2900 Pro Owners Thread

[VaguelyAmused]

Hi Guys,

I've finally managed to read all the pages of this thread (coming home shattered after staring at a screen all day, I can manage a few pages a night before my eyes start giving up!) and I have a few questions if thats OK.

I'm looking at building a new system and I must say, although I consider myself pretty tech savvy and reasonably knowledgeable on pc matters I'm feeling completely bewildered by the sheer choice of the cards that are about at the moment!

I think i'm looking at going the X38 route (all reports I've read suggest they eek out that bit more performance from the Q6600's than the 680i equivalents) and want to play Crysis "the best I can" (its sat in my draw untouched at the moment as I don't really fancy playing it on low settings!).

That leaves me with two choices as far as I can tell, either two of the new HD3870's in crossfire, or two HD2900Pro's in crossfire.

I have a 23" monitor so can run up to 1920x1200, although I don't have any delusions that I'll be able to run crysis at that sort of res. However, for other games I recon I could so I'm leaning towards the HD2900Pro 1024MB version.

Likewise, I'll be water cooling so will be taking advantage of all the really quite amazing work you guys have done with the BIOS files if I go the HD2900Pro route.

The only thing stopping me going out and buying the HD2900Pro's at the moment, besides the fact I haven't been paid yet, is there seems to be suggestion that the AA was not particularly well implemented in hardware on the HD2900 series, but that this has been fixed now for the HD3870's?

Sooo, I guess its time I got to the point and asked a question - what would you guys recommend, either two HD2900Pro 1024MB's with the modded BIOS and overclocked as far as I can push them on water, or two of the new HD3870's, again, on water - has anyone carried out any comparisons of the two yet? I do hear that, at least at the moment, I can't expect to get an overclock greater than 860MHz on the HD3870's becuase it is rumoured to be a BIOS limitation?

Or of course, two HD2900Pro 512MB's if the memory really, really isn't going to hold me back.

Thanks for any help guys

[ownage]

I wouldn't suggest a 2900pro, since hd3850 and hd3870 cards are already available, only because the hD3870 is cheaper, stays cooler and maybe it can clock higher.

512MB will not hold you back.

I would say, go HD3870, or maybe HD3850Crossfire :P

[WrigleyVillain]

stays cooler

Yes, and this is because it's 55nm and thus requires significantly less power than a 2900 which is very beneficial even if you have a monster PSU, especially as you want to go CF.

I play at 1920x1200 too and while I did get Oblivion to hit 865 once (all the high res texture mods incl Qarls, environment mods, added NPCs etc) no other game has even gotten close to 600. TF2/Ep2 for example use less than 280. Crysis is surely another story but few have the horsepower at this point to be able to play at high enough settings and res to fill that much vram, in my sort of educated opinion

[VaguelyAmused]

Ah excellent, thanks for the repsonses guys they're very much appreciated - nice to see your running in 1920x1200 and the 512MB isn't holding you back at all.

Going a little OT, but, that saves some money on the waterblocks too as I think 3870 blocks are a little cheaper and hopefully once someone plays similar tricks with the bios they'll be pushed way further than 860MHz.

HD3850 crossfire it is, lets see how quickly crysis brings it too its knees ( just come out of Uni and I'm really liking this whole disposable income business )

Thanks again, and best of luck to you all pushing these pro's as far as they can go!

[WrigleyVillain]

nice to see your running in 1920x1200 and the 512MB isn't holding you back at all.

To clarify, I have the 1GB which is how I was able to use 865. But-so far-I haven't really needed more than 512, at least with the games I play.

I'm certainly happy with my card for what I paid, though now that the 3870s and 8800 GTs are out of course I'm second-guessing a bit. But what's new?

Eventually gonna flash it with a BIOS that ups the vgpu so I can clock it higher as some in this thread have done with impressive results.

