The X1900XT/XTX Thread

[Shredder]

XTX CF wannabe Benchmarker

Hi OCF xtxers
I just made it through the 88 pages of this awesome Post. Thank-you to all that have put the time in to fine tune these beasts. I have a couple of questions, mainly dealing with 1900CF with XTX1900X and the ATI Tool. They may have been answered in previous posts I really saw a lot and took in little.
I know its a long winded post but I wanted the variables made available for the Gurus to check out.

I am trying to determine if the saved profiles map clock /vmod / Fan Settings settings to the card selected by buss number highlighted or does ATI Tool map both cards with same settings?
Presently, I open up Master card,select profile,hit save, then open slave, select profile, hit save, but I only get the option to select one profile to "Engage" when 3d apps are detected. Am I all messed up and ATI Tool is Keeping Clocks and Vmods of both cards on each separate profile or Am I activating the 3d apps correctly?

The present Setup and Settings :

1900CF master in Orange PCIE Slot, XTX Slave in Black PCIE Slot as per ASUS Manual on CF. Stock Fans with a Vreg 2" dedicated fan on Master Card
I have set core and mem values and made profiles for each, including fan settings, Vmods. I have CCC Running with ATI 6.14.10.0322 Drivers, ATI Tool 0.26

CCC Settings
Hotkeys Disabled
3d Settings
Anti-Aliasing = Let App Decide
Smoothvision = let App Decide
Catalyst AI = Advanced
Mipmap Detail -set to notch lower then Performance
Support DTX texture
ATI Over Drive in unlocked
Do not preserve settings at logon
Crossfire Enabled

ATI Tool Settings
Start up with Registry, default clocks with modified fan control.
1000 overclocking...if card has 2d/2d clocks switch to 3d when starting
Not affected by ATI Automatic clock switching
LOD +0.0
Any links to answers would be great, I have done one Bench on 06 so far but I think it bites for the equipment sitting here.
Thanks in advance.

 

[HousERaT]

I never had a crossfire setup but quite a few people have so someone should be able to help you soon enough. GL

 

[Joe Camel]

.


cant say what CCC does, but ATT only sets 1x card @ a time
i needed to select the 2nd card (bus#) and apply another setting to it


one of the biggest problems i was running into was the master card's volt settings did not always apply and thus any OC (assuming higher volt setting) would crash the rig.


GOOD LUCK!!




-------------

EDIT/off topic:
the next generation of "Camels" (my daughter) is due in about 3 weeks: Lyssa



.

 

[El<(')>Maxi]

Hi Shredder,

Are the two profiles different? If they are the same then simply apply that single profile to both cards, or if you need different profiles to achieve the same card clocks it might be a good idea to work out a single profile that will work on both cards. Also from what I have seen recently the newer versions of ATI Tool recommend that you do not disable ATI Services. What version are you using?

 

[Froggy]

How about this?

I do not know how to do 3DMark Benching. This was done with 06 DLing in the background and ZERO optimizations. Cats 7.4 driver only. Is this ok, good, or bad?

View attachment 57386

 

[DemonEyez_NL]

Oke thanx for all that info.
I'll measure the vcore with my DVM this afternoon, before I'm packaging the card to send to the RMA department. I've been having trouble with this card since it came out of the box. I had to edit the bios of the card to 1.40v instead of the default 1.425v to get it working.

Okay, time for a little update concerning my problem with my last Connect3D X1900CF which refused to run wtih more than 1.425v selected for VGPU.

I returned the card. The shop tested it exactly the same like me. But they didn't have any problems. The card ran fine

In the end I got a brandnew X1950 XTX Crossfire card only had to pay 70 euros extra.

But OMFG! Now I got the same problem with this card to! When I set vgpu to 1.325v I get signal loss....
Man, this seemes even worse than my old X1900CF which run up to 1.41v before giving me trouble.

