[HowTo] Ati Radeon -> Ati FireGL (softmod)

[ArghImaPenguin]

Does this give any speed increases?


There are some softmods that unlocked pipelines that have been shutdown by ati, just wondering if this is kind of in the same boat as that.

[Ultimatebadass]

This softmod increases speed in professional 3d apps because it allows the FireGL OpenGL driver to work on Radeon cards (which are essentially the same hardware with different deviceID... and a much higher price tag ;) ).

[TheCaveman]

looks nice as description thanks. I've been looking around for the equivalant of the X300 do you happen to know this one thanks in advance and thanks for the great description

greets

[Ultimatebadass]

The_Wicked_Caveman, I think that the FireGL V3200 (or V3100) would be the professional "brother" of the X300 but the patch scripts provided by Unwinder do not support it yet.

I think that there is a good chance that SoftFireGL will support it in the future though since the X3 (X800XT) is supported already...

[Fibus]

Since this is a softmod, am I correct in assuming that if I somehow screw this up, it won't ruin my card and I'll just have to reinstall the drivers?

Also, is there a mod for the ATI AIW 9800 Pro?

[Ultimatebadass]

Fibus - there is no way you can damage your card with this. The worst thing that can happen is driver reinstallation, but if you use the procedure here with the exact same files all should work fine.

You should be able to mod your 9800 AIW the same way you mod drivers for a normal 9800(NonPRO/PRO/XT) - only the deviceID may be different between these models - you'll just have to check yours using the method I described.

Be aware that when you install the FireGL drivers you'll probably loose your cards AIW functions (just like you loose TV-Out on regular radeons).

[-Vormav-]

For those of you wondering if this will work for the laptop 9700 cards, I spent a day trying to get the softmod to work on mine awhile back and was unsuccesful. Haven't actually heard of anyone succesfully modding one of the laptop cards either, for that matter.
But hey, if you really really really know what you're doing, I suppose you might still be able to find the trick to getting it working.

[Rezonance]

I am having no luck with this. I have a His Excalibur Radeon 9550 so I am not sure which card to softmod upto. I have tried the t2 and X2 but when I try to use the modded inf to install the driver Windows just ignores it and finds my default oem driver inf.:shrug:

Help would be appreciated. Thanks

[Ultimatebadass]

Since the 9550 is basicly an underclocked 9600 (RV350 or RV360 chip) you need to mod your drivers for the FireGL T2 capabilities.

Check if what riva tuner reports as your cards device ID matches what you have entered into the .inf files:

"ATI FireGL T2" = ati2mtag_RV350GL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_<xxxx - your device ID here, change only the digit that is different between your ID and fireGL id>
"ATI FireGL T2 Secondary" = ati2mtag_RV350GL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_<xxxx - your device ID here, change only the digit that is different between your ID and fireGL id>

The third digit in the device ID is different between the normal and Secondary adapters.

Do not change other lines.

If that is correct, go one dir up and modify .inf files in there also with the same scheme (search for the T2 devIDs, replace with 9550s).

Hope it helps!

[grau]

Thanks, I got it to work with my Radeon9600.
The only problem is that 1280x960 is no longer avaible in the display settings. Is there a workaround?

[Ultimatebadass]

garu -

To add that resolution you need to:

- open the CX_18678.inf orCX_18678.inf (depends on what OS you use) again

- find the [ati2mtag_XXXXX_SoftwareDeviceSettings] section for your graphic card (chip name where XXXXX), for Radeon 9600 that would be [ati2mtag_RV350GL_SoftwareDeviceSettings]

-locate the HKR,, DALNonStandardModesBCD2, %REG_BINARY%,17,92,13,44,00 (....) line

- add ,12,80,09,60,00,00,00,85 at the end of that line where red numbers are responsible for screen resolution, in this case 1280x960 and yellow for refresh rate, 85Hz here.

- reinstall the driver

[grau]

it's working now, thanks again

[Rezonance]

Got it working! Thanks! Does it increase the speed of regular opengl applications?
I kind of miss the catalyst control centre :sad:

[Ultimatebadass]

Glad to hear it :)

Regullar OpenGL applications? You mean games? I don't think so. Though there is a preset for them (OpenGL games) I don't think it is any faster compared to what you can get from a regular Catalyst driver...

You get a speed benefit when running one of those you have a preset for in your FireGL panel (from what I can see XSI just got it's wings on my R9800 pro). Mainly CAD/DCC 3d apps.

Scores in benchmarks like SPECviewpref will go (way) up aswell.

[Rezonance]

Thanks again. I use Wings 3D lots but I have not noticed any improved performance since it runs quite well anyway. Well it a good mod to know anyway. Appreciated. :thumbsup:

Is there anyway to add applications so that the too benefit from the new drivers?

[Ultimatebadass]

You can add a configuration preset in your FGL panel and try messing with the settings then to see what gives better performance.

[Ultimatebadass]

Hi! To show that this softmod actually can give you a speed increase I'm posting my SPECviewpref 8 results:

Radeon 9800 Pro @ FireGL X2 (tested myself today with A64 2800+, 1GB DDR400 RAM, NF3 mobo)

3dsmax-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 22.36

catia-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 18.54

ensight-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 18.56

light-07 Weighted Geometric Mean = 16.13

maya-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 26.28

proe-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 33.34

sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 15.35

ugs-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 17.87

To compare I'll post some results of a X800 XT PE in that test (with CATALYST DRIVERS!). Sorry, I had no time to reinstall to catalyst drivers and do a SPECviewpref benchmark myself. This one was run on: 2x Opteron 250, 4x512 DDR400 ECC , IWill DK8N v1.0 (AMD-81xx + NVIDIA nForce 3) mobo.

3dsmax-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 16.4

catia-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 12.49

ensight-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 18.71

light-07 Weighted Geometric Mean = 11.27

maya-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 16.07

proe-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 16.61

sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 13.15

ugs-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 13.53

Results form this review: AnandTech: Workstation Graphics: AGP Cross Section 2004 (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2307&p=1)

[Fritz3D]

I tried it on a R9800 and can't see any apparent difference in 3ds max 6. I'm running it in D3D cause in OpenGL mode it's ~3x slower.

[spirogyro]

nice post and great instructions. I've tried searching, but no luck finding detailed intructions on how to do the nvidia 6800gt softmod. It would be very helpful for those of us that are not experienced in this area. (if there is and I just can't find it can some one direct me?)

Thanks

[Ultimatebadass]

Fritz3D - I have no access to 3dsmax so I can't test it but ati provides a special driver for 3dsmax called FGLmax. It's not included in the driver package, but you can download it from here (http://www2.ati.com/drivers/firegl/firegl_3d_studio_max-8062.exe).

- unpack the driver (rightclick, Extract Files...)
- go into your <riva tuner directory>\PatchScripts\ATI\SoftFireGL\Unified\Antiprotection\FGLM
- run the Installer antiprotection.rts script, point it to the setup.inx in your unpacked driver dir
- script should run without problems ("Patch script has been executed succesfully" message)
- run setup.exe and install the driver
- run the atiimxgl.exe antiprotection.rts script and point it to atiimxgl.exe in Program Files\ATI Technologies\FireGL 3D Studio Max\ and select your cards device ID from the dropdown menu
- script should run without problems ("Patch script has been executed succesfully" message)
- restart the system
- you should now be able to select the driver from your 3dsmax preferences

If you are using max version later then 6 it might not work but there is a workaround:

- go to Start > Run... type cmd.exe and hit enter
- type cd "c:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\Fire GL 3D Studio Max\"
- type expand -r atiom6gl.dr_
- this should create a file called atiom6gl.drv
- copy this file to your 3dsmax "drivers" directory or 3dsmax root directory (try both places)
- now the driver should be visible in 3dsmax opengl preferences

Special thanks to JoeJoe from Guru3D forums for providing that workaround.

Hope it helps.

[Ultimatebadass]

nice post and great instructions. I've tried searching, but no luck finding detailed intructions on how to do the nvidia 6800gt softmod. It would be very helpful for those of us that are not experienced in this area. (if there is and I just can't find it can some one direct me?)

Thanks

I have no access to an nvidia geforce card so I'm afraid I can't help here. Try browsing the www.guru3d.com message board. There should be some instructions/information there.

[Cuprum]

I installed softmod drivers some days ago, and it works fine( I mean,this has been installed fine). But I didn't change secondary device ID in my .inf file. I mean, that I changed it with my radeon's device id, so there were the same strings in my .inf file for secondary and primary device.

"ATI FireGL T2" = ati2mtag_RV350GL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4153
"ATI FireGL T2 Secondary" = ati2mtag_RV350GL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4153
Is it necessary to change this and reinstall drivers? Does have secondary device influence on speed, if i don't use second monitor?


And one more question: i don't see any speed improvements in my Maya. I haven't Specviewperf, but some complex scenes works as usual = slowly( but in my old 3dsmax benchmarks I have significant improvement) What the deal? . Does any special firegl driver exist for maya? No, I think( for sure before summer 2004 it didn't exist).

