9500 Pro turned into a 9700

[J.Clarke]

I noticed that the 9500 (non pro) can be turned into the performance
of a 9700 which is a really huge leap given the circumstances. Is this
possible with the 9500 Pro? I'm not counting my chickens but I'm
wishfully thinking that because the transformation is doen via
software then surely the 9500 Pro could get the same treatment???

No. ATI crippled the non-pro by disabling half the pipelines, which can
often be re-enabled using software or a simple hardware mod. They
crippled the pro by cutting the memory bandwidth in half, which would
require a new circuit board to fix.

 

[Joel Spencer]

I noticed that the 9500 (non pro) can be turned into the performance of a
9700 which is a really huge leap given the circumstances. Is this possible
with the 9500 Pro? I'm not counting my chickens but I'm wishfully thinking
that because the transformation is doen via software then surely the 9500
Pro could get the same treatment???

Joel

 

[Amir Facade]

Can't do it with the pro. Different PCB. And it only works on some of the
non pros. I got it to work on my 9500 np. got some nice benchmarks too, but
after about 2 months I started to get some artifacts in games that I play. I
took the drivers back to the 9500 ones and all is well. To tell the truth,
at the resolutions that I run there is not much difference in performance.
Pipe Dreams doesn't run quite as smooth, but I don't run that every day. LOL
The 9500 pro is a great card for the price.


: I noticed that the 9500 (non pro) can be turned into the performance of a
: 9700 which is a really huge leap given the circumstances. Is this possible
: with the 9500 Pro? I'm not counting my chickens but I'm wishfully thinking
: that because the transformation is doen via software then surely the 9500
: Pro could get the same treatment???
:
: Joel
:
:

 

[Skid]

You can't turn it into a 9700 for the reasons other posters have explained.
But you can overclock it for better performance. Check the tweaking forum at
www.rage3d.com for details.

 

[John Smith]

How does a non overclocked 9500 rank against
a non overclocked 4600?

Smiffy

 

[Sham B]

Hmm.

My 9500 pro appears as a 9700 Pro after I overwrote the BIOS with an
overclockable one. Still, not as fast, but stable at 320/310 (I can get it
up to 340/320 but see the odd artefact after about an hour, and to be
honest, most games don't need the extra clocks). Default for a pro is about
280/270.

Using one of the early Connect 9500 Pros.

S

 

[SpaceWalker]

I have an ATI 9500pro, which I flashed with the warp11 BIOS. Now the card is
seen as a 9700pro, I'm running it safely at 350/300. I also have an 80mm fan
resting on the back side of the card. I have no problems playing my games,
Halo, BF1942, America's Army, UT2003, U2 MPX, Alice (yes and old game but it
looks amazing and runs great at 1024x768, 4xAA and 16xAF)

 

[J.Clarke]

You can softmod a 9500np into a 9500pro and have 8 pipes enabled.
There are some 9500 pro's that will mod to a 9700pro. Only the 9500's
with a 256bit mem may mod to a 9700. Now not all 9500np's will softmod
successfully. The ones with odds are the cards with "L" shaped
positioned memory chips.

Close, but not quite.

Some 9500 nps were built on the same board as the 9700, with firmware
modifications to cut the memory bus bandwidth and the number of
pipelines in half--those can usually (not always--sometimes the chip has
a physical defect in one of the areas that is turned off) be upgraded to
9700 nonpros with no trouble and can sometimes be overclocked to full
9700 pro status.

Other 9500 nps were built on a new circuit board with the 128-bit memory
bus designed into the board--those can often be soft-modded into the
9500 pro by enabling the additional pipelines, but it is not possible to
add the additional memory bandwidth except by constructing a new circuit
board.

All 9500 pros were built on the new board that has the 128-bit memory
designed in--no 9500 pro can be modded to a 9700 without constructing a
new circuit board.

 

[Ronald Weaver]

You can softmod a 9500np into a 9500pro and have 8 pipes enabled. There are
some 9500 pro's that will mod to a 9700pro. Only the 9500's with a 256bit
mem may mod to a 9700. Now not all 9500np's will softmod successfully. The
ones with odds are the cards with "L" shaped positioned memory chips.

 

[J.Clarke]

Let's be clear about this, guys. You flashed with a 9700 bios, so now
Windows detects your card as a 9700 Pro.

That doesn't mean it is one. The core and memory may run at Pro
speeds, but half the rendering pipelines are still closed and no
soft-mod can change that.

If you have a 9500 Pro then all 8 pipelines are already enabled--the
9500 pros are crippled by cutting the memory bus width in half, not by
reducing the number of pipelines. Further, the pipelines _are_
soft-moddable, otherwise the 9500 non-pro mod could not work.

 

[Ed Forsythe]

Hi SW,
Do you have the 9500Pro with the "L" shaped memory module configuration?
After the flash did the card have the 9700Pro memory specs or did you have
to clock it?

 

[Skid]

I have an ATI 9500pro, which I flashed with the warp11 BIOS. Now the card is
seen as a 9700pro, I'm running it safely at 350/300. I also have an 80mm fan
resting on the back side of the card. I have no problems playing my games,
Halo, BF1942, America's Army, UT2003, U2 MPX, Alice (yes and old game but it
looks amazing and runs great at 1024x768, 4xAA and 16xAF)


get

Let's be clear about this, guys. You flashed with a 9700 bios, so now
Windows detects your card as a 9700 Pro.

That doesn't mean it is one. The core and memory may run at Pro speeds, but
half the rendering pipelines are still closed and no soft-mod can change
that.

All the bios flash does is unlock it for overclocking purposes and change
the ID. It does not alter the card's hardware or configuration.

The answer to the original poster's question remains the same. You can NOT
turn a 9500 Pro into a 9700, pro or otherwise.

The soft-mod and hard-mod techniques ONLY work on 128-meg 9500 NON-pro cards
with the L-shaped 256-bit memory layout.

There's a lot more info on this subject in the tweaking forum at
www.rage3d.com

 

[SpaceWalker]

Yes, my memory is in the "L" configuration

Hi SW,
Do you have the 9500Pro with the "L" shaped memory module configuration?
After the flash did the card have the 9700Pro memory specs or did you have
to clock it?

 

[SpaceWalker]

NO, the warp11 BIOS is not from a 9700 or 9700pro, It's a modified 9500pro
with a flipped bit to allow overclocking.

When the card gets redetected, it was detected as a 9700pro. But, the card
was still set for 276/276. I edited the BIOS file so that the default would
be 300/300. I then set it to boot at 351/303 from the display driver
settings.

It's not as fast as a real 9700pro, but it's pretty close. Physically the
card can only run the memory at 128bit not 256bit like a full fledge 9700pro

this is the old bios string:

2003/02/20 14:44 R300 Infineon DDR CHANNEL CD BIOS - P/N 113-A05602-103

this is the new bios string:

2002/11/15 13:32 R300 Hynix 9500 Pro Channel CD BIOS - P/N 113-A05601-101