Turn X800 Pro into X800 XT PE with Bios Flash

[pelikan]

Check out this XP optimization guide. Maybe there are some things there that you haven't done yet.

 

[KayGee]

Originally posted by: pelikan
KayGee- By "stable" I mean no artifacts. I found that 3DMark 2005 and Doom 3 are great ways to make sure the card is stable. Your issue of missing textures sounds a little different. Games should look exactly right, with no missing textures. If I had your card I would experiment with lower clocks and maybe even a different bios like the latest ATI XT PE bios. I'm sure you are using the latest driver but if not try it out. And disable VPU recover.

i'm sorry if i'm being a nuisance with these posts, but please bear with me. i'm a n00b who's new to all this flashing and overclocking stuff and i've got a few questions :

1. in the beginning of far cry, after you get the binoculars and swim across to the camp on the other side, i noticed that the doors to the cabins appeared as a partial piece of wood that was sawed in the shape of a triangle (instead of rectangular) and i could see through the portion with no wood into the room (kinda like a weird shaped window). this is an artifact right?

2. in the canyon flight of 3dmark05, sometimes the canyon walls appeared as triangles which flickered occasionally. also artifact right?

3. when i flashed my initially, i used the X800 XT PE (AGP) 256 MB compiled on Apr 30th 2004 10:24 PM because it was the exact same size as my original pro bios. does the size matter if i flash to the most recent bios on the techpowerup site (the one compiled on Jun 9th 2004 3:28 PM)?

4. also if i see occasional artifacts(?) like the ones mentioned above, does it damage the card. i mean, personally, i don't really care if there are small defects which don't affect my gameplay, but is it harmful to run the card in this way?

thanks for all the help so far, especially pelikan. i look forward to your replies/suggestions.

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: KayGee
i'm sorry if i'm being a nuisance with these posts, but please bear with me. i'm a n00b who's new to all this flashing and overclocking stuff and i've got a few questions :

You're not being a nuisance at all. This is what the forum is here for.

1. in the beginning of far cry, after you get the binoculars and swim across to the camp on the other side, i noticed that the doors to the cabins appeared as a partial piece of wood that was sawed in the shape of a triangle (instead of rectangular) and i could see through the portion with no wood into the room (kinda like a weird shaped window). this is an artifact right?

Although its a little weird that you can see through the door, its probably an artifact; specifically a memory artifact. You can find out by underclocking your card, the core and the memory, and see if the problem goes away. If it goes away then it was an artifact. If it doesn't go away then its probably a missing texture which would indicate that the extra pipes aren't 100% functional.

2. in the canyon flight of 3dmark05, sometimes the canyon walls appeared as triangles which flickered occasionally. also artifact right?

Sounds like a memory artifact.

3. when i flashed my initially, i used the X800 XT PE (AGP) 256 MB compiled on Apr 30th 2004 10:24 PM because it was the exact same size as my original pro bios. does the size matter if i flash to the most recent bios on the techpowerup site (the one compiled on Jun 9th 2004 3:28 PM)?

I would flash to the ATI X800 pro 16 pipe bios and see if the lower clocks get rid of your artifacts. Then clock up from there.

I'm not sure about the bios size issue. I didn't pay any attention to that when I flashed my card, and it doesn't say anything about bios size on W1zzard's site.

4. also if i see occasional artifacts(?) like the ones mentioned above, does it damage the card. i mean, personally, i don't really care if there are small defects which don't affect my gameplay, but is it harmful to run the card in this way?

There has been quite a bit of debate about this. I don't think it hurts the card, but many other people think it can kill the card. If it were my card I would flash to the X800 pro 16 pipe bios and see if I can find a core and memory speed that will allow the card to function without artifacts.

Alternatively you can try down-clocking just the memory, since it sounds like you have memory artifacts. That may cure the problem. Usually memory artifacts are triangles, lines and flashes across the screen, while core artifacts are little dots. If you get down to X800 Pro memory speeds and the problem isn't resolved then down-clock the core as well and see if that does it.

thanks for all the help so far, especially pelikan. i look forward to your replies/suggestions.

You're welcome.

 

[KayGee]

thanks so much pelikan. i'll try what you suggested. thanks again.

 

[MegaWorks]

More update soon.

 

[GopGuyCA]

Would this mod apply to my X800 XT I got from Dell?

