[Milkman]

I was on the guru3D forums and some guy flashed is ATI Radeon 9800pro 128mb to XT. Almost everybody said it was a very bad idea by doing this it would create artifacts in games and other problems :? The only ATI Radeon 9800pro's that are moddable are the one that have the R360 core (256mb)
But this guy actually flashed his card (ATI Radeon 9800pro 128mb) R350 core
Should I attempt doing the same?

[MuFu]

No. It is a bad idea.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally Posted by MuFu

No. It is a bad idea.

Agreed, it's a bad plan.

[Reverend]

Don't listen to MuFu and DW - GO FOR IT!

But make sure you have money to buy another card

[The549]

Does anyone have a link for the 128meg rv360 card bios thingy for the type I have?
Looked around and was just confused as to whether one existed and worked.

[NRP]

Try here: http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/. This site also has some good info about flashing back to your original Bios if it all goes to hell. Good luck.

[Fodder]

It's only really worth doing if you have one of the newer Gecube or MSI 9800Pros (which are R360-cored), and you have a desire for the Overdrive tab.

[Murakami]

Why not simply overclock?

[Scali]

Indeed, afaik the R(V)360 core has only two differences with the R(V)350 core:

1) Slightly higher clockspeed
2) Temperature sensor for the dynamic overclock feature in the drivers.

Ofcourse 1) can be fixed by simply overclocking your card. And 2) is impossible to fix. 2) is also not important if you're already doing 1) anyway (I believe it only overclocks to a maximum of about 10 MHz anway).

[kyleb]

I'm pretty sure they made a few very small changes in the functionality of the r360 over the r350 considering the fact that a r350 core will give artifacts on a r360 bios regardless of clockspeeds.

[Fodder]

Originally Posted by Scali

2) is also not important if you're already doing 1) anyway (I believe it only overclocks to a maximum of about 10 MHz anway).

Overdrive isn't much use, but it's nice to have a temp sensor when playing with cooling or overclocking by hand.

[Scali]

Originally Posted by Fodder

Overdrive isn't much use, but it's nice to have a temp sensor when playing with cooling or overclocking by hand.

I meant to say "Flashing a bios isn't magically going to install a temp sensor in your GPU". So if you don't have an R(V)360 core, there's nothing much you can do about it.

[Kaotik]

Originally Posted by Milkman

I was on the guru3D forums and some guy flashed is ATI Radeon 9800pro 128mb to XT. Almost everybody said it was a very bad idea by doing this it would create artifacts in games and other problems :? The only ATI Radeon 9800pro's that are moddable are the one that have the R360 core (256mb)
But this guy actually flashed his card (ATI Radeon 9800pro 128mb) R350 core
Should I attempt doing the same?

It can be done on R350 cores too, it causes artifacts with 3dMark03 GT2&3, and possibly some games.
The part I bolded from your post is not true btw, all the new (for the last couple months or so, at least) R9800 Pro's, 128MB or 256MB, have R360 core.

[Fodder]

Originally Posted by Scali

I meant to say ...

You did say, I misread.

[Milkman]

Originally Posted by Kaotik

It can be done on R350 cores too, it causes artifacts with 3dMark03 GT2&3, and possibly some games.
The part I bolded from your post is not true btw, all the new (for the last couple months or so, at least) R9800 Pro's, 128MB or 256MB, have R360 core.

So basicly your saying earlier ATI Radeon 9800pro`s 128mb or 256mb have the R350 core and the more recent ATI Radeon 9800pro`s have the R360 core. Judging by your statement ATI Radeon 9800pro`s 128mb or 256 mb with the R350 core were probably manufactured in 2003. I bought my ATI Radeon 9800pro 128mb in 2004 so do I have a R360 core or the R350 core. Also is there a way to verify wich core I have without actually taking out my card out of my pc? My Radeon 9800pro 128mb is bult by ATI and like I mentioned I bought it this year (2004)

[ZoinKs!]

I wouldn't flash a r350 to xt. That's not just asking for trouble, that's demanding it. Even now, you need to be cautious about what chip a new 9800pro uses. My dad bought one a few months after me... mine has r360, his has r350.

The advantages of flashing over simple overclocking:
1. r360 has some tweaks that increase pixel shading speed... expect ~200 more 3dmark03 at 412 mhz
2. activates the on die temp sensor

I flashed my 128 meg 9800pro some months ago. It's been working flawlessly with stock cooling at 412/365. I'm getting a tad more then 6,500 in 3dMark03, which meets my performance goal for this system.

About a month ago, some one pm'd me asking how I flashed my 128 meg Sapphire to xt. I may as well quote my advice here... maybe it'll be useful.

