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

[punditguy]

Awesome, awesome guide! I got the pipelines working on a BFG 6800 GS OC (vertex shader didn't want to cooperate) and got a roughly 15% boost in 3dmark06 for free! Life is good.

 

[Rhezuss]

Great guide sir, thanks.

I unlocked the pipes on my BFG 6800GS 256mb AGP. All is great now and works perfectly. The thing is, I can't overclock the card at all. I'm not the first who has this problem with unlocking the pipes.

If I lock back those pipes, I have less than 25MHz of OC available, which is not good at all. So for now, I just unlock and play like that. I hit 5276 on 3Dmark05 and 2419 on 3Dmark06. Don't know if that's good scores.

 

[starwars7]

I tried to double check and see if anyone had already asked this, but is there a way to OC a PCIe version of the 6800?

Thanks!

 

[2Xtreme21]

Rhez: Yeah, not being able to OC means your pipes are defective, actually. But if you get a performance increase with them, then it's good.

Starwars: You can OC (overclock) a PCIe version, you just can't unlock the pipes on it.

 

[starwars7]

bummer on the pipelines, glad you can still OC

 

[Rhezuss]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
Rhez: Yeah, not being able to OC means your pipes are defective, actually. But if you get a performance increase with them, then it's good.

Thanks for the answer 2Xtreme21. Anyway, it is my last AGP card, next step is PCI-E.
Thanks again.

 

[acer4ever]

wooooo hoooooooo!!!

16 - 6!! zero artifacts!

I just unkocked all pipelines and the vertex shader for my Leadtek 6800 , it overclocks like a dream and still no artifacts.

Thank you!!

 

[shaggydoug]

Just wanted to say thanks to 2Xtreme21. I got an EVGA 6800 GS CO on Friday and your instructions with pics using the UI of Rivatuner worked like a charm.

- shaggy

 

[homestarmy]

.

 

[Watermark]

Hi guys. Hope you still visit this topic. I'm having post softmodding trouble with my BFG 6800 GS card. I followed the instruction and unlocked everything with no artifacts whatsoever. But now the core temps are just skyrocketing. I mean they were pretty high before (compared to other folks out there) - around 75. But now they get up to 90 (GPU temp) and 70 (ambient) during a 3dmark test. Is that normal? And what can i do to fix it?

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: Watermark
Hi guys. Hope you still visit this topic. I'm having post softmodding trouble with my BFG 6800 GS card. I followed the instruction and unlocked everything with no artifacts whatsoever. But now the core temps are just skyrocketing. I mean they were pretty high before (compared to other folks out there) - around 75. But now they get up to 90 (GPU temp) and 70 (ambient) during a 3dmark test. Is that normal? And what can i do to fix it?

That's not a good thing. Try a different set of drivers and see if they go back to normal. This shouldn't increase the temperature of the card in any way, so did you do anything else to it before / during / after you unlocked them (like replace the HSF, overclock, etc.)?

Try locking the pipes back up and see if your temps go back to normal, I guess, to test if that's really the culprit.

 

[2Xtreme21]

Watermark, and everyone, I figured out why many of you are reporting heat increases. The latest versions of RivaTuner enabled the capability to slow down your GPU fan... unfortunately it defaults to "53%" on each: 2d, low 3d, and intense 3d. So if you guys are seeing heat increases, navigate to here and up the sliders to 100%. Your heat issue should go away.

 

[Budarow]

Thanks for the guide! I just picked up the $90 6800 128MBer at CC and will install/tinker with it this weekend

 

[HomeAppraiser]

N00b questions.

Were talking AGP only here, right?

What is the minimum required/reccomended power supply for a 6800nu/le/gs?

Does unlocking the pixel pipes and vertex processor require more power?

Thanks.

 

[2Xtreme21]

AGP only, yes. Any card with an NV40 core, which is 99% AGP.

For a PSU, I wouldn't go any lower than a 400 Watt name brand power supply. As far as I know, unlocking doesn't increase the need for power. If it does, it surely isn't noticable and extremely insignificant.

