iainl Posted August 16, 2005 Report Share Posted August 16, 2005 Hi everyone. I'm about to shove a Radeon 9550 in my home box to replace the GeForce Ti4200 that lived in there before. Yes, I know that I'm not going to gain anything much; it was a straight swap with a friend whose machine really doesn't like the ATI, but seems to copy with my NVidia ok. Anyway, a quick investigation shows that this is just a clock-locked, restricted version of the 9600, and should overclock like mad to something at least remotely approaching acceptable. So, the big question: ATI Softmod drivers or Omega ones? I like the sound of the semi-automatic clocking facilities in the Softmod ones, but the Omegas get a good rep in some places, too. Since they're both looking 'interesting' to uninstall, I'd like to do this right first time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris F Posted August 16, 2005 Report Share Posted August 16, 2005 Iain, I was under the impression that the Omega drivers were no longer being updated. Witht that in mind, I'd go with the more updated ATI Softmod drivers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted August 16, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 16, 2005 Thanks enormously for being so fast; I only suddenly realised the issue as I was about to leave the office. Right, softmodded ATI it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted August 16, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 16, 2005 Yay, with a bit of fiddling, I've gone from 250/200 timing to 310/250, and everything runs just fine. Doom 3 is playable at last! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted August 18, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2005 Jesus, this thing clocks well. I'm now up to a core speed of 360MHz from a stock of 250MHz, and it's still not complaining at all. It's basically just the stock cooling, too; well, there's a 12cm fan that points down at the whole graphics card and CPU area, but I wouldn't have thought it made that much difference. Actually, a bit more research online shows some people getting north of 400MHz without special cooling tricks; it turns out that the 9550 is just a 9600 chip that gets clock-locked by the drivers. Except that another check online shows that the stock 9600 has just 325/200 timings; 400MHz core is the speed of the Pro model. This is one nice card for the price... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted August 19, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2005 Well, it was still working fine at 380MHz for the 40 minutes of Battlefield 2 I played last night. Shall I dare take it to 400MHz and just call it a 9600Pro? Brian, I think I've found your ultra-budget AGP card that you were after... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted August 19, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2005 Oh, and the new Catalyst 5.8 drivers have just come out, for those with ATIs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitlope Posted August 19, 2005 Report Share Posted August 19, 2005 Check out the forums at http://www.guru3d.com for everything you need to know about videocards and drivers, perhaps there's word of some kickass drivers for ya. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted September 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted September 12, 2005 Thanks - Cat 5.7s (I haven't bothered to upgrade to 5.8 yet) as modified over at TechPowerUp seem to be doing a fine, fine job on my machine. I'm very happy with the performance I'm getting off the Battlefield 2 demo now; I just need to stop playing PS2 games long enough to justify buying the full thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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