How to unlock Pipelines and Vertex Shader on a 6800 (nu/le/gs)

[zakee00]

WHYISTHISNOTASTICKY+BUMP

 

[impemonk]

EVERYONE IS VOTING FOR A STACKY!? I VOTE TOO?! ASTACKY FOR YOU, STACKY FOR A ME, STACKY FOR A EVERYONE?!

 

[CaptainY]

Cool, thanks for posting this, I also agree this should be stickied.

 

[Cirrus38]

Stupid question, but when you say look for artifacts, what exactly do you mean?

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

Originally posted by: Cirrus38
Stupid question, but when you say look for artifacts, what exactly do you mean?

You'll know it when you see it, trust me. Artifacts can look similar to dead pixels on an LCD monitor. Or shading problems on objects you knew were a different color before you unlocked. Artifacts are pretty well shown. You can't miss them.

 

[THUGSROOK]

nice post from the new guy :thumbsup:

 

[Racknid]

Anyone able to help with why my RivaTuner information shows my new BFG 6800 oc as 128-bit AGP NV4 (1) with 32MB SDR memory on the line with the customize button in step 3? The line above correctly shows it as a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 along with the correct monitor, but I'm not sure why it thinks it is a 128-bit card with only 32meg of memory.

Clicking the customize button gives a different set of options for low level system tweaks as well. I have an AGP tab and an overclocking tab instead of the NVStrap driver tab the guide shows.

I've run cab/driver cleaner successfully and reinstalled RivaTuner, but still get the same results. Anyone have any ideas? The card seems to work ok, but would like to get a bit more out of it if I can.

 

[richardrds]

Thanks, worked like a champ. I just softmoded my BFG 6800OC from 12/5 to 16/6 and ran 3Dmark03/05 with no artifacts and nice increase in scores. Thanks!!

Will try overclocking my core and mem with Riva Tuner next, Are ther any guides for doing Overclocking with Riva Tuner?

 

[Lorn]

So let me get this straight...

You unlock a 6800NU and it becomes a 6800Ultra?

 

[EarthwormJim]

Do the NV41 cards physically not have the extra pipelines/vertex units? Is that why they can't be unlocked?

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

Originally posted by: NOLOVE
So let me get this straight...

You unlock a 6800NU and it becomes a 6800Ultra?

No..it comes close to the GT minus the extra RAM

 

[zakee00]

Originally posted by: Cdubneeddeal

Originally posted by: NOLOVE
So let me get this straight...

You unlock a 6800NU and it becomes a 6800Ultra?

No..it comes close to the GT minus the extra RAM

ok...
NU Specs: 350/700 12 pipelines, 5 shaders
GT Specs: 350/1000 16 pipelines, 6 shaders
Ultra Specs: 400/1100 16 pipelines, 6 shaders

So, if you unlock a NU u have a GT that just has slower/less ram. Most NU's can overclock to near GT memory speeds, and ultra core speeds...am i right?

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: Racknid
Anyone able to help with why my RivaTuner information shows my new BFG 6800 oc as 128-bit AGP NV4 (1) with 32MB SDR memory on the line with the customize button in step 3? The line above correctly shows it as a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 along with the correct monitor, but I'm not sure why it thinks it is a 128-bit card with only 32meg of memory.

Clicking the customize button gives a different set of options for low level system tweaks as well. I have an AGP tab and an overclocking tab instead of the NVStrap driver tab the guide shows.

I've run cab/driver cleaner successfully and reinstalled RivaTuner, but still get the same results. Anyone have any ideas? The card seems to work ok, but would like to get a bit more out of it if I can.

Is this the newest version of RivaTuner you're running? If so, update your video card drivers to something that nVidia provides.

Originally posted by: richardrds
Will try overclocking my core and mem with Riva Tuner next, Are ther any guides for doing Overclocking with Riva Tuner?

Overclocking is the same in everything. If you're totally new to overclocking, I'd suggest reading some newbie OC guides.

Originally posted by: NOLOVE
So let me get this straight...

You unlock a 6800NU and it becomes a 6800Ultra?

No. Unlocking merely gives it the same number of pipelines and vertex shaders as the GT / Ultra. The GT / Ultra both use 256MB of GDDR3 memory, thus giving it the high edge in clock speeds (1000MHz / 1100MHz respectively). The 6800nu will never become a GT or Ultra just because of the physical lack of 128mb of memory and the fact that even with a superb OC, you'd be extremely lucky to reach above 900MHz on the memory.

