Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

What do you mean by a backup power source?
And don't you mean a backup motherboard if this one can be wrecked?
Sorry, I'm confused...

 

Nope, I mean a backup power source usually in the form of a UPS "Uninteruptable power supply", so that if you get a power cut, your PC stays running off a battery.

 

Ahm, I wouldn't know where to get one?

But I wouldn't worry too much about it, we never have problems with the power here.
The only thing that would stop a device is a GeCube X1950XT .


But hold the ph... dial-up:

As you can see on this page: http://www.gpureview.com/Radeon-X1950-XT-AGP-card-503.html
the memory-clock is 900MHz.
Now, I can't really find what speed GeCube claims it to be so easily.
But when I look in the Overdrive-menu, it's currently running at 594MHz, alright that's currently.
And the requested speed is 702MHz, and I can "overclock" it to 703MHZ (WOOOOW ).

Do you think something is wrong with the memory, and it can't get up to speed to make the card perform well?
Cause if those 900MHz are supposed to be there, it's 200MHz less now.
I mean, that's a pretty significant difference.

Now I just wonder, what would happen if I'd stick the little Zalman-heatsinks on top of the memory-chips...

 

Hmm, it's a thought, since the stock cooler cools the RAM chips with a fan, I don't think the Gecube one does.

 

This is just 1 big heatsink, with 4 heatpipes attached on the back I guess.
The 2 fans just blow down through the heatsink onto the card, so also the memory which is right below the whole cooler.
But the air coming off it is pretty hot, it feels like a blowdryer on the sides of the card.
For the rest the memory-chips are just completely open, I can read they're from Samsung.

I was actually just thinking, maybe it would be more effective to have the fans blowing from the underside of the heatsink, so to the other direction.
So the air goes away from the card, but maybe the air should still hit the card, I'm not sure...


Edit:
Hay, for updating my BIOS, could you maybe type out step by step what I have to do?
Because I don't quite get that BIOS-flashing, I guess it's different than just installing software(?).
And I don't want to mess anything up of course.

So if you could just kind of mention every click or key I have to hit, I'd really appreciate that.
You could or should use that link I gave, it's the BIOS-page of my exact Motherboard so...

I know how to download the software lol, but then what.
Use one of those guides on that page?, and which one?, and where do I do all this? etc.

And if this does more bad than good, could I undo the update or install the old BIOS again?
I wouldn't even know if you'd have to remove the latest version first or anything like that...

 

Btw, the card is supposted to be at the low clocks (I think you said something like 500 core, 600 memory?) These are the clocks for the 2d applications. When you play a game, the clocks will go to the 648 core and 700 momory.

I don't know how they claim to get 900 core though... That's some serious overclocking from the default core.

I have almost the same system, p4 3.2 ghz, 3gb of ram and a 500 watt antec psu.

I don't think I'm bottlenecking the card. You think I am?

 

Btw, the card is supposted to be at the low clocks (I think you said something like 500 core, 600 memory?) These are the clocks for the 2d applications. When you play a game, the clocks will go to the 648 core and 700 momory.

I don't know how they claim to get 900 core though... That's some serious overclocking from the default core.

I have almost the same system, p4 3.2 ghz, 3gb of ram and a 500 watt antec psu.

I don't think I'm bottlenecking the card. You think I am?

Oh yea, I don't think you will be able to fit heatsinks under the stock cooler.

 

Waymon, what performance do you get with the card? Does it compare to DInc's results? I'm kind of at a loss as to what's causing the issues here, whether there was a bad batch of these, or whether they're just not a good idea to start with. My X800 Pro for AGP was faster, and i used that with an Athlon XP 3000+!

 

Btw, the card is supposted to be at the low clocks (I think you said something like 500 core, 600 memory?) These are the clocks for the 2d applications. When you play a game, the clocks will go to the 648 core and 700 momory.

I don't know how they claim to get 900 core though... That's some serious overclocking from the default core.

I have almost the same system, p4 3.2 ghz, 3gb of ram and a 500 watt antec psu.

I don't think I'm bottlenecking the card. You think I am?

Oh yea, I don't think you will be able to fit heatsinks under the stock cooler.

 

A double post, 8 hours after the first one?

 

Well sammoriss on battlefield 2, I play with medium to low settings, view distance on 100 percent and high geometry, and I get about 40 to 70 fps with my BIOS update to the newest beta version. With the old version, I got about 20 fps on all low settings at 1024/768. (I am playing at 1024/768 all the time)

Also, when I updated my BIOS I had to set the graphics arpature size to 256mb (highest it will go) from the default 64mb.

Maybe dincs problem is the arpature size and maybe he should upgrade his BIOS? That's what basically fixed it for me.

It could be heat too. I have a huge house fan blowing on the card all the time, so that's why my temps stay under 55C on load.(Unless I do the show 3d option in ati tool, then the temps get to as high as 69C.

I might not reply for a while, since I'm in europe at the moment on vacation.

