DH tutorial: How to mod a Radeon 9500 non-Pro to a 9700 non-Pro

Dom · Jul 26, 2003, 05:23 AM

Well folks, we have something very special for you today. Our very own WyreTheWolf (DH admin) has taken time out of his busy schedule to show us all how exactly to mod a Radeon 9500 non-Pro by opening the other 4 pipelines to reach 9700 non-Pro specifications. In this guide he will show you which cards will accept the modifications along with simple 1, 2, 3 steps on how to install the proper drivers you need in order to perform this mod.

"Today I am not reviewing new technology... Today I am going to review a card that is the low man on the totem pole. You may ask why... Well, most people have heard about modifying a Radeon 9500 non pro into a Radeon 9700 non pro by opening the other 4 pipelines that are disabled by default on the 9500. Today not only am I going to show you how to do this... but I am also going to show you the performance increases that you can gain from this.
The easiest way to hack, or unlock a Radeon 9500 non pro is to install the Omega Drivers... I will be using these today to show you what happens to a 9500 np that is unlocked, and overclocked... as these drivers have both the ability to overclock, and to unlock the Radeon 9500 non pro."

Who knows, you may have the card and not even know it!

-How to turn a Radeon9500 non-Pro into a 9700 non-Pro

**MIG-31** · Jul 26, 2003, 05:39 AM

might help a little more if stated what brands are able to be moded to 9700.ie sapphire.

Dom · Jul 26, 2003, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by johnybravo
might help a little more if stated what brands are able to be moded to 9700.ie sapphire.

It goes by the boards PCB.

**MIG-31** · Jul 26, 2003, 06:17 AM

just a thought.the main differnce were the L-shaped memory set out on the pcb i have seen a few others on about.correct

i meant by the makers using which type as you state.

Jamboguy · Jul 26, 2003, 06:48 AM

Can you please give insight to how far you oc'd the card to achieve such high 3dm2k3 marks? I get 4997 with my modded 9500 so I wanna know how you get extra marks

My card is a Connect3d 9500np modded to 9700 with omega, rates at 351/324(648) although I've had it as high as 369/650.

***Veridian3*** · Jul 26, 2003, 06:53 AM

Useful article, thanks Justin.

Stu

Jamboguy · Jul 26, 2003, 07:00 AM

could you post your results with the omega's for the 3.6's too please? Cheers.

(P.S. Rah, another Scotsman on this forum).

Chaos · Jul 26, 2003, 07:17 AM

I have had both types of 9500 cards.....here are some comparissons for ya'll

Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro with Omega 2.4.60 @ 333/304

4243 3DMark03

13719 3DMark01

Sapphire Radeon 9500 Non Pro with Omega 2.4.60 @ 391/310

15079 3DMark01

5467 3DMark03

Sapphire Radeon 9500 Non Pro with Omega 2.4.74 @ 386/311

14707 3DMark01

5456 3DMark03

Jamboguy · Jul 26, 2003, 09:27 AM

Wonder why I can't clock mine as high

I've also had a weird problem with my cpu score. Problem found here:

http://66.224.5.66/board/showthread....eadid=33700718

Any help would be thoroughlly appreciated.

My 3dm2k3 marks are here:

Old

New

Notice the CPU score drops from 293 to 78

Chaos · Jul 26, 2003, 09:53 AM

If I were you I might back off on my memory to around 305 MHz and try to up the core some more...unless you have 3.0ns or faster ram on your card....

Also not sure if the PC133 ram in your system would be a limiting factor or not....

Midnight Blue · Jul 26, 2003, 10:35 AM

nice article Mrwolf, i hope it helps alot of people with their cards.

eyeguy616 · Jul 26, 2003, 11:32 AM

The 9500 can also look like this as mine looks like that and was successfully soft-modded. Only difference is that it has a gold-colored heatsink that's round...

Great article though, Wyre!
~eyeguy616

brc64 · Jul 26, 2003, 12:32 PM

What overclocking possibilities exist for a 9500 Pro? A friend of mine has one of those and I had remembered reading about the whole soft-mod thing, but then I found it was only for non-Pro's. Can anybody tell me how well (and easy) a 9500 Pro overclocks?

- Me

toddsmack2k · Jul 26, 2003, 02:29 PM

Well done Wyre, very useful article!

~~Mac Daddy~~ · Jul 26, 2003, 03:51 PM

Nice article Wolfie I remember when you were working on this.
And Zardon/Wolfie great idea on the flash ... A great way to present a screen to screen tutorial

I asked wolfie on the best card for my current price range/performance.
He suggested a 9500nonpro because it is easily modded to 9700nonpro.

Best bang for the buck ... And now I see why

I would still love a 9800PRO but I also need an upgrade really soon(not just the viddy)

raid517 · Jul 26, 2003, 05:26 PM

Crap... it didn't work for me. I have a Hercules 9500 pro card and I can safely OC it from 277 core and 275 memory to 317 core and 311 memory. Doing this gives me an OC score of 3993 3D marks. In 3D mark 03 this means that at certain point in the test, frame rates can drop as low as 1 to 3 FPS.