Originally Posted by ZoinKs's pm

Here are two links that should be handy:
Adrian Rojack's guide, a good guide and iirc it links to some useful forums.
AtiTool, this is an incredibly useful utility.

The first thing is to be sure your board has a r360 gpu. The guide linked above should help you with this.

But the best way is to use AtiTool. In the lower right corner of atitool's window, click the "Settings" button. In the new window that pops up, select the "Misc" tab. Press the "Dump Bios" button. This will write the vidcards current bios into atitool's root directory. It'll be called "bios.bin" but you can open it with Windows Notepad. Be sure Notepad's "word wrap" option is unchecked. The first word on the second line will either be "R350" or "R360". If it's r360, the main obstacle has been passed.

Assuming it's an r360, the next step is to be sure the core and memory will handle the higher clockspeeds. You can use atitool to find max core and max memory overclock. My card with all stock cooling maxed at ~430mhz core and ~380 memory, which assured me that I have some margin of safety. I then set the core to 415 and memory to 368 and used it like that for about a week, just to be sure no heat or stability issues would come up.

Assuming your card passes the tests of having an r360 core and stability at the new clockrates, you should be able to follow the Rojak's guide to complete the process. With luck, you'll be reading the message, "65536 of 65536 bytes verified."

I'll put in the usual caveats: All of this is at your own risk, research it carefully, and don't blame me if my advice is bad cause you're the one who decided to take it.

Good luck to you--- with this sort of thing you'll want it. 8)

[Kaotik]

Originally Posted by Milkman

So basicly your saying earlier ATI Radeon 9800pro`s 128mb or 256mb have the R350 core and the more recent ATI Radeon 9800pro`s have the R360 core. Judging by your statement ATI Radeon 9800pro`s 128mb or 256 mb with the R350 core were probably manufactured in 2003. I bought my ATI Radeon 9800pro 128mb in 2004 so do I have a R360 core or the R350 core. Also is there a way to verify wich core I have without actually taking out my card out of my pc? My Radeon 9800pro 128mb is bult by ATI and like I mentioned I bought it this year (2004)

Well it's still bit about luck, but if you buy one from a company where stocks don't last long, and thus they get new cards often, you're pretty safe assuming you have R360 core.
However, this would stand only for cards bought in summer 2004 at the earliest, before that, I would say one would be lucky to have R360 on 128MB R9800 Pro.
Sadly, the only way to be sure is to rip off the cooler.

[ZoinKs!]

Originally Posted by Kaotik

Sadly, the only way to be sure is to rip off the cooler.

You must've missed my post. :P

[Kaotik]

Originally Posted by ZoinKs!

You must've missed my post. :P

You're referring to ATITool for recognizing the core, AFAIK it's worthless in reality, even with cards with R360, it reports R350 before flashing the bios, and even with cards with R350, it reports R360 after flashing.

[ZoinKs!]

Originally Posted by Kaotik

You're referring to ATITool for recognizing the core ...

Not exactly. I'm referring to AtiTool dumping the bios into a text file and then I directly examine the bios data itself. My card was detected as 9800pro with r350 core by every program I tried. But I dumped the bios, read the second line, and it said "r360". All this was before flashing.

Granted, I can't know for certain this correctly id's the core every time. But it worked when I tried it.

[Milkman]

Remember when I told you guys about the guy on the Guru3D forums who told me he flashed his R350 core(Radeon 9800pro 128mb)
well I told him on ATITool I dumped my bios and I opened the file it gave me bios.ini with note pad here's the second line were it says your core: R350 Samsung E-die DDR BIOS - P/N 113-A07518-100
The guy on Guru3D is lying because you guys all say its a bad idea because of artifacts and other problems and everyone on Guru3D and the same responses except that guy. Ill include the messages posted by the guy im talking about just so you guys can understand the lies the guy is saying oh yea his username is {HLH}

{HLH} (message 1)
Member Guru

funny i flashed my 9800pro r350core to an xt an i got xt speeds an latencies from doing so.just no overdrive an temp monitoring

(message 2)

ok ill do that but it cause me no harm riva tuner claims i have a r350 core.i forgot to look when i put vga silencer on but ill do the 3dmaro o 3 thing right now.i get no artifacts or nonthing just perfect.

(message 3)

dude im tellin u try it. i got the good fast bios for u if u want to try it gemme your email an ill send it to u u ca private message me your email or post it here


(message 4)

ok i pulled me vga silencer silencer off an i cleaned the core which looked like a mirror after a shine clean the i saw r350 so yes i was right u can flash a r350core to an xt.an i get no artifacts what so ever