[Ultimatebadass]

Cuprum -

1. If you are not using two monitors then I think it's not necessary to change it now and reinstall (though I would recomend changing the .inf file for later installations).

2. There is no special driver for maya, just select "Maya" profile in your driver control panel. If this doesn't get you more performance then I guess that's as fast as your card can go - at least compatibility should improve :)

3. You can get SPECviewperf from http://www.spec.org/

[Joel Hooks]

Thanks for the walkthrough. Worked like a champ on the 9800pro here at the office! :thumbsup:

[Cuprum]

I have asked some 3d authorities about firegl + maya and firegl+max. Answers:

1)maya -- In really complicated scenes(especially with high poly count) firegl deals not much better than his radeon almost twin; alack!
2) max -- firegl gives much better performance for complicated scenes;

However,performance depends on drivers. Maybe my new T2 will be much better with new versions of drivers (I hope).

[Skyraider3D]

Thanks very much! I've tried this on my X800 Pro and it all worked. But unfortunately the speed increase is minimal. The framerate is still terribly slow. For a particular scene (MAX6, untextured model, shaded, 70,000 tiangles) I get 2.6 frames per second with standard OpenGL. With the ATI one it improves to only 3.1 FPS.

Compare this to DirectX 9.0 which achieves a much better 67 fps!

Any idea why the difference is so big, and how OpenGL performance can be improved further on the X800?

Thanks! :)

[Ultimatebadass]

Skyraider3D - I have no idea why your framerate is so low in 3dsmax. Are you using the ATI 3dsmax driver or just the configuration preset in normal firegl drivers?

70k triangles is not something that would cause the X800 to break a sweat even with catalyst drivers (I'm working on a scene with 850k+ triangles right now on my R9800Pro@X2 in XSI and with all objects in shaded mode I get around 5-8FPS). This sounds like OpenGL hardware acceleration is either not working at all or maybe 3dsmax doesnt like the FireGL drivers...

Get some GLInfo program like this (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3640.html) and check your OpenGL renderer, it should read as FireGL X3 <something something>.

If it checks out ok then try using either FGL max driver or select the 3dsmax preset from the FGL control panel on normal FGL drivers - whichever you didn't try before.

Hope it helps.

[Skyraider3D]

Thanks for your speedy reply :)
According to 3DSMAX it is using the following driver: ATI Fire GL MAXimum v.1.5.4650 (atiom6gl.drv). I assume that is the right one?
Before the softmod, OpenGL framerates in MAX were appalling too.
OpenGL games run OK though (but also faster in DirectX).

[edit]
I just did a few tests with this model.
As "Editable Poly" it achieves a poor 3.2 fps
When I converted to "Editable Mesh" it becomes between 15 and 22 fps (depending on the angle).
With DirectX the framerate is 67 fps, regardless if it's editable mesh or poly.
So it must be MAX being silly and nothing wrong with my videocard/drivers! Very, very odd... (and frustrating as I always work in editable poly!)

[Ultimatebadass]

Skyraider3D - yeah, it seems to be the right driver. I have no idea why it runs so slow though - if your opengl acceleration is working (since OGL games run fine that would indicate that it does) and firegl drivers are installed... maybe it is 3dsmax's fault. It would be useful to get an opinion from someone with similar hardware/software configuration :) .

Sorry I wasn't able to help much :(

//// EDIT \\\\

Just to make sure: you do have FGLmax AND the patched FireGL driver installed (not just FGLmax with normal Catalyst drivers)?

[Skyraider3D]

Yes definitely. Your step-by-step guide worked a treat :)

[Cuprum]

It's me again. How do you determine your frame rate? What software do you use for this purpose?

[Ultimatebadass]

Cuprum - I remember that ATITools had an option for displaing framerate in opengl (don't know if it works with FireGL or not), I just use a function that is build into XSI (in camera properties).

There is also a program called Fraps that is supposed to do that (haven't tested this one either).

[grau]

@Skyraider3D
check if you have mesh caching activated for DirectX
if it is on, this is most likely the reason for the better performance. because openGL doesn't have this feature

[Skyraider3D]

Cuprum, add the following line to your 3dsmax.ini file right under "[Performance]":
ShowFPS = 1
This will show the framerate at the bottom of the MAX window.

Grau, mesh caching is indeed on.
The only problem I have with DirectX is that is doesn't properly display textures wider than 4096 pixels, while OpenGL does.

[Cuprum]

Spyrogyro-

You can make your GeForce 6800 to be Quadro FX 4000-
http://www.newbietech.net/eng/qtoq/index.php

If you have straight arms and no fear - then go on! Otherwise - ask somebody expeirenced help you, because these resistors are tiny,indeed.

Skyraider3D- thanks.
Ultimatebadass - ATI Tool hasn't such option.

[Ultimatebadass]

Cuprum - my apologies, app names got mixed up in my head ;). ATI Tray Tools has that option (on by default when you run the program, you can turn it of in Tools>OSD menu).

[loop29]

Spyrogyro-

You can make your GeForce 6800 to be Quadro FX 4000-
http://www.newbietech.net/eng/qtoq/index.php

If you have straight arms and no fear - then go on! Otherwise - ask somebody expeirenced help you, because these resistors are tiny,indeed.

Skyraider3D- thanks.
Ultimatebadass - ATI Tool hasn't such option.

Don´t go soldering, Rivatuner has all you need onboard. Install your preffered driver for 6800 cards, reboot. Rivatuner needs installed driver to operate properly, that´s why you have to install a driver first, otherwise you won´t have any settings available in the customise panel. Open Rivatuner and make sure you are running the latest nvstrap driver (just hit reinstall). Select Grafics adapter identification and set it to 04e (Quadro FX 4000) or whatever you want to see in your advanced property tab. It´s only a naming string and professional capabilities are not directly dependant on PCI Device ID. Enable "use ROM straps for device ID programming" and no you don´t need to apply any antiprotection scripts to the driver files. Check unlock professional capabilities" and close Rivatuner, it will ask you to reboot, click No and uninstall the driver you´re running, reboot. When you´re back in windows you can choose either to use the hardware assistant or run the setup.exe from the driver folder of the forceware driver that you like to install, or install from the device manager right away and point it to the nv4_disp.inf in the driver folder. Reboot and off you go with your Quadro FX.

regards

[silent_dan]

Great guide,i already had my ati 980 pro moded to fire gl x2 however i was using driver version 6343,and the drivers you posted here seem newer than what i had.So i installed the 8062 driver and its great.
Now im able to use the special 3ds max driver under max 7.
Well im basicaly trying to say thank you for providing such a great info.
Cheers bud.

[Ultimatebadass]

silent_dan - I'm glad you found it usefull :D

[paydogs]

Hi... Is there any patch or script, what I must download, to Maya?
I see, that there are downloadable file, to support MAX... The Maya supports without any file, or I must download something?

I have Maya 6.5, and Radeon 9600XT

[paydogs]

Hi...
I Use Maya 6.5, And I have an 9600XT... I Want to softmod it... I have the proper driver (8.083), rivatuner... But you said: FireGL driver for MAX... Is there any driver for Maya, or it supports already?

[Ultimatebadass]

paydogs - No, there is no special driver for Maya and there is no need for such driver. Fireglmax is actually a .dll file used by 3dsmax only, not by the OS.

[paydogs]

Thx... The driver dont works...
I do the proper installation (rivatuner, patch, editing ini, firegl driver, control panel...), but after restart, both te FireGL T2, and the secondary FireGL T2 videocard fails... Don't work...
The max res is 1280x1024@60 Hz... But the computer can't load Control panel too, becouse the driver fail... So I must put back Omega Driver...
Is there anything what I can do? I have Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Fireblade Edition...
And I like to work with FireGL....

(and sorry guys for my english :D)

[silent_dan]

Hi guys!
I personaly used difrent drivers than the ones posted at the begining of this tutorial on softmoding ati 9800 to fire gl x2.
Because when i did this soft mod Max and XSI were running great but I had minor glitches with Maya.My geometry was showing transparent in the perspective viewport.
But then i started to experiment with difrent drivers and finaly i downloaded this driver:

firegl-unified-8.103.2 from the ati site.It sopose to add suport for maya 6.5.After i downloaded this i patched just the same way was described at the begining of this tut.Unfortunately i wasnt able to patch the control panel so i just used the one from the drivers that are posted at the begining of the tut.
After i installed i rebooted and voila my problem with MAYA was gona.
Hope this will be of any use to someone and thaks to the author of the tutorial posted here,great job.
Cheers!

[paydogs]

Uh... Sorry, It was my mistake... I do everything properly, exept the patch :D:D:D:D
I've used Force Z1, and not T2 :D SO now its good... I havent tried Maya yet, but when its going to be transparent, then there is firegl-unified-8.103.2 :D Thanks Guys

[paydogs]

Hi it's me again :D When I install FireGL driver... everything works... except Maya :(:(:(:(
Maya shut down with this:
Fatal Error... Attempting to save in... blahblah...
But when I put back Omega driver, and restart, then Maya works correctly... Should I try the other driver? Or what? But this driver is good for maya, becouse Silent_Den tried... Now what...

