Connect3d Radeon 9500 L RAM red pcb

[psloan]

Planing on putting this card into a dell dimension 4500. I think it only has agp 4, will that be an issue or a bottle neck?

 

[akaricke]

I have a 4550 w/ 4agp no problem.

 

[Deafcon22]

Birthday money down the drain! Here's to hoping I get a moddable card, but even if I don't it will be a huge improvement over my GF3.

 

[klingsor]

Please excuse if this is a dumb question but if I buy one and it has artifacts can I revert it to a 9500... or is it trashed?

 

[Pothead]

it's a softmod...software mod.

 

[Gamerz]

my 9500 from connect 3d site just arrived, the memory is in the right positions, just need my ram to come from fedex now to complete my system. I will post results latter

 

[Techie333]

Hey guys, I just got around to installing my card and doing softmod. SUCCESS!! SWEET, SWEET SUCCESS! NO ARTIFACTS!
Used UT2K3 Bech from HardOCP
Average FPS:

Before Softmod:
Resolution dm-antalus dom-suntemple dm-phobos2 dm-inferno ctf-face3 ctf-citadel dm-asbestos
1024x768 79.135178 98.696373 95.969093 68.050003 126.323578 98.826775 121.008240

AFTER:
Resolution dm-antalus dom-suntemple dm-phobos2 dm-inferno ctf-face3 ctf-citadel dm-asbestos
1024x768 147.568115 156.623016 143.752655 123.099586 162.354782 141.742630 194.020493

Thanks GUYS..........THIS IS GREAT!!!!

 

[leonowski]

softmod worked on my connect3d

running it now at 350/303

w00000!

 

[Techie333]

oh yea, after you do softmod, how do u OC?

 

[psloan]

OK success! 3dmark03 scores. with geforce4 card tweaked to max, 201. radeon 9500 from connect3d with stock drivers 2009, with omega 9500-9700 driver 4188!

WHahoo!

omega drivers here http://www.omegacorner.com/index.html

 

[Gabbage]

I received my Connect3D card yesterday and applied the Omega drivers. To test for artifacts I ran 3Dmark 2001 and the ATI demos and neither gave me any problems. Therefore I am positive that the 9500->9700 hack was successful.

I have a problem, though. For some reason (and I can't think of a single explanation for this) my frame rates seem hardly improved in comparison with my previous card, a GeForce 2 Pro. My 3dmark scores only went up from 3486 with the GeForce to 7214 with the hacked 9500, and the second demo with the vehicle runs at about 25-30 fps. My frame rates in Unreal Tournament 2003 are simply mediocre (maybe 30-45 fps at 1024x768) and in FIFA 2003, a game that ran perfectly fluidly with AA and AF enabled on a Thunderbird 900 with GF4 Ti4600, my frame rates do not hit anything approaching 60. I have a reasonable system, a Tbird 1.33GHz with 256mb of DDR RAM, so it's hard to imagine that my 9500 is limited by existing hardware. Even if the hack didn't work (and I am nearly positive that it did), I think a standard 9500 non-pro should give me better performance. As it is, I have a hacked 9500 that works but provides approximately GF3 Ti200 performance.

Anyone care to offer an explanation? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[amao]

Your CPU and ram are the bottleneck. With this setup, even you dump the most expensive vcard in your machine, you won't see great improvements.

Originally posted by: Gabbage
I received my Connect3D card yesterday and applied the Omega drivers. To test for artifacts I ran 3Dmark 2001 and the ATI demos and neither gave me any problems. Therefore I am positive that the 9500->9700 hack was successful.