[nosboost300]

anybody ever play two worlds.. seems just like oblivion.. but wondering if it uses as much video memory

[WrigleyVillain]

anybody ever play two worlds.. seems just like oblivion.. but wondering if it uses as much video memory

Keep in mind that I havent tested with vanilla Oblivion but it's definitely all those mods pushing it so high. But I'd still be curious to see what something like 2 Worlds uses.

I read something a while ago that mentioned Supreme Commander is another title that uses a lot, tho I could be confusing that with system memory usage. Pretty sure WIC is another...

[003]

http://rapidshare.com/files/69789687/2900TRY.rar

2900pro 1gig BIOS 2D 1.0v 3D 1.25v

http://rapidshare.com/files/69791759...odded_bios.rar

2900pro 1gig 3D 1.2v 1.25v 1.3v 1.35v

I am having a problem! None of these are working! When I try to flash using atiflash 3.43 from a dos prompt booted from a floppy disk, the flash process seems to work flawlessly and it says all the bytes were verified and to please restart the computer. It did say one thing that concerned me: "OldDeviceID: 9400, NewDeviceID: 0".

But other than that it seemed to work. But when I restarted the computer, I got absolutely no video signal (surprise surprise )

I made another boot floppy with my original bios and booted off of it and flashed blind back to the old bios, and thank god it did work.

I tried two of the modified bios files, the 1.25v and 1.30v ones, both did not work and both had the same weird deviceid being 0 problem.

I am using a Sapphire 2900Pro 512-bit 1GB GDDR4 card, and the atiflash command I was using (which worked for going back to the original bios) was:
"atiflash -f -p 0 filename.bin"

Does anybody know what could be going wrong here or how I can make this work? I really want to up the vcore!

[WrigleyVillain]

Neither worked? Blast! Isn't it nickless who has a 1GB and flashed it? No time to look atm gotta walk teh rottie

[003]

Yes, he has like the exact same card as I do!! Same brand and everything!

[i.of.the.storm]

Power is indeed a suspect, what does your 12v rail put out?

Umm, I have two 12V rails with 17A each, which seems like it shouldn't even be enough to run the Pro but it works fine so I'm not sure what's wrong. Anyway, I'm more or less satisfied with the performance of this card and I guess since memory timings are tighter on the Pro simply overclocking it to XT speeds will give me a better result that flashing it to an XT. I have been able to successfully overclock it to stock XT speeds with Rivatuner (can't use ATi Tray Tools or ATITool because I'm using Vista x64 and those don't have the proper signed drivers or something) but results have been mixed, sometimes I get 3dmark scores lower than at stock speeds which is odd. I guess I'm going to try and see how much mileage I can get out of overclocking my CPU, which is really holding my scores back since it's just an Athlon x2 5000+. It is a 65nm version so I hope it has decent headroom.

[Rick Flair]

I am having a problem! None of these are working! When I try to flash using atiflash 3.43 from a dos prompt booted from a floppy disk, the flash process seems to work flawlessly and it says all the bytes were verified and to please restart the computer. It did say one thing that concerned me: "OldDeviceID: 9400, NewDeviceID: 0".

But other than that it seemed to work. But when I restarted the computer, I got absolutely no video signal (surprise surprise )

I made another boot floppy with my original bios and booted off of it and flashed blind back to the old bios, and thank god it did work.

I tried two of the modified bios files, the 1.25v and 1.30v ones, both did not work and both had the same weird deviceid being 0 problem.

I am using a Sapphire 2900Pro 512-bit 1GB GDDR4 card, and the atiflash command I was using (which worked for going back to the original bios) was:
"atiflash -f -p 0 filename.bin"

Does anybody know what could be going wrong here or how I can make this work? I really want to up the vcore!

This is strange as I have the exact same card as you, Sapphire 2900pro 1GB.
I've tried all the BIOS's I've edit first before u/l'ing them and they all worked fine, other users also had zero problems.

I doubt that your BIOS (stock) is different then mine, but PM me if you want and I'll give you an email to send your stock BIOS to.

