9800se 256 meg soft mod problems

[Wild_Beast]

hey,
i just upgraded my pc and i purchased a xpert vision radeon 9800se 256 meg card and put it in my nf7-s and xp 1700 (running at 1705 mhz 155 fsb) with 512 pc 3200 ram running at 412 mhz.

i was previoulsy running a asus geforce 4 mx440 64 meg ddr card and clocked 32 fps in hl2 stress test and 14 in doom 3. we then (b4 i purchased my card) put mates 9800se 128 meg in running softomd drivers ( 8 pipes) and i got 82 in hl2 stress test and 62.2 in doom3 , we then test another card the 128 meg geforce 5900 it clocked 89 in hl2 and 62 in doom 3 (wierd as each card performed was out performed in there designed games) anyhow i then i went to buy the 9800se but only had a 256 meg version for 50 more so i bought that. then got it to matesplace put it in and got 2 fps less than the 128 meg card ? what gives.

now comgin to the gaming side of things doom3 runs like a dream smooth as couldnt ask for much more ( exept fps which should when i get new cpu)
BUT hl2 playing cs source ( i onyl bit of hl2 i played so far) is fine while loading, but whenu get to a menu settings for instance when u open it the background flicers. and when playing the game i get slight to modereate flickering in the game? what gives a 250 $ card flickering on me, but whats confusing one game runs fine and the other doesnt.

any ideas on this would be great.

P.s i read somewehre taht someone couldnt unlock there 256 meg 9800se to 8 pipes as in it just wouldnt do it, i got atitool v0.0.22 and it says i got 8 pipes, and also running the *find max core* and *find max mem* options in the 3d window i get yellow and black chequers in a triangular array generaly on end of the tirangle going ot centre of the window. whats the go with this, is it possible to overcome?

*p.s when i run the drivers that came with it like withno softmod its fine no errors just half the fps.*

any info or tips would be greatly appreciated Thnx

Beast

[Wild_Beast]

i wouldnt realy care if hl2 ran fine and doom3 not, as i only bough the card to play hl2!

[GoLLuM4444]

Presumably with the ATi drivers the card only runs with 4 pipes. This could be the problem. One of your extra 4 pipes could be faulty and so the softmod drivers (using all 8 pipes) cause glitches but make it much faster.

On the other hand it could be that your computer doesnt like the softmod drivers so you could try to get 8 pipes without the softmod drivers. I don't know whether it's possible with a bios flash but the hardmod is certainly a risky option if one of your pipes is bust:

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ng/vidcard/105

If you do try that I'd make sure it's done in a reversible way.

-GoLLuM

[GoLLuM4444]

I know that it is the case that the 256mb version is slower than the 128mb version for the 9800 pro and i wouldnt be surprised if the case were the same for the 9800 se.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...charts-03.html

-GoLLuM

[Ripsaw]

Originally Posted by Wild_Beast

P.s i read somewehre taht someone couldnt unlock there 256 meg 9800se to 8 pipes as in it just wouldnt do it, i got atitool v0.0.22 and it says i got 8 pipes, and also running the *find max core* and *find max mem* options in the 3d window i get yellow and black chequers in a triangular array generaly on end of the tirangle going ot centre of the window. whats the go with this, is it possible to overcome?

*p.s when i run the drivers that came with it like withno softmod its fine no errors just half the fps.*

any info or tips would be greatly appreciated Thnx

Beast

The checkers and triangular array you describe are artifacts caused by pushing the memory beyond its ability. Artifacts are caused by too much overclock on the memory. Usually too much overclock on the core (VPU) will just cause a lockup/freeze, but sometimes can spawn artifacts before locking up.

[Wild_Beast]

ripsaw,
what if im running stock vpu and memory speeds ? i tried halving them ive tried lots and i still get the glitch ..

it just puzzles me that its onyl hl2 that has problems half life 1 runs (obviously) fast as and perfect and doom3 runs fine its just hl2 that get problems and the ati tool window.

[zurih]

P.s i read somewehre taht someone couldnt unlock there 256 meg 9800se to 8 pipes as in it just wouldnt do it, i got atitool v0.0.22 and it says i got 8 pipes, and also running the *find max core* and *find max mem* options in the 3d window i get yellow and black chequers in a triangular array generaly on end of the tirangle going ot centre of the window. whats the go with this, is it possible to overcome?

yup,
I have the XpertVision 9800SE 256MB and I cant open the extra pipelines... I have a crappy one
But still, it works very well with all the new games..

[Ripsaw]

Originally Posted by Wild_Beast

ripsaw,
what if im running stock vpu and memory speeds ? i tried halving them ive tried lots and i still get the glitch ..

it just puzzles me that its onyl hl2 that has problems half life 1 runs (obviously) fast as and perfect and doom3 runs fine its just hl2 that get problems and the ati tool window.

I thought you meant you were getting the artifacts while running the 3D FRAPS spinning cube in ATITOOL. If you only getting them in HL2, then it's some kind of problem with HL2.

[Ripsaw]

Originally Posted by Wild_Beast

ripsaw,
what if im running stock vpu and memory speeds ? i tried halving them ive tried lots and i still get the glitch ..

it just puzzles me that its onyl hl2 that has problems half life 1 runs (obviously) fast as and perfect and doom3 runs fine its just hl2 that get problems and the ati tool window.

I thought you meant you were getting the artifacts while running the 3D FRAPS spinning cube in ATITOOL.

[VeGeMaN]

I have the same problem with a Peak Ati 9800 SE 256 mb DDR