I have a problem, though. For some reason (and I can't think of a single explanation for this) my frame rates seem hardly improved in comparison with my previous card, a GeForce 2 Pro. My 3dmark scores only went up from 3486 with the GeForce to 7214 with the hacked 9500, and the second demo with the vehicle runs at about 25-30 fps. My frame rates in Unreal Tournament 2003 are simply mediocre (maybe 30-45 fps at 1024x768) and in FIFA 2003, a game that ran perfectly fluidly with AA and AF enabled on a Thunderbird 900 with GF4 Ti4600, my frame rates do not hit anything approaching 60. I have a reasonable system, a Tbird 1.33GHz with 256mb of DDR RAM, so it's hard to imagine that my 9500 is limited by existing hardware. Even if the hack didn't work (and I am nearly positive that it did), I think a standard 9500 non-pro should give me better performance. As it is, I have a hacked 9500 that works but provides approximately GF3 Ti200 performance.

Anyone care to offer an explanation? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Gabbage]

I understand that video performance is directly proportional to CPU speed. However, I do not have anything close to an obsolete system. Agreed, a T-bird 1.33GHz with 256mb of RAM may not be able to draw maximum performance from a Radeon 9700, but it is not so completely out-of-date that I shouldn't still be seeing a major boost in performance.

As I said, I have another system that has a T-bird 900MHz paired with a GF4 Ti4600 and performance on that system is incomparably better than what I am getting with my newer one. For example, I can run FIFA 2003 on the T-bird 900MHz at 1600x1200 without ever seeing a dip in framerate and I am not getting decent performance at 1024x768 with my newer system in the same game. Even if I have a CPU bottleneck it can't possibly be the cause of my problems.

 

[Seizure]

Success!


Radeon 9500 NP STOCK

Fill rate 825 / 1103
3dmarks03: 1873


Radeon 9500 NP softmodded

Fill rate: 1300 / 2,000
3dmarks03: not tested


Radeon 9500 NP Overclocked to 322/298 core/mem
Fill rate: 1503 / 2310
3dmarks03: 4465






Side note my Windows XP theme got reverted to Windows XP Classic. And the option to put it back to windows XP skin disappeared

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: Gabbage
I understand that video performance is directly proportional to CPU speed. However, I do not have anything close to an obsolete system. Agreed, a T-bird 1.33GHz with 256mb of RAM may not be able to draw maximum performance from a Radeon 9700, but it is not so completely out-of-date that I shouldn't still be seeing a major boost in performance.

As I said, I have another system that has a T-bird 900MHz paired with a GF4 Ti4600 and performance on that system is incomparably better than what I am getting with my newer one. For example, I can run FIFA 2003 on the T-bird 900MHz at 1600x1200 without ever seeing a dip in framerate and I am not getting decent performance at 1024x768 with my newer system in the same game. Even if I have a CPU bottleneck it can't possibly be the cause of my problems.

Thats very intersting. What I would do personally is rebuild the system from scratch.

I would remove all expansion cards accept for the new video card, reformat the HD , reinstall windows and start fresh. When your system has been up and running for awhile there could be many factors that decrease performance and unfortunatley as unstable as windows tends to be, a reinstall could be in order.

If this doesnt change things, then at that point you know something is wrong with some hardware somewhere. How much RAM does your other system have?


good luck!

 

[Gabbage]

"Thats very intersting. What I would do personally is rebuild the system from scratch."

The funny thing is, that's exactly what I did! Before I bought the card I was still using Windows 98 and when I read that the Omega hack only works with Windows 2000/XP I decided to reformat the hard drive and start from the beginning. Therefore the 9500 was already in the system when I installed XP Pro.

PS: My T-bird 900MHz has 256mb of RAM.

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: Gabbage
"Thats very intersting. What I would do personally is rebuild the system from scratch."

The funny thing is, that's exactly what I did! Before I bought the card I was still using Windows 98 and when I read that the Omega hack only works with Windows 2000/XP I decided to reformat the hard drive and start from the beginning. Therefore the 9500 was already in the system when I installed XP Pro.

PS: My T-bird 900MHz has 256mb of RAM.

Wow, that is pretty Bizzare. Well the next thing I would do is this:

go to driver heavan and get the driver cleaner program, unisntall and use it to clean both machines, then swap video cards and see what kind of results you get then. You can then narrow it down to if it is a vid card problem, or another component.