But now comes the weird part. If I set vgpu to 1.525v or higher the card runs fine again. I get no signal loss and it runs correctly.
What the hell is going on here?
VGPU 1.0 - 1.30v = works normal
VGPU 1.325 - 1.475v = black screen flashes, signal loss
VGPU 1.50 - 1.60v = works normal

I'm beginning to suspect my DFI CFX3200-DR, would't be the first flaw/bug this board has and certainly not the last.

 

[Shredder]

Hi Shredder,

Are the two profiles different? If they are the same then simply apply that single profile to both cards, or if you need different profiles to achieve the same card clocks it might be a good idea to work out a single profile that will work on both cards. Also from what I have seen recently the newer versions of ATI Tool recommend that you do not disable ATI Services. What version are you using?

Maxi,Joe Camel,OC folks,

The 0.27 Version of ATI Tool made the Cards Crash and no games work....so I am back to the stable 0.26 Version. I have two different OC profiles for each of the cards, they contain the same fan settings and thats about all that is simlar.

When I OC a card and its stable I save it to a profile, then when I OC the second card again stable, saved to a profile aswell. If I save it to the existing profile for the other card it overwrites the settings designed for the first cards OC. This would not be a problem if the cards had the same stock clocks.
These are X1900CF and X1900XTX , The Asus Mobo folks say it will run both cards to lower of the two Core Clock Speeds and split the 16 pipes into 8 each for syncro, that is why the master card needs a serious bump up to catch up to even the stock clocks of the XTX .
I pretty much lost hope in this endevour, Prolly Split the cards up and just keep the XTX on this machine. This forum has proven to be most EXcellent for that card. Thanks for all your help.

 

[HousERaT]

I do not know how to do 3DMark Benching. This was done with 06 DLing in the background and ZERO optimizations. Cats 7.4 driver only. Is this ok, good, or bad?

Looks good so far. If you want to learn how to benchmark better follow the links at the bottom of my sig. Our Benchmarking teams will put you on the path.

 

[Froggy]

Now I have to find time to pursue another variation of my hobby!

 

[cravy]

x1900xtx problem

Would just like to say this is an awesome thread. Been using my X1900XTX's for almost a year now and its nice to see so many people like these cards.

Now for the question/problem, sorry in advance if I missed this asked previously, I skimmed over the pages skipping a few sometimes:

I've been running two X1900XTX's in crossfire for a long time. They have been in a watercooling loop since I got them. About 3 weeks ago I upgraded my motherboard, ram, and cpu, I also picked up a copy of a Windows Vista Ultimate OEM (legit copy). I also replaced the fluid and tygon lines. I installed the latest drivers and everything worked fine until last Friday.

One of my friends wanted me to benchmark my Supreme Commander vs what he got. So I went to boot it up and it didn't work. The screen blinked and blinked and finally turned into a million artifacts and windows closed the game. It told me the drivers had crashed. I uninstalled the drivers and installed the same ones again, same thing happening. I tried C&C 3, Oblivion (all latest version) etc. the same thing happens everytime. I switched to Windows XP (dual boot) and tried playing WC3, Starcraft, my old Supreme Commander. Every time artifacted.

So I disabled X-Fire and booted Supreme Commander in the benchmark and it worked perfectly (I scored 16,008 if anyone wonders, average fps 32.8 in ultra settings with 2x aa ). I dont know what the problem is. Nothing is overclocked, everything is stock settings (even before, I wasn't willing to push my new system yet). I've ruled out a loose x-fire cable, loose card, theres no leak in the water line over the card...

So is 1 of my cards officially dead? Maybe its my motherboard? System stats are in my sig. I'm just going to be super bummed if 1 of my cards is dead right after I re-did the entire water cooling line. I'm just looking for any suggestions at all... thanks and sorry for the long post^^;

 

[ViperJohn]

Would just like to say this is an awesome thread. Been using my X1900XTX's for almost a year now and its nice to see so many people like these cards.

