Enable Hardware masks @ Bios level

*Last edited by davvy76; 10-14-2004 at 02:35.*

Sorry if this has been asked before, but once you've verified which pipes and vp's arent buggered using rivatuner is there anyway to alter the bios so they are constantly enabled without installing rivatuner? Not that I have a problem with rivatuner, just interested if its possible with an edited bios etc.

Eg: Recently there was an issue with the passively cooled gigabyte 6800nu's only being 8x1 and they released a bios fix for 12x1. I've tried flashing my leadtek le with this bios but it still defaults to 8x1. Also assuming that the gigabyte 6800nu's have 1 pixel unit damaged (thus the core being selected for NU use) how does the updated bios verify which unit to not enable?

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread....0&pagenumber=4

Eg on mine pixel unit 0 is damaged and I get corruption when enabled but pixel unit 4 enables fine. On another model pixel unit 4 will be knackered but the first 3 will be fine, how does the bios fix distinguish which pixel unit to enable on the gigabytes.

Hope that makes sense

Unwinder

Quote:

Originally posted by davvy76
Sorry if this has been asked before, but once you've verified which pipes and vp's arent buggered using rivatuner is there anyway to alter the bios so they are constantly enabled without installing rivatuner? Not that I have a problem with rivatuner, just interested if its possible with an edited bios etc.

Yes. It is technically possible to rip hardware mask initialization from VGA BIOS initialization script. If you need it - I'll add such script t new version of RivaTuner.

Quote:

Originally posted by davvy76
Eg: Recently there was an issue with the passively cooled gigabyte 6800nu's only being 8x1 and they released a bios fix for 12x1. I've tried flashing my leadtek le with this bios but it still defaults to 8x1. Also assuming that the gigabyte 6800nu's have 1 pixel unit damaged (thus the core being selected for NU use) how does the updated bios verify which unit to not enable?

That BIOS just contained software units mask, preventing GPU from activating fully functional units. New BIOS simply removed software mask, allowing GPU to activate all non-hardware masked units. If your LE have more than 1pixel/1vertex units masked via hardware - this BIOS will not help you.

Quote:

Originally posted by davvy76
Eg on mine pixel unit 0 is damaged and I get corruption when enabled but pixel unit 4 enables fine. On another model pixel unit 4 will be knackered but the first 3 will be fine, how does the bios fix distinguish which pixel unit to enable on the gigabytes.

Most of NU VGA BIOSes use the following initialization sequence:

1) Enable hardware mask usage (i.e. lock all hardware masked units for enabling).
2) Try to enable all available units (due to programmed hardware mask, only unmasked ones will be enabled).

10-14-2004, 11:12 | posts: n/a

Thanks for the reply and the answers to my questions. You've explained it in a manner that makes perfect sense to me. I guess I can stop fiddling with bios's now

.

Cheers Unwinder

10-17-2004, 05:22 | posts: n/a

Yes. It is technically possible to rip hardware mask initialization from VGA BIOS initialization script. If you need it - I'll add such script t new version of RivaTuner. <<<<<< id apreciate this for a radeon 9800se to enable 4 extra pipes

Unwinder · 10-18-2004, 08:02 | posts: 10,312 | Location: Taganrog, Russia

Quote:

Originally posted by {HLH}
Yes. It is technically possible to rip hardware mask initialization from VGA BIOS initialization script. If you need it - I'll add such script t new version of RivaTuner. <<<<<< id apreciate this for a radeon 9800se to enable 4 extra pipes

{HLH} what was the point of posting that? Was I talkking about R350 GPU series? Are R350 and NV40 GPUs absolutely equal?
Opposing to NV40 series, R300/R350's pipeline config is set by _driver_ after loading OS using PCI DeviceID as pipeline count selection factor. It is impossible to change R9800SE's PCI DeviceId to R9800(Pro)'s one in VGA BIOS without changing strapping resistor located at GPU package. So forget about it.

