12 pipelines in total but 8 for some reson have been shut down

[Zeaguwanna]

I just got a X1600 PRO and got ATI tool. But in settings it says Pipelines active 4. It should have 12 shouldnt it? Can somone please tell me how to activate those extra pipelines. I have 1 80gb hdd 1.5gb ram agp 8x pentium 4 3ghz. Please help! If you dont know how to activate thos pipelines then please tell me the performance I am missing out on! Thanks!!! I have latest drivers.

 

[MIP_1983]

4 Pipes is right I think, and 12 pixel shader units. Similarly, the x1900 has more shader units than pipelines, 16/48.

 

[zekrahminator]

Well to figure out your missing performance, we could use some benchmark scores...3Dmark05 with this card should be around 5K. It is possible that ATItool is misreading the pipelines, but if it isn't, and you get a 3Dmark05 score of 3K or something, then I'm betting a BIOS editor would fix your problems. Either that or you can overclock a lot .

 

[Cybie1111]

The X1600 series has 12 shader processors, not 12 pipelines. Its like the X1900 series that it has 16 pipes and 48 shader processors, a 3:1 ratio of pipes to shaders. I don't remember the link that showed this. Ill find it as soon as possible.

 

[zekrahminator]

http://www.ati.com/products/RadeonX1600/specs.html ATI's official specifications show 12 pipelines and 5 vertex pipelines, and TPU GPU Database shows 4 "ROP's" (whatever those are ). Anyways, we should see what those benchmark results are. I'm betting that there is a ATItool bug that reports 4 pipes.

 

[MIP_1983]

http://www.ati.com/products/RadeonX1600/specs.html ATI's official specifications show 12 pipelines and 5 vertex pipelines, and TPU GPU Database shows 4 "ROP's" (whatever those are ). Anyways, we should see what those benchmark results are. I'm betting that there is a ATItool bug that reports 4 pipes.

The link (ati's page) says:

"Features
157 million transistors on 90nm fabrication process
Dual-link DVI
Twelve pixel shader processors
Five vertex shader processors
128-bit 4-channel DDR/DDR2/GDDR3 memory interface
Native PCI Express x16 bus interface
AGP 8x configurations also supported with AGP-PCI-E external bridge chip
Dynamic Voltage Control "

 

[syncrod]

post some screenshots

 

[zekrahminator]

The link (ati's page) says:
"Twelve pixel shader processors"

Last time I checked pixel shader processors = pixel pipelines...am I wrong?

 

[MIP_1983]

Last time I checked pixel shader processors = pixel pipelines...am I wrong?

Afraid so. Pixel shader units are part of a pipeline. ATI have gone for having more than one per pipeline.

 

[Zeaguwanna]

3d mark score with vid card

Well in 3d mark 2001 i got a score of 15068 so yea i dont know but all my games sims 2 cod 2 etc all run at HIGHEST SETTINGS! so i just want to know if how to get the 8 pipelines thanks guys...

 

[regg187]

Maybe something is off a little, my x800xl gets 20k+ and its agp!have you tried flashing your bio's maybe it has the wrong ones

 

[Zeaguwanna]

how do i flah bios

can somone tell me how to flah bios and if it will kill my pc if done wrong etc i am new to flahing bios. i am only good at hardware installation like inserting the phyical thing in the pc. you get me!

 

[regg187]

GOTO the bio's collection at this site, you can download a bios flashing program and ati tool where you can save your original bios incase there is a problem. I think there is a tutorial there or linked from there that can explain what to do!

 

[bigboi86]

I'm pretty sure they have 12 pipelines.

EDIT:

It comes with 4 pixel pipelines, 12 pixel shader units and 5 vertex pipelines -- not a standard 1:1 configuration.

Wow.. nuts..

 

[MIP_1983]

can somone tell me how to flah bios and if it will kill my pc if done wrong etc i am new to flahing bios. i am only good at hardware installation like inserting the phyical thing in the pc. you get me!

Don't. Unless you have an actual problem or need, there's no reason to flash your bios. I think your scores are correct. 2001 is an old benchmark, the x800xl AGP would score more.

 

[HaZe303]

http://www.ati.com/products/RadeonX1600/specs.html ATI's official specifications show 12 pipelines and 5 vertex pipelines, and TPU GPU Database shows 4 "ROP's" (whatever those are ). Anyways, we should see what those benchmark results are. I'm betting that there is a ATItool bug that reports 4 pipes.

ROP´s are the same as pipeline´s. So 4 pipelines is correct. Youre card is showing the right amount so dont worry. Pixelshaders and Vertexshaders are not the same as pipelines. Think of it like this. Pixelshaders and Vertexshaders are small processors. Pipelines are the "Multicore cpu" and PS VS are small cpu´s in the core´s...

 

[zekrahminator]

Maybe something is off a little, my x800xl gets 20k+ and its agp!

X800XL is better then an X1600, that's why . And there probably is no way to enable those eight pipelines, because those 8 pipes were never there in the first place . I misread too, I thought that the X1600 had 12 pipes, but oh well. Just take what you have, max out the settings, and play your games.

 

[Zeaguwanna]

well it is a X1600 PRO PRO PRO<<<K< so the pro part should make it better i hope. so the card has 4 pipes? okay. cos on the box it says 12 pipelines. vid card is xpertvision Thanks !

 

[HaZe303]

Hope this clarifies it some for you.

This is Widipedia on the 1600:

X1600 uses the RV530 core, a core that is quite a bit different from the RV515 or X1300 and the R520 of X1800. The X1600 is positioned to replace Radeon X600 and Radeon X700 as ATI's mid-range GPU.

It shares design philosophy with the X1900, in that it has a far different ratio of pixel shader processors. ATI has stated that the X1600 is designed with a far greater shader computational load, a prediction of future game workloads. Whereas the X1300 and X1800 have an equal pixel shader to texturing unit ratio, which targets a more equal workload of shaders and texturing in games, the RV530 of X1600 alters this to 12 pixel shaders and 4 texturing units. The chip's single "quad" has 3 pixel shader processors per pipeline. This means the chip has the same texturing ability as the X1300 at the same clock speed, but with its 12 pixel shaders it encroaches on X1800's territory in shader computational performance. While the performance is no where near that of an x1800 it still manages to lead the x1300 by a decent margin across the board. The X1600 also receives a boost in the vertex shader department, with the addition of 3 more units (total of 5) over the X1300.

The X1600's core clock speeds are similar to X1300's while the memory attached is usually clocked higher. However, benchmarks shows that the X1600 is a decent step up from the x1300. The reasons for this is that the X1600 while having some of the same limitations has much greater ability to process complex shaders having triple the number of pipelines.

 

[zekrahminator]

All this pipeline stuff is very complicated . I think that I'll look at the TPU GPU Database very carefully before buying my next graphics card...which won't be for a while . X850XT FTW!!!!!

 

[Zeaguwanna]

Thanks for your help. So my video card X1600 PRO has the right number of everything then? and on the box it says ddr2 which it does but shouldnt that be faster than 400mhz??? cos that is what it says in catalyst. i have latest drivers etc THANKS!

 

[zekrahminator]

X1600pro AGP has memory clocked at 400, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't feel like checking . You can always overclock if that number looks low to you.... Otherwise yeah, your card looks about right.
Edit- Checked newegg, I was right . The newegg specifications will say that your memory should be clocked at 800, but you have DDR, so the actual clock will be half what the effective clock is.