My First Radeon - Atlantis 9800

[Strontium]

Not sure. This was on an FIC AZ11 EA board. Gave the board, to my buddy,
when I migrated over to the dark side (wIntel). Gave him the card, too
hehe.

-
J.Clarke stood up at show-n-tell, in
(e-mail address removed), and said:

 

[Strontium]

I found it:

OH! BTW! Those who say that the 9700np's are
locked.............................HUH?

I used ATIFlash to dump a copy of my running BIOS. BiosEdit to adjust
settings (this, all after testing through software to determine my max
overclock...ALWAYS keep a copy of your original BIOS on
diskette!!!!). I found RadeEdit to be lacking, in many ways. Just
be forewarned: If you use BiosEdit, the first frequency setting is
memory, not core. I flashed my card and came to find my memory was
hugely overclocked! Strange that he/she would put the memory clock
first in that row. Hehe.

I used the Omega drivers, with the RADClocker utility that came with them to
do the software testing of my overclocks before flashing the BIOS. I can't
answer your question about the NTSC format thing. I, originally, had tried
to flash a 9700pro BIOS to my np. I had to edit the BIOS cuz it was set at
PAL, not NTSC. Wouldn't even boot with a display. Ended up having to just
modify my own card's BIOS.


I'll be at work, the next four nights. But, I get lots of puter time there.


-
Wayne Youngman stood up at show-n-tell, in
[email protected], and said:

Strontium,

sorry to deluge you with questions but you seem to know your stuff re:
Radeons. Do you think you can give me some assistance with a small
BIOS project in a few days?. I want to export the Default BIOS on my
Sapphire 9800 somewhere safe, then I am considering possible flashing
it with the Sapphire 9800Pro BIOS. I have just downloaded a program
called *radedit11d* for the first time and I am using it to examine
some new 9800Pro BIOSs from the web. One thing that caught my eye
was that they all are set on NTSC, but I believe that should be PAL
for the U.K. Is it just the case that you open an existing BIOS in
radedit11d then make your changes and save? then use this .bin file
to update the card?

Any tips you can give me will only enhance my *accelerated* learning
on the subject. If you are busy then no sweat I will try to hussle up
some more info at Rage3D forums, lol at this point I don't even know
how to overclock a Radeon using software, like you did, to test the
maximum overclock before I flash it but I am thinking if I have
made a secure back-up of my original BIOS then I have nothing to
lose. . . .

Laters,

Wayne ][

 

[Wayne Youngman]

I'll be at work, the next four nights. But, I get lots of puter time

there.

Hi,

cool there is no rush. I am PRAYING the rest of my components arrive this
Monday, as you can imagine I have been waiting YEARSSSSSSSSSS for my
PRECIOUSSSSSS! (stop that L.O.T.R things Wayne!). Where was I?. . . .oh yes
I have been waiting so long to upgrade (2 years +) and have been actively
researching a new build for the past 4-5 months, that a few extra day down
to courier complications just seems TOOOO LONGGGG!

OK, meanwhile back at alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati.

It has been an interesting learning curve finding out about *tweaking* my
first Radeon, in reality I will need to first get the system up and running
@ stock speeds and leave it for several days before I start cranking up
anything, that way I can really get a feel for my system. Once I know I
have achieved 100% stability I can begin flashing things etc. . .

BIOS Editors I have looked at so far: radedit11d, BIOSedit
Flashing programs I have looked at so far: flashrom, aflash2, flash_utility

I guess I will have to find out if I can overclock this card using Software
first, I saw you mention OMEGA stuff, but I'm not sure if I want to add
different drives over the official ones to begin with, I am kinda hoping
that *Rage3D Tweaker* installed over Catalyst 3.6 will get me started.

If I can get this card running @ Pro + speeds that will be something! I will
be attempting the same with a AMD Barton CPU 2500+ @ 3200+, I seek high
performance Bang 4 buck. . .

Wayne ][

 

[Wayne Youngman]

"Wayne Youngman" wrote

Greetz,

just a quick post to say. . . . . . .I finally ordered a new graphics card,
the Sapphire ATLANTIS 9800! I was trying to source a 9500Pro in U.K. .
.nope, so then I decided why not get a Radeon 9700 instead and by this point
it was only an extra £30.00 (or so) to go all the way to the 9800.