I think this is comparable with the OC locked score achieved in the test. However it looks like those extra pipes aren't being unlocked. I dunno, maybe it's because its a Pro card - after all the guide is for non pro cards...

Does anyone know how to unlock a 9500 pro card? Flashing the bios is scary, but if I wait a couple of weeks maybe I can get a replacement card and go for it anyway... Has anyone had any luck with Hercules branded cards?

It would be nice to have a list of branded cards and know what can be donje with them and what utilities can be used for each card.

I'd rather not just go blindly doing things without some understanding of the results that could be achieved.

Q

Ps

Anyhoo... if I were to flash my bios, which version would you fellas recommend? Given that this is possibly one of the most the most ATI centric sites on the web, it seems like a good place to ask...

~~WyreTheWolf~~ · Jul 27, 2003, 05:43 AM

There is no way to unlock the 9500 Pro.... sorry. And to answer back the guy that could barely overclock at all... sounds like you have a locked BIOS... I would not suggest that anyone mess with BIOS at all.

Y2K3 · Jul 27, 2003, 01:33 PM

i've just got a sapphire radeon 9700 pro last week...and was wondering is there anyway to softmodding it to a 9800 if possible???

the latest omega drivers have an option of installing softmod software for this..but the installation fails right at the end ..!!!!

roflmao · Jul 27, 2003, 02:15 PM

I know rivatunaz got some drivers for us, but his stuff is a bit cryptic for yerz truly, and besides, I already installed Omegaz 3.6 mod/win98 drivers.

brc64 · Jul 27, 2003, 02:30 PM

This reminds me of an old joke about "hardwarez"... who would have thought that one day that would become a reality?

- Me

Allex · Jul 27, 2003, 03:01 PM

I want to add something :
In the card specs section i noticed

Quote:

CARD SPECIFICATIONS
• ATi® RADEON® 9500 VPU
• 275 MHz VPU core
• AGP
• 128MB DDR Memory
• 128-bit memory path

But I know that, appart from activating the 4 extra pipelines, the idea was to have a 9500 non PRO with a 256 bit memory interface in order to fully mod it into a 9700 non Pro. By activating the 4 extra pipelines to a 128 bit memory interface Radeon 9500 non PRO one would obtain only a 9500 PRO. Am i right ?

Anyway, i done some testing and here are some differences between a 9500 not modded and the same card modded :

3DMark03

3DMark 2001
http://users.pcnet.ro/alexch/COMPARA...%20Default.htm

raid517 · Jul 27, 2003, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by WyreTheWolf
There is no way to unlock the 9500 Pro.... sorry. And to answer back the guy that could barely overclock at all... sounds like you have a locked BIOS... I would not suggest that anyone mess with BIOS at all.

Aww crap! You mean I would have been better off saving myself some money going for a cheaper alternative, done these mods and got a whole load better performance than I can possibly get from my more expensive 9500 pro card? Man that sucks...

Q

*CATALYST maker* · Jul 28, 2003, 02:27 AM

changing the card default behaviour?

tsk tsk.... could cause problems.

Wyre I wish you let people know in your article that doing such a mod will void the warranty and there is no guarantee that the desired behaviour will result. Just as a warning for the less experienced.

raid517 · Jul 28, 2003, 02:44 AM

Well I think this is more about unlocking the card's full cabability than anything else.

I mean its a bit like buying a Ferrari with a speed limiter on the engine... All your doing is taking the speed limiter off and taking the engine back up to full performance....

Anyway, its not applicable in my case. And I would still rather have a nice fast 9800 than an OC 9500 any day. Unfortunately though until I see prices drop bellow the sub £200 range, I'm kind of stuck with these sorts of choices.

Q

PS

Edit, as it happens OMEGA drivers suck on my system anyway. GTA Vice city is just unplayable. For a while back there, having changed motherboard's and systems something like 3 times over now, I thought I would never see the 'infinite loop' error again. I thought hardware manufacturers had somehow secretly cooperated with each other to fix it. I guess I was wrong. (BTW I've seen this happen with the latest official ATI drivers to, so its not just amn OMEGA issue. Lot's of people are running them without issues).

Aug 7, 2003, 10:28 AM

Is it also possible to mod a 9500PRO into 9700PRO?

Chaos · Aug 7, 2003, 02:44 PM

not that I am aware of.......[SIZE=x-large]BUT[/size] if you install Omega's Hacked Drivers you can get the AA/AF optomizations that are designed for the 9700/9800 cards.....

Aug 11, 2003, 11:04 PM

So my best thing is to buy a R9500 NP and then softmoded into 9700NP, right? And also could anyone tell me which R9500 should I buy as I understand that not all of them will do the MOD