 

[servcarpenter]

I unlocked my AGP 6800 EVGA card and it works great for me. THe only problem is I don't have a good enough power supply. If I run any game or 3Dmark to long it kills it. I'm gonna upgrade my power supply soon and my whole Mobo and processor. I love the card though. I got a great deal on it just $120

 

[Budarow]

Well...I used the guide with my 6800NU and unlocked the pixel unit and the vertex unit only to get some minor artifacts. So I re-locked the pixel unit and the artifacts were gone. I didn't see any point in leaving the vertex unit unlocked since it virtually makes no difference in performance so it's locked also. EDIT...after I OC'd the card to 395 MHz (GPU) and 795 MHz (RAM) I got artifacts after ~2 hours of playing LOTR-BFME1 so I backed the clocks down to 375 MHz (core) and 775 MHz (RAM). All seems to be well now.

Temps are good and visuals are good.

I was a little bummed about the pipes not unlocking, but no big deal I guess. This will be the last video card upgrade for this PC (a Socket A with XP2400+ at 2.0 GHz. I don't OC video cards, but since this is an EVGA and they warranty their cards even if OC'd...I figured what the heck.

 

[bennyg]

Excellent guide... able to turn a 8/4 XFX 6800 XT into a 16/5 - about a 50% increase in frame rates! Can OC up to 385/865 but something goes wrong (screen blank, restart required) when core temp reaches 79 deg... It's either my 3-year-old generic 350W PSU or the rubbish XFX cooler (it idles at 60 deg at 8/4 stock speeds) or maybe it's the crap core I got... hope it's the power supply

But for $175 Aus I'm happy - I can play games again (as opposed to slideshows)

 

[Zebo]

A complete guide about how to mod your 6800GS AGP to a legitimate 6800 Ultra Extreme!

http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/hardware...mod-your-6800gs-agp-ultra-extreme.html

 

[jahutch]

Hey all,

Just tried this tonight - thanks for the instructions, very easy to use! Unfortunately, I get bad artifacting after enabling the extra pixel pipelines. I didn't even have to start a game to see it - even in plain Windows, I get all kinds of short pink lines all over the place. Its hard to even read text! I would assume this means my extra pixel pipelines are bad - but I'm wondering if maybe I should try different NVidia Drivers? I'm currently using the latest, ForceWare 84.21. If people think I ought to try diff. drivers, any suggestion as to which ones? Also not, I am *not* OCing the vid card, so the cause is purely the pixel pipelines. The vertex unit seems okay enable so far - I'll know for sure when I play some games for a while!

Any suggestions appreciated!

 

[gramboh]

jahutch,

It's the opposite for me, when I enable the extra pipelines it is fine, but if I also enable the vertex shader I get artifacting. Try just the pipelines (if you haven't) as they give a bigger performance boost.

This is on a eVGA 6800GS CO Superclocked (400/1100 I think). I might try backing down the rates a bit and see if I can get the vertex although I'm not too concerned. Haven't even tried overclocking it yet.

This is using Forceware beta 84.25 (for Oblivion)

 

[jahutch]

Yeah, first I tried with both on, then only pixel, then only vertex. The only one without artifacts was the latter, so unfortunately the pixel pipes seem to be out for me. Luckily I got like 10 FPS out of the vertex unit in Everquest 2.. I was not expecting anything nearly that drastic!

On another note, since you mentioned OC, how far am I likely to be able to OC an eVGA 6800 on stock cooling? I've never really considered OCing, but maybe its worthwhile to try... Feel free to PM me, since this is a bit off topic for the thread. Thanks for the help!

 

[RockyIII]

Got it done ..eVga GeForce 6800 (16x1 6vp, 400/800) no problems..thanks 2u 2Xtreme21

 

[thepd7]

So, can this still only be done on AGP version? No hope for PCI-E version 6800nu to unlock? thanks,
David

 

[CKXP]

Originally posted by: thepd7
So, can this still only be done on AGP version? No hope for PCI-E version 6800nu to unlock? thanks,
David

AGP only...it uses the NV40 core (16 masked pipes, only 12 are enabled), PCIe uses a NV42 core which is only 12 pipes, none masked.