 

Well sammoriss on battlefield 2, I play with medium to low settings, view distance on 100 percent and high geometry, and I get about 40 to 70 fps with my BIOS update to the newest beta version. With the old version, I got about 20 fps on all low settings at 1024/768. (I am playing at 1024/768 all the time)

Also, when I updated my BIOS I had to set the graphics arpature size to 256mb (highest it will go) from the default 64mb.

Maybe dincs problem is the arpature size and maybe he should upgrade his BIOS? That's what basically fixed it for me.

It could be heat too. I have a huge house fan blowing on the card all the time, so that's why my temps stay under 55C on load.(Unless I do the show 3d option in ati tool, then the temps get to as high as 69C.

I might not reply for a while, since I'm in europe at the moment on vacation.

 

Well sammoriss on battlefield 2, I play with medium to low settings, view distance on 100 percent and high geometry, and I get about 40 to 70 fps with my BIOS update to the newest beta version. With the old version, I got about 20 fps on all low settings at 1024/768. (I am playing at 1024/768 all the time)

Also, when I updated my BIOS I had to set the graphics arpature size to 256mb (highest it will go) from the default 64mb.

Maybe dincs problem is the arpature size and maybe he should upgrade his BIOS? That's what basically fixed it for me.

It could be heat too. I have a huge house fan blowing on the card all the time, so that's why my temps stay under 55C on load.(Unless I do the show 3d option in ati tool, then the temps get to as high as 69C.

I might not reply for a while, since I'm in europe at the moment on vacation.

 

Sorry for all the double posts, I'm on a blackberry and the interent is dub on this thing, so one again a am very sorry!

 

That's interesting. A 64MB aperture size WILL cause you frame rate issues! I'd completely forgotten about that.

 

No, the Core Clock, so of the GPUs "processor" in the middle, is the same as they say on the website GPUReview.com
But, they also say the Memory Clock goes up to 900MHz, unlike in the Overdrive Menu it says it's requested up to 702 and I can "overclock" to 703MHz.
So could it be it's not indicating it right and it would originally be able to go up to 900MHz or is GPUReview.com just wrong?

There's indeed not much room under the stock GeCube cooler.
But the little memory-heatsinks, I don't know how high they reach, come with the "flower-shaped" heatsink and fan, so it should fit then.

And I don't think you're really bottlenecking the card.
It might be that we're both slightly giving performance sort of "lag-moments" because it's not the newest technology.
But as long as they're able to perform at their best by being cooled enough and such, they should be enough for recent games/applications.


Also, what type and/or speed of RAM do you have?
Because I don't think it really matters if you have 2 or 4 Gb of RAM.
An application or applications together use what they use, the speed will decide the performance of it.
All you need is enough of RAM, so if a game plus running your other processes will use 1.5Gb of your 2Gb, it's enough.
Another 2 Gb won't help, although I do believe you need to "let it breathe" a bit just so it has enough room to work.
Because I know you will notice slowness and stuff when it's reaching the limit, it will just kinda freak out.


So Sam, you think I have this 64MB aperture-thing?
I don't know exactly what you mean by it, but I don't have that much trouble with BF-textures on High and Hardware Skinning in RSV (if that's the same?).

And could you help me out with updating my BIOS then?
I really wonder what would happen if I'd update it now.
But I doubt the performance would be a lot more for some reason.
Even though it should perform better, it's cool enough and everything (I think).
But it might still just shut down the computer on certain high settings and there are more weird things that aren't right.
Do you maybe think I should get the drivers for the X1900XT since the numbers are exactly like your card?


And Waymond, maybe we should compare things under the exact same situations?
Like settings and temperatures the same and then see the results of performances.
Btw, I just leave it cooled in the normal way since I can't leave a house-fan on it all the time, I don't live on my own or anything.
And it should be cooled enough in the normal way.
But I get 40-45 degrees when idle, and with games at Medium to High it goes to about 60-70 I think it was.
It might go up to 80 when a lot more is set to High and I think it's also the point the whole system shuts down so...

 

900mhz is just the highest overclock Overderive will support. The card was never intnded for that speed, nor will it be able to achieve it usually, it's just the software limit.
I have a feeling you have a 64MB aperture, I have only 2GB of RAM and it's plenty.
I wouldn't get the X1900XT drivers, they'll be for PCI express, that could cause you problems.

 

Yes, ok.

What exactly does the 64MB aperture mean?
That somehow the BIOS limits it to that amount or something?
You have to know that I had a card with 128mb before, I don't know if it had trouble, but didn't seem like it.

And the Overdrive can only set the Memory Clock from 702 to 703, there is no other number as an option.
Maybe it would be possible to go up to 900 with 3rd party software, don't know.
Not that I really want to...

 

Hmm, perhaps that's disabled for the obscure Gecube card. The AGP aperture may cause more problems for a mroe recent architecture as it may be designed to use all the memory it has, even when the aperture size is too small.

 

You mean that the AGP-interface can't handle it?
I think they took care of that since they just pushed AGP to the limit.
I also read that even though if there was a faster AGP-card, you couldn't even use everything out of it anymore.