4 or 8 pipes on my 9800SE?

[JND]

Hey all, so I installed some Omega drivers for my 9800SE card tonight and my 3DMark Score went from 2882 to 4156! I thought this was good, but I don't know what good ranges are. The only thing I did was install different drivers. I opted for the softmod feature, etc, but that was all.

What I was wondering though, was how can I tell if I'm using 4 or 8 pipes? Does a drastic score change like that tell me that I am indeed using 8?

Also, i noticed that on some of the more intense graphics on the tests that it looked like one pixel in the very middle on the bottom 1/4 of my screen remained black the whole time. What would cause that?

As you all know, I'm learing one question at a time

Thanks!

 

[GageMW]

i dont think it has to do with pipes, driver compatability is a major element in test scores, also that pixel is probly a dead pixel, some company's have replacement policies if there are 1+ in very middle, or 3+ outside, even crts get deads hope that helped

 

[JND]

Gage,

Well, that leads me to a new question: Is the dead pixel on the monitor or on my card/PC somewhere?

Secondly, how can I tell if I'm using 4 or 8 pipes.

I think you're right that the driver is what helped improve my score. I'm surprised I got that high of a score actually. I only have a P4 w/ 1.3.

 

[aye29]

Your 9800SE only has 4 rendering pipelines.

"The 9800SE differs from the rest of the 9800 family in that half of its rendering pipelines are disabled, bringing the total to four pixel pipelines, just like the RADEON 9600/9600 PRO. As we saw with the RADEON 9500 PRO versus 9600 PRO, this cuts fill rate drastically, but it retains the 9800Â’s 256-bit memory interface."
From here: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_9800/default.asp

As for the deal pixel, its a problem with your monitor itself not your graphics card.

BTW are you using 3DMark 2001SE or 2003?

 

[Kangaroo]

Is this the first time you have noticed the 'dead pixel' or has it just been there the whole time?

If it has been there the whole time it is most likely the monitor. If it changes between desktop/3D games and Benchmarks it is probably the card/drivers.

 

[JND]

Aye29, I did know that the 9800SE has only 4 pipes open initially, but what I was hoping to do was open the other 4 thru softmodding it. I couldn't tell if that was what I had done or if the preformance was strictly due to the drivers.

I'm still not sure if that is what I did or not...

I am pretty sure I'm using the 3DMark 2003.

Kanagroo, as for my dead pixel, it comes and goes, so I guess its the card. Is that what artifacting is?

 

[mrsp2man]

Artifacting is when you get odd (usually geometric) shapes in different parts of the screen. Artifacting usually occurs due to too much heat being produced.

I doubt that you opened four more pipes because the card would have performance in the 6000 or 7000 ranges... Also, softmoding a card in such a way that you can use the remaining pipes is usually only possible by flashing the vga bios. For you, you would probably want to flash it with the 9800pro bios...

 

[DeathToCats]

I overclocked my 9600XT to 600MHz clock and 600MHz memory and yeah, the nature scene in 3Dmark 03 had some interesting atrifacts.. lol.. The highest I could get it was around 585Mhz..