(I read the official Maya 6.5 manual, and there is, that the older driver is supported...)

PLS help meeee

[Ultimatebadass]

silent_dan - were you able to patch the ati2mtag.sy_ file from the 8.103.2 drivers? When I try to patch it with the scripts included with RivaTuner 2 RC15.4 i get errors:

Browsing for file ati2mtag.sys... compressed file selected
Depacking ati2mtag.sy_... succeeded
Browsing for file ati2mtag.sys... selected 6.14.10.6521, 970240 bytes
Using native patch installation mode 0
WARNING: Certified patch script not found, using common patch script...
000930cd> matched sequence has been replaced
8b 56 10 c1 e2 10 25 ff ff 00 00 03 d0
8b 56 10 c1 e2 10 25 ff ff ff ff 89 c2
00093122> matched sequence has been replaced
8b 56 10 c1 e2 10 25 ff ff 00 00 03 d0
8b 56 10 c1 e2 10 25 ff ff ff ff 89 c2
0009ec26> matched sequence has been replaced
85 c0 74 05 6a 05 58 eb 10
c6 45 0c 80 90 90 90 90 90
0009ef4d> matched sequence has been replaced
81 f9 00 80 00 00 75 16 a9 00 00 00 08
81 f9 00 80 00 00 75 16 0d 00 00 00 08
000bf6b2> matched sequence has been replaced
68 c0 03 00 00 ff b0 a8 00 00 00 e8 c2 45 f4 ff c1 e8 10
66 8b 40 04 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90
000c08dd> matched sequence has been replaced
83 f8 40 75 1d 66 81 bd 00 ff ff ff 02 10 75 12 0f b7 85 02 ff ff ff
0f b7 85 02 ff ff ff 66 25 f0 f0 66 0d 0b 0e 66 89 85 02 ff ff ff 90
000c091d> matched sequence has been replaced
8a 85 08 ff ff ff
b0 80 90 90 90 90
000df045> matched sequence has been replaced
c1 e8 10 3b 46 10 74
c1 e8 10 3b 46 10 eb
ERROR: Target sequence must be replaced 2 time(s)!
81 f9 00 80 00 00 0f 85 00 00 00 00 a9 00 00 00 08


Also, the Control Panel in the new unified drivers shoud install without any patching.

paydogs - double check if everything works. In display properties > settings > advanced > adapter you should have chip type and adapter string listed as FireGL, and the firegl control panel should be visible. If it is, go into configuration tab, select "Maya" configuration profile from the list and check that OpenGL hardware acceleration is on.

[silent_dan]

Hey fellas!
Regarding the new drivers,i take back everything i said beffore.It must have been some kind off mistake on riva tuner part.Cause it said that those new drivers were patched correctly but after a day they stoped working correctly so dont trie those drivers.Ill stick with
"firegl-unified-8.083" drivers for now.Maya is still acting funny on my side to,every viewport works fine but in the perspective viewport my geometry is almoust translucent.
So i apologize for missleading people here,ill recomend everyone to stick with the tutorial.
I anyone finds a workarround for Maya please post solution.
Cheers!

[paydogs]

OK, now everything works... I don't know, what was the matter, I've do it again (the whole process), and now it's working... And not translucent... Thanks folks

[Morlockis]

Let's here it for the Ultimatebadass!!! All the help your dealing out is awesome.

I've been pretty disappointed with the way my Radeon 800 is running maya, so I'll definately give this a shot.

Thanks!
m :)

[alvin777]

Any Link on softmodding Nvidia cards like 6600GT to a Quadro FX

[Ultimatebadass]

Morlockis - hope it works for you http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/grin.gif

alvin777 - you might want to take a looks at guru3d forums in the riva tuner section (http://forums.guru3d.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=18)

[tecton3d]

Will this softmod work on a mobility radeon 9600?

[Ultimatebadass]

Tecton3d - I doubt, since it's a different chip than the normal 9600.

[tecton3d]

Ultimatebadass... thanks for the info

[Morlockis]

I'm running the latest Catatlyst drivers and it won't let me install the version you recommend for this mod.

It says "missing required hardware and/or software to install" and kicks me out. I have the Radeon 800.

Am I missing something?

thx,
m

[Ultimatebadass]

Morlockis - If you have the X800 you need to mod the drivers for FireGL X3 before installing them. Follow the step by step guide and you should have no problems :)

[Skyraider3D]

Morlockis - If you have the X800 you need to mod the drivers for FireGL X3 before installing them. Follow the step by step guide and you should have no problems :)
Exactly. My wannabe-FireGL X3 is working great! ;)

[Morlockis]

Hi UB,

I had a few questions, if you don't mind. There were a few oddities for me in the process, and I'm not sure whether it's setup properly. Everything works, but I'm not seeing anything about FireXL in my display panel, except that the adatper is listed as a FireXL 3X - 256.

A few things that didn't go according to the plan:

1) My Device ID had all 4 numbers different than what was listed in the .ini (I changed all 4 numbers)

2) In the .ini there were 2 listings of the FireX3-256, which were the exact same. I changed all 4 digits of all three (including secondary) to my device ID.

3) When I install the CPanel the modify option doesn't give me a list of options, it just installs a bunch of stuff. I get a TV display dialog box when I reboot. But I don't see anything that specifically says FireXL. However, I found a setting in the display options for Maya. I selected that profile.

Anyway, let me know if there is any way to confirm that everything is cool.

Thanks again,
mo

[Ultimatebadass]

Hi Morlockis,

"1) My Device ID had all 4 numbers different than what was listed in the .ini (I changed all 4 numbers)"

From what I know the device ID's for X800 are: 554D and 556D and for X3: 4A4D and 4A6D. So the first two digits are different between the cards and the third digit is different between the primary and secondary adapters.

"2) In the .ini there were 2 listings of the FireX3-256, which were the exact same. I changed all 4 digits of all three (including secondary) to my device ID."

The second entry for X3 is probably some error in the inf file. I have no idea why would there be a need for this entry - it's absent in the 8.062 drivers :shrug:

"3) When I install the CPanel the modify option doesn't give me a list of options, it just installs a bunch of stuff. I get a TV display dialog box when I reboot. But I don't see anything that specifically says FireXL. However, I found a setting in the display options for Maya. I selected that profile."

After installation there are a couple of things that can indicate that the mod succeded:

Your adapter in the display properties should be listed something like this:

http://marcinbinczyk.neostrada.pl/fgl/adapter.jpg

And your control panel should look similar to this:

http://marcinbinczyk.neostrada.pl/fgl/fglpanel.jpg

Sorry for the Polish version of the panel ;)

If it looks like that then it's a good indication that the FGL drivers are working properly with your Radeon.

[Morlockis]

I think I'm going to start over and try it again. Any suggestions on clearing everything out?


thx,
mo

[Ultimatebadass]

Morlockis - you can use ATI Catalyst Unistnaller (http://www2.ati.com/drivers/cat-uninstaller.exe) or something like Driver Cleaner (http://www.drivercleaner.net/dc.htm) to remove any old ATI drivers from your system and then repeat the whole procedure from the beginning and you should be ok :) Hope it helps.

[Clint66]

Judging from the positive feedback on the FireGL softmod, I think I'll give it a go. Just one quick question . . .

I'm using the 256MB Ati Radeon XT card. I noticed that the Ati FireGL T2 is a 128MB card. Does this make a difference in any way if I use a modified T2 driver? - or do you suggest another? My only concern is that the new driver might decrease performance.

Thanks for the great tutorial.

[Ultimatebadass]

Clint66 - for the driver it makes no difference if your card is 128 or 256MB. It will not decrease performance, you'll still have your 256MB fully available.

[salmonmoose]

For the few of us who actually own one:

if you have a 9500pro (not the standard 9500) treat it as a 9700. So, make it an X1.

Great tute - now if only i had time to use max on my home box :)

[dirty]

i've got a question for people using radeons with maya and xsi... are you having any issues with it? has ati finally improved their OGL drivers? i'm asking because ati + maya/xsi (especially maya) has always been a big no no. i remember people complaining about it A LOT. and that's what's actually always kept me away from radeons. now it's time for a hardware upgrade and i'm thinking about getting myself a 800xl but i'm really afraid of having some display issues so i'll probably buy a 6800gt anyway...

[Ultimatebadass]

antrent - thanks for the info. I'll add it to the howto right away http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif

dirty - I was using XSI for a while with my old Radeon 8500 and later with Radeon 9800 Pro with catalyst drivers.

I had no serious problems on the 9800 (apart from one: when i draged the render region that yellow outline kept blinking while draging - not really an issue but I just noticed it). Now it's working better with FireGL drivers and even that small problem is gone :)

8500 was another story... the damn thing kept crashing while working on the scene when I tried to switch views (for example from full perspective to ortographic or from quad to full perspective - not everytime though, it could happen at a random moment). The entire system was still working but when that happened only thing you could do was save and exit xsi cause the performance dropped so drasticly that even touching a viewport would freeze it for a good minute or two. This happened from Catalyst 4.0 and up as far as I remember.

