Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Originally posted by: dreddfunk
Keys - are you (and is everyone else) pretty sure that using RivaTuner to disable shaders is completely safe? If so, I'm more than willing to go ahead and disable 48 of my 8800GT's shaders and do a run through of Oblivion at 19x12 to compare performance. I've got a BFG version with a very mild (625 vs 600) overclock on the core. I could also run tests on Neverwinter Nights 2 and Lord of the Rings Online, just for fun.
I don't see how it can harm anything as you are just essentially "putting the shader blocks to sleep", but I cannot guaranty that it is 100% safe. I re-enabled my full 96 shaders without issue on my 8800GTS 640 and happily continued gaming. If you are concerned about damaging the shader units, then I would think twice about it. I don't really know what could, or potentially go wrong.
SickBeast, I believe, has tried it. Maybe Taltamir as well.
I think it is safe for the most part. I am going to try my ROP's in a little while. I have 20 by default. Folks with 8800GTXs and Ultras have 24. All G92/94 cards have 16 ROPs.
I wanted to try mine at 16, then 12, then 8 respectively and record performance differences for each (if any). Leaving my shaders at 96 throughout testing.
Just some quick notes to put down it text here:
My 8800GTS in CoD4 running at 1680x1050 all setting high. 4xAA.
96 shaders: Avg fps is 60 fps in multiplayer
64 shaders: Avg fps is 60 fps in multiplayer
32 shaders: Avg fps is 17 fps in multiplayer (yecchh!)
I can see why the 8600's didn't do so well.
WARNING!!!!!!! Do not disable Raster Units in Riva Tuner. I have trouble now. Working it out. So don't do it!!!
EDIT: Ok back to normal. I had to run "Last Known good Configuration" by pressing F8 before operating system loads.