The ATI Radeon To ATI FireGL Mod Guide!

Discussion in 'Reviews & Articles' started by Chai, Jun 18, 2004.

  1. Piomac

    Piomac Newbie

    hi,
    few things:
    1. there is already forsage 5.3 final ready to download from http://www.hardwarelab.ru/forsage.php
    2. forsage 5.3 DOES NOT provide support for softmod radeon->firegl, that's why...
    3. can some1 upload FreeFireGL drivers (vesions 6378 or 6430) to the ARP downloads?

    thanks
     
  2. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Yeah, please, someone with a working copy of the FreeFireGL driver, please PM any one of the mods/admins.

    Our copy was corrupted! :wall:
     
  3. dancingpotato

    dancingpotato Newbie

    Forsage 53 final DOES support radeon to firegl softmod... I used it and it worked perfectly...
     
  4. dancingpotato

    dancingpotato Newbie

    My Radeon 9550 which was read as a (9600/9700) mobility modded to av FireGLT2 (Smart) with the Forsage 5.3 Final with no problem. Make sure to read the instructions provided about the uninstall of the old drivers :wave: .
     
  5. dancingpotato

    dancingpotato Newbie

    Forsage 5.3 Final

    From the read me of the Forsage 5.3 Final:

    4. Support for ALL POSSIBLE SOFTWARE MODIFICATIONS as RADEON>RADEON & FireGL>RADEON; for 9500/9700/9800 and FireGL X1/Z1/X2 series special optimizations are used according to such card's characteristics as amount of video memory and graphics memory bus bandwidth, softmods for unlocking the harware-locked rendering pipelines, overclocking antiprotection for the cards for which overclocking is generally locked, namely RADEON 9000, 9200, 9600, 9700 non-PRO, 9500 PRO. All above stated softmods are based on know-how of Alexey Nikolaychuk aka Unwinder, the author of RivaTuner graphics system tunning/diagnostic universal utility and the patch scripts Soft9x00 & ATI Overclîcking Antiprotection (my greatest RESPECT & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT).
     
  6. Piomac

    Piomac Newbie

    Thats strange, because with my video card (radeon 9800 pro atlantis) I dont get the option which allow me softmod my card to firegl x2. I followed instruction exactly like is says in readme and nothing. I even tried installing driver firegl x2@9800pro and I still couldnt get configuration tab. Any1 has help tips for this problem? It would be nice to try freefiregl drivers.
    thanks
     
  7. DanaG

    DanaG Newbie

  8. Max_87

    Max_87 huehuehue

    Downloaded the file! :thumb:
     
  9. hyper_raider

    hyper_raider shutdown -h now

    OK the file is on the hub you can go get it there. :arp:
    Forsage 5.3 final is up as well, enjoy
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2005
  10. Max_87

    Max_87 huehuehue

    The guide will be updated soon :mrgreen:
     
  11. slykester

    slykester Newbie

    :think:
    Um...no.. the forsage drivers DO NOT MOD TO FIREGL.

    When the readme says radeon>radeon & firegl>radeon it means softmodding to radeon. This means you are softmodding a firegl to a radeon. To clarify, forsage drivers are catalyst drivers (and thus have no firegl features whatsoever) modded to work on firegl cards and allow you to mod (for example) a radeon into another radeon. This can be proven further by the fact that when running viewport benchies using forsage there are no performance improvements at all. When using freefiregl drivers there is a big difference, similar to benchies posted in the guide. The only way (right now) to get a newer firegl softmod is to follow the guide (rivatuner mod the firegl drivers & flash radeon card bios to bypass some pci id checks).

    slykester
    (There are a couple freefiregl updates after 6378, I'll add them here if anyones interested, though it'll be a bigger performance boost to mod your card and use newer modded drivers)
    :beer:
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2005
  12. dancingpotato

    dancingpotato Newbie

    Even though my card is now reading FireGLT2 using the Forsage 5.3 final... it is entirely possible that the performance bounce in SpecView did not take place as I could not open it before the mod so I have no base to compare....but at least I can open and run the SpecView cleanly and effortlessly.
    The big bounce I did get in 3DMark 03 also does go against the posted benchmarks from the article.
    Since the 7422GX is a laptop I would not have tried this mod using the Riva Tuner method... no way to recover from a bad bios flash etc, etc ... :pray:

    From my earlier post:
    Successfully modded a Gateway 7422GX laptop. Very happy with the results... all positives...no negatives.

    Radeon 9550 (9600/9700) mobility to FireGLT2 (Smart).

    3DMark03:
    Before mod: 2382
    After mod: 2705

    SPECviewperf 8.0.1 benchmark:
    Before mod: 3 tests would not open.
    After mod: All tests functionning beautifully..
     
  13. slykester

    slykester Newbie

    :eh: 3Dmark is not relevant to firegl benchmarks, it measures performance specifically in games. How about posting your specviewperf benchmark results. It is impossible for forsage to improve viewport performance, since it is a modded catalyst. I would like to see your numbers because I have yet to see proof that forsage indeed mods to firegl, and in truth your issues with running specvp might have been caused by your previous catalyst. In fact all tests I've performed show that it IS a catalyst and does nothing to mod to firegl (only radeon->radeon & firegl->radeon). I bet you'll see an incredible performance boost if you use the freefiregl drivers or mod using the guide.
     
