch on NCQ. Nothing through Device Manager and nothing under the
Start menu. Perhaps more research is required.

According to Intel, the ICH9R supports NCQ:

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm

You have these 'Matrix Storage' drivers installed?

No, nor can I find any that will install. I've downloaded two different 
versions so far, both of which tell me my system doesn't meet the 
requirements. One, I double-checked, was definitly for the ICH9R 
southbridge. I'll have to spend more time looking. I see that for NCQ I have 
to select AHCI in the BIOS but whenever I do so, when it comes time to boot 
from HDD I get a flash of a blue screen, then back to the start of boot up. 
I hope I can find drivers that will install, and fix this, as part of the 
reason I spent an extra $100 (NZ) on this board and another $120 on the RAM 
was to have NCQ. I've had the SATA II drives for a while now, bought with 
this upgrade in mind.

I have a horrible feeling that I needed to install the RAID drivers via 
flopy disk during Windows install now. That will annoy the crap out of me if 
that's the case. I didn't install them as I have no intention of running 
RAID. I really don't want to re-install XP, I'm 95% of the way to having it 
how I like it. <fingers crossed>

I'll have to put this issue aside for now, I've been busy and it looks like, 
tomorrow, I'm doing a new build for my friend. A Q6600/8800GTX build, we're 
getting the mobo tomorrow. Actually, I should resolve it before I install 
his, he's talking of getting a P35/ICH9R chipset as well because mine's 
going so well.

I'll get back to you on this one.

[Glide Wrapper]

It does!! I'm using 14a and it works just fine. The FPS with a
skellimancer and full army hovers around 58 - 60 during Shenk's
Death animation. I'm impressed. Also, it's a lot easier to see the
difference between the colour of rare and unique items. Thanks for
giving me a nudge to do this. :-)

Yep, not only does it run smoother, the graphics also look nicer,
cleaner, and the difference between rares (yellow) and uniques (gold)
becomes a lot clearer than with the DirectX/3D modes.

Indeed. Other than the fact that it often starts dark and needs me to go 
into video settings and wriggle the gamma slider I'm really happy with it.

Very nice. I'm not near the Q6600 machine, but I think (from memory)
that one is around the 2400/6500 mark.

Ok, I was hoping for figures to give me some idea. It's just a shame
I've only got two cores. <g>

I'll try to remember to dig up the 'real' scores. ;)

Ooops! I replied in the wrong order. <g>

Cheers,
-- 
Shaun.