RivaTuner plugin supporting GT2xx and HD4870 Voltage Tuning

[fgw]

finally here is a first release of my RivaTuner plugin wich allows voltage control on vga cards equipped with a Voltera VT1165 VRM controller.

as far as i know this are: GTX260 65nm, GTX280, GTX295, HD4870 and HD4870x2

this VT1165 plugin is an enhanced version of the VT1103 plugin already included with RivaTuner and supports the previously available monitoring features plus some added functionality:

already included in VT1103 plugin

• vrm output voltage
• vrm output current
• vrm temperature for up to 5 phases

added the functionality

• change vrm output voltage on the fly
• monitor status of OCP
• monitor status of OVP

monitoring of OVP and OCP might be useful for hardmodded cards to verify if either of this safety features is activated or not.

to integrate this in a RivaTuner plugin has the advantage of utilizing the available RivaTuner functions to access the VT1165 directly. there is no need to manually scan for a device, write down register addresses and enter this values somewhere else, besides in RivaTuners scheduler to apply the settings at startup.

also you don't need to care about which one of the registers is used in which mode, as the plugin will detect the currently used register itself and apply the settings to this register. so to completely setup your cards all you need to do is to bring the card in the mode you want to change (idle, 2d, low 3d or performance 3d) or what ever it is called and change the voltage as required. there are not more than 4 modes available. most cards don't use all of them. my gtx295 is using only one mode. usually i would assume putting the card under load (atitool 3dview would be fine for this) and change the voltage then. i cant see a reason to change any other modes, but its up to everybody to do so.


you do all of this at your own risk! don't blame me if you overvolted your card too much and thus burnt it. this is a very powerful and dangerous tool!


also i would not have been able to create this without the help of Unwinder, the creator of RivaTuner. although he did not take part in the devolpment, he put some valueable info in the "evga voltage tuner" thread here in the forums and also kindly answered all my boring questions!


that said, lets roll ...

the plugin can be found here: vt1165.zip

as the plugin is created with visual studio 2008 you need to download and install microsoft vs2008 runtime components. this is just about 1.7MB and can be found here:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86)

here is a step by step guide on how to install and use my plugin:

experienced RivaTuner users wil most likely know almost all of this already and just look at the few points below and at some screenshots at the end:

• download the plugin vt1165.zip
• download and install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86)
• download and install the latest version of RivaTuner
• start up RivaTuner once to let it configure its database and exit RivaTuner again (rivaTuner might get started directly after ths installation. if so, just let it configure its database and manually exit again.
• copy VT1165.dll into RivaTuners plugin folder. this is PlugIns\Monitoring within RivaTuners installation folder. on my system this is: C:\Program Files\RivaTuner v2.22\PlugIns\Monitoring
• run VT1165.reg found within vt1165.zip. this changes a single registry key to activate the plugin. don't do this in the gui as there is a bug within my code that might crash RivaTuner. i have not yet sorted this out. use VT1165.reg as a workarounf in the meantime to activate the plugin for the first time!

finally start up RivaTuner again.

the plugin checks upon startup if a card is supported and pops up the following window for each card unsupported card:



so if you see this, you are out of luck!

if everything went right and your card is supported the following window should pop up:

click on the small button besides Customize...1 to open up the menu and then select Hardware monitoring 2 to bring up the Hardware monitoring window.



depending on the version of RivaTuner you are running, a warning might come up first:



clicking on the [UP] button will increment the voltage. if you are running on two identical GPUs and have selected Apply settings to both GPUs at the beginning, voltage for both GPUs will be increased simultaneously, as you can see in the following screenshot. clicking the [DOWN] button will decrease voltage respectively. the currently selected voltage is displayed in the VRM Voltage Control window immediately as you click the button. the graph might follow with a delay depending on the update rate specified in Hardware monitoring setup, usually 1 second.

if you want to make the settings to be applied automatically on startup, simply use the values displayed in the [b]VRM Voltage Control[b] window besides Parameters: when setting up a scheduler entry in RivaTuner under the Scheduler tab.

running on a system with either a single GPU installed or if there are two GPUs of different type installed, you should have selected Apply settings to first GPU only at the beginning. this results in changing the voltage for the first GPU only. in this situation, there is currently no way to change the voltage for the second GPU. as soon as RivaTuner V2.23 gets released, this restriction will be lifted, and all GPU's can be modified individually!

if you selected the wrong mode on startup, just close the Hardware monitoring window by clicking the [x] button and reopen it again. you will be prompted to select the mode on every startup.



finally, two new graphs are available that might be of interest for some hard core overvolters using hard modded cards. this two graphs show the state of OVP and OCP. if OVP or OCP is inactiv (normal) the graph shows a steady line at 0. if OVP or OCP gets activated the graph jumps up to 1 signalling OVP or OCP condition.



as i have not hard modded my card i was not able to verify if this works as expected. so if any hardcore overclockers are out there and suspect OVP or OCP is kicking in on their cards, please use this plugin and report back. also i had just one gtx295 at hand so i was not able to verify the functionalty on different cards. please report back if you run into any problems or have any further questions or feature requests. but keep in mind, my programming knowledge is somehow limited and dont expect miracles.

once again: remember this tool allows you to change voltages to very dangerous levels for you GPU, so be careful and don't blame me if you burn your card. you do all of this at your own risk!