As for the core speeds, one can overclock to Ultra core speeds fairly easily.

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
Do the NV41 cards physically not have the extra pipelines/vertex units? Is that why they can't be unlocked?

I'm pretty sure that they either do not have them or they're hardware masked (meaning only able to open through physical manipulation rather than with driver tweaks).

 

[bRiGgA4u69]

THANKS SOO MUCH. That story at the beginning was exactly what i was doing. haha
thanks again

 

[Dadofamunky]

Excellent post. Had no idea that utility existed. Got me thinking about some other things too. Because of this and some other things (updated the drivers to 67.66) I comfortably broke 10,000 on the 3dMark03! I also would not have been able to OC my video card. Kudos and hope this gets Sticky (yuck)

 

[Mister Dark]

I managed to unlock everything with a different tutorial but it took me a lot of trial and error because it - the other tutorial - was nowhere near as clear as this one! Wish I'd seen this first, it would have saved me some time. Excellent job!

Oh yeah - this should DEFINITELY be made a STICKY thread. Perhaps we should start PMing the mods?

 

[stackingreasyBBs]

Out of curiosity, does unlocking the pipes and shaders increase temps? Without additional overclocking, I mean.

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: stackingreasyBBs
Out of curiosity, does unlocking the pipes and shaders increase temps? Without additional overclocking, I mean.

Don't believe so. I've never gotten any temp problems with it unlocked.

Thanks again, guys!

 

[rcrmb]

Awesome tutorial. I found it simple to use instead of piecing it together myself from Guru3d.

Unfortunately I was getting artifacting on my desktop right off the bat, which is a shame because I bought this card for its unlockability.

Do fast-writes have any influence on the success of this?

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: rcrmb
Do fast-writes have any influence on the success of this?

Nope. =\ Sorry, your pipes are defective.

 

[rcrmb]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21

Originally posted by: rcrmb
Do fast-writes have any influence on the success of this?

Nope. =\ Sorry, your pipes are defective.

Sucks. Oh well. It's a great card on stock.

 

[devINVISIBLE]

Horror story time. Here is my post on Guru3D's forum.


After hearing about so many people having good luck with unlocking their additional pipelines and vertex shader, I decided to go with a 6800 hoping to softmod. I've searched the forums for about a week now trying to figure out the problems I'm having, and have some ideas, but maybe my setup is different and people might have different suggestions for me. Hopefully i'll be able to shed some light on other people having similar problems.

When I unlock the additional pipelines, using rivatuner, I get MAJOR artifacting in 3DMark03/5. It seems as though a diagonal line was drawn across the screen, and from that, alternating blue speculated blocks randomly. Also, any place where you would see normal label text or textbox text, when I type in it, it shows as black text. When I move the window that contains this text, the text turns blue!?

Here is some information from CPU-Z
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/CPU.gif
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/cache.gif
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/Mainboard.gif
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/Memory.gif
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/SPD1.gif
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/SPD2.gif


Here is what I changed in RivaTuner. Is it supposed to say "yes" in the HW Masked column, even after I choose to use custom bits, and enable the bits? (probably)
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/AGP.gif
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/NVStrap.gif
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/bits.gif

And here is some additional info from dxdiag
http://www.invisiware.com/CPU/dxdiag.gif

Most of my computer hardware is listed to the right. I have a 350w PSU in right now, which i am 5 minutes from changing and testing with a 500w. I've read about people suggesting drivers... people suggesting voltmods... I haven't done any other mods to my PC before this. Also, I have a liteon cdrom, an old plextor cd/rw (dunno if it conflicts)

I'm throwing lots of suggestions I've read out. Anyone with any suggestions, i'm looking to quickly figure out what the problem is. I'll be browsing the forums all night/week! (Thanks!)

 

[BrokenVisage]

Damn, make your first post a dandy why dont you.

 

[BlackPear1]

Originally posted by: devINVISIBLE
Horror story time. Here is my post on Guru3D's forum.....

Sorry about your horror story, but I'm afraid that your masked pipelines are likely broken. If that is the case, then no amount of PSU or driver changing will make any difference. A voltmod may make help, but it's more invasive and risky than the softmod. The only sure cure is to uninstall NVStrap and go back to stock configuration - a bit of a disappointment perhaps, but the 6800 performs very well stock.

 

[devINVISIBLE]

i still feel like there's gotta be a reason for it I dont know why my card, out of everyone elses would be "broken" so to speak...