o/c my lame 9600pro

[Giraffe]

HI
i probly wont but im thinkin of oc 'in my 256MB 9600pro
it is the geXcube brand if that helps

wat is the best program for this and wat speeds could i reach with it being completely stable.
I have the stock cooler but i dont know how hot it runs coz it doesnt tell me.
is there any risks of f*kin up the card by oc a little.

i know it wont make much difference but until i upgrade i want as good as possible from it.

BTW - I hav never oc anythin and dont know much about it

 

[chuckshissle]

Try Riva Tuner, it's the same one I used for my X800.

 

[randomizer]

1) Use ATITool (can find your maximum overclock automatically) or Rivatuner for overclocking. AtiTool is good because it detects artifacts caused by overclocking that are so small that you wont even notice them, but are a sign that you are reaching the safe limits or are getting too hot.

2) No one can tell you what speeds you will reach it depends solely on your individual card. You may not be able to increase its speed by anything at all and then again you may have a monster overclocker .

3) It depends on how much you mean by a little, but generally no, overclocking will only do damage if you go crazy or if you push too far and leave it like that. It could also be damaged by excess heat which comes with overclocking but its unlikely that it will because your going to know that its overheating long before it cooks. Also are you using stock cooling or did you install an aftermarket cooler (which I wouldnt bother doing if you havent just save your money for a new card)?

4) Just upgrade, seriously. You can buy cheap cards now that will kill yours. What are you looking for when it comes to an upgrade? Like do you want a mid-range or high-end card? Also what is your budget?

 

[Giraffe]

i have the stock cooler

i am only 15 and dont have a job so i cant really afford 2 upgrade much.

i am probly gonna upgrade at the start of next year so i gotta wait til then.

i wanna upgrade the mb/cpu/gpu and probly ram so if i upgrade 1 i gotta upgrade the lot pretty much.
if i just get a good agp card now that leads me with nomore worthy upgrades and no money

 

[Giraffe]

ok i downloaded ati tool 0.24

if i do the test 4 seeing max possible gpu/memory speeds
1) does it keep goin until the card is unstable
2) can it be bad 4 the card doin this test

also do u think that the 9600pro would get very hot?

 

[dccool879]

get ati tool trays, it can put your cards temperature in the task bar. it will also auto overclock like atitool, but both are fine. it keeps going until artifacts, or of coarse you're card goes unstable. and it is safe as long as temps are good, but it also voids your warrenty.

btw your pc is very nice right now, it can handle most things you want to right now can't it? it might not be a benchmark champ but it'll play bf2, css, wow, etc on decent settings. i'm not saying to not upgrade, just saying sweet system and it ain't too shabby right now for a broke person

 

[Giraffe]

Well i cant check temperatures coz the card doesnt support it.

My card is out of warranty anywayz

i am happy with my pc. it is good enough 4 now. i can run all the games i want to on at least medium quality @ 1024x768 except fear and blood money. most games i can even run on max settings anyway.
Luckily I dont like Oblivion

And just 4 the record im not "BROKE" im "POOR"

 

[Giraffe]

stock speeds
clock - 400mhz
ram - 200mhz ddr(400 effective)

usin ATItool i got up to 435mhz clock until i got errors
i got the memory up to 225mhz be4 i got errors

currently it is set at 430/220. is this not good coz its 2 close to the error speeds? should i set it lower?
i will only raise it wen i play certain games not otherwise.

the fps in the test thing on atitool went from 56-57fps to 62fps so about 10% increase in performance which im happy with.

how much hotter do u think it will run with the extra mhz?

 

[randomizer]

Its unlikely that its much hotter since that card is not being overclocked by much, but its enuf to cause artifacts at a relatively low overclock. As long as no artfacts are being detected its almost impossible to be doing any real damage. However, any amount of overclocking shortens the life of the component, the more you overclock, the more it shortens. But dont let that worry you coz with the amount you overclocked it will do almost nothing. Buying an aftermarket cooler helps your overclock but dont bother with it coz its just a waste of money on your card that could be spent elsewhere.

One other thing, the performance increase shown in atitool is not directly comparable to real world performance increases since its heavily taxing mostly the video card (use the task manager and you can see that your cpu usage is probably 100% as well). In a real game, its probably not that heavily taxed except in games like FEAR, which is a killer for your card. Therefore you may not see the same differences in games as you did in atitool, as the game may also be limited by your cpu, meaning that the OC may make much less difference in that game. You should some kind of noticeable difference in FEAR at the same graphic levels if your FPS is already low. Post your system specs if you can.

