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I was in an IRC room the other day talking about graphics cards. The topic got around to the Radeon 9800 Pro, my card, and then talk of opening up DirectX rendering pipes. I was told to open these pipes becuase it would make the card better. However, I am clueless as to what this means or what it does. I have looked some stuff up on google but can't really find much because I'm not sure what I'm looking for. My question is this, what exactly is this doing, and where can I read up on this subject?
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Some 9800 Pros can be softmodded into a 9800 XT. Some 9800 Pros are exactly the same as the XTs, but had some of the pipes disabled.
If you don't know for sure if you have one of these softmoddable cards, please don't attempt it.
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Infos
here.
Last I knew only the SE of the 9800 was softmoddable, but maybe some new discoveries have been made. For the record I went through two 9500 L-shapeds in the hope of getting a cheap 9700, but neither of them would softmod without nasty artifacts. <_< Oh well, older games like NWN do overclock very nicely however.
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FoxBat,Dec 8 2004, 06:58 PM Wrote:Infos here.
Last I knew only the SE of the 9800 was softmoddable, but maybe some new discoveries have been made.
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You might be right on the SE thing. It's been awhile since I've read up on it.
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9800 and 9800 XT both have 8 pipes. You can't softmod a 9800 Pro.
Cards with a chance of softmod:
9500 --> 9700
9800SE --> 9800
x800 Pro VIVO --> x800 XT VIVO
GeForce 6800 --> 16 pipes (6800 GT GPU, but you can't get 6800 GT memory, so not a full 6800GT.)
You can softmod a 9500, but as has been said, success is not likely. Besides, for the price 9700s are going for you may as well just get a 9700 non-pro, very close to the speed of a 9800 Pro, for only ~$100.
I've gotten two 9700s from eBay, one for $101, and one for $103 (both including shipping). 256 bit memory 9500s (the ones that might softmod go for like $80. Yay, for $20 there's no risk. And of the 9500/9500Pro/9700 cards I've owned (all use the same GPU core, I've had personal experience with 4) none have overclocked to less than 330 MHz, one of the 9700s got up to 370 core / 340 memory, which is only like 2% slower than a 9800 Pro.
You can overclock a 9800 Pro, but I wouldn't suggest doing so if you don't really know what you're doing.
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