Now for the question/problem, sorry in advance if I missed this asked previously, I skimmed over the pages skipping a few sometimes:

I've been running two X1900XTX's in crossfire for a long time. They have been in a watercooling loop since I got them. About 3 weeks ago I upgraded my motherboard, ram, and cpu, I also picked up a copy of a Windows Vista Ultimate OEM (legit copy). I also replaced the fluid and tygon lines. I installed the latest drivers and everything worked fine until last Friday.

One of my friends wanted me to benchmark my Supreme Commander vs what he got. So I went to boot it up and it didn't work. The screen blinked and blinked and finally turned into a million artifacts and windows closed the game. It told me the drivers had crashed. I uninstalled the drivers and installed the same ones again, same thing happening. I tried C&C 3, Oblivion (all latest version) etc. the same thing happens everytime. I switched to Windows XP (dual boot) and tried playing WC3, Starcraft, my old Supreme Commander. Every time artifacted.

So I disabled X-Fire and booted Supreme Commander in the benchmark and it worked perfectly (I scored 16,008 if anyone wonders, average fps 32.8 in ultra settings with 2x aa ). I dont know what the problem is. Nothing is overclocked, everything is stock settings (even before, I wasn't willing to push my new system yet). I've ruled out a loose x-fire cable, loose card, theres no leak in the water line over the card...

So is 1 of my cards officially dead? Maybe its my motherboard? System stats are in my sig. I'm just going to be super bummed if 1 of my cards is dead right after I re-did the entire water cooling line. I'm just looking for any suggestions at all... thanks and sorry for the long post^^;

Try each card individually and see what happens. If they work as singles but go nuts in a CrossFire config the composing engine chip on the master card probably ate it.

Viper

 

[DemonEyez_NL]

Talking about the compositing chip, does it need active cooling?
When I took the boxed cooler off from my X1950CF card, I noticed that it's cooled by the heatsink that also covers the GDDR4 chips.

Now, on my fullcover EK waterblock, all ram chips, vreg's and the core are cooled by the waterblock, except the compositing chip. For the moment I put a small heatsink on it.

I was wondering if this is sufficient

 

[ViperJohn]

Talking about the compositing chip, does it need active cooling?
When I took the boxed cooler off from my X1950CF card, I noticed that it's cooled by the heatsink that also covers the GDDR4 chips.

Now, on my fullcover EK waterblock, all ram chips, vreg's and the core are cooled by the waterblock, except the compositing chip. For the moment I put a small heatsink on it.

I was wondering if this is sufficient

That HS should be fine on the composing engine chip but make sure you have some air movement in that area. A heatsink, no matter how good, is no better than the air surrounding it's fins. If that air is dead and not moving the heatsink can not cool. That can be a real problem in the video card area of a case (the coffin corner) especially with the upper card in SLI and CF setups.

Viper

 

[Goonda]

Man, I was just sick of getting a damn black screen everytime I tried to OC using ATI-Tool (I did everything described in this guide). Many a time, it would the artifact scanning would work flawlessly, but the moment I try running a game...black screen. So I said to hell with it and flashed to the Toxic BIOS. When I tried OC'ing with ATT, same black screen problems cropped up.

This led me to believe that the BIOS flash is the only way to go with my card. So, here is my modded BIOS (used Rabit):
Set fan to 100% duty cycle, changed clocks and bumped up VCore to 1.45 V on all three profiles.