PS: I know what its like when it comes to having little money. Im still in my teens and I cant find a job

 

[Giraffe]

My system specs r in my signature

the cpu is 2 good 4 the GPU so no problems there - athlon64-3000+

I used the fear and cs:s built in fps tests..
in fear i got from 26average up to 29average. about 11% more.
in source i got about 8% increase. cant remember the numbers though.

also an average cpu life is about 10-15years right? wat is an average 4 a GPU?

My o/c shouldnt shorten the life 2 much coz i leave it as default speeds unless i play a demanding game(a couple times a week)

 

[randomizer]

Oops didnt even look at your sig .
It really doesnt matter if you leave it OC all the time unless heat is actually a problem. To shorten the life for any significant amount of time you really need to push it, as well as do a few volt mods to go further still. Dont even take its lifespan into account since your meager OC makes virtually no difference, your lucky (well not exactly) if you lose a few weeks (if that). I have my old athlon thunderbird 800mhz in another computer OC to 978mhz constantly with no voltage increase and a makeshift fan mod.

Yea your cpu is hardly going to be a bottleneck in that system. I have that same cpu with a 9800 pro. I get around 35-40fps average, up to 85 with vsync on but only when I look at a wall or something. A CPU upgrade will also have a significant upgrade on FEAR performance, but first you definitely need a new card. Btw do you find it hard to play at 25-30fps and what graphics do you play at (just curious)?

 

[Giraffe]

i can play most games above 25-30fps(some games i cant test but the some i can)(or by guessing)

There are only 2 games it really strugles with, F.E.A.R and HitmanBloodMoney.
I play fear with custum settings(similar 2 medium)(800x640)
I play bloodmoney on low(800x640)

luckily i dont like oblivion much

most of the other games i play:
HL2E1, CS:S, Prey, UT2k4, NFSMW, BF2, AmericanWasteland, Quake3(yes i still play q3a) and a couple more i run with max settings(except AAandAF in most cases) and 1024x768 resolution
they run perfectly with no lag.

 

[randomizer]

Even battlefield 2? Nice, wouldnt expect that thats for sure.

 

[fainis]

that..gecube9600pro..its a good card .......i think that one cames from 9550u.....400/400

one of the best third party tool fo oc-ing is ati tool but you can also use rivatuner......

good luck

 

[Giraffe]

yeah BF2 works fine
wen i had 512ram it lagged badly
sinse upgrading to 1GB, aslong as i have at least 750MB free it runs fine.

however i am not looking forward to trying to run 2142, crysis or UT2007

 

[aj6065]

i am only 15 and dont have a job so i cant really afford 2 upgrade much.

i am probly gonna upgrade at the start of next year so i gotta wait til then.

i wanna upgrade the mb/cpu/gpu and probly ram so if i upgrade 1 i gotta upgrade the lot pretty much.
if i just get a good agp card now that leads me with nomore worthy upgrades and no money

I feel your pain. I'm in the same exact situation as you. My PC is even the same as yours, except I went WAY over my budget and got a 9800Pro when I was building, and it's a good thing I did.

 

[aj6065]

I used ATI Tool when I was messing around with overclocking my card. I never noticed any real improvement, especially in benchmarks , but then again I'm not the most experienced with overclocking. Is it better to overclock the core or memory on video cards? Plus my card gets hot pretty easily, so I just went back to stock.

 

[randomizer]

I used ATI Tool when I was messing around with overclocking my card. I never noticed any real improvement, especially in benchmarks , but then again I'm not the most experienced with overclocking. Is it better to overclock the core or memory on video cards? Plus my card gets hot pretty easily, so I just went back to stock.

I have a 9800 pro and yea it gets HOT. Had to buy an aftermarket cooler (zalman vf700cu) because I had artifacts everywhere on stock speeds and had to underclock it. Overclocking the core will make the most difference but eventually it will be bottlenecked by the memory because it is starved of information. So you really need to overclock both, but as I said from my experience the core will make th most difference.

however i am not looking forward to trying to run 2142

2142 uses the same graphics engine as bf2 so if you can play it now you should be able to play 2142, unless they change the cpu and ram requirements.