I see the X800 Pro and then the X800 XT PE, but never the X800 XT....

Is the Pro and the one I got from Dell the same thing? Or the PE and the one I got from Dell the same thing? Or is mine just some other thing?

Also, is there any risks in trying to mod my X800 XT?

 

[Dethfrumbelo]

There's no difference between the XT and XT PE other than clockspeed and some HD stuff.

You don't need to mod anything.

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: GopGuyCA
Would this mod apply to my X800 XT I got from Dell?

I see the X800 Pro and then the X800 XT PE, but never the X800 XT....

Is the Pro and the one I got from Dell the same thing? Or the PE and the one I got from Dell the same thing? Or is mine just some other thing?

Also, is there any risks in trying to mod my X800 XT?

I heard that Dell has a stripped down version of the X800 XT. I don't remember how its different from a normal X800 XT though. You should download ATI Tool, open it up and click "settings," in the lower right hand corner. Then you will see a window that shows how many active piplines your card has. It should say "Active Pipelines 16." It will also show you the speed of your gpu and memory. Check it out and then please post what you find.

 

[jpeyton]

Anybody find any BBA X800 Pro VIVOs lately at CompUSA?

 

[GopGuyCA]

I know that Dell offers a stripped down 6800 GT.

I wasn't sure on which card to decide on. Everyone has their own opinion. But what ultimately made the decision was the fact that Dells 6800 WAS stripped down as it didn't feature tv-out while the regular version does. Also, the stats were higher on the ATI.

I'll download that tool and see what it says once I get my Dell this Friday.

 

[boodi]

HI .
How can i know what voltage my ati x800pro ( vivo ) carries ?

..and how about the bunch of people reporting who burned their 16pipes enabled x800 pro after some time of use ?
I'm a bit afraid of doing the mod.

What should i look and mod for SAFE MODDING my ati x800 pro ( vivo ) ?

 

[boodi]

Originally posted by: KayGee
thanks so much pelikan. i'll try what you suggested. thanks again.

did you find anything new and did you tested the card ?
and how much the x800pro 16pipes enabled bios it's a downgrade Vs the x800xt and x800 xt pe bios ?

sorry if my questions look silly but I'm a bit afraid of softmodding my card , this mainly because when i tried one soft mod with ati x800 pro 16p enabled bios the screen went black i was able to revert to orginal ati x800 pro bios though

 

[jpeyton]

boodi, there is no such thing as a safe mod.

You're always playing the odds when you mod or overclock, although some are safer odds than others.

Since this is a softmod, the number of successes I've seen are far more than the number of failures.

That said, there is always the risk of getting a bad card that won't mod or that will burn out or die after being modded.

Bottom Line - If you cannot afford to lose a $400 video card, then don't attempt to mod or overclock it. The only reason I modded so many of my cards is because I knew the store I bought it from would allow me to return it even if I accidently killed it by modding it...however, most retailers, online or local, will not let you do that.

 

[boodi]

how many times ( percentage ) did you see a softmodded card die ..?

 

[Mrvile]

I think he's modded 14 cards, 2 out of which couldn't handle the XT speeds, one was downclocked and one died. He told me this earlier.

 

[boodi]

so it's like I should expect to see some artifacts ( and what temperature should i look to avoid..? ) before having my card dead , am i right ?

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: boodi
so it's like I should expect to see some artifacts ( and what temperature should i look to avoid..? ) before having my card dead , am i right ?

Temps on a stock heatsink with the fan pegged at 100% should be around 40-45C Idle and 70-75C Load.

Run ATITool's artifact tester with AA and AF disabled, make sure Fast Writes are turned off (in the SmartGart tab in Display settings). If you can run it for an hour without it resetting, then run 30 repeats of the Nature test in 3DMark2001 to test for stability under load.

3DMark2005 is also good for artifact testing; just play close attention during the tests for pixel artifacts and shearing.

The one card that died on me died out of the blue. It's a rarity; for every one or two posts about a card completely dying, there are about a 100 about cards that don't die. This is the impression I got on other forums as well.