Man I can't wait to see what all the hype is about (RADEONs), last time I
felt this good was when I ordered my NVidia TNT2-Ultra

will post back my experiences once I build new machine (AMD 2500+ rigg)

Hi again,
nearly finished my build. Just installed my 9800 and so far all I can say
is WOW! it's a fantastic piece of hardware. Kinda handy that the new CAT
v3.7 was released the day I installed my card

The only DX9 stuff I seen so far are the screensavers from the ATI site
(Caves & Gargoyle). That Gargoyle thing is bl**dy brilliant!. I only have
a 56k dial-up account so tomorrow I will be visiting a friend who has
ADSL/CD-Burner and I will be downloading all the ATI showcase/demos. Also
my friend just gave me some games called *Enter the Matrix* and
*Splinter-Cell* so I can have some fun!

Bear in mind that my last graphics card was a GeForce256 DDR (32MB) running
on a INTEL BX/550MHz (I built that 3-4 years ago) so this new upgrade has
really blown me away. I have no regrets about spending £216.00 on this
9800, ha-ha I just ordered some TweakMonster BGA heatsinks (another £20.00)
to help cool my little beast. .

Will post again in a few days once I have put this rigg though its paces. .
..

Wayne ][

 

[Strontium]

I envy you, you little bugger

-
Wayne Youngman stood up at show-n-tell, in
[email protected], and said:

"Wayne Youngman" wrote

Greetz,

just a quick post to say. . . . . . .I finally ordered a new
graphics card, the Sapphire ATLANTIS 9800! I was trying to source a
9500Pro in U.K. . .nope, so then I decided why not get a Radeon 9700
instead and by this point it was only an extra £30.00 (or so) to go
all the way to the 9800.

Man I can't wait to see what all the hype is about (RADEONs), last
time I felt this good was when I ordered my NVidia TNT2-Ultra

will post back my experiences once I build new machine (AMD 2500+
rigg)

Hi again,
nearly finished my build. Just installed my 9800 and so far all I
can say is WOW! it's a fantastic piece of hardware. Kinda handy
that the new CAT v3.7 was released the day I installed my card

The only DX9 stuff I seen so far are the screensavers from the ATI
site (Caves & Gargoyle). That Gargoyle thing is bl**dy brilliant!.
I only have a 56k dial-up account so tomorrow I will be visiting a
friend who has ADSL/CD-Burner and I will be downloading all the ATI
showcase/demos. Also my friend just gave me some games called *Enter
the Matrix* and *Splinter-Cell* so I can have some fun!

Bear in mind that my last graphics card was a GeForce256 DDR (32MB)
running on a INTEL BX/550MHz (I built that 3-4 years ago) so this new
upgrade has really blown me away. I have no regrets about spending
£216.00 on this 9800, ha-ha I just ordered some TweakMonster BGA
heatsinks (another £20.00) to help cool my little beast. .

Will post again in a few days once I have put this rigg though its
paces. . .

Wayne ][

 

[Strontium]

DUDE! that gargoyle screensaver is cool! Too bad, like any other DX/Glide
ss's, that it works your processor, full time But it is very beautiful,
to say the least. I'll have to stick with my 2D XP ss, as I don't like
working my CPU when I'm not there to work it

-
Wayne Youngman stood up at show-n-tell, in
[email protected], and said:

"Wayne Youngman" wrote

Greetz,

just a quick post to say. . . . . . .I finally ordered a new
graphics card, the Sapphire ATLANTIS 9800! I was trying to source a
9500Pro in U.K. . .nope, so then I decided why not get a Radeon 9700
instead and by this point it was only an extra £30.00 (or so) to go
all the way to the 9800.

Man I can't wait to see what all the hype is about (RADEONs), last
time I felt this good was when I ordered my NVidia TNT2-Ultra

will post back my experiences once I build new machine (AMD 2500+
rigg)

Hi again,
nearly finished my build. Just installed my 9800 and so far all I
can say is WOW! it's a fantastic piece of hardware. Kinda handy
that the new CAT v3.7 was released the day I installed my card

The only DX9 stuff I seen so far are the screensavers from the ATI
site (Caves & Gargoyle). That Gargoyle thing is bl**dy brilliant!.
I only have a 56k dial-up account so tomorrow I will be visiting a
friend who has ADSL/CD-Burner and I will be downloading all the ATI
showcase/demos. Also my friend just gave me some games called *Enter
the Matrix* and *Splinter-Cell* so I can have some fun!

