SoftFireGL on HD 3870 / Success, apparently

SoftFireGL on HD 3870 / Success

As I'm unable to reply to the post, http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=251765 , which hosted the patch, I'll post here instead.

Used this in the driver inf:
"ATI FireGL V7701" = ati2mtag_RV630GL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9501

Viewperf maya-02 Report

Viewperf 10.0
fill in config.txt
fill in config.txt

1 11.00 237.00
2 11.00 126.00
3 11.00 106.00
4 11.00 250.00
5 12.00 439.00
6 11.00 309.00
7 11.00 247.00
8 11.00 247.00
9 11.00 569.00
Weighted Geometric Mean = 250.77

Well, I installed Catalyst 8.3 back and Reran the test, I guess there's a "slight" improvement:

Viewperf maya-02 Report

Viewperf 10.0
fill in config.txt
fill in config.txt
Test # Weight () Frames/sec
1 11.00 118.00
2 11.00 41.30
3 11.00 30.60
4 11.00 52.80
5 12.00 60.30
6 11.00 26.20
7 11.00 22.70
8 11.00 22.10
9 11.00 70.90
Weighted Geometric Mean = 42.55

 

cool man

if its possible than its good news for me as i have ordered 3870 next week

 

wow, great news!!

can somebody else confirm that success?

(selection lag and selection bug in Maya are still there, I suppose...)

 

I can't comment on the selection lag or bug as I'm not a maya user. I only quoted the maya specopc benchmarks since that seems to be the most popular option.

The patch capabilities were for AMD FireStream 9170. And RV630GL was chosen because the AMD vendor ID list refers to the HD 3870 as a RV630. I guess I should be naming it after FireStream, the V7700 is something I've seen referred to in the linux fglrx driver under RV690.

GLInfo shows me:
Renderer: ATI FireGL V7701
Version: 2.1.7165 FireGL Release

Also in the Catalyst Control Center it gives me a workstation option:

Enable Quad Buffer Stereo

 

Got around to running the all the benchmarks in 1280x1024. The numbers are no-fsaa, 2x-fsaa, 4x-fsaa, 8x-fsaa.

3dsmax-04:
GeoMean 41.55 41.24 ( 99%) 41.27 ( 99%) 41.28 ( 99%)

catia-02:
GeoMean 39.75 39.00 ( 98%) 39.05 ( 98%) 38.77 ( 98%)

ensight-03:
GeoMean 53.68 46.83 ( 87%) 38.09 ( 71%) 28.24 ( 53%)

maya-02:
GeoMean 251.73 216.63 ( 86%) 202.86 ( 81%) 166.66 ( 66%)

proe-04:
GeoMean 38.03 36.28 ( 95%) 36.25 ( 95%) 36.29 ( 95%)

sw-01:
GeoMean 89.05 88.42 ( 99%) 87.98 ( 99%) 87.58 ( 98%)

tcvis-01:
GeoMean 31.25 30.43 ( 97%) 29.65 ( 95%) 26.50 ( 85%)

ugnx-01:
GeoMean 53.80 50.42 ( 94%) 45.48 ( 85%) 33.21 ( 62%)

Are those FSAA results sane? I guess some tests use a lot less screen area, but 3dsmax-04 definately didn't. The screencaps do show anti-aliasing in action I guess.

 

your results are absolutely correct, and yes you now have a professional graphics card now.

i´m somehow a little bit surprised by the maya02 benchmark... thought it would be around 220-230 without AA.

 

Following taken from: http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/qualcharts/Maya2008_Extension2_win.html

Version: 8.44

#285384
When selecting vertices, it may take several seconds for the view to refresh and Maya may appear to be unresponsive.

Workaround:
Issue is not present with driver 8.391.2.1.1

Status:
Vendor will be shortly be releasing a driver that fixes this issue

 

just wated to ask

hi...i just wated to ask whether the softmodig doesnt depend upon which brand of card u using...i mean i m getting Diamon viper brand of 3870...so it will work on it also..right???

 

thanks Maligor, that's a very interesting page I hadn't visited yet

the issue is definitely on 8.44 and 8.391.2.1.1.1 (note the extra .1), which are the ones that have been modded, and yes, we were all expecting a new release that would solve all that... and a mod to follow

and wow, I can't see how nvidia got qualified even with an issue like "Under testing conditions, these drivers exhibited stability issues (hangs or crashes), however these issues were not encountered as frequently in typical usage scenarios."
makes you feel lucky that you only got some mild selection issues; I'll stop recommending the new quadros until I actually have some hands-on experience with them

in any case, your results are really impressive; I'm just salivating for a passively cooled, 180eur, HD3850 with 1GB of RAM, especially if the selection issues go away
something like this, plus an arctic cooling accelero thingy
http://www.alternate.de/html/produc...1&tn=HARDWARE&l1=Grafik&l2=Karten+PCIe&l3=ATI
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_3850_1_GB

 

softmodding HD3870 to FireGL in Winx64 ?