 

[Gabbage]

That's a very good idea and definitely something I will look into. Unfortunately I do not have the Ti4600 in the T-bird 900MHz anymore but the rest of the system is intact and I should be able to try the 9500 on it.

At a friend's recommendation I downloaded 3dmark03 and ran the tests to see how my results compare with his. His system is a P4 2.4GHz with 512mb of RAM and a Radeon 8500. I have broken down our scores here and posted them side-by-side for comparison. The scores on the left are mine.

Game tests (3dmark score: 2490)

-GT1 - Wings of Fury - 61.6 fps / 72.3 fps*
-GT2 - Battle of Proxy - 16.6 fps / 7.5 fps
-GT3 - Troll's Lair - 15.2 fps / 8.5 fps
-GT4 - Mother Nature - 18.4 fps / not supported

Feature tests:

-Fill rate (single-texturing) - 865.7MTexels / 648.6MTexels
-Fill rate (multi-texturing) - 1091.3MTexels / 1907.4 MTexels*
-Vertex shader - 13.0 fps / 9.3 fps
-Pixel Shader 2.0 - 25.1 fps / not supported
-Ragtroll - 11.6 fps / 4.1 fps

As one would expect, my 3dmark score (2490) was much higher than his (1202). Interestingly, however, his multi-texturing fillrate was much higher (1907.4 > 1091.3) though not his single-texturing fillrate (648.6 < 865.7). I am frankly confused by these results because fill-rate is supposed to be a forte of the Radeon 9700.

What do you make of these results? Do they make sense?

 

[Techie333]

Nobody want to answer my questions...........sob..........how do you OC after you apply softmod somebody??
EDIT: ALso, are Omega drivers better or Wizard???

 

[saechaka]

"Fill rate (multi-texturing) - 1091.3MTexels / 1907.4 MTexels"

it doesn't seem like your softmod worked and his mtexels seems high. even my 9500 pro doesn't score that high, its in the 1800's level. my softmod mtexels is in the 2000's.

 

[Dave101]

hey has anyone bit theirlip and tried the 9800 bios flash? I have to say I wouldn't but then again 150.00 is alot of cash to me. but is anyone does or has you get props from me and eveyone else


=David

 

[ShawnD]

Techie333, Omega drivers come with overclock ability. When installing, it will give you the option. Omega's are the easiest in my opinion. Or go to Rage3D.com and D/L Tweak 3D, it has overclock along with tweaks.

Shawn

 

[psloan]

OK, maybe not 100% success. Kids were playing baulers gate 2 today and on one of the menu screens there was aband of checkered boxes about and inch wide that ran 2/3rds of the screan. Could be a game bug, not sure.

--pat

Originally posted by: psloan
OK success! 3dmark03 scores. with geforce4 card tweaked to max, 201. radeon 9500 from connect3d with stock drivers 2009, with omega 9500-9700 driver 4188!

WHahoo!

omega drivers here http://www.omegacorner.com/index.html

 

[cstring]

Originally posted by: Techie333
Nobody want to answer my questions...........sob..........how do you OC after you apply softmod somebody??
EDIT: ALso, are Omega drivers better or Wizard???

There is a overclock ultility in your display properties, advanced, clock rate. It is like a slide bar one for your core and one for memory. This is for the omega driver.

 

[lzpoof]

Originally posted by: elkinm
I understand about the shipping but I think it is worth it to get a modable card. But I don't want to just just return it for no reason. I am a somewhat strange and honest person and somewhat lazy so if it works I might not even bother returning it. But if something realy bothers me about it then I can exchange it and feel fine about it.

Also is there a way to enalble the 256 bit bus but without the 8 pipelines enabled, so I can have at least some benefit from an L shaped PCB?

I believe by definition they are 256bit enabled. The bus width is determined physically, not through bios. The bios would only determine how it is utilized with compression etc.