In general the 8500 was known for it's problems with drivers and I have to admit it was pretty buggy - but that's ancient history now, ATI cards and drivers have gone a long way since then.

That's just my experience of course :)

[Skyraider3D]

Finally I thought I was completely sorted with my graphics card, but I am upgrading my system and the new motherboard will only accept PCI-Express. Thus I need to "dump" my modded X800 AGP card and buy a new graphics card. Bummer.

Can anybody recommend a good mod'able graphics card that will work great in 3D Studio MAX? I am absolutely clueless...

TIA!

PS. The new mobo will be the Tyan K8WE with dual Opteron 940...

.

[Strider3030]

I am using an ATI Radeon x800 with the latest Catalyst drivers and I've been having problems with the High Quality Rendering option in the Maya viewport. Strange artifacts appear over my model that change whenever the viewport updates. Here's an example of what happens when I zoom on a model.
http://www.tealstardrop.com/jlederer/images/misc/artifacts.gif
I was wondering if anyone else was having this problem and knew of a way to fix it. It looks like an OpenGL driver thing. Do you think softmodding my x800 to a FireGL3 would fix this problem? Or are there any other drivers for the x800 that have better OpenGL support? All I'm really after here is the ability to view normal maps and other shaders in the real-time viewport.

[Ultimatebadass]

SkyRaider3d - maybe a PCI-Express GF6800GT/Ultra (with SoftQuadro of course) would work for you?

Strider3030 - There are some modified drivers for Radeon cards like DNA and Omega but they are focues on performance/quality in games rather then pro. apps. I highly recommend that you give this mod a try - it just might solve your display corruption problem.

[Skyraider3D]

UB - thanks! It's as good as ordered already! ;)

[manhood]

Hi, i have two radeon card 9600SE and x700pro, can i soft mod it ? What is the workstation equivalent for this two cards ?

[Ultimatebadass]

manhood - Hi, the workstation versions of your cards are:

9600SE = FireGL T2
(9600SE is just a regular 9600 with 64-bit memory instead of 128-bit, you can mod the drivers for this card using SoftFireGL scripts)

X700Pro = FireGL V5000
(unfortunately, the SoftFireGL scripts do not support moding drivers for the V-series of FireGL cards yet)

[Tonci]

Hello people,

I have read the thread and done the switch for one purpose only - to have RealView in SolidWorks active - meaning - textured solids are shown in real time on display.

My card is Ati Radeon 9600 Pro which coresponds to FireGL T2 acording to article?

My question is, even tho' I have fooled the system for the graphic card, how come the program doesn't buy it as a card that enables this function?

thx for an answer,

regards,
Tonci.

[Ultimatebadass]

Tonci - from SolidWorks site:

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/videocardtesting.html

check the notes for FireGL X2/T2, driver 8.062.1 there - it says:

Maximum Resolution with dual monitors is 1280x1024 per monitor.
The driver fixes dual monitor performance issues with multiple windows.
Support for RealView requires SolidWorks 2004 SP3.

[Tonci]

Tonci - from SolidWorks site:

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/videocardtesting.html

check the notes for FireGL X2/T2, driver 8.062.1 there - it says:

Maximum Resolution with dual monitors is 1280x1024 per monitor.
The driver fixes dual monitor performance issues with multiple windows.
Support for RealView requires SolidWorks 2004 SP3.

Hmm, yes I saw that. The problem is that I have upgraded my SW2004 to SP5!!! , and I find it a little bit unusuall, that newer service pack doesn't support features that were upgraded in the previous patches. :/
That made me wonder if program doesn't require some hardware feature that radeon doesn't have and that radeon through tweek that you have presented can reproduce.

regards,
Tonci

[Ultimatebadass]

Tonci - I have no idea why it's not working. I have no access to SolidWorks so I can't test it myself - an opinion from another solidworks user would be useful.

[daskog]

Ok i would just like to say Thank you!

My system specs: Amd athlon Xp 2600, Ati Radeon 9600 Xt, 1.5gb ram
Software: Softimage Xsi

before i soft modded my card i made a object in Softimage xsi with these specs:

Objects: 5
Triangles: 1273600
fps was 4.6 (best i could get!) Rotating now is almoust imposible.. well almoust


After the soft mod:

same sceen, i now have a fps 13.5!

rotating is smoooooth =)


so this is another proof that it works.

Thanks a million


Edit: XTRA! just discovered that my render region tool is just Crazy fast! daaamn =)

[Ultimatebadass]

daskog - I'm glad to hear it worked for you :)

[beck13]

Ultimatebadass, thanks alot for the wonderful guide on softmodding, it happens i have the same/similar card (9800pro)

i'm sort of stuck near the end of ur guide, part 5 to be exact. i've just finished changing the ini file and updated the drilvers successfully. when i came to install the fireGL control panel (setup.exe) i received a msg >>

"WARNING : Setup was unable to find components that can be installed on your current hardware or software configuration. Please make sure you have the required hardware or software."

where did i go wrong? i haven't read all 6 pages of this forum but from skimming thru i didn't notice any1 with the same problem.

help would be greatly appreciated :)

cheers

[ BECK ]

[beck13]

Ultimatebadass, on step 5 i'm sort of stuck, when i try to install the fireGL control panel (setup.exe) i get a warning msg saying that i don't have the hardware or software to install then exits.

do you know what would be causing this? where have i gone wrong?

btw sweet guide ^_^

cheers

[ beck ]

[Ultimatebadass]

beck13 - try rebooting your system before installing the Control Panel. If that doesn't help double check everyting:
- look at first image in this (http://cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=2231718&postcount=61) post - does it display the same info?
- If not, try using mine .inf files (http://marcinbinczyk.neostrada.pl/cgtalk/2KXP_INF.rar) (extract them to <unpacked_driver_location>\Driver\2KXP_INF, or modifying your own again, but since you have R9800pro too these should work fine) and install the drivers again
- remember to install the drivers using the device manager, not the included setup (this can be done but requires modifying some more .ini files)

[chuckjuhl]

This is a nifty mod - but how do I find the secondary hardware ID's for my 9440 and my AIW 9600? The primary for the 9600 was 4150 and the primary for the 9550 was 4153. But I could nor find the secondary for either (which is determnined by the third digit in the ID?). I tried following the percieved pattern from the FirelGL equivilents and increased the third digit by 2 (to 7) but in both cases the secondary adapter still displays the original cards info.

Anyone have any ideas what the correct secondary ID's are for the 9550 and the AIW 9600?

[Ultimatebadass]

chuckjuhl - Go to your Device Manager, rightclick on your secondary adapter and select Properties, go to the Details tab. There should be a line there like this

PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_XXXX&SUBSYS_00031002&REV_00\4&1AD7642&0&0158

Where the four red XXXX will be your secondary adapters device id

PS. For both cards mod the drivers for the T2

[daskog]

1 question..:

My computer is eaten up by Virus, Trojans etc so i have to do a new install of windows xp

how does this affect the whole soft modding? do i have to do the whole think over again?
or can i just go to Ati.com and download the drivers again and im good to go?

Please answer quick if you can..

thanks

[Ultimatebadass]

daskog - after you've moded your drivers just save them somwhere, and after you reinstall your OS you can use them again.

[daskog]

ok TnxBe back later :P

[chuckjuhl]

Thanks to UltimateBadAss I got this softmod working on both at 9550/256 meg and a 9600 AIW (non-pro) - and does it ever work!

I actually stumbled on to this forum while looking for deals and prices on fireGL and Quadro workstation cards for Maya. I was a couple of mouse-clicks away from dumping my overclocked 9550/256 and parting with a couple hundred $$ for a low-end workstation card.

But this softmod (and the accompanying information in general) allowed me to turn my humble $70 9550 into a FireGL wannabe with spunk!

Here are the SPEVviewpref 8 results for the 9550 after the softmod to FireGl T2 256:

3dsmax-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 19.46

catia-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 23.21

ensight-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 12.75

light-07 Weighted Geometric Mean = 22.17

maya-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 46.19

proe-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 35.77

sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 15.28

ugs-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 15.91


These results were with a P4 Northwood 3.06 overclocked to 3.6 (and running much cooler than the 3.6 Prescott), 2 gb DDR 3200 dual channel ram, and the aformentioned 9550 clocked at 425mhz core /225mhz memory in an Asus P4P800 motherboard.

WOW - what a treat to find a FireGL T2 hidden in my humble 9550.

[daskog]

Ok now i am in deep shit!

last night i finaly descided to do a clean install of windows.
But now the win install process stop right after it says it got 34 min left of the intall task! wtf!

iknow that this is caused by the Drivers! cause the display goes black and says "no signal"

dude what do i do? im realy screwed..i got work that has to be done and i can install anything at all..

and i dont have a second computer i can put the card back into and reset it!
im now using my old latop so i can find a solution to this problem :banghead:

[Ultimatebadass]

daskog - this might sound stupid but did you choose to format your system drive/partition during windows re-installation ? If not - make sure you have backups of any important data on it and do so. If your computer runs overclocked, go into bios and return it to it's default settings. Also get some floppy-bootable or cd-bootable memory tester (like gold memory (http://www.goldmemory.cz)) and make sure that is not causing any problems.