[nickless]

@Rick Flair, can you make 2900 Pro1GB Vmod bios with 1.40V. I've ran FUR rendering benchmark on 985/2466, but I want to try to run at 1GHz. Maybe this is crazy, but I want to try this.

Thanks.

[003]

Rick, PM sent.

[Standfest]

I have similar issues, under XP I can bench and game fine at 800Mhz core, but in Vista mainly "White Out" and the COJ DX10 benchmark I have to lower the core to 776Mhz otherwise I get artifacts.

maybe it's the DX10 "part" of the chip..... ????

I have this too, under XP I can run Crysis at 800/1800 fine, but in Vista (x64) I get artefacts on that freqs. No artefacts in Crysis only at 780/1800.

[MadDias]

anyone installed the XP drivers for hdmi audio?
i installed these files:

7-10_xp32_hdmiaudio_53250.exe
kb888111xpsp2-de.exe (hotfix for hd audio under winxp)

after i did that i can´t run 3dmark06 anymore... 3dmark06 only shows an error message at the start, stating that i need at least a sm2.0 card.
"your hardware does not support the features required to run 3dmark06"
wtf is going on?
does anyone know how to fix that?

[WrigleyVillain]

@Rick Flair, can you make 2900 Pro1GB Vmod bios with 1.40V. I've ran FUR rendering benchmark on 985/2466, but I want to try to run at 1GHz. Maybe this is crazy, but I want to try this.

Thanks.

It is crazy. THAT'S WHY YOU MUST TRY IT.

[VoGonPT]

ZOMGZOMGZOMG!!!!1111

Hadn't read the clock values for FUR from Nickless....




Starting to love our HD2900 PRO and thinking it kicks more a$$ than XT... LOL

Curious...

Behave!

[WrigleyVillain]

thinking it kicks more a$$ than XT

Oh it totally does. Outside of the obvious stock price/performance comparison.

[VoGonPT]

Yup, not even thinking about that

That's why I ran out and got one. They stocked out in 2 days here in Portugal...

Still waiting for one on the local 2nd hand market. If its cheap I will go Crossfire...

Behave!

[nickless]

Official Cat 7.11 is here Let benching beggin
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

edit: And here are the first results with Cat 7.11 in Mark 06 - 14 480 Marks. ORB http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=3847953.
Now I can pass Mark 06 at 954/2466, here are my settings:

[Rick Flair]

@Rick Flair, can you make 2900 Pro1GB Vmod bios with 1.40V. I've ran FUR rendering benchmark on 985/2466, but I want to try to run at 1GHz. Maybe this is crazy, but I want to try this.

Thanks.

Thing is according to the voltage table in the BIOS 1.350v is the highest the BIOS will recognize, So I would say it won't work, but if you want PM me and I'll make you it, you never know .

[i.of.the.storm]

Official Cat 7.11 is here Let benching beggin
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

edit: And here are the first results with Cat 7.11 in Mark 06 - 14 480 Marks. ORB http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=3847953.
Now I can pass Mark 06 at 954/2466, here are my settings:

"Intel Core 2 4947 MHz"
Seriously? That's insane! Can you give us a comparison to 7.10 so we can see how performance changed? I'm using the Crysis hotfix driver right now, which is labeled as 7.11 but the driver version is 8.43.1 whereas the official 7.11 is 8.43.2 or something like that. Of course my CPU is probably going to be the main thing holding back my 3dmark score and it's not worth posting, but I'll check out this new driver anyhow. The release notes don't say anything about performance gains so I'm not expecting much.

[WrigleyVillain]

Official Cat 7.11 is here Let benching beggin

btw the D3D driver version is the same as that in the last "hotfix"...

[i.of.the.storm]

Actually the driver version for the hotfix was 8.43.0.1 and this one is 8.43.2 or something like that. After installing the new drivers my VIVO functionality finally works, dunno why it didn't earlier.