volkov956 · 10-19-2004, 02:11 | posts: 5,870 | Location: Soon to be Disclosed

I would much appreciate it as well the rip hardware mask so installing new drivers will not require one to reopen the masked ones over and over

I have two leadtek 6800nu I am going to unlock the pipes on when I get home this saturday

10-19-2004, 05:59 | posts: n/a

unwinder theres no use for all that man.i didnt kno that.u didnt have to get all pissy with me.all u had to say was Opposing to NV40 series, R300/R350's pipeline config is set by _driver_ after loading OS using PCI DeviceID as pipeline count selection factor. It is impossible to change R9800SE's PCI DeviceId to R9800(Pro)'s one in VGA BIOS without changing strapping resistor located at GPU package. So forget about it. **** it tho the hell with it. i ll just leave u an rivatuner allone because u are very rude.no hard feelings doe

Unwinder · 10-19-2004, 08:27 | posts: 10,312 | Location: Taganrog, Russia

Quote:

Originally posted by volkov956
I would much appreciate it as well the rip hardware mask so installing new drivers will not require one to reopen the masked ones over and over

Probably you don't understand something, you _don_t_ have to reopen masked pipes after installing new drivers. Once you install the NVStrap and configure pipeline config, it is latched by hardware and stored till NVStrap uninstallation/reconfiguration. Forceware driver installation/reinstallation doesn't affect it.

Unwinder · 10-19-2004, 08:29 | posts: 10,312 | Location: Taganrog, Russia

Quote:

Originally posted by {HLH}
unwinder theres no use for all that man.i didnt kno that.u didnt have to get all pissy with me.all u had to say was Opposing to NV40 series, R300/R350's pipeline config is set by _driver_ after loading OS using PCI DeviceID as pipeline count selection factor. It is impossible to change R9800SE's PCI DeviceId to R9800(Pro)'s one in VGA BIOS without changing strapping resistor located at GPU package. So forget about it. **** it tho the hell with it. i ll just leave u an rivatuner allone because u are very rude.no hard feelings doe

{HLH} rude are the ppl whose postings are automatically replaced with "*" symbols by the forum's automatic censor. Bye, nobody will miss you here.

volkov956 · 10-19-2004, 21:03 | posts: 5,870 | Location: Soon to be Disclosed

Quote:

Originally posted by Unwinder
Probably you don't understand something, you _don_t_ have to reopen masked pipes after installing new drivers. Once you install the NVStrap and configure pipeline config, it is latched by hardware and stored till NVStrap uninstallation/reconfiguration. Forceware driver installation/reinstallation doesn't affect it.

but say reinstalling an OS or formatting a system will require the Pipes to be reopened

Unwinder · 10-20-2004, 08:47 | posts: 10,312 | Location: Taganrog, Russia

Sure it will. But do you perform the actions mentioned above dayly?

volkov956 · 10-20-2004, 19:34 | posts: 5,870 | Location: Soon to be Disclosed

lol no but preferably if the 2 6800NU I have unlock properlly in Soft Mode then I would like to hard unlock them so I don;'t have to worry about it much.

StealthBomber · 10-23-2004, 16:47 | posts: 109

Unwinder this would be a great addition to Rivatuner, I don't think there is any utilities that are currently available that allows users to modify their 6800LE/NU/GT/U cards bios to enable the harware masked pipelines.

volkov956 · *Last edited by volkov956; 10-24-2004 at 09:10.*

Leadtek A400 Card 1 Unlocked and Successful
Leadtek A400 Card 2 Installing into Computer and will post results

I hate 3dmark but just used it for quick test to see for graphical gblitches and etc. Both cards are in 2 different systems cause I testing them in the ones they go in

Leadtek Card 1
3dmark 2003
Test 1 8548
Test 2 9855

Leadtek Card 1
3dmark 2003
Test 1 8848
Test 2 9746

Full Success no Graphical Issues on either card when all Pixel and Vertex shaders are unlocked

. Thanks Unwinder

10-28-2004, 14:37 | posts: n/a

Has somebody tried flashing 6800nu with Asus 6800GT 128mb Bios? You can find the bios here: http://www.*******.net/index.php?opt...r&filecatid=61

It got 16 pipes running on 128mb ddr1 ram. Review: http://wwwstud.fh-zwickau.de/~stki/R...tml/asusGT.htm
&
http://www.benchmark.pl/artykuly/rec...us_9999GT.html

StealthBomber · 10-28-2004, 15:48 | posts: 109

Unwinder doesn't recommend flashing bioses from different cards to your own, especially from different manufacturers even if it did initially appear to work...