I'm sure that this drivers mod cannot be the cause of this as you are NOT modding your card - with this softmod you only force FireGL drivers to work on your radeon therefore there is NO possible way it can damage anything and during installation windows uses it's own drivers anyway (VGA Comatibile if it doesn't have the gfx card drivers needed)

Hope it helps

[daskog]

Ok im sorry about what i sayd earlier!
the problem whas with my Xerox display, i was using the DVI connection and my display don't
support that under a clean windows installation. So i had to switch back to the analog port.
and back to dvi when the installation is done!

So Problem solved everyone is happy=)

[thrivehead]

Hello All,

I'm running Alias Autostudio on a Sony A690 laptop with the Ati Radeon X600 128mb card and I'm having trouble tilting/turning the wirefile data. I can zoom in /out, and move Rt/Lft and Up/Dn without trouble but, multi-axis tilting/turning/rotating results in long display delays, with the CPU maxed out 100%.

File size does not seem to matter either

Would an OpenGL softmod help?
Are there any available for the X600?
What is the PC card equilivant?

All Advice is appreciated

Thanx

[Ultimatebadass]

thrivehead -

Hi
The workstation equvalent of your card would be the Mobility FireGL V3200 (since you are on a laptop). Unfortunately, there are no softmods available for X-series cards (yet) and even with the 9xxx-series there is no softmod for laptop gfx chipsets :(

Only thing I can recommend in your case is getting the latest drivers for your card and hope that will fix the problem. I'm not familiar with this software but it may be a good idea to look into it's preferences for any opengl settings (check if the hardware acceleration is on or for any additional options).

[thrivehead]

UB,

Sounds like bad news but better than no news, If I find a workaround, will post.
Looking into pref settings possibilities.

Thanx Again

[Anders Rodland]

UB: I want to thank you for this softmod, I was actually looking for a new graphics card but you brought life back into my radeon 9800pro. I am currently working on a heavy scene and it was so laggy in the viewport, now everything is smooth.

[Ultimatebadass]

Anders Rodland -

Hi

I'm glad to hear you found this HowTo useful. No need to thank me, I just put all the info together - the real work was done by Alexey Nicolaychuk aka Unwinder - he's the man who wrote the SoftFireGL scripts for the RivaTuner :)

[Sephiros9883]

Like Anders, I'd like to thank you UB for taking the trouble to put this all together.

I was also on the verge to ditch my AIW 9800Pro (i don't know if you have confirmed reports but it works perfectly with a AIW...im losing the tuner but don't care atm)

Im working on a scene with tons of transparency and was having a 2FPS before, now running at 12. not perfect but at least very workable. (600% boost lol) Thank you so much

[Ultimatebadass]

Sephiros9883 - I'm glad to hear it worked for you http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif

[maca]

In any 3d rendering app, would a softmodded 9700 outperform a vanilla highend gfx card at this point in time ? (6800 for example)

I'm thinking of building a new comp for 3drendering, and it would be very, very rad if I can stick with my 9700 :)

[Ultimatebadass]

maca - don't know about the 6800 but in this post (http://cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=2155593&postcount=18) i presented my SPECviewperf 8 results against those of a X800 XT PE and as you can see the softmoded 9800 performed better. Of course if you get yourself a 6800 or X800 you can softmod those too (AFAIK X800 softmod is only for AGP version (FireGL X3)at this time, don't know about the nVidia card) :)

[Sephiros9883]

It's even outperforming the fireGL counterpart by a small margin. The gains are astonishing...as i told in my earlier post...600% on a heavy scene (and im working in 1600*1200)

Try it, I think it will save you 500 bucks ;)

[daskog]

to -> Ultimatebadass.

What card would you have baught as your ultimate softmod card?

im started to plan my next Workstation. it will be based upon the new AMD Dual core.

im after the card that will give the moast bangs for the bucks!

any recomadations?


Radeon X800 = FireGL X3

About the Radeon X800 does it matters if it's AGP or PCI-Express?
cause i think the AGP standard is a little bit old by this time..

allso my new mother board only comes with a PCI-Express i think.

[blindsleeper]

Just out of curiosity, since im stuck in this situation, is it possible to softmod an x700 to a firegl model?

[Ultimatebadass]

daskog - if it had to be a new card then I'd go with a 6800 i think, but before you decide go to the Guru3D (http://www.guru3d.com) boards and look for some success reports regarding softmoding it.

About the X800, yes it matters. Current SoftFireGL scripts only support modding for X-series of FireGL (X = AGP). X800 AGP = FireGL X3 AGP, X800 PCI-E = FireGL V7100 PCI-E (AFAIR). For now if you want a PCI-E board you are stuck with nVidia as far as softmods go (again before you buy anything go to Guru3D and look for success reports).

blindsleeper - No, I'm afraid that is not possible at this time (though it could be in the future).

[martinj]

Thanks, got it working :). will test later how it works

[MnFlojte]

Wow. XSI render region is quite a bit faster! Thanks!

[Ultimatebadass]

MnFlojte - I'm glad that the mod worked for you but this does not speed up your mental ray renderings (does not matter if it's region or a "full" render, unless you are using some kind of hardware renderer). This only affects the speed of your viewports (how many FPS you get while you are working on your scene). :)

[MnFlojte]

Thanks Ultimatebadass. I understand that the mod does not change MR capabilities (dependent on processing speed), but at least the render region (viewport update) SEEMS much faster.

[davids]

hey I would just like to say THANK YOU very much. Strider3030 posted this earlyer

"I am using an ATI Radeon x800 with the latest Catalyst drivers and I've been having problems with the High Quality Rendering option in the Maya viewport. Strange artifacts appear over my model that change whenever the viewport updates. Here's an example of what happens when I zoom on a model."

This is the exact problem I was having. I am trying to do a maya screen caputre of my new demo reel which has normal maps and with all the black hatching that was going on it made it impossible to show off my work.

I used your tutorial Ultimatebadass converted my X800 XT PE to a FireGL X3 and it fixed everything!! My games still run smooth too. Thank you very much this has solved a huge headache of mine.

David

[Halford]

Thank you for the tut. it was very well written, easy to follow.

I got now a FireGL in my system :).

the patch for Max works on v7 as well, but at conditions that in the profile of the FireGL you select 3ds Max.

It did improve the FPS on my current work, I'm using particle flow and I have a big smoke scene, for each PF I have 4 million poly... Now I can navigate the viewport in a decent way

THX!!!

Hal.

PS: if I have a 9800XT do I select (4-pipeline mode) or just leave as default?

[Ultimatebadass]

MnFlojte, davids, Halford - I'm glad you found the tut useful guys! http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/grin.gif

Halford - No, the 4-pipeline mode is only for 9800SE card (which is a normal 9800 that has only 4 [instead of 8] pixel pipelines operational). The XT is basicly a 9800PRO card with thermal monitoring and higher core and memory clocks so use a normal X2 mod on the drivers for it.

[owei]

Hi there!

Ultimatebadass, thanks so much for your tut and sharing you knowledge!! Though I´ve got a problem. Everthing works fine so far (9800pro to X2 256, as driver panel says) but the firel GL panel doesn´t appear. The ATI panel is there, but I doesent come up with openGL setting to specify the application (for me it´s xsi). It says just "3d". I patched the 80103.2, also tried older versions. Performance under XSI is poor, at the moment...any hints??

Thanks a lot!

Bye,
oliver

[owei]

Hi there!

Ultimatebadass, thanks so much for your tut and sharing you knowledge!! Though I´ve got a problem. Everthing works fine so far (9800pro to X2 256, as driver panel says) but the firel GL panel doesn´t appear. The ATI panel is there, but I doesent come up with openGL setting to specify the application (for me it´s xsi). It says just "3d". I patched the 80103.2, also tried older versions. Performance under XSI is poor, at the moment...any hints??

Thanks a lot!

Bye,
oliver

[nineinchneil]

oh man, i want to try this on my aiw 9800 pro. i don't give a damn for my tuner, but would i lose the ability to capture video as well?

[Ultimatebadass]

owei -

The symptoms you describe sugest that the patch on the drivers failed and opengl driver didnt get installed at all hence the control panel does not recognize your card as firegl, only a radeon renamed in the ini files to a firegl. After you apply the patch script on the driver file it needs to say exactly: "Patch script has been successfully executed. Read log for details." in the message window.).

This version of the patch will not work with the 8.103 driver, use the 8.083 from the link I provided, go step by step thru the guide again and it should work just fine :)

nineinchneil -

Unfortunately, yes. You will loose all AIW functions since FireGL drivers does not support them.

[owei]

Sorry for the double post..!

Ultimatebadass, thanks a lot for this hint! Well, I tried first this driver you posted, didn´t work although the patch say, that everything went fine. So I finally swept everything away (with some cleaners...) and started all over agein with the 8083 drivers and now it works fine! Some crap must have been left somewhere...not matter, thanks al lot and XSI is flying now!!

Bye, oliver

[Halford]

OK, this is strange....