  14. dancingpotato

    dancingpotato Newbie

    Hiya Sly,

    I know the 3DMark03 is not relevant to the FireGL benchmarks ... but I included it because the Forsage 5.3 Final did give the 7422GX laptop a big bounce. The specs. before the mod (2382) were in line with other marks in the forums for this machine. (For 3Dmark03). So I was quite happy with the 2705. Of course installing a different Catalyst..such as the Omegas might have done the same thing... but I can't be sure obviously... and the Catalysts directly from ATI are not recommended to be used on a laptop... or so says ATI. They have no Catalysts for their mobile cards... ATI Customer Care is unable to offer drivers for notebooks.
    I am sorry I do not have the specs. from SpecVP or the machine as I was setting it up for a friends company... it was a new machine... and I no longer have it in my possession ... but at least it was reading FireGLT2 in settings and Dxdiag... and the Specview was working... which is all I really cared about...
    Even though it is quite tempting I would not do the type of mod found in the guide on a laptop... on a desktop yes... but the FreFireGl may be another story... if it does not involve flashing or using a PCI vid card to recover.
    In a few weeks I will be trying the same mod...Forsage 5.3 Final on a desktop with an ATI 9500 L shaped, I will record the Specview results both before and after and post them in this forum. :wave:
     
  15. dancingpotato

    dancingpotato Newbie

    Yikes! Freefiregl was not compatible with the Gateway 7422GX laptop and they had to use "system restore" in safe mode to roll back to the Forsage 5.3 Final driver... curiosity almost killed the cat... :naughty: So I suppose a fake Firegl is better then no laptop... :dance:
     
  16. apunig

    apunig Newbie

    :shock:
    Hi Sly,
    Can you please post the new freefiregl updates? Is it the 6430 version? I would like to test the performance boost from the old 6378 drivers. Thanks! :dance:
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2005
  17. slykester

    slykester Newbie

    8.6mb of freefiregl updates

    http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3879HBECX4KSA0NRL9JSQ6UPVG

    Here you go, the remaining freefiregl updates downloaded before hardwarelab.ru wiped the files. Please don't link to this site as it has a limited number of downloads. Use the file dates as an indicator, the newest being 03/04. All are updates to 6378. As usual though, for the best performance use the newest drivers with rivatuner and a bios mod. Enjoy.

    :beer:
    slykester
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2005
    1 person likes this.
  18. apunig

    apunig Newbie

    hey sly,
    when updating to the freefiregl6430 drivers... which forsage version did you use? forsage5.3 does not have the necessary files to complete the installation. it seems more complicated than the old 6378 version

    setup cannot find or copy these files:
    ati3d1ag.dll
    ati3d2ag.dll
    HyrdraCPL.exe
    HyrdraDM.exe
    HydraDMH.dll
    HydraHlp.dll
    HydraMD.exe
    HydraENU.chm
    hydraENU.dll
    hydraRUS.dll
    HydraRUS.chm
    MagnifyFX.exe

    can you please post the compatible forsage version? or please help guide me through the correct process if i'm doing it wrong... thanks a lot! :wall:
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2005
  19. hyper_raider

    hyper_raider shutdown -h now

    I've just uploaded the soft fire gl file to the downloads hub sorry for the delay i was tied up with some work the past few days
     
  20. slykester

    slykester Newbie

    Forsage is a catalyst modded to work on firegl cards. In other words it only softmods firegl to radeon & radeon to radeon. Despite what you may read this is a fact proven thus far by several tests I have performed (which I will not get into) and unless someone can post benchies to prove otherwise using forsage to mod to firegl is pointless since all you'll get is the same catalyst that you can download from ati (no point since it does nothing to enable workstation features).

    Ideally you would want to mod newer drivers & use a bios mod to block pci id detection (follow the guide). But if you really want to try freefiregl first what you need to do is clean up your existing install of drivers (using the same basic method outlined in the freefiregl/forsage install readme which is the same for all ati driver mods):

    Uninstall any existing display drivers, reboot, run refresh fix (www.radeon2.ru/refreshfix.html) & choose clean registry from 'program' menu (if you get any notices or errors on loading refresh fix -> click the X in the upper-right corner), reboot, cancel if windows detects display adapter & wants to install driver, remove any display adapters showing in device manager, remove any registry keys starting with 'ati' in hkey_cur_user\software & hkey_loc_mach\software, extract freefiregl 6378 drivers to some folder, update display drivers manually (follow guide & make sure you use the INF that is included with the freefiregl pack), reboot, you should now have a softfiregl using freefiregl & should have the extra firegl tabs under advanced display properties. If not then there might be some newer ati files left behind after driver uninstall (in which case repeat above but remove any files starting with 'ati' in %windir%\system32 after removing display adapters in device manager - If left this out because it may not be needed & can make things a real pain if you try to switch back to a catalyst).

    You can now apply the updates by using the same method & filename/dates as a guide. I'm now using a modded driver and bios rather than freefiregl but the general freefiregl method, if I remember correctly, is 6378, 6378 sp1, 8x00, ffgl3add1, 6430. Of course you may be able to rearrange the order or skip steps, but that's what I recall based on file version/dates. And if during install windows asks for files missing from current pack just use the files from the previous freefiregl pack that has the file.

    Good luck, just make sure you have an actual ati driver available for install if something goes wrong & need to get your resolution back to normal. You should also do some specvp benchies before switching your drivers, if you're using a catalyst like forsage or ati reference there should be a big difference (as shown in guide) after modding to firegl.

    :beer:
    slykester
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2005

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