some questions about flashing 8500->9100

[10GHZ]

A few important questions about flashing my Hightech(HIS) Radeon 8500 64mb Retail 4ns memory to a radeon 9100.i'll make my questions short and sweet, any help will be greatly appriciated.

1. Can i (or does anyone has already) flashed a Hightech Radeon 8500 64mb Retail 4ns memory to a 9100?

2. Which flash tool do i use, i have downloaded RadEdit, is that the best tool to use?

3. Do i have to change to the 9100 bios before i flash it to my card?

4. Which Radeon 9100 bios do i use? can i use BBA 9100 bios or do i have to get Hightech Bios??

5. incase i screw up. what do i do??

and lastly, if its not much trouble, could some one postl the links to all the things i needed for this mod. thanx in advance.

 

[bdaley]

Hmmm, I have the exact same Radeon as you. This is the first I've heard of this. Where did you hear about it? What kind of performance boost can you supposedly get?

"I'm a man armed with a fork in a land of soup."

 

[Nights_L]

You don't get any performance boost by flashing R8500 to R9100, since R9100 is same as R8500
btw, you get new feature of R9100 in the R8500 if you flash it

 

[Spitfire_x86]

What's the benefit of flashing 8500 to 9100?

Submit your opinion <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=28537#28537" target="_new"> Should Tom Fire Omid? </A>

 

[10GHZ]

i've flashed my card last night, using ATIflash and the BBA 9100 bios,not a problem, but no performance gain at all. i still got the same 3DM score. so i went back to my old bios.
i heard that if once the 8500 is flashed with 9100 bios, it'll get "FullStream" function from the 9100... but how can you tell ??

 

[phsstpok]

FullStream? Isn't that for streaming video?

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[10GHZ]

i'm not sure... think it suppose to improve image quality in movie playback or something

 

[cheekybeast]

iirc, you need a "special" edition of realplayer to use fullstream

 

[GeneticWeapon]

People with Saphire and Power Color brand cards have been doing this mod because their cards come slower then the built by ATI cards of the same name, and always have slower, more generic memory. By using rade-edit, they can take a 9100 bios, re-adjust the clock speeds to their liking, and wreak the performance gain of having faster memory timings that the new bios will give them...A proper 9100 bios can do that. It usually takes more than a couple of tries to find that perfect bin file that gives them stability, with an improvement over what they had to begin with. All that crap about fullstream isnt worth flashing over...never install Real Player because it will turn your PC into a pop-up banner hell...the only game I know of that implemented Fullstream is Serious Sam, and it wasnt worth the performance hit to me when I turned it on. If your are going to flash your bios, be smart....use bios dump to backup your old bios and save it, if you dont, you are completely stupid...also, be weary of who you get your 'Bin' files from, the most trustworthy ones can be found HERE...<A HREF="http://www.omegacorner.com/main.htm" target="_new">http://www.omegacorner.com/main.htm</A>....remember that the greatest improvement to the performance of your card will be the faster memory timings gained from the new bios....please do not flash any Built By ATI cards because they dont need it, and it would be Sacreligious...

Pic's of me and my PC...<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/html/Genetic_Weapon.html" target="_new">http://www.lochel.com/THGC/html/Genetic_Weapon.html</A>

 

[10GHZ]

i seeeee

 

[GeneticWeapon]

And....flashing to the 9100 bios will cause 3D Mark 2001SE to no longer recognize your video card. At the end of the bench it will list your card as "Generic VGA"......heh

Pic's of me and my PC...<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/html/Genetic_Weapon.html" target="_new">http://www.lochel.com/THGC/html/Genetic_Weapon.html</A>

 

[jaythaman]

hey geneticweapon i just wanted to ask that does that case fan below you graphics card do any good i was thinkin of adding one to mine coz my card has only a heatsink thanx

My computer NEVER cras...DOH!.

 

[GeneticWeapon]

It actually didnt, what really worked for me was running a 120mm Delta in the front and the two 80mm's in the rear, it's a great wind tunnel now but I have to turn it off to sleep.

Pic's of me and my PC...<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/html/Genetic_Weapon.html" target="_new">http://www.lochel.com/THGC/html/Genetic_Weapon.html</A>

 

[GeneticWeapon]

Heh...I just saw 10ghz's threads over at the Rage3D forums....it's kewl when you see your THG friends pimpin' it in other forums....lol

Pic's of me and my PC...<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/html/Genetic_Weapon.html" target="_new">http://www.lochel.com/THGC/html/Genetic_Weapon.html</A>

 

[10GHZ]

ahhahahah ye.... just trying to seek advice from the experts .. ^^

 

[10GHZ]

and to bdaley. i have flashed my card last night with Gigabyte 9100 bios, and it seems to work even better, i got 150+ 3dm boost just like that, looks like the 9100 bios does comes with more aggresive memory timing.. after i've installed Catalyst 3.2 i've got another 200 points!!!. i think you should flash your card too.
1. download the driver from ATI (CAT 3.2)<A HREF="http://mirror.ati.com/support/driver.html" target="_new">http://mirror.ati.com/support/driver.html</A>

2. head to <A HREF="http://www.giga-byte.com/support/swagp_bios_ati.htm" target="_new">http://www.giga-byte.com/support/swagp_bios_ati.htm</A> and download the 9100 bios (r9100b3_f1.zip)

3. download RadEdit v1.1D(only!!! not the newer version) edit the 9100 bios so that it has the same clock speed as the radeon 8500 (i've actually oced it a little) save it to a floppy(make sure its a good clean floppy)
now go download ATI flash and copy that on to the same floppy where you've put the 9100 bios

4.make a window boot disk

5.download flashrom1.3(for backing up your current bios) <A HREF="http://www.radeon2.ru/bios/util/flashrom1.3.exe" target="_new">http://www.radeon2.ru/bios/util/flashrom1.3.exe</A>
copy this into the same floppy as well

after you've got all the software,besure to uninstall all the videocard driver 1st, then boot to dos with your boot disk and go 2 A:
type in flashrom -s 0 my_bios.rom to back up your current bios on to the floppy. then you can flash your card with the command atiflash -f -p 0 Your9100BiosName.rom
its a zero after the -p btw.

 

[bdaley]

Thanks, I'll have to give it a try.

"I'm a man armed with a fork in a land of soup."

 

[10GHZ]

post back and let us know how it went smooth sailing hopefully.

 

[bdaley]

I decided to chicken-out and not do it. It sounds like the performance boost isn't that much anyway.

"I'm a man armed with a fork in a land of soup."

 

[phial]

i woudlnt bother flashing an 8500. like someone said, they are the same card, only a new name for marketing purposes....



too risky, but hey its your dollar

 

[10GHZ]

heehehehhe... alrite its up to you.