I buddy of mine just bought a system that has a 2900xt in it and I told him that he could mod it a FireGL V8600 via software mod. I've read about it, but there seems to be some obscurity as to how this gets done. Has anyone done this and if so, could you impart any advice so I can at least relay it back to him? Thanks.
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2900xt to FireGL V8600 Mod
- Thread starter Methadras
- Start date
I thought the modified drivers flashed the card. Or do they simply provide a transparent passthru to whatever software is looking for the FireGL features instead? I don't know if there is a hardware mod for it or if there is a firmware flash for the card instead.
Hey, that would cool. Yeah, I'd love to see how that turns out. Let me know and don't leave out any details.
Well, I downloaded the drivers linked on this page. I'm running XP32bit, I unzipped the drivers, went to the device manager "updated drivers" by forcing it to use the modded FireGL drivers. XP installed them without a hitch, after a reboot even CCC was reporting a FireGL 8600 was installed.
CCC seemed fully functional, AA options, AF options, etc. I then fired up CinebenchR10 (only CAD benchmark I have laying around. SPEC's 3dS MAX 9 won't give me results for some reason...). With my 2900xt drivers I would get 5300 points for the OpenGL component of the benchmark. After installing the FireGL drivers I was able to get a score of 7100.
Now if I ever get SPECapc 3DS Max9 to give me numbers at the end of the benchmark runs I would be able to further test performance gains from these drivers.
I fired up 3DS Max 9, and in the preferences it had switched to FireGL direct3D drivers.
After testing for a while I decided to check out switching back to ATI's Catalyst 7.9 drivers, pointed device manager to the drivers, rebooted, and voila back to HD2900XT.
I'm pretty impressed so far on how easy this was to acheive. If I could find different CAD benchmarks which would point to bigger increase it would help clarify how much of a boost one can expect overall. The cinebenchR10 number IS higher.. but not by that much.
CCC seemed fully functional, AA options, AF options, etc. I then fired up CinebenchR10 (only CAD benchmark I have laying around. SPEC's 3dS MAX 9 won't give me results for some reason...). With my 2900xt drivers I would get 5300 points for the OpenGL component of the benchmark. After installing the FireGL drivers I was able to get a score of 7100.
Now if I ever get SPECapc 3DS Max9 to give me numbers at the end of the benchmark runs I would be able to further test performance gains from these drivers.
I fired up 3DS Max 9, and in the preferences it had switched to FireGL direct3D drivers.
After testing for a while I decided to check out switching back to ATI's Catalyst 7.9 drivers, pointed device manager to the drivers, rebooted, and voila back to HD2900XT.
I'm pretty impressed so far on how easy this was to acheive. If I could find different CAD benchmarks which would point to bigger increase it would help clarify how much of a boost one can expect overall. The cinebenchR10 number IS higher.. but not by that much.
um dude!
can't u just have a test scene in 3d max and just time how long each takes to render? that would be the best way. I do alot of rendering so i'd lik to c how it turns out. I might do the tests myself
iwht my 2900xtDoes rendering even use the GPU? I was under the impression it was a CPU only task and that a FireGL card makes modeling (i.e. the 3d rendering while working) smoother.
p.s. I'm not a 3DS Max user, I was only experimenting because I will be building a CAD computer for someone else soon.
p.s. I'm not a 3DS Max user, I was only experimenting because I will be building a CAD computer for someone else soon.
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Some apps are moving to GPU rendering but i dont know what ones, as you said the vid card helps with real time work
Nice. So I wonder then, if the drivers get updated will they have to modified as well or is this something that will stick until you change it back?
Why, other than you can?
Probably need a 1 gig card to do that, most of us are only using the 512 meg XTs.
What's the difference?
I just didn't know for sure and I needed verification before I told him and let him run wild on it
.The 1 gig cards use GDDR4, vs GDDR3 on the 512. The V8600 uses 1 gig and the V8650 has 2 gigs of memory, haven't found specs on what type and speed though.
My 2900XT is a diamond 1GB DDR4 (was 5$ less than the 512mb when I checked out at NCIX!). I don't really see a benefit to flashing the bios instead of using modded drivers. If there are any it would be easier to update to recent drivers (I have no idea at what interval new FireGL drivers come out tough...) and I would think different 2D clocks.
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^^ that too , speed of ram and specs, maybe faster, more likely slower,but too many factors that would make them diff enough that it would prob fubar your card.
I was asking mainly because one is usually stuck with a certain OS when using modded drivers. Flashing on the other hand is OS independent. The clocks can usually be changed via Rabit and the card can be flashed with a modded bios for correct clock speed. One might lose certain functions though like TV-out not working with modded 6800 cards iirc.