Bear in mind that my last graphics card was a GeForce256 DDR (32MB)
running on a INTEL BX/550MHz (I built that 3-4 years ago) so this new
upgrade has really blown me away. I have no regrets about spending
£216.00 on this 9800, ha-ha I just ordered some TweakMonster BGA
heatsinks (another £20.00) to help cool my little beast. .

Will post again in a few days once I have put this rigg though its
paces. . .

Wayne ][

 

[Mart]

"Wayne Youngman" wrote

Greetz,

just a quick post to say. . . . . . .I finally ordered a new graphics card,
the Sapphire ATLANTIS 9800! I was trying to source a 9500Pro in U.K. .
.nope, so then I decided why not get a Radeon 9700 instead and by this point
it was only an extra £30.00 (or so) to go all the way to the 9800.

Man I can't wait to see what all the hype is about (RADEONs), last time I
felt this good was when I ordered my NVidia TNT2-Ultra

will post back my experiences once I build new machine (AMD 2500+ rigg)

Hi again,
nearly finished my build. Just installed my 9800 and so far all I can say
is WOW! it's a fantastic piece of hardware. Kinda handy that the new CAT
v3.7 was released the day I installed my card

The only DX9 stuff I seen so far are the screensavers from the ATI site
(Caves & Gargoyle). That Gargoyle thing is bl**dy brilliant!. I only have
a 56k dial-up account so tomorrow I will be visiting a friend who has
ADSL/CD-Burner and I will be downloading all the ATI showcase/demos. Also
my friend just gave me some games called *Enter the Matrix* and
*Splinter-Cell* so I can have some fun!

Bear in mind that my last graphics card was a GeForce256 DDR (32MB) running
on a INTEL BX/550MHz (I built that 3-4 years ago) so this new upgrade has
really blown me away. I have no regrets about spending £216.00 on this
9800, ha-ha I just ordered some TweakMonster BGA heatsinks (another £20.00)
to help cool my little beast. .

Will post again in a few days once I have put this rigg though its paces. ..
.

Wayne ][

The first demo you really MUST see is "Pipe Dream". It's
absolutely fantastic (and hilarious too!)

On a different note, I see you're about to play Splinter Cell - don't
forget to turn off the Anti Aliasing & Anisotropic Filtering in the
ATI Control Panel as Splinter Cell has a problem with it.

 

[Wayne Youngman]

"Strontium" wrote

DUDE! that gargoyle screensaver is cool! Too bad, like any other DX/Glide
ss's, that it works your processor, full time But it is very beautiful,
to say the least. I'll have to stick with my 2D XP ss, as I don't like
working my CPU when I'm not there to work it

Hi,

yup it's all I seen so far. The thing that I notice most is the way *metal*
looks, I mean it looks real on my screen! I can't get to an ADSL machine
until tomorrow, but then I will download/burn to disk almost every single
ATI tech demo from: http://www.ati.com/developer/demos.html.

Is there any demos/showcases that you could recommend, something that has
made you go *whoooo!*

Not to worry I will do more than just watch demos all the time, but as I
have been out of the GPU loop for such a long time I really feel the need to
sit back (passively) and go *ohhhh* and *ahhhhh* and the 3D magic unfolds
before me. Hehe I think my overclocking project on this card will be put
back a week or two now, so I can have time to see what it can do @stock and
also have plenty of time to make @stock benchmarks. Once I *calibrate*
myself with my new card I will be in a much better position to begin my
overclocking/BIOS flash journey. I'm doing the same thing for my AMD 2500+,
still running it @Stock even though I know it will easily run at 3200+
speeds. Once I am 99.99999% sure is my system is *SOLID* then I begin to
turn up the engine!

thanks for the feedback,

Wayne ][

 

[Strontium]

-
Wayne Youngman stood up at show-n-tell, in
[email protected], and said:

"Strontium" wrote

Hi,

yup it's all I seen so far. The thing that I notice most is the way
*metal* looks, I mean it looks real on my screen! I can't get to an
ADSL machine until tomorrow, but then I will download/burn to disk
almost every single ATI tech demo from:
http://www.ati.com/developer/demos.html.

Is there any demos/showcases that you could recommend, something that
has made you go *whoooo!*

Nahhh. I'm still reeling from having FSAA and AF cranked all the way up and
playing SWG, Postal2, and Vice City with excellent framerates! That COD
demo was cool. I think I'll be getting that game, when it's released.