I mod my 9800XT to fireGL x2 and gained some FPS on Max 7, very happy about it as I have many polys..

Now, I did not chage the Scene, but when I render a pic from it, it takes 10 minutes instead of 4.30 as before...cards are not suppose to influence the rendering time, isn'it?

Hal.

[Ultimatebadass]

Halford - No, unless you are using some kind of hardware renderer. The problem with increased rendertime probably lies elsewhere.

[Sephiros9883]

Just a quick question:
I saw It was working on radeon X800, does it work on X800XL too?

Edit: I just found out that the X800XL has 16 pipelines as opposed to the 14 pipes of the X800.... :/

[Ultimatebadass]

Sephiros9883 - If it's an AGP version it should work.

PS. Only the X800 XT version has 16 pipelines, the rest of the X800 family are 12 pipeline cards and the difference between them is only in their core/memory clock speeds.

[Sephiros9883]

I doubled check and it does feature a 16 pipes GPU :) however the X800XL is PCI-e :(


I've browsed through guru3d.com and it appears it's not moddable yet. I'd take a X800 Pro, which is AGP but it's too expensive for my budget.

So ill just cross my fingers and hope for the best of performance with this X800XL :P

[Ultimatebadass]

Sephiros9883 - Yes, you are right about the pipelines :)

I'm pretty sure there's an AGP version of the x800 XL, even ATI's own site mentions those, but if you are going to buy a PCI-E mobo, then there is really not much choice - softfiregl scripts do not support pci-e cards yet :(

[owei]

Hi there once again..!

I installed patched drivers and everything workesd fine on my 9800 pro as a X2. Now, that I´m working with XSI, the display crashes from time to time very bad (mostly during performing zooms) into vertical stripes of different color..nothing readable anymore...a reset is the only help...an ideas?? Thanks a lot!!

bye,
Oliver

[Ultimatebadass]

owei -

A series of colorful vertical (usualy) stripes that run thru the whole screen (appearance of those is sometimes folowed by a system crash) usualy, but not always means that some memory errors (gfx card memory, not system RAM) occured. Those can be caused by:

- failing memory chips on your card
- overheating core/memory
- unstable power supply (but since it worked fine earlier possibility of this one is very small)

Here's a sequence of things that I would do:

1. go back to catalyst drivers and verify if the problem still exists, If so:

2. open up the case and check the cooling fan on the gfx card (maybe use some pressured air to remove the dust that gathered on the card ;) too) . If that's working allright and the problem's still there:

3. try to lower your cards clocks (say by 50Mhz on memory, using riva tuner for example or by a bios-mod [recomended only if you know what you are doing]), and see if that works - though it's a temporary solution since you loose performance this way it can help to identify the problem.

4. If the stripes don't appear when your cards run with lowered memory clocks. If that doesn't help then I'm afraid the memory on your card is starting to fail. Though I would recommend testing the card on another system before sending it straight into the trashcan.

5. If after lowering memory clocks the stripes still apear, lower the core clock also. If after that operation the problem disappeared you can try taking of the card's radiator, cleaning the core and applying some fresh thermal compound on it to assure good heat transfer between the core and radiator. This however is only recomended when you know how to do it, and you do it carefully (it also can void your warranty). The r300/r350 cores are quite fragile and many users damaged their cards beyond repair when they tried to take of the radiator (to change the cooling system or whatever) - If you don't know how to do this or don't want to do this - go to point 6.

6. If nothing of the above do the 'last ray of hope' thing: reinstall the OS. If the stripes appear after that.... well all you can do is test the card in another PC for final verification of the problem.

I hope this helps :)

[owei]

Wow man! Thanks a lot for those hints!

I´ll try it out! Many Thanks!

Bye,
Owei

[owei]

so far...first of all, the card is brandnew, for that reason I won´t throw right away in the next dustbin ;.-))

I´ve checked the fan and the temperature seems to be ok, as far as I can say, I did not burn my fingers...so, I reinstalled the catalyst drivers, so far so good. Response with XSI was cruel! Ok, I´ve raised the clocking up abaout 20 mhz (not that much, is it) for core and memory with riva tuner to find out, if overclocking can lead to these strange stripes, and it does immedeately!!

Well, if other people don´t have trouble with this card running it with the patched drivers, I expect the memory of this card (MSI Radeon 9800 pro) simply has a problem, right??

Thanks for advice!!
oliver

[Ultimatebadass]

owei - yes, it would seem so. If your card is a new one then you may be able to get a replacement - run some version of 3dmark (2001SE, 2003 or 2005) in loop until those stripes appear on normal clock settings (it's a good way to stress the card and to find out if anything is wrong with it). If they do appear then your card qualifies for a replacement (if your warranty is still valid that is, but since it's a new card it should have at least one year of it)

I can tell you that I'm running the moded 8.083 drivers on my 9800pro for a couple of months now and I didn't have a single problem with them or the card itself.

I hope it goes well for you :)

[owei]

Ok, I´ve stressed the card with standard drivers and voila! Stripes and crash. I´ve put it it back into the package and wanted to send it back...BUT I´ve reinstalled my Nvidia fx5600 and softpatched it to a quadro 700...and, guess what, system freezes after a few seconds stressing the card with ogl! So, I´m a bit confused. It seems, the cards are probably NOT the problem...so what? Could it be a bandwidthproblem or something? Thanks for any advice (sorry, hope I don´t get on your nerves)!

thanks a lot, bye Oliver

[Ultimatebadass]

Hmm... thats wierd :-/

What kind of power supply unit have you got? I don't know what else could be wrong with your system because usualy (90% of the time) effects you describe are associated with the gfx card acting funky. Maybe it's not getting enough power - so that's why I'm asking about your PSU. You can analyze the voltages using a program like MotherBoard Monitor (or whatever you preffer to use). The AGP voltage should be 3.3V, if during heavy gfx card usage it drops below 3.2 or 3.1 then this could indicate a problem.

Other thing that popped into my mind: I'm just guessing here but maybe try to reinstall drivers for your motherboard chipset (those usually include agp drivers)?

Hope it helps :)

[owei]

Thanks once more...I´ve got a usual 350 watt supply, running a ecs kt600a mainboard. everthing went fine until installing the new card...well, I´ve installed a hardwaremonitor. It hasn´t got a special section for agp-voltage, but a "+3.3 V" meter (I think, this is the voltage used by AGP and whatever..). OK, this voltage doesn´t go beyond +1,33 V, no matter what I do...reinstalled the old 5600 drivers to screw performance down and not to crash the system. with this driver, there are no crashes allthough voltage seems much to low...does that make any sense? Faster drivers leads to crash the system on heavy load immedeately...means faster drivers, higher voltage needed...Think so...well, at least, I´ve got to change the psu...and if this does not work...what about the trashcan ;-)

Thanks for advice!
oliver

[Ultimatebadass]

owei -

350W seems fine for your system if it's a decent unit (I've got my system [A64, NForce 3 mobo and a R9800Pro] running on a 360W Chieftec, but I've seen a similar system overload a 350W noname PSU).

If your 3.3V reads 1.33 then the program reads voltage from a wrong sensor. Download Motherboard Monitor ( http://mbm.livewiredev.com/ ) and install it - it has various presets for most motherboard models and should read your voltages correctly. Your system wouldn't boot up at all with a 1.33V on AGP ;)

Newer/older drivers don't determine the power demand of your card - it's always the same and it depends on the way the gfx chip is designed.

Before you spend your money on a new PSU I would recomend two things (in this order):

- borrow a stronger PSU if possible and test both cards under new conditions
- if that is not possible, do the 'last ray of hope' thing - clean install of your OS. If your cards behaves ok on older drivers then maybe all you've got here is a software issue :) .

Spending your money should be the last thing you try when you have a problem (unless you absolutely need to solve the problem quickly - that often leads to unnecessary expenses).

Hope this helps http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[owei]

Martin, thanks for the answer!

Well, I had this monitor (MBM5) allready running yesterday, with settings for my board. So, this won´t do it...this is what I become..
http://www.pixelpanic.de/temp/mbm5_screen1.jpg

Also reinstalled updated drivers for the mobo...no help...
...ok, reinstalling the system will be the ultimate choice :sad: I`ll try another PSU first! Thanks a lot, I ´ll let you know!!

Bye,
oLiver

[kabojnk]

I thought FireGL was just the Linux/UNIX drivers ATI was working on. Do they really provide a speed increase in Windows? Because my Radeon 9800 Pro runs like crap on Linux with the FireGL drivers, albeit mostly because of conflicts over agpgart and X server code. Still, I'd never use FireGL over Catalyst--even with Catalyst sucking as much as it does now.

[DaveWortley]

Hi, thanks for the tutorial, my computer now tells me i have a Fire GL T2, but when i try using the firegl driver, if i restart max after selecting it, it switches itself back to opengl, looking in settings proves it's on opengl instead of the firegl driver


help?

Dave

[Ultimatebadass]

kabojnk - FireGL is the proffesional cards line from ATI, which are essentially the same hardware as any Radeon card, but are using different PCI DeviceID (hardwired, but it can be changed by moving some resistors - that's called a hardmod).