-- RaBiT v.2.2.0 build 700 --
ROM BIOS size: 62976 bytes
-- Analyzing ROM BIOS --
> HEADER offs: 0x206
> PCIR struct offs: 0x22C
> DATA offs: 0xA840, 76 entries
> MASTER offs: 0xA8D8, 34 entries
> CRC table offs: 0x251
> CLOCK table offs: 0xADE0
Core clock is 527.00 (675.00 3D) MHz
Memory clock is 630.00 MHz
Reference clock is 27.00 MHz
> Connectors Layout table offs: 0xAEAA
Port = 0, Conn0 type = DVI-I
Port = 0, Conn2 type = STV
Port = 1, Conn4 type = DVI-I
> TV table offs: 0xAE62
> Hardware table: at 0xB1EE, Rev.2
hw_a: 0x350F, hw_b: 0x0201
> OverDrive3 table:
T = 0..120 °C, GPU = 527.00 MHz, Mem = 630.00 MHz, VDDC = 1.15 V
T = 0..105 °C, GPU = 675.00 MHz, Mem = 806.00 MHz, VDDC = 1.40 V
VR1[0.85 .. 1.55], VR2[1.80 .. 2.20], VR3[1.80 .. 2.20], VR4[1.30 .. 1.58]
> Multimedia table: at 0xB202
Product ID: 0x6, Tuner ID: 0x0, Audio Chip ID: 0x1F
Video Decoder ID: 0x66, Video Decoder Config: 0x2
> VESA BIOS Extension 3.00, Rev. 9.12:
Vendor: (C) 1988-2005, ATI Technologies Inc. 
Product: R580, Rev. 01.00
OEM: ATI ATOMBIOS
Memory size: 256 Mb
> ASIC config:
0x75 = 0x68, 0x74 = 0x41, 0x7C = 0x18
> Secure VBIOS details:
Digest: 664dd8db2a71cd4633c927e3a264a971 (41)
-- ROM BIOS info --
Desc: A52021 X1900XTX BIOS
Info: 113-AA52021-104,             , 03/26/06 21:23
Chipset family: Radeon X1900/X1950
-- Found hardware registers values: --
> REG(F8): 0x20000000
> RAW_DATA: 0x000C0601 at 0xB97E
> LM63_R4A(0x10) at 0xE9C2
> LM63_R4B(0x16) at 0xE905
> LM63_R4D(0x0B) at 0xE90F
> LM63_R4F(0x03) at 0xE919
> LM63_R51(0x06) at 0xE92C
> LM63_R52(0x46) at 0xE936
> LM63_R53(0x07) at 0xE940
> LM63_R54(0x50) at 0xE94A
> LM63_R55(0x08) at 0xE954
> LM63_R56(0x58) at 0xE95E
> LM63_R57(0x0B) at 0xE968
> LM63_R58(0x5B) at 0xE972
> LM63_R59(0x0C) at 0xE97C
> LM63_R5A(0x5E) at 0xE986
> LM63_R5B(0x0D) at 0xE990
> LM63_R5C(0x61) at 0xE99A
> LM63_R5D(0x0F) at 0xE9A4
> LM63_R5E(0x64) at 0xE9AE
> LM63_R5F(0x16) at 0xE9B8
> PLL(00): 0x0000136C
> PLL(04): 0x04001168
> MC(08): 0x83004412
> MC(0A): 0x00071E1E
> MC(13): 0x1808021F at 0xECE1
> MC(14): 0x09060A04 at 0xECE9
> MC(15): 0x0000001F at 0xECF1
> MC(2D): 0x00001FF8 at 0xBCDF
> MC(61): 0x1E94A4A5 at 0xECF6
> MC(62): 0x0A0A50D0 at 0xECFE
> MC(63): 0x62681218 at 0xED06
-- BIOS Image memory timings --
CL = 12
RCDR = 10
RCDW = 6
RP = 9
RRD = 10
R2W = 14
RR = 1E
RFC = 26
-- User changes followed --
-- ROM bios patches followed --
> Update MC(15) to 0x0000011F at 0xECF1
-- ROM BIOS integrity Fixup --
Secure VBIOS digest updated OK
Update CRC32 at 0x251
Writed to file: I:\downloads\modded bios.rom, 62976 bytes
-- ROM bios patches followed --
> Update MC(15) to 0x0000011F at 0xECF1
-- ROM BIOS integrity Fixup --
Secure VBIOS digest updated OK
Update CRC32 at 0x251
Writed to file: I:\downloads\modbios.rom, 62976 bytes
Set CORE clock to 702.00 MHz
Set MEMORY clock to 805.50 MHz
Set GPU voltage to 1.150V (def)
Set GPU voltage to 1.450V (def)
-- ROM bios patches followed --
> Update RAW_DATA to 0x00180601 at 0xB97E
> Update LM63_R51 to 0x16 at 0xE92C
> Update LM63_R53 to 0x16 at 0xE940
> Update LM63_R55 to 0x16 at 0xE954
> Update LM63_R57 to 0x16 at 0xE968
> Update LM63_R59 to 0x16 at 0xE97C
> Update LM63_R5B to 0x16 at 0xE990
> Update LM63_R5D to 0x16 at 0xE9A4
> Update MC(15) to 0x0000011F at 0xECF1
-- ROM BIOS integrity Fixup --
Secure VBIOS digest updated OK
Update CRC32 at 0x251
Writed to file: I:\downloads\modbios.rom, 62976 bytes
Set MEMORY clock to 630.00 MHz
Set CORE clock to 526.50 MHz
Set GPU voltage to 1.450V (#1)
Set CORE clock to 702.00 MHz
Set MEMORY clock to 805.50 MHz
Set CORE clock to 675.00 MHz
Set GPU voltage to 1.450V (#2)
Set CORE clock to 702.00 MHz
-- ROM bios patches followed --
> Update MC(15) to 0x0000011F at 0xECF1
-- ROM BIOS integrity Fixup --
Secure VBIOS digest updated OK
Update CRC32 at 0x251
Writed to file: I:\downloads\modbios.rom, 62976 bytes