 

[boodi]

this is good to know
..do you think that tunning the card on a better cooler ( ex. ati silencer 5 cooler ) will avoid damaging an x800pro@pe speeds ?

anyway i saw that really the 6800 has the verge on the x800xt pe many times on games performances ( halo , doom3 , recently i also psotted some half life benchmarks that show 6800 with updated drivers quite on par with x800xt pr high settings >1280*10244 ) and i saw the desktop display quality on this card , it really didn't seem as much bed as I've read around here
so.. I'm quite valuting to sell the zti pro vivo and get the 6800 to not have any kind of issues

 

[Ordy]

Did my upgrade from a VIVO Radeon X800 Pro to X800 XT PE and have the 16 pipelines and 519 core +560 memory. Glad I found you folks. Was a huge accomplishment for me. I'm always scared to do stuff like this to my hardware.

I ran the 3DMark05 test and got an unbelievable score of 3522!! Quite possibly the best score ever recorded on these forums I know!!! Just kidding of course. Not sure what my score would have been before the flash upgrade to XT PE speeds. I am running an older motherboard and processor to so that's gotta be a reason for the low score.
P4 1.9Ghz
ASUS P4T-E with maximum AGP 4X motherboard
1Gb PC800 RDRAM
ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256 running as Radeon X800 XT PE 256
Windows XP Pro SP2
I had all applications closed when I ran the test. I had the latest drivers from ATI and checked default settings under the Catalyst Control Center. So it looks like my motherboard and processor are the real crippling factors now. Just thought I would post my findings and also post a BIG THANK YOU!!! You folks are grrrrrrreat!

Thanks again,

Ordy

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: Ordy
Did my upgrade from a VIVO Radeon X800 Pro to X800 XT PE and have the 16 pipelines and 519 core +560 memory. Glad I found you folks. Was a huge accomplishment for me. I'm always scared to do stuff like this to my hardware.

I ran the 3DMark05 test and got an unbelievable score of 3522!! Quite possibly the best score ever recorded on these forums I know!!! Just kidding of course. Not sure what my score would have been before the flash upgrade to XT PE speeds. I am running an older motherboard and processor to so that's gotta be a reason for the low score.
P4 1.9Ghz
ASUS P4T-E with maximum AGP 4X motherboard
1Gb PC800 RDRAM
ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256 running as Radeon X800 XT PE 256
Windows XP Pro SP2
I had all applications closed when I ran the test. I had the latest drivers from ATI and checked default settings under the Catalyst Control Center. So it looks like my motherboard and processor are the real crippling factors now. Just thought I would post my findings and also post a BIG THANK YOU!!! You folks are grrrrrrreat!

Thanks again,

Ordy

:beer:

 

[MegaWorks]

Ordy if you get heat problem with the bios change, just get yourself one of those ATi Sliencer 5 coolers installed on your X800 core.

 

[boodi]

still waiting to know if when you set speed for the xtprovivo@xtpe to match artifacts free tests ( in a long 30 times repeated test as jpeyton adivce ) the card is ready to roll games without problems and without probabilities of being burned.

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: boodi
this is good to know
..do you think that tunning the card on a better cooler ( ex. ati silencer 5 cooler ) will avoid damaging an x800pro@pe speeds ?

anyway i saw that really the 6800 has the verge on the x800xt pe many times on games performances ( halo , doom3 , recently i also psotted some half life benchmarks that show 6800 with updated drivers quite on par with x800xt pr high settings >1280*10244 ) and i saw the desktop display quality on this card , it really didn't seem as much bed as I've read around here
so.. I'm quite valuting to sell the zti pro vivo and get the 6800 to not have any kind of issues

Yes I believe that if you get a better cooler on the X800 core, the card will run more stable then before.

 

[roraz]

I've got a sapphire x800xt. And I am just wondering if its worth it to flash it to p.e standards?

Can i use the methods described here (and the bios files linked?) plus will the cooler on the card, considering the cards closer to p.e speeds be more suitable for the increased speeds/temperatures (ie i won't need to change it)?



on a slightly different note somebody mentioned that people could sell flashed x800 pro as xt's on ebay, and the bios would tell the computer that it was an xt. Are there any physical diffrences to tell them apart?? Such as a code number, different coolers, chips etc? Its just somebody I know is buying one, and I don't think they'd like paying for something thatwasn't as described.....

 

[shohoku]

I just got Built by ATi Radeon X800 Pro with Samsung memory 20ns from Best Buy. Will this method work on this card as well?