RivaTuner 2.04 is on the way!

Start reading please!!! There are direct answers for both questions in post #22. The thread is not that long and you need just couple of minutes to read it completely!

 

Yes, I'll send you 2.04 tomorrow in the morning from the office (I'm currently @ home).

All

Guys, I've marked "experienced" word with bold font in my request not just for fun. So don't feel offence please, but I will not send a beta to 0-post or 1-post users contacting me via PM. I need _experienced_ people for testing, not thouse who just wish to play with shader domain clock ASAP. Thanks for understanding.

 

No, it doesn't. I don't have any G8x based samples for testing besides 8800GTX, so I don't even know if new separate shader domain clock control algorithm applies to G80 only or to whole G8x family. But any G84 owner can easily verify it using 2.03 and adjusting clocks with it (under Vista!!!). If shader clock doesn't change as before - it is available for this family too.

 

Guys, I’d like to share with you some more important G80 overclocking related specifics introduced in 163.67:

1) The driver’s clock programming routine is optimized and it causes unwanted effects when you’re trying to change shader domain clock only. Currently the driver uses just ROP domain clock only to see if clock generator programming have to be performed or not. For example, if your 8800GTX ROP clock is set to 612MHz and you need to change shader domain clock only (directly or via specifying custom or shader/ROP clock ratio) without changing current ROP clock, the driver will optimize clock frequency programming seeing that ROP clock is not changed and it simply won’t change the clocks, even if requested shader domain clock has been changed. The workaround is pretty simple: when you change shader clock always combine it with ROP clock change (for example, if your 8800GTX ROP clock is set to 612MHz and you’ve changed shader clock, simply reset ROP clock to default 576MHz, apply it, then return it to 612MHz again to get new shader clock applied). I hope that this unwanted optimization will be removed in future ForceWare, and now please just keep it in mind while playing with shader clock programming using RT 2.04 and 163.67.
2) Currently Vista driver puts some limitations on ROP/shader domain clocks ratio you’re allowed to set. Most likely they are hardware clock generator architecture related and hardware simply cannot work (or cannot work stable) when domain clocks are too asynchronous. For example, on my 8800GTX the driver simply refuses to set the clocks with shader/ROP ratio within 1.0 – 2.0 range (default ratio is 1350/575 = 2.34), but it accepts the clocks programmed with ratio within 2.3 – 2.5 range. Considering that the driver no longer changes domain clocks synchronically and all o/c tools (RT 2.03, ATITool, nTuner, PowerStrip) currently change ROP clock only, that results in rather interesting effect: you won’t be able to adjust ROP clock as high as before. Once it gets too far from (or too close to) shader clock and shader/ROP clock ratio is out of range – the driver refuses to set such clock. Many of you already noticed this effect, seeing that the driver simply stops increasing ROP clock after a certain dead point with 163.67.

 

It looks like you will, if you'll clock shader domain as before. But you won't with fixed shader domain clock.

 

Important note for 2.04 beta testers:

In the latest build of 2.04 (2.04 test 7) I've added an ability of setting ShaderClockRatio to -1, which can be used to force RivaTuner to recalculate desired Shader/ROP ratio automatically by dividing default shader clock by default ROP clock.
So if you set ShaderClockRatio = -1 and change ROP clock with RT, it will increase shader clock using you card's BIOS defined ratio (e.g. 1350/576=2.34 on GTX, 1188/513 = 2.32 on GTS etc). If you wish to go further, you may still override the ratio, for example increase shader clock by specifying greater ratio (e.g. ShaderClockRatio = 2.5).

 

What about reading 2.03 release notes? I've added 158.22, 158.27, 160.03, 160.04 and 162.15 databases in 2.02 a few months ago, and 2.03 already added databases for 162.18, 162.22, 162.50, 163.16 and 163.44.
2.04 will add database just for 163.67, which is the only driver published after 2.03 launch.