I have a 6800GT in hand...just in case this fails.

Time to reboot!

Those txt files are a small insurance policy for me...

 

[Goonda]

Take that you stinkin' fat biotches from ATI/AMD.... you just got pwned

I've attached the modded BIOS. Next, I'm gonna have to work on the RAM timings. Any idea how to proceed? Did anybody try this?

 

[Gautam]

I see some flaming going on here. Better go call some mods, it seems like someone's asking for a vacation.

Seriously that's very odd behavior. Actually someone else was complaining to me about something similar, except that 3D would work fine but video playback would make the screen go black. I take it all the ATi services etc are disabled?

With the modded BIOS route you might want to make your 2D clocks and voltages default.

 

[Goonda]

No man..I don't believe in half measures. 2D is gonna go 100% with 3D.
Yes all ATI services are disabled. I also removed the annoying CCC and tried this with a stripped down bare driver.

Would having my 2D clocks on par with 3D cause long term problems? <If this card lasts another year, I'll be happy).

 

[Gautam]

shrug...can't see any reason why it would but it'd waste power and damage your eardrums more.

Very few people if any have tried mucking with the ram timings...this could get interesting.

 

[Goonda]

Anybody complaining about noise in this thread should be banned from the forums.

The Toxic BIOS has very loose GDRAM timings, I think CAS is 12, but the other sub-timings are much worse. I can tighten them a bit to see what's up, but I need test volunteers.

#PS
Now 3D works great, but I'm looking for a way to monitor current and temps via an OSD when gaming. Rivatuner is supposed to do that, but I'm not sure how to set it up.

Edit#
Running 3D06 now.

Edit#2
Looks like I got pwned by the fat biotches at ATI/AMD. The card locks up in 06 Firefly. Oh well..I'll slap a 120 on the card and see if it helps any. If not, its back to the boring Toxic BIOS...

Edit #3:
Looks like overheating was the issue. Temps were hitting 90C. I've reseated the HSF, slapped a 120mm on the rear of the card and an 80mm on the VRegs, which have been sinked. Hopefull, 3DM06 won't lock up this time.

I think I figured out why the card was overheating. Setting 1.45V in RAbit is equivalent to 1.475 in ATITool. Now I'm backing off to 1.4 in RAbit. Hopefully my problem will be solved.

 

[Goonda]