Problem with 9800SE Pipeline

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Rouen

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I have a Radeon 9800SE PowerColor, 128 MB and 256 bus. Its known that ATI puts up a software barrier so that only 4 of the 8 pipelines are used on the lower end, whereas the barrier is removed on higher end 9800's, like Pro and XT. However, I used ATI tool and figured out where my max GPU and Memory speeds were. I'll list them for reference.

DEFAULT CORE SPEED - 378 MHZ
CORE SPEED MAX - 439.29 MHZ

MEMORY SPEED MAX - 354.18 MHZ
DEFAULT MEMORY SPEED - 297.00 MHZ

The MAX represents how fast it went when it started to get minimal errors.

I changed it to default speeds, and unlocked the card to 8 pipelines. The frame rate as displayed in ATI Tool clearly doubled. From 110 to 220. The mere purpose of this was to improve my frame rate on Halo, because it gets as low as 9 to 12 FPS when tehre is action, but in a hallway its over 70 FPS.

I unlocked them and tried out halo, I had visual errors all over the place. All I did was unlock it. I tried lowering the GPU and Memory speeds, thinking maybe the load was too great, but the errors kept coming almost as fast. The card was not hot yet either, although the card runs kinda hot anyway, probably about 140 F.

I have two intake fans (On the same side panel) and one outtake (Powersupply). I dont know the specifics on them, its been a couple years.

Again, I've posted this a hundred times, but here are my system parts

ASUS P4P800 SE (Socket 478, Supports Hyperthreading, supports 8x AGP, and up to 800 mhz FSB, but I can't find an option ANYWHERE to increase the AGP to 8x. I only found an AGP Aperture, which can go up to 256 MB, but that did not help)

Pentium 4, 2.0 GHZ and 400 Front Side Bus (No Longer Made)
Radeon 9800SE PowerColor 128 MB 256 bit bus (Supports AGP 8x)
One Stick of Corsair XMS DDR400 PC3200 512 MB 533 FSB
Hitachi 80 GB SATA Hard Drive (My OS, Windows XP, runs on here)
Western Digital IDE 80 GB Hard Drive (Storage)

I want to know why the FPS in halo is so bad, and if the problem is really my video card? Is there a bottle neck somewhere else? I just replaced the Mobo, Video Card, Memory, and added a new HD to improve performance. I want to squeeze as much performance out of this machine as posibble without excessive overclocking and so the parts dont melt lol. Thanks for any feedback.
 
I believe the SE's are just weak forms of the cards.

Also those extra 4 pipelines are either simply disabled to create that card, or a few pipelines from the 9800pro model were screwed up, so they close off 4 and sell it as the 9800SE.

It all depends on supply and demand. If there's a high demand for the 9200SE, they'll take perfectly good 9800pro cards and lock 4 pipelines, whereas if theres no demand, then they'll only take the otherwise defective 9800pro with a few screwed up pipelines and lock up 4 and leave 4 good ones. Sounds like you got one where the other pipelines are defective so you should just close em back.

Your 2ghz pentium isn't very powerful. I'd suggest you upgrade that, then memory.

Adding a new HD will never increase performance, only load times of games.
 
Yeah I needed a new HD to support the motherboard, thats why I did it.

I just got that information from a friend of mine when I remembered to come back here and check. He's telling me to get nvidia but I've heard so many bad things about them.

But essentially, there is a change that I could have gotten a 9800 Pro with just locked pipelines, but in this case, I got a 9800 SE with defective chips rofl. Thats according to a review i just read.
 
Try locking them all except 1, than start unlocking them until you get an error, their is likely only 1 or 2 messes pipes
 
I've heard so many bad things about them.
lol like what dude? Theres bad things about any company.

But essentially, there is a change that I could have gotten a 9800 Pro with just locked pipelines, but in this case, I got a 9800 SE with defective chips rofl. Thats according to a review i just read.
That's what I already told you in my first post.

If there's a high demand for 9200SE's they'll take perfectly good 9800pros, and simply lock 4 pipes. If there's not a huge demand they take the damaged pros and make em 9200SE's
 
right you did say that. My friend explained it to me, then I remembered I posted here, and came back, and you said essentially the same thing. I was just explaining it from my understanding lol :)

I saw I heard alot of bad things, its not about the company, its about Nvidia cards. Some people rave they would never buy an ATI card, but at the same time, I've had people who've blown up so many nvidia cards or defective ones, or they just sucked, and I've never had a problem with ATI, so yeah lol. I have one knowledgeable friend ((builds comps all the time)) told me to the Radeon 9800SE because it was the best bang for the buck, but its going to be such a pain in the ass to take it back to www.newegg.com. I'll just live with the card for now, I wasted 135 bucks on it, might as well get some use out of it.

By the way! How Would I unlock only 6 or 7 pipelines? I only know how to unlock all of them at once, and lock it back to 4. Any particular way?
 
If you play Direct3D get ati, and nvidia for opengl. If you do both then figure out what's best deal.
 
I might get a Nvidia as my next card. But I'll have to spend alot of money to get a nice one, their expensive as HELL.
 
No more expensive than a top of the line ATI dude. With the exception being the PCI-E X800XL which is like $80 cheaper than a 6800GT but roughly same performance.
 
Yeah but I could have to get a new mobo

What is the speed diference between PCI E and AGP8x?
 
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