Does this work in Win64 ? My plan was to get a HD3870 and softmod in Win64 and use Solidworks 08 x64 on it, x32 in Win32 is constantly running low on memory and crashing.

Also, I read from previous posts that you need to flash the secondary card in order to make crossfire to work in FireGL because rivatuner can only change the primary card. My questions and concerns are:

1) Get 2 HD3870 and have them run in crossfire mode in Win32 for games and softmod primary HD3870 to FireGL in Win64 for CAD use, is that possible ?

2) Will I suffer from any decrease in performance or even problem with the 2nd HD 3870 as HD 3870 sitting there doing nothing and just use the softmodded primary ?

Please advise.

 

It's works on my test rig using MSI RX3870 OC edition

SpecViewperf 10:

3dsmax-04 44.50
catia-02 42.77
ensight-03 55.93
maya-02 262.51
proe-04 39.71
sw-01 93.61
tcvis-01 32.59
ugnx-01 55.22

SpecViewperf 7.1.1:

3dsmax-02 65.24
drv-09 289.4
dx-08 358.5
light-06 69.15
proe-02 97.68
ugs-03 142.5

 

I think you might have a bad stick of ram that's causing the crashes. I load big huge assembly in SW 2008 SP01 with over 1200 parts on my old machine with similar specs to yours and it ran flawlessly no crashes.


If your machine spec is the ones located on the side, I think it's time to built a new computer to really squeeze out all the performance of the HD3870. You can't just have a fast graphic card in a 3 year old technology because of the bottlenecks that will hurt the performance.


- Core 2 duo core or quad are cheap now a day + crossfire motherboard
- DDR-2 800 memory
- Atleast 650watt power supply if you want to crossfire
- 2 Fast hard drive for dual booting operating system and programs (one for work and one for play) and big hard drive for data and file swap.

on one hard drive you load your work system where there's 2 physical graphic cards installed maybe you can install both cards as FireGL and crossfire them. Since the driver patched has nothing to do with Rivatuner controlling the drivers. (i will try this out when my second card arrives) You'll have a hell of a Monster CAD machine.

on the second hard drive you can either use Vista(for Direct X10) or use XP (for DirectX9) install the latest Radeon drivers and enable crossfire and you'll have a beast of a gaming machine.

So yah that's my advice to you

 

boogah

Thanks for the advice
I am planning on getting a Q9450 (if they can ever hit the store since they released back in Jan and demand is still >>>>> supply) So, yea that system on the side is getting old to handle big assembly.

I need some expert advice on that matter because I only came across the article once in this forum and now when it's time to upgrade, i cannot find it again. I am ok with just having 1 FireGL card since I am using a true V7100 at work and with over 5000 parts it still good and I can imagine the HD3870 will be alot faster than the V7100 after softmodding it. I just need to make sure building a crossfire system for games and IF in fact on the cad side that i am using the primary FireGL and that the 2nd HD 3870 won't affect performance by just sitting there than i am good enough. If i can softmod both primary and secondary and running crossfire on it then it's even better but not a must.

So anybody with that kind of setup in their computer can put in some light to this matter and I will greatly appreciate it. And whether this can be done in Win64. Thanks

 

So on the same system that i softmodded the HD3870. I did a 3Dmark06 test and it runs everything consistently as Radeon and not fireGL so for sure there is no differences in game performance.

you can always disable one of the card in the device manager and it will just sit there. as for 64bit you will have to wait for someone to make a patch script for the current 8.44 drivers or use the script for the 8.39 64 bit drivers except i don't think that driver support the newer cards such as the 2900xt +

 

So on the same system that i softmodded the HD3870. I did a 3Dmark06 test and it runs everything consistently as Radeon and not fireGL so for sure there is no differences in game performance.

What do you mean by that ? i can't quite figure out what you were saying here.

 

just means you can run both CAD/DCC programs and games with the same drivers with no performance degration no dual boot needed.

 

I've also been following the SoftModding of FireStream for a while.

This is a mod script i came across earlier, courtesy of kkjack @ forum.coolaler.com

This seems to be the full version of the script posted in the Advanced forum thread.