Best to wait for Unwinder to release some kind of script that allows us to modify our own bioses to enable the pipelines...

11-15-2004, 01:27 | posts: n/a

We'd also like to see working VGPU adjustment and mem latencies in the bios editor (6800GT and Ultra has different mem latencies) and all that you can think of

.

StealthBomber · 11-15-2004, 03:17 | posts: 109

GPU voltage modding works with the NiBiTor utility and the mem latencies is also up to the maker of that utility to add support for it.

I'm waiting to see if it's possible for Unwinder to come up with some script in Rivatuner that exports the specific user chosen pipelines/VP (that are fully working) to some kind of data file, ready to be imported to a bios editor like NiBiTor ready for modding the cards bios with the correct data extracted from Rivatuner...

@mt@ · 11-15-2004, 13:08 | posts: 23 | Location: Atlantis

There is no way to unluck your units by flashing or reflashing or to re-reflashing your eeprom with different kind of bios images from g.adapters that have no units masked on "lucky" adapters that have them...
Why? Well...it has sayd more than one time...the masked units configuration is given by hardware and not by bios...so it means that bios code simply reads such value.
There are two other ways other than the NVStrap hacked driver that can reveal all the nv40 chip potential and they are:
. Change the hardware masked units configuration by "correcting"

the "three resistence" scheme.
. Hack the bios init scripts.
The second one is a bit more difficult

The 4 p.u. and 6 v.u. scheme is given by:

v0--v1 v2--v3
v4 v5 v6--v7
v8 v9 vA vB

"--" = connected

StealthBomber · 11-15-2004, 13:49 | posts: 109

Quote:

Originally posted by @mt@
There are two other ways other than the NVStrap hacked driver that can reveal all the nv40 chip potential and they are:
. Change the hardware masked units configuration by "correcting" the "three resistence" scheme.
. Hack the bios init scripts.
The second one is a bit more difficult

The 4 p.u. and 6 v.u. scheme is given by:

v0--v1 v2--v3
v4 v5 v6--v7
v8 v9 vA vB

"--" = connected

The second one has been performed successfully by a friend of mines but the need to solder those super small resistors have put me off doing it.

Hacking the bios to ignore the hardware bridge config is what I was talking about if you read carefully, if it can be done...

@mt@ · 11-15-2004, 13:58 | posts: 23 | Location: Atlantis

Ops!...maybe I did not read carefully...
However hacking bios init scripts has no sense if the one and only o.s. used is MS windows...
The NVStrap hacked driver solution is a piece of cake

...using the same nvidia "instruments" to kick-ass their masked units architecture is nice

StealthBomber · 11-15-2004, 14:05 | posts: 109

Yeah I know but I'd rather use Rivatuner to identify the working pipelines and VP (all of them working in my case) and then mod the bios to enable all the pipelines by default and use Rivatuner to overclock/throttle the memory and GPU up/down...

11-15-2004, 15:47 | posts: n/a

Quote:

Originally posted by StealthBomber
GPU voltage modding works with the NiBiTor utility and the mem latencies is also up to the maker of that utility to add support for it.

VGPU setting works only for 6800GT/Ultra, not 6800NU or UE.

StealthBomber · 11-15-2004, 17:07 | posts: 109

Thats strange as it worked with my 6800LE now running @1.5v.

11-15-2004, 21:15 | posts: n/a

You can adjust the voltages with it but it doesn't read voltages right from many original BIOS files, so the method is not the same that manufacturers use.