[[XC] gomeler]

Nice! Was waiting for someone with the coding skills to do this

[AuDioFreaK39]

Thanks a bunch bro!!

[DMH]

Sorry but the more option is not available to me

[George_o/c]

Wow, cool plugin

[afireinside]

No go on 64 bit vista + visioktek 4850 512MB crossfire. No error message, and no plug in shows up either.

[Boogerlad]

would bios volt modding work?

[fgw]

Originally Posted by DMH

Sorry but the more option is not available to me

sorry my fault, mixed up the screenshots when merged them during editing! you need to rightclick on one of the output voltage graphs to get to the correct setup menu.

updated the screenshot in my post.

[fgw]

Originally Posted by afireinside

No go on 64 bit vista + visioktek 4850 512MB crossfire. No error message, and no plug in shows up either.

just got a reply from Unwinder, 4850 is using a different VRM controller, thus not supported!

as mentioned in my posting, i just tested this with my own gtx295 and got the list of supported devices from various other posts. unfortunately, the 4850 series cards are not supported!

[fgw]

Originally Posted by Boogerlad

would bios volt modding work?

may be, have not tried it so i cant tell.

but when you are talking about tools like nibitor, most likely not as you can change only the selection of preset voltages, but not the voltages itself as the plugin does.

modding the bios with a hex editor might work, but thats a different story and beyond my knowledge.

[kemo]

Originally Posted by afireinside

No go on 64 bit vista + visioktek 4850 512MB crossfire. No error message, and no plug in shows up either.

I haven't heard of anyone that got HD4850 Softmode work with rivatuner

[mikeyakame]

If you need someone with x64 to recompile and check the source just shoot me a message. Probably just needs a few adjustments made for 64bit pointers, though RT is 32bit so that shouldn't be an issue itself.

Are you using RT API to write the registers?

BOOL WriteI2CEx(BYTE *BUS, BYTE, *DID, BYTE *REGISTER, LPCSTR *g_complex[gpu_id].m_dev) I believe

There is also ReadI2CEx(...)

the Ex functions are to access any GPU device, the non-Ex are only for primary GPU.

[DMH]

Originally Posted by fgw

sorry my fault, mixed up the screenshots when merged them during editing! you need to rightclick on one of the output voltage graphs to get to the correct setup menu.

updated the screenshot in my post.

Nope still not working man

[fgw]

Originally Posted by DMH

Nope still not working man

what card are you using?

[Solus Corvus]

Works nicely on my 4870x2. Thanks for releasing this.

[fgw]

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

If you need someone with x64 to recompile and check the source just shoot me a message. Probably just needs a few adjustments made for 64bit pointers, though RT is 32bit so that shouldn't be an issue itself.

guess the problem is he is using 4850 cards. unfortunately i originally thought the 4850 is using the VT1165 but i was wrong! updated my post and removed the 4850 from the list.

Are you using RT API to write the registers?

BOOL WriteI2CEx(BYTE *BUS, BYTE, *DID, BYTE *REGISTER, LPCSTR *g_complex[gpu_id].m_dev) I believe

There is also ReadI2CEx(...)

the Ex functions are to access any GPU device, the non-Ex are only for primary GPU.

yes i know and use this functions.

have you tried it on your gtx280 under 64bit?

[mikeyakame]

Neh. It's only 9.30am here I'll grab it now and take a look.

Ok first thing to fix.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Unwinder\R ivaTuner\Monitoring\Plugins]
"VT1165.dll"=dword:00000001

Reg key needs to be like that for 64bit OS.

So just make an extra registry key called vt1165_x64.reg and tell people with 64bit OS to run that.

32bit registry keys are stored in there.

And it loads once I do that but throws an exception about unreferenced memory address and takes out Rivatuner.

When I restart RT it seems to load ok, but it has no values in your message box and they are wrong!

GPU=0, VID=CBh, Voltage=0.000v...

It also randomly selects VID register offsets heh. It needs to be linked against newer platform sdk and i'd say pointers aren't being handled correctly for some functions. Shoot me the source and I'll see if I can find the problem and fix it.

[Solus Corvus]

Works fine in Vista x64 here.

[fgw]

Originally Posted by Solus Corvus

Works fine in Vista x64 here.

thanks a lot, for confirmation, solus!

[mikeyakame]

Mind you I'm booted on Windows 7 x64 at the moment, and don't really want to boot back to Vista SP2 unnecessarily.

[Jaivan]

Works great for me vista x64 CF 4870's
Thanks a lot for the post...hehe time to go clock them up now

Edit: Can you also give more instructions on how to load the settings on start-up.

[Telperion]

XP Pro, SP3.

Does not work on my Asus 4870 1 GB Dark Knight card. Gives me the red error message up above.

[DMH]

Originally Posted by fgw

what card are you using?

GTX260 216SP Gainward,Vista Ultimate 64-bit

[Luka_Aveiro]

Originally Posted by DMH

GTX260 216SP Gainward,Vista Ultimate 64-bit

I think that specidfic gainward card does not have the reference nvidia design, so it might not have the Volterra 1165 voltage regulator, that's why it isn't working, filho...

[LowRun]

Even tho' i don't have the hardware to take advantage of your plugin, i have to thank you big time for that very nice contrubution to the OC community. You sir represent the true XS spirit

Again, thank you very much.