Code:

[Common]
SrcFile	= ati2mtag.sys
BakFile = ati2mtag.old
HlpFile	= newbietechFireGLX2000.rth
MakeCRC = 1
Packed	= 1

        ;common script for 669x+

DstVar0	= force ATI FireGL V8650 capabilities
DstVar1	= force ATI FireGL V8600 capabilities
DstVar2	= force ATI FireGL V7600 capabilities
DstVar3	= force ATI FireGL V5600 capabilities
DstVar4	= force ATI FireGL V3600 capabilities
DstVar5	= force AMD FireStream 9170 capabilities

Src0    = 6A 67 8D 83 E0 01 00 00 50 E8 89 C9 FF FF 85 C0 74 09
SCM0    = FF FF FF 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF
Dst0    = 6A 67 8D 83 E0 01 00 00 50 E8 89 C9 FF FF 85 C0 90 90
DCM0    = 00 00 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 00

Src1    = E8 00 00 FF FF A8 04 75 0B 6A 2E
SCM1    = FF 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF F0 FF FF
Dst1    = E8 00 00 FF FF 24 FB 90 90 6A 2E
DCM1    = 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Src2    = FF 75 08 E8 79 60 00 00 85 C0 74 2E 33 C0 EB 3B
SCM2    = FF FF FF FF 00 00 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
Dst2    = FF 75 08 E8 79 60 00 00 85 C0 74 2E 33 C0 EB 38 
DCM2    = 00 00 00 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Src3	= 85 BE D8 00 00 00 75 2E 68 84 00 00 00
SCM3    = FF 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
Dst3	= 85 BE D8 00 00 00 90 90 68 84 00 00 00
DCM3    = 00 FF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Src4	= 83 F8 2C 74 3D 83 F8 34 75 56 8B 45 F8 66 3B 46 04 74 
Dst4	= 8B 45 F8 66 8B 46 04 89 45 F8 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 EB

Src5    = E8 5F 83 FF FF F6 C4 20 74 08 6A 2E
SCM5    = FF 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
Dst5    = E8 5F 83 FF FF F6 C4 20 90 90 6A 2E
DCM5    = 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Src6	= 85 C0 74 0D FF 75 0C FF 75 08 E8
Dst6	= 85 C0 90 90 FF 75 0C FF 75 08 E8

Src7    = 83 F8 40 75 1D 66 81 BD 00 00 FF FF 02 10 75 00 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 
SCM7    = FF FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 
Dst7_0  = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 0A 94 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90
Dst7_1  = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 0B 94 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90
Dst7_2  = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 0F 94 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90
Dst7_3  = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 8C 95 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90
Dst7_4  = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 8D 95 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90


#mod by YaoZ

This is for XP32 and 8.44 driver. The associated INF fix is:

"AMD FireStream 9170" = ati2mtag_RV630GL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9501
"AMD FireStream 9170" = ati2mtag_RV630GL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9505

Wonder if anyone can provide an X64 version, or a bit of a tutorial on how to create mod scripts, i'll dive in for a bit of DIY effort.

 

A bit of research later:

Because the FireStream DstVar is always outside the Dst range...like for the 2X00s

Src7 = 83 F8 40 75 1D 66 81 BD 00 00 FF FF 02 10 75 00 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF
SCM7 = FF FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
Dst7_0 = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 0A 94 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90
Dst7_1 = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 0B 94 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90
Dst7_2 = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 0F 94 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90
Dst7_3 = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 8C 95 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90
Dst7_4 = 0F B7 85 FE FE FF FF 66 25 00 00 66 0D 8D 95 66 89 85 FE FE FF FF 90

If i'm reading it right, it simply replaces the Src Hex with the Dst hex value in accordance of which DstVar was chosen. I think that since the FireStream DstVar is out side the range and is never called anywhere, it seems that the key of turning a 3870/3850 into a FireStream is in these lines

Src0 = FF 75 08 E8 79 60 00 00 85 C0 74 2E 33 C0 EB 3B
SCM0 = FF FF FF FF 00 00 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
Dst0 = FF 75 08 E8 79 60 00 00 85 C0 74 2E 33 C0 EB 38
DCM0 = 00 00 00 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

I know for a fact that it works under XP32, how do you carry that across to XP64?

 

Nice. I'll have to pick one of these up once the R700 comes out. It'll make for a good gaming card/cad card.

 

No luck so far. The ati2mtag file is a labyrith of hex code. Dont even know where to start looking....