By using this tutorial you can modify the FireGL drivers in such a way that they will install on a Radeon card - that trick (because of a different open gl driver) gives you extra pefrormance in professional OGL apps. This tutorial is only for windows.

Dave_Wortley - sorry, can't help you here much because I don't use 3dsmax and don't know how the 3dsmax firegl driver behaves (though it seems that people posting here were able to get it working in most cases). Only thing I can recommend is that you verify that everyting is working (that the softmoded firegl driver installed properly [can be indicated by means I described here (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2231718&postcount=61) ]).

[DaveWortley]

ok well a few clues to my problem,

Chip type FireGL T2 AGP (0x4154)

i think the number should be 4150 according to your instructions

and BIOS info is 0.00 ?

any clues as to how to fix this?

Dave

[DaveWortley]

i have a 9600Pro i'm assuming it should be set as a T2?

DAve

[Ultimatebadass]

Dave_Wortley -

Hmm... the device id in there is displayed like it should have been if your card was a FireGL T2 (for me it says 0x4E4B which is FGL X2 even though my card is a 9800p: 4e48) so I wouldn't worry too much about that. The bios number information is also insignificant I think.

As far as I can tell from the info you've provided the soft-moded driver is working correctly. Maybe there is something wrong with FglMax driver installation/configuration or 3dsmax configuration?

[LouisCho]

Hi all, I have a question before change any setting of my card

here my system:

cpu: intel p4 2,8
M.B.: asus p4p800 se
graphic card: ati radeon 9600xt 128mb (last drivers)
1 mb ram (2x256 original + 1x 512)
windows xp sp2

I work on 3ds max 6 and when my scene begin to be bigger (over 20k polys, it's not that bigger) my frame rate drop very quickly (I dont know how check it but it's visible). I don't know if it's normal? I know that 3ds max ask me a lot of ram, maybe i need more?)

I have a very poor and limited knowledge in this technical subject. Is it possible that the settings of my card are not best? will softmod help me?

Thanks

[Ultimatebadass]

Hi Louis.cho

A scene with 20k polys should not cause a slowdown on system. The amount of ram you have is more then enough to handle 20k polys scene (during rendering that also depends on the amount and size of textures you are using).

Before you install this softmod (which I recomend if you are working in 3d a lot) check what viewport renderer are you using? (OpenGL or Direct3D?) If you're using OpenGL try switching to Direct3d and vice versa to see in which mode you get better performance.

If that doesn't help much this softmod should increase your viewport perfrormance, especially when you install the FireGL Max too.

[LouisCho]

thanks for advices

I'll check that and give some news later on the day

[Prodeous]

X800XL PCIe -> FireGL 7100

Used the FireGL Unified 8.083 driver, either 3dsmax or Softimage. not shure wich one at this point.

It works, I think.

Followed the steps. I'm now running a FireGL 7100, or so the computer thinks. Dzieki.

So did i see tangable results. I use Cinema4d for all my modeling.

1.2million poly mesh
One section is unhidden.

X800XL - 17-19fps
FireGL 7100 - 23-25fps

Enough so that I can squeze another few 100,000 polygons before it becomes unconfortable.

Also tested Dungeon Siege, and it played without any issues. Though it was just a 10 minute test.

Again, Dzieki.

[deathman20]

Im very intrested in doing this and have read quiet a bit in here just not all of it. But a question comes out at me.

I do lots of gaming and such on my system. And with that being said I was curious of to how easy it is to reverse going from drivers? Probley 2 different installations of windwos would be better on the same system but I'm curious if it could be done with one (less hassel on my part and trying to find the space on a drive to preform an installation).

Any suggestions on this? I probley play more games then anything but it would prove very usefull to have a graphics driver dedicated to 3d apps on my part more so when I do work with it.

Some info on my system...
2.4C @ 3.3Ghz, 2gigs of ram, x800pro modded for 16 pipes (still reconized as a x800pro though), 36.7gig, 80gig and 160gig hdd with a 160gig extrenal for backup/storage

[LouisCho]

I first tried to change my seting, it was on opengl. When i swich on D3D i was able to work comfortabely with 150k polys.

I install the softmod yesterday and now the limits reach the 200k polys (so it's works, thanks you very much) but it's seems very low to me. Many people here work with 1 milions poly and up without slow down no? Is it my 128mb card who are rushing? Is there a trick to have milions polys in my scene with my system?

cpu: intel p4 2,8
M.B.: asus p4p800 se
graphic card: ati radeon 9600xt 128mb (softmod)
1 mb ram (2x256 original + 1x512)
windows xp sp2

[Ultimatebadass]

grzesiekw - Now that is some interesting news indeed. I always thought that modding drivers for PCIE cards was not possible - the more I'm glad it worked for you. Does the FireGL control panel also works?

deathman20 - you can play MOST of todays games on these drivers without any issues (I've tested Doom 3, HL 2, Far Cry and a few others), but if some game refuses to work then you just need to run the catalyst installer, reboot your system and that's it.

Louis.cho - did you also install the FireGL driver for 3dsmax? After you do so you need to select it in 3dsmax instead of regular OpenGL or Direct3D. Gfx card ram only limits how large texture previews you can have in your viewports, it's poly processing power is determined by the chip itself (amount of vertex shader units).

[Prodeous]

I haven't tried the control pannel.

Well, some news. Tried to play some BF2. And well it worked, but it was choppy, like the days before I got 2gb into my system. So there is some issues with that.

So i changed the drivers from the V7100 to X3-256. Same problem. No graphic problems, everythign worked like it should. Just that it wasn't playable.

I guess I'll have to try the FireGL control pannel. See if there is a setting that i've missed. That or its simply that the driver has issues with the X800XL :(

Keep you updated.

[Elekko]

Hey, I got ATi Radeon X800 PRO, but then I flashed it to Radeon X800 XT Platinum. If I now paralell this card with FireGL X3 is it OK? No problems?

[Ultimatebadass]

Elekko - It should work just fine :)

[Elekko]

Ah and by the way. Does this method work on Windows x64?

[Ultimatebadass]

Elekko - I haven't tried it myself but probably not since those are different drivers and the patch script might not be able to modify them correctly - never hurts to try though :)

[Elekko]

Yeah, but ATi has released FireGL drivers for x64... maybe can give it a try, but then the patch scripts may not modify correctly as you said.
I'll try this someday. Thanks Ultimatebadass! ;)

[londonsam]

Hi UB, I have a couple of questions regarding this mod.

I am building a new machine and will be getting a new pci graphics card so what i'm interested in is,

1-Will this mod work on the PCIe version of the card such as the GigaByte 256Mb ATi Radeon X800 DVI PCI-Express Graphics Card???

2-What is the advantage of using the mod as opposed to buying a gl card such as the ATi Fire GL v3100 (which is only 128mb card)

I will be using Autocad, 3ds Max, and PS as well a playing some games on the machine so any advice will be greatly appreciated.

[Ultimatebadass]

londonsam -

Hi.

Regarding your first question: i'm sorry but I can't answer this for you. It might be possible by modifying the patch script itself, but I can't give any guarantees here since I have no way to try this out myself. If you want to know more about that matter I suggest you read thru this (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122315) thread on Guru3D - some people claim that they managed to get it working.

The future of SoftFireGL doesn't look so good at all since it's development has been officially freezed some time ago...

As for the second one: if such a mod succeded (X800 -> V7100) then you would have a huge advantage in speed over a normal V3100 (this one is based on a Radeon X300 which is FAR [and I mean far like from here to Mars ;) ] below X800 performance-wise).

It's a bit of a gamble here since you consider putting your money in it. The X800 (unmodded) would certainly be faster in games than FireGL V3100, but I don't know about proffesional apps. You might want to consider getting a PCIe GeForce card and looking into softmodding that instead.

[LouisCho]

Louis.cho - did you also install the FireGL driver for 3dsmax? After you do so you need to select it in 3dsmax instead of regular OpenGL or Direct3D. Gfx card ram only limits how large texture previews you can have in your viewports, it's poly processing power is determined by the chip itself (amount of vertex shader units).

So if i understand my 9600xt 128mb is able to run a X large texture in my viewport at the same speed that a 9800 128mb but the 9800 will show me more poly?

[Ultimatebadass]

Louis.cho -

Your 128mb 9600 will be able to fit the same amount of textures in its gfx card ram before it's forced to use system ram (that causes a major slowdown) as the 128mb 9800.

Viewport speed will be higher on the 9800 though (as long as textures fit into its onboard memory) due to its ability of processing more triangles per second and also higher memory bandwidth (determined by memory clock and bus width).

[londonsam]

Thank UB, i'll check that out.

[Solace9]

Dude, this rocks. To put conrete numbers on the performance boost given to my 9800pro-FGLX2 soft mod. My performance test softward's 3D section went from 989.1 to 1279.6 frames/second or a performance rating of 672.6 to 870.1. A previous soft mod tutorial I had followed just didn't work; this one did. Thanks!

-Micah

[Cell_v14]

Hey, i just got a X800XL card, and after all that i see its identical to a FireGL V7100.
Wanna add a PCI Express list? :bounce:

[LouisCho]

I just got a x700 pro on that second for 100$...so happy!

