Get your X1950Pro modded BIOS here

[Ketxxx]

Ok I got the ati tool patch, am I the only one in the world to get an atitoolhooks.dll error? nvm fixed

As a sidenote when attempting to OC remember to;

- disable ati poller service via services.msc
- use atitool 0.25 beta 14, it works with 1950Pros
- increase pci-e frequency to 105-109MHz

 

[unsmart]

Are you getting any performance per clock increases with the core? My vgpu is already at 1.35 so if the prob is settings getting it up to 641 or so should be doable. If my card can't go much higher then it is now a boost in performance would be great Just tightening the mem times had and improvement in benches.

 

[Ketxxx]

I havent looked for that. Stability over speed will always come first. Plus stable settings often end up being a bit faster than stock settings anyway once they have been tweaked

 

[Ketxxx]

No. Feel free to experiment tho if you have AGP\PCI locks.

 

[Kursah]

Something deffinately seems out of the ordinary with your card. If memory serves all manufacturers have to produce a product with a minimum of a 10% leeway, this is for stability and reliability. Your GPU only offers a little over 2%. If your unhappy with your card as it doesnt meet minimal production guidelines kill it with the gentlemans approach and RMA it. Before that taking the cooler off could help tho as it could be a simple case of a bad thermal application, and as the 1950Pro runs cool anyway, you wont really know until the cooler is off.

Probably a stupid question, but what is the gentleman's approach to killing my vid card? I am planning on taking the cooler off..but my issue is that I read the cooler uses thermal tape to cool the ram...and if so, I am unsure if a layer of AS5 would fill the gap properly. Any recommendations would be great.

 

[anticlutch]

Probably a stupid question, but what is the gentleman's approach to killing my vid card? I am planning on taking the cooler off..but my issue is that I read the cooler uses thermal tape to cool the ram...and if so, I am unsure if a layer of AS5 would fill the gap properly. Any recommendations would be great.

The gentleman's way of killing a video card (in Ketxxx's terms) is to RMA it ASAP. If I were in your situation I'd take that advice and RMA it

Edit: Oh and btw, I'm not too sure on this but the AS5 on my memory seems to be doing ok... I didn't notice a significant increase in overclockability or anything like that but the temperatures seem to be stable.

 

[Kursah]

I'll contact Newegg and see what I can do...bummer cause my last RMA took about 3 weeks...as I just got this PC up a week and a half ago from from having a bad stick of memory. Wonder what I should tell em my reason is for RMA...lackluster performance and instability would probably suffice.

 

[Ketxxx]

v1.4 512MB PCI-E BIOS

Heres a nice new BIOS to try, based on a 512MB card still. I think I've managed to find that balance between performance, stability and overclock-ability. I'll probably try tweaking timings down to get more performance though as the 1950Pro is so limited by its 12 ROPs.

Heres the full list of changes:

- Core clock: 625MHz
- VidRAM clock: 1.5GHz (750MHz*2)
- Tweaked memory timings
- Re-configured memory refresh & row cycle times
- Fan speed 100%

No VIVO support. Be aware this BIOS, just like the other BIOS' this is just BETA and not final.

Hopefully I can bring life to a BIOS supporting VIVO soon, but not sure when. Getting very warn down testing so many timings and refresh rates - its mind numbing

 

[Alcpone]

I'll contact Newegg and see what I can do...bummer cause my last RMA took about 3 weeks...as I just got this PC up a week and a half ago from from having a bad stick of memory. Wonder what I should tell em my reason is for RMA...lackluster performance and instability would probably suffice.

Nah, you need to cook it imo, they will just send it back to you when they find nothing wrong with it!

 

[Ketxxx]

Agreed, use the gentlemans approach to cooking it.

 

[Alcpone]

Your doing a great job for the X1950Pro community ket, keep up the good work

 

[Kursah]

Well from what I've read for my card from newegg, it seems noone is getting OC from their cards at all, so I should be considered lucky to a certain extent. Another bummer is that I have to go through Newegg to RMA my card as per Powercolor's warranty rules, after that they'll replace it through RMA themselves.

So do I take a chance and RMA for a card that won't OC? Could vista/vista ati drivers not be helping? When I OC too far there's that driver R300 stopped responding and has been successfully reset message. Possibly my cooler isn't properly set, but I cannot find much on people removing the X2 cooler once installed, especially on these cards. So if it has thermal tape I'd probably be screwed as I probably wouldn't be able to fill the gap with AS5 w/o a serious problem.