Not to worry I will do more than just watch demos all the time, but
as I have been out of the GPU loop for such a long time I really feel
the need to sit back (passively) and go *ohhhh* and *ahhhhh* and the
3D magic unfolds before me. Hehe I think my overclocking project on
this card will be put back a week or two now, so I can have time to
see what it can do @stock and also have plenty of time to make @stock
benchmarks. Once I *calibrate* myself with my new card I will be in
a much better position to begin my overclocking/BIOS flash journey.
I'm doing the same thing for my AMD 2500+, still running it @Stock
even though I know it will easily run at 3200+ speeds. Once I am
99.99999% sure is my system is *SOLID* then I begin to turn up the
engine!

thanks for the feedback,

Wayne ][

 

[Pluvious]

Is there any demos/showcases that you could recommend, something that has
made you go *whoooo!*

http://www.farb-rausch.com/ many good ones.. one is in full 3D. (red/blue)

http://www.enlight.com/x2/ - the rolling demo has a lot of eye candy

http://www.3planesoft.com/ - watermill is pretty freaking amazing.

After you see all that you'll want to do this: ;-)

http://www.joecartoon.com/pages/monkeylooker/


Pluvious

 

[Pug Fugley2]

-
Wayne Youngman stood up at show-n-tell, in
[email protected], and said:


Nahhh. I'm still reeling from having FSAA and AF cranked all the way up and
playing SWG, Postal2, and Vice City with excellent framerates! That COD
demo was cool. I think I'll be getting that game, when it's released.

I don't think you can afford it. They don't pay trolls that much.

 

[BoroLad]

cool there is no rush. I am PRAYING the rest of my components arrive this
Monday, as you can imagine I have been waiting YEARSSSSSSSSSS for my
PRECIOUSSSSSS! (stop that L.O.T.R things Wayne!). Where was I?. . . .oh yes
I have been waiting so long to upgrade (2 years +) and have been actively
researching a new build for the past 4-5 months, that a few extra day down
to courier complications just seems TOOOO LONGGGG!

OK, meanwhile back at alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati.

It has been an interesting learning curve finding out about *tweaking* my
first Radeon, in reality I will need to first get the system up and running
@ stock speeds and leave it for several days before I start cranking up
anything, that way I can really get a feel for my system. Once I know I
have achieved 100% stability I can begin flashing things etc. . .

BIOS Editors I have looked at so far: radedit11d, BIOSedit
Flashing programs I have looked at so far: flashrom, aflash2, flash_utility

I guess I will have to find out if I can overclock this card using Software
first, I saw you mention OMEGA stuff, but I'm not sure if I want to add
different drives over the official ones to begin with, I am kinda hoping
that *Rage3D Tweaker* installed over Catalyst 3.6 will get me started.

If I can get this card running @ Pro + speeds that will be something! I will
be attempting the same with a AMD Barton CPU 2500+ @ 3200+, I seek high
performance Bang 4 buck. . .

Wayne ][

Just wrote & posted this for someone/somewhere else but it applies to
you so I'll post it here:

A good starting point would be to goto: www.omegacorner.com the driver
set he makes, does everything that separate utilities provide but are
packaged in one universal driver set.

Post installation you are presented with a 14 tab set of adjustable
controls covering all the usual plus:

-SmartGart settings
-OverLay & CloneMode
-Rotation
-Switchable Displays [ x4 ]
-Clock [ Memory & Core ] rates
-OpenGL & Direct3D settings for:-
texture
mipmap
vsync
truform etc.

Ignore the pop-ups the site is free and I've used his driversets for 7
or 8 years and they are safe[ish]. Any high level [ O/S ] driven
outcomes can only work if the low level [ BIOS ] setting are compatible
so make sure you read and apply his BIOS tips!

The two most important tips are (1) disable 'fastwrites' and (2) do NOT
install the ATi 'Control Panel'

Some brands work, some do not, all are dependant on your MOBO-BIOS
settings.

-different subject:-

P.S on a related subject. you used to be able to buy the [ at the time ]
highest performing ATi card at half price [ 9500np ] and 'softmod' [open
the closed x4 pipelines] it to a 9800, this I have done many times and
it worked. All the cards I modded are still running and because the mod
was 'soft' the warrenties were never invalid!

You can now buy the R350 - sold with x4 of the x8 pipelines closed and
'softmod' [ open the other x4 pipes ] it to a 9800pro. They are all over
Asia, dumping the R350 just as they did with this R300 [ x8 Line
softmod ] I'm using.

So '9800SE GE-to-9800pro' performance is probable.

Go read here:

http://www.amdforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=243677

BoroLad