[Ultimatebadass]

Solace9 - I'm glad to hear it worked for you :thumbsup:

Cell_v14 - If you can modify the patch script to patch the drivers for your card, confirm that it works ok (control panel and opengl acceleration working) then I will be happy to update the HowTo with information provided by you (including full credit of course). Some info you might want to check out regarding soft modding of PCIe card drivers is here (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122315) (including some tips on how to modify the patch script - i can't test that myself since I only have my 9800pro AGP to play with).

Louis.cho - I hope it serves you well :thumbsup:

[Cell_v14]

Yes! i did it! :eek:
I Download the Newest Drivers for FireGL V Series just to check if it worked,
Used Guru3D's Post (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122315) to help me :D
When i edited the SoftfireGL patch script i changed:
DstVar5 = force FireGL X2 capabilities too DstVar5 = force FireGL V7100 capabilities
and changed Dst2_5 = 0F B7 85 02 FF FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 4D 4A 66 89 85 02 FF FF FF 90 too Dst2_5 = 0F B7 85 02 FF FF FF 66 25 00 FF 66 0D 50 00 66 89 85 02 FF FF FF 90. Did your guide and it worked. Tested Games and Cinema4d, for cinema it looks like the pyrocluster boosted abit, games i see no difference
BUT! (look at pic)= FIxed!
Changed to the drivers you refered too on the guide, a device id problem too, now it looks more like a FireGL card, got the proper Control Panel too :applause:

[Cell_v14]

There, now it looks normal

[Ultimatebadass]

Cell_v14 - All right ! Good work man :thumbsup: I'll update the HowTo right away! Since one works others posted there probably work also :)

[Ultimatebadass]

Sorry for the double post.

For those who want to try to softmod their PCIe cards - check the first post in this topic. HowTo has been updated to version 2.0

[Cell_v14]

Why ain't this thread sticky?, contact a admin

[Elekko]

Just to tell you guys. I tested this thing on Windows PRO x64 ED, but it was failed as expected... I hope this method can be done on x64 edition in the future.

Thank you. :)

[TheCleaner]

you can play MOST of todays games on these drivers without any issues (I've tested Doom 3, HL 2, Far Cry and a few others), but if some game refuses to work then you just need to run the catalyst installer, reboot your system and that's it.

what catalyst driver would be equivelent to this FireGl driver.. i play on games alot (typically HL1 or Source engine games/mods, and Doom 3), but since getting a job doing 3D, ive started using this machine (XP3200, 1GB, 9800pro 128MB) to do evening renders..

if this will boost 3D app performance (MAX/VIZ), but leave games the same, ill definely try this, and give it a go at work too probably (which becomes a bit of a render farm at night)

[TheCleaner]

ok i have done the mod, the guide was as good as written for my card (same card as yours) and since i only use max, put its driver on too

the only thing is, i did it without doing any speed tests while on the catalyst drivers. how easy is it to roll from one driver to the other

id like to go back to catalyst and run a few 3d app and 3d game benchmarks, then compare them with the fire GL scores.. but im guessing the rivatuner tweaks wouldnt have to be redone as long as the extracted firegl drivers (and modified files within this folder) are not touched. if this is the case.. would i just have to change the driver in device settings, and do all the other thing minus the script modifications

also, i think the driver believes the card is a 256mb card, will this hurt performance at all as the fact is its 128MB. in this situation would increasing my graphics apeature size from 64MB to 128mb?

thankyou for the very detailed guide.. perfect for me as i have the same card

[Ultimatebadass]

TheCleaner - from what RivaTuner tells me the 8.083 is based on Catalyst 4.12 so it's quite old but as i've said: i have yet to encounter a game that would refuse to work with it (I'm sure there are games like that though). Last thing i tested was f.e.a.r. demo and it ran without any issues.

Edit: Hmm... that may be bacause the FireGL x2 didn't came in 128mb versions. Does it says that the card has 256mb under Display Properties>Settings>Advanced>Adapter>Memory Size? Or is it just named something like FireGL X2-256?

[TheCleaner]

no it says 128mb, but i was just wondering if theres anything in the drivers which would be affected by the card possibly thinking it has 256mb

i am at work at the moment so cant check.. actually, i need to find some good guides like this one for an AGP 5700U, 5900Xt and 6600GT > quadro's if its possible.. if you know of any which outline specifically (like your guide) what to do.. it would be highly appriciated if you could link me to it.

[Ultimatebadass]

TheCleaner - No, this should not pose a problem of any kind. As for modding nVidia cards, I'm pretty sure there was a thread about that around here and if not - the best place to look for advice would be www.guru3d.com forums.

[Alex_Spawn]

Ultimatebadass

According to your How-To I have modified my X700Pro card (R410, 5E4B). But what about patching 3ds max drivers? There are no modificatios for Device_ID 5E4B in atiimxgl.exe antiprotection.rts

[dokturpotfor]

hello,

the whole problem with x700/x700pro is that they ain't r423 but r410, so they don't mod to v5100 (r423, 256bit) but v5000 (r410, 128bit). the diff's in the first post didn't work for me, i used:

0F B7 85 02 FF FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 48 5E 66 89 85 02 FF FF FF 90

that i've found somewhere on the guru3d.com site. as for the 3dsmax drivers, you don't really have to install the whole fireglmax drivers package, when you patch the installer, just unzip the files (probuably to: c:/progfiles/ati/fireglsomething/). don't patch the atiimxgl.exe, instead of it just expand the atiomXgl.dr_, with X corresponding to your max version, and copy the file to your max drivers, or root directory. that worked for me even though there were no 5e4X ids in the patch file.

good luck

tough luck though, i've fired up doom3 and was dissapointed to see how firegl suck in games, any ideas how to combine x700 gaming performance, with firegl workstation boost ? (doubled drivers/hardware configurations maybe ? )

[Alex_Spawn]

hello,

the whole problem with x700/x700pro is that they ain't r423 but r410, so they don't mod to v5100 (r423, 256bit) but v5000 (r410, 128bit). the diff's in the first post didn't work for me, i used:

0F B7 85 02 FF FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 48 5E 66 89 85 02 FF FF FF 90

that i've found somewhere on the guru3d.com site. as for the 3dsmax drivers, you don't really have to install the whole fireglmax drivers package, when you patch the installer, just unzip the files (probuably to: c:/progfiles/ati/fireglsomething/). don't patch the atiimxgl.exe, instead of it just expand the atiomXgl.dr_, with X corresponding to your max version, and copy the file to your max drivers, or root directory. that worked for me even though there were no 5e4X ids in the patch file.

good luck

tough luck though, i've fired up doom3 and was dissapointed to see how firegl suck in games, any ideas how to combine x700 gaming performance, with firegl workstation boost ? (doubled drivers/hardware configurations maybe ? )


Yes, it works. I used another one, but your sequence is correct. But I can't see any changes in card perfomance in 3DS Max 7 (viewports).
FireGL Max driver works without modifying, but I suppose it is not working correctly, because system perfomance in 3DS MAX viewports hasn't changed.

[Ultimatebadass]

dokturpotfor - Thanks for providing that info, I'll update the HowTo right away :)

Alex_Spawn - If you can use FGLmax driver inside 3dsmax instead of OGL or D3D then it should be working ok.

[Fox_15]

Thanks for the precise modding guide, Ultimatebadass :) I've changed my R9500Pro into FireGL X1. My only concern is that I have virtually no preformance gain after applying the patched FireGL drivers. (config:AXP2500+, 512MB RAM, Abit NF-7S). Before and after it my results in SPECviewperf's 3dsmax test were around 8 points. Strange thing is that even though I overclocked the card by almost 100MHz I got only 1 point more in the test :( Can this be due to the fact that I have only 512 MB RAM, the processor's too slow or something else?

[Ultimatebadass]

Fox_15 > 8 points is a bit low in SPEC while running with modded drivers (512Mb of ram -should- be enough for SPEC). Check if they are indeed working correctly - this post (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2231718&postcount=61) might provide some information on how to confirm working FireGL drivers.

[Fox_15]

Well, everywhere the card shows up as a FireGL X1, the Control Panel seems to be ok too. Maybe there are some leftovers from Catalyst drivers or BIOS is not willing to cooperate with FireGL drivers. I'll look into that.

--EDIT--
I've run Catalyst Uninstaller, uninstalled the two (primary and secondary) video devices in Device Manager, restarted, installed prepared FireGL drivers and finally installed Control Panel. Now it definately has the desired effect: SPECviewperf 8 scores went up to 17 (3dsmax), 25 (maya) [1280x1024, w/o AA, driver presets: default] :). Seems that there were indeed some libraries left from Catalysts that blocked the performance.
However, when I chose presets for 3dsmax the score in 3dsmax test was on the pre-softmod level (9) :/

Anyway, thanks again.

[beleebala]

Hi, my first post here. Thanks for the instructions. I have mod a Sapphire X800GT into V5100. However, only the first display is identified as V5100, the second display is still identified as X800GT. Is that normal? Anywa