AGP slot & multiple monitors

[bagmanx]

I cannot enable Win98 multiple monitor feature using the AGP slot set to primary in the Award bios v4.51. Secondary video adapter is a Riva TNT/PCI slot. Device manager states it cannot disable the primary video adapter to load the secondary drivers.
I am using latest version A.5 award bios.
Any ideas ???

[Youske]

The AGP bus is software driven, and therefore cannot be the primary bus, as it does not initalize until Windows boots, regardless of the BIOS settings. Because the PCI bus is hardware driven, it is initalized by the BIOS at boot time (System, not O/S)

-Ed

[Fallen Kell]

Wait...so does this mean I can't use only an AGP video card for all my needs? I thought you could, but if the bus is software driven and only loads when win95 loads, how would I be able to reboot using DOS? (can't think of why I would need to but just exploring what would happen)

[Eli]

To Youske:

When I first boot my system, the first thing it does is show the make/model of my AGP video system, and booting with any old boot disk seems to work fine in dos. So how is it possible that AGP cards are not recognized until W98 starts?

[bagmanx]

The bios asks which bus to use as the primary video adapter. If set to PCI, both monitors work fine. I did find a Microsoft tech bullitin which stated if a PCI bus card is used secondary to an AGP card that the VGA feature of the PCI card needs to be disabled at the hardware level,Huh !!!
Any ideas about this ???