I could flip a coin, but I have a bad feeling about RMA-ing this card for one that might be worse off. And right now they have a sale on Sapphire x1950XT 256 for $199 (same price I payed for the pro), but I'm past the 30-day exchange period. LoL I dunno what I should do, but I think I may just stick with this card and wait for better vista/driver support. CCC can OC my core to 621 and my memory to 796, it just does that infamous screen flicker that the 7 series of drivers is greatly known for in Vista.

 

[Ketxxx]

I'm kinda hoping this BIOS works for most people so I can move onto the dinosaurs that still use AGP

 

[Alcpone]

I wreckon you do AGP last lol, should be 256 PCI-e next imo

 

[Alcpone]

Well from what I've read for my card from newegg, it seems noone is getting OC from their cards at all, so I should be considered lucky to a certain extent. Another bummer is that I have to go through Newegg to RMA my card as per Powercolor's warranty rules, after that they'll replace it through RMA themselves.

So do I take a chance and RMA for a card that won't OC? Could vista/vista ati drivers not be helping? When I OC too far there's that driver R300 stopped responding and has been successfully reset message. Possibly my cooler isn't properly set, but I cannot find much on people removing the X2 cooler once installed, especially on these cards. So if it has thermal tape I'd probably be screwed as I probably wouldn't be able to fill the gap with AS5 w/o a serious problem.

I could flip a coin, but I have a bad feeling about RMA-ing this card for one that might be worse off. And right now they have a sale on Sapphire x1950XT 256 for $199 (same price I payed for the pro), but I'm past the 30-day exchange period. LoL I dunno what I should do, but I think I may just stick with this card and wait for better vista/driver support. CCC can OC my core to 621 and my memory to 796, it just does that infamous screen flicker that the 7 series of drivers is greatly known for in Vista.

Good plan, it does work @ the end of the day, most likely vista being pants! $199 for a XT is sweeeeet, thats like £100, cant get a XT in the uk for that price for love nor money..

 

[Ketxxx]

lol you can do a very basic mod to my 512MB BIOS' to make them 256, which is why I havent worried too much about a "specific" 256MB BIOS

 

[Alcpone]

lol you can do a very basic mod to my 512MB BIOS' to make them 256, which is why I havent worried too much about a "specific" 256MB BIOS

Oh well, have you done that and I aint seen the post?

 

[Ketxxx]

Good plan, it does work @ the end of the day, most likely vista being pants! $199 for a XT is sweeeeet, thats like £100, cant get a XT in the uk for that price for love nor money..

Nope, cheapest I found was £158 for a 512MB XT or £133 for a 256MB, vs £100 for a 256\512MB Pro. All things considered the Pro works out to be the better card anyway, 3Dmark shows little FPS difference between to two.

 

[Kursah]

Yeah, if I woulda been more patient I'd wouldn't got the XT, but I love this Pro card, and hell I wouldn't have ended up here. Plus I was just reading that there are quite a few issues with the XT and Vista, so that might have not been the route to go...but who knows. As you said at the end of the day the card works, I'm almost tempted to create a dual boot config for this Pc to try it in Xp...just no time right now. Thanks for all your help and support and I am still looking forward to at least trying the latest Ketxxx Deluxe x1950Pro 256 Bios Collection Release! And also better vista/ati drivers/support!

 

[Ketxxx]

Oh well, have you done that and I aint seen the post?

Thats what I done for a while, if your worried about doing it yourself ask Formula350. Maybe he wants to mod 512 to 256 for people (I'm lazy, I know )

 

[Alcpone]

Thats what I done for a while, if your worried about doing it yourself ask Formula350. Maybe he wants to mod 512 to 256 for people (I'm lazy, I know )

He posted a 256 ver after you posted your first 512 ver, should I try that out or will I just wait and see what he does with your most recent 1? So many decisions to make

 

[Ketxxx]

You will probably do better with v1.4, IMO the refresh rates and timings are better.

 

[Alcpone]

Ok, I will give it ago when its done!

 

[Formula350]

lol I'll take charge of changing it from 512 to 256. It only takes 5 seconds

Stay tuned for the edit.

EDIT: OK changed to 256mb. Just to be fair to some people, I changed the CORE clock from 631 to 600. Since some can't quite do 631 yet. It allows them to take advantage of this too and not have to de-clock every windows boot. They can set it up to their max then.

No memory, voltage, timings or fan settings were changed.

 

[Ketxxx]

Does anyone remember about those crazy tight video memory timings I mentioned? Well my little pet project (codename: RVX570 GODFATHER) is up and running Be warned that the timings in this BIOS are INSANELY tight for video memory, which is why the clocks are only 600\1.4GHz. The timings however *should* be lax enough for 1.1\1.2ns samsung memory. 1.4ns Samsung memory might have trouble though. Let me know how you all get on with this BIOS

Notes: PCI-E 512MB BIOS