How can I test my flashed r360 core?

[googliata]

Hi everyone. I did alot of research on video flashing and decided that I would try to flash my HiS 9800 Excalibur IceQ (128MB) to a 9800XT. It has the 'L shaped' memory configuration and is speced at 256bit, and met all of the requirements to flash to an XT. I followed all of the procedural steps such as clock testing and making sure I had an R360 core before I flashed (unfortunatley I only got an artifact free core clock of 398mhz. I used FlashRom 2.27 and sucessfully flashed the card with a BIOS I downloaded. The only thing that's bothering me is the BIOS i downloaded was for a HiS 9800XT with 128MB of RAM. The thing is, I cant find any evidence that HiS makes a 128MB version of their 9800XT Radeon card. I am aware that 'RaBiT' gives you the option of editing your video card's BIOS including the amount of RAM of the card (I used this program to turn the core clock down to 398 default). I want to make sure that I am not simply using a modified 9800pro BIOS that makes the card show up as a 9800XT, without r360 core benefits. Im not seeing anything unusual in any of my games or 3dMark'05, but I haven't noticed any performance gains either (except of course the increased clock rates). So how can I be sure that the BIOS I used is a true 9800XT BIOS and includes the r360 instructions and optimizations?

Thanks to anyone who can help me out.


Soyo Dragon 2 (Black Label)
P4 3.0ghz (soon to be OC to 3.4ghz)
HiS 9800pro Excalibur 128MB
Corsair XMS 512MB x 2 dual channel @ 1ghz
Western Digital Caviar 1200JD 120GB x 2
SB Audigy 2 ZS
Kingwin Arctic Liquid cooling (CPU and Video Card)

 

[djbbenn]

I don't see what your problem is. If you have a 9800pro 128mb and you used a 9800xt 128mb bios you card should have xt settings. Where you trying to unlock pipes? Just use Atitool and go to settings and overclocking. It will tell you about the card settings like pipes/clock rate ect. And if the bios you got from the bios list says its a 9800xt 128mb...it is. Post back.

-Dan

 

[googliata]

Dan, thanks for replying. The core shows up as an r360 in ATI tool, and its showing eight pipes are active. Im not sure how many pipes the XT has though. I guess if ATI Tool is accurate, then I did everything right. I noticed in 3dmark'03 the nose cones on the bomber planes in test 1 are transparent. I wonder if thats a problem in ATI's catalyst 5.4 drivers because i didnt notice it when I was using the Omega Catalyst 5.2 drivers. Thanks again for replying to my post.

-nick

 

[harmanoff]

Hey what did you use to flash your bios?

 

[JaS]

"I used FlashRom 2.27 and sucessfully flashed the card with a BIOS I downloaded"

he used flashrom but there r afew out there to pick from.if you want to flash the card while your still in windows try VGA Winflash heres
the link http://www.ecsusa.com/downloads/winFlash_vga.html

 

[rcecola]

if i flash my card with a new bios then flash it back to the original, will ati know the difference and void my warranty?

 

[JaS]

why do you plain on returing the card?

 

[JaS]

im just giving you a hard time.no they wont know unless you tell them

 

[djbbenn]

Dan, thanks for replying. The core shows up as an r360 in ATI tool, and its showing eight pipes are active. Im not sure how many pipes the XT has though. I guess if ATI Tool is accurate, then I did everything right. I noticed in 3dmark'03 the nose cones on the bomber planes in test 1 are transparent. I wonder if thats a problem in ATI's catalyst 5.4 drivers because i didnt notice it when I was using the Omega Catalyst 5.2 drivers. Thanks again for replying to my post.

-nick

Well the Xt has 8 pipes. Did you do a scan for errors with Atitool for 15 minutes. And do you see any blocks on the screen or dots? Do some test to see how it works and post back.

-Dan

 

[INSTG8R]

Technically you should have been able to use your original BIOS and just change the device ID 4E48 to 4E4A and Clocks(probably shoulda tryed that one myself) as there is virtually no difference between my orginal BIOS (R360 Hynix DDR 113-A07537-103 BIOS) and the one I flashed too (R360 Hynix DDR 113-A18812-100 BIOS) except device IDs and clocks. the only real changes I made to the XT BIOS(Sapphire) 412/365 was the clocks as my Sapphire only has 2.8ns RAM so its good for about 357. the Gecube XT BIOS uses 398/351, so I split the difference and used 412/351.

 

[rcecola]

ok i have an ati radeon 9800pro 128mb with a r360 core and 128mb of memory which bios do you recommend. also will winflash work to flash or should i use another program?

 

[googliata]

rcecola- if you do a search on google for 'radeon 9800 xt bios' you will get a list of websites that offer bios'es for download. just find the one that is the closest to your card and use it. if you cant find one for a 128MB 9800XT, then get the closest 256MB bios to your actual card and use a program called 'RaBiT' to change the amount of memory to 128MB. it is very important that you find a bios that matches your memory brand and latency, since video card memory is extremley finicky about having the right timings. most of the people who encounter problems when they flash are using a bios with the wrong memory latencies. here is a list of bios'es that this site hosts: http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/

it would be a good idea to dump your bios within windows using ATITool, and keep a copy of it on your hard drive since floppy disks are so unreliable. you can use RaBiT to check all of your original BIOS ram latencies and write them down, then view the bios you download and compare your original timings to the ones in the downloaded BIOS. if you see any extreme differences, you can just edit them according to your original bios file. as far as what flashing program to use... i think they are all pretty much the same, but since i used flashrom_2.27 and it worked perfectly, i would reccommend using that one. a final note... if you havent already read a tutorial on video card flashing, i suggest that you do in case you
have an unsuccessful flash.

 

[googliata]

dan-
i am not encountering any problems in ATITool. I actually had my card clocked at 430/368 sucessfully in aquamark 3 (score of 49,887) with no glitches. but I used a real-time high dynamic lighting test program and was seeing horrible artifacts, like camera flashes coming from a stadium crowd. thats the only reason i turned it down to 398/351. i was really dissapointed that even with hydro cooling i couldnt acheive a significant clock increase... last night i decided to test my half life 2 frame rate (just eyeballing it) and it actually seems to be running a little choppier than it was before i flashed my card. im still not sure if its because of ati's latest drivers or if theres something wrong with the bios i used for my card. i guess i'll try some different drivers, or maybe just try another bios. i'll do some more research and post back if i find something that works. if anyone knows what my problem might be please let me know. thanks to everyone who has helped me out so far.

also, how can i enable a frame rate display in half life 2?

 

[googliata]

i was just wondering...do ATI's Catalyst drivers use the card identification code to unlock the r360's shaders? in other words, if my card is showing up as a 9800 XT, does that garuntee that my r360 core is being identified? or is it just displaying itself as a 9800 XT?

 

[gR3iF]

hl2: console then net_graph 3 (enter)
about your bios flash back to pro i guess and oc no pipes will be disabled and the mem timings arent a performance gain

 

[googliata]

thanks, gR3iF.