6800NU 16 pipes WORKING

G

GeniusInABottle

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 5, 2004
Messages
150
Like everyone else with a 6800nu, after the results from RivaTuner came out I was a bit disappointed at the exceedingly low success rates of the 16 pipe mod. On top of that, Unwinder went on to say that he was 99.9% sure that no amout of BIOS flashing would fix the cards that were unmoddable, and I took his word as law.

Well, earlier this morning I stumble across this post over at guru3d:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=107639

Reading through it, I was obviously very skeptical, but decided to go ahead and give it a shot. I downloaded the BIOS referanced in his post, flashed, and reinstalled the drivers. Fired up RivaTuner, fully expecting to be disappointed and it reported..

16x1, 5vp

Oh dear..

Still not believing my luck, I went ahead and ran the 3dMark03 Multi-Texture Fill Rate test.

Score Before Flash: 4112.1
Score After Flash: 5418.6

Again, to my surprise everything checked out. I now have 16 fully functional pipes on my ASUS V9999 GE 6800NU, and couldn't be happier.

Since I'm guessing I'll be getting a barrage of questions, heres the exact process I went through:

1. Read through the previously linked thread.
2. Downloaded the BIOS referanced in the thread. (GeForce 6800 Ultra 5.40.02.03.00 from www.NVPlanet.com)
3. Edited the BIOS (using OmniExtremeEditFX) to my stock V9999 clocks of 350mhz core / 500mhz memory, just in case.
4. Opened up a command line window. Yes, I flashed from windows.
5. Used NVFlash442 to flash the BIOS. (nvflash442 -p -u -2 biosname.rom)
6. Rebooted and reinstalled the videocard drivers (66.32, if it means anything)
7. Rebooted again, ran RivaTuner to check on pipe status. (report: 16x1, 5vp)
8. Ran the 3DMark03 Multi-Texture Fill Rate test. (showed an increased of greater than 1000 points, with absolutely no overclock)
9. Posted this post.

**UPDATE** It gets better, I just went into RivaTuner and gave unlocking my 6th Vertex Unit a shot and was successful. Apparently this BIOS lets everything physically on the chip work. I now have a fully functional 16x1,6vp NV40.
 
I haven't read that post yet, but:

Is it possible to flash back to the previous BIOS just incase if your card cannot run 16 pipes?

I read somewhere that someone tried the flash and it just caused a lot of artifacts and when he flashed back they were still there.
 
WeatherB said:
I haven't read that post yet, but:

Is it possible to flash back to the previous BIOS just incase if your card cannot run 16 pipes?

I read somewhere that someone tried the flash and it just caused a lot of artifacts and when he flashed back they were still there.
Click to expand...

its possible to flash it back....but there are no guarentees....you could fry your card doing it.....theres a reason the 4 pipes are disabled :D .....
 
I can see how the v9999GE can have a higher chance of a successful flash as its basically a 6800gt minus the 4 pipes. I have a v9999ge myself and would love to try the flash, however, for how much I paid for it, I need to know it has a high success rate amung other owners of the card.
 
It all boils down to you pay for what you get. I used to have a x800 pro and unlocked the extra 4 pipes on it and at first all seemed well but give after doing more then benchmarking the problems arose games crash texture corruptions etc. There is a reason Nvidia and Ati sell the lower end parts as lower end. If it passed thier lab testing im sure they would rather get 100 bucks out of the core. Wish you well with your mod but I wouldnt encourage anyone to do this.
 
your card will work because it basically IS a 6800GT/ULTRA, 256Mb DDR3, 2 molex's ETC. us lowly users have 128MB of memory and its DDR1, aside from that were ont he 6800NU PCB, so we're out of luck :)
 
Did some IQ / stress testing:

Doom 3: Absolutely no artifacts
**Source Engine Video Stress Test: Extremely minimal artifacts (texture flickering in remote cases)
**FarCry: Absolutely no artifacts
UT2K4: Absolutely no artifacts
Halo: Minor artifacs
**Quake 3: Absolutely no artifacts
Nalu: Absolutely no artifacts
Timbury: Major artifacts
3DMark2K1SE: Extremely minimal artifacts (texture flickering in remote cases)
3DMark2K3: Absolutely no artifacts
**RTHDRIBL: Minor artifacts

**ADDED
 
I'm waiting for more single player levels and a coop mod that works :) At least it was fun the first time around.
 
Must be nice I've all but given up playing anything online, my "high speed" internet sucks so bad that I ping servers in Dallas upwards of 200.
 
Doom not only has zero replay value it has zero play value. Good seeing ID keeping up with thier tradition of suck games. However once other developers use thier engine we got pure gold.. Cant wait to see what Doom3 can do with other developers hopefully its not a game of pure darkness like doom.
 
Chickenmon said:
Doom not only has zero replay value it has zero play value. Good seeing ID keeping up with thier tradition of suck games. However once other developers use thier engine we got pure gold.. Cant wait to see what Doom3 can do with other developers hopefully its not a game of pure darkness like doom.
Click to expand...

ID has ALWAYS made great games...ive yet to play a game of theres that i didnt like...doom3 DOESNT have much of a replay value...true but niether does 90% of the games out there....and darkness is what they were goin for.....darkness=freaky....and if your gonna say quake 4 (which uses the doom3 engine) sucks too then sell your computer and buy a self help tape because your too stupid to realize what cool is.....that and if you think quake 4 wont have alot of shadows then your just plain ignorant(albeit itll have less than doom3)

now back on subject....be careful with your fully unlocked card......theres a reason those were disabled, and your card could start to break down, artifact, fry in a short while.....thats what some of the people that flashed there x800pro vivo to a x800xt are seeing....
 
i guess u didnt see two posts here.. anyway have u tried diff bios file? try diff ultra bios and also try gt bios. u might be able to get it working 100% artefact free with right bios. in ur case i would start with asus 6800 ultra bios.
 
Chaballaman said:
i guess u didnt see two posts here.. anyway have u tried diff bios file? try diff ultra bios and also try gt bios. u might be able to get it working 100% artefact free with right bios. in ur case i would start with asus 6800 ultra bios.
Click to expand...

Yes, I've tried many, many, many BIOS files and this is the only one that works. Flashing back to my original BIOS (or any other BIOS, be it NU, GT, or Ultra) returns me back to 12 pixel pipes, 5 vertex shaders.

Since posting I've made tons of modifcations to the BIOS in hopes or removing artifacts, from slowing down the core speed to the memory speed, along with over and under-volting and still the artifacts persist so it may very well be that there is something physically wrong in the disabled pipes. It might also be that the memory timings for this BIOS are too tight for the 2.0ns GDDR3 that comes with this card, as I remember reading awhile back that many Ultras were having problems and a new BIOS needed to be released (with lax memory timings). But, as I said, flashing to any other BIOS than this specific one results in my pipes reverting to their original form.

I'll keep you guys posted.
 
Update from Unwinder:

Confirmed.
We just reproduced it on Digit-Lifes lab on ASUS V9999 GE. BIOS really doesn't contian software masks, so 'bad' pixel / vertex units are defined by hardware. But it seems like there is a possibility of forcing the GPU to ignore hardware strapped mask and activate all units, even masked as bad. Now is is not pretty clean if it is specific to 6800U PCB used on ASUS V9999GE, because it was impossible to reproduce the same effect of different 6800s before. Investigation is in progress, stay tuned.
 
Chickenmon said:
Doom not only has zero replay value it has zero play value. Good seeing ID keeping up with thier tradition of suck games. However once other developers use thier engine we got pure gold.. Cant wait to see what Doom3 can do with other developers hopefully its not a game of pure darkness like doom.
Click to expand...
Are you 12 years old? Do you know anything of id's history?
 
obs said:
Are you 12 years old? Do you know anything of id's history?
Click to expand...

he must be
ID has been kick ass since the day of COMMANDER KEEN........w00t w00t
eheheh

but yes anything that comes out of ID is revolutionary. and hardware manufactures always get a huge bump from ID..
 
Well...I think I'll just keep my 12 working pipes over 16 potentially broken ones ;)
 
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