Help With Asus V9980 Ultra

[kmanlcn]

Ive had this card for quite a while, but never realy played with overclocking it. It uses the FX5950 Ultra chipset.

My PC is getting a bit older now, and I tend to play more with overclocking - knowing a new one would not be a hardship

I decided to overclock this card first, push it a bit to see if it improves much. Not interested in seriously OCing it to the point of burning it out, but a bit of a performace improvement would be nice.

After cleaning out the old driver, I updated to latest NV release, 71.89. I then tried NVTweak to display the OCing panel on settings. All was ok.

Benchmarked at the current settings and got 6014 3dmark03.

Hit the manual OC button, but changed nothing. Let at default settings.

Instantly noticed a slow down in windows graphics, and running 3dmark confirmed it was really slow - a score of 500!. Turned manual OC off, rebooted and PC was back to normal.

Tried the latest Asus own driver next, after uninstalling NV forceware. Wouldnt even boot under it - but then I stopped using Asus drivers before as they made the machine constantly blue screen when I bought it.

Uninstall, look at forums... find some info, and install NV 61.77 driver - even used driverclean. 61.77 according to some forums is meant to be the optimal driver for 5950u. Ran 3dmark and got 6044, followed by aquamark score of 42778.

This time I installed rivatuner. Turned on OCing and rebooted. Same slowdown - didnt run either bencharks though, but it seems the second you turn OCing on in software, it throttles the card. temp remains about the normal. Its a relatively new install of windows and as I said, you get this by simply clicking a button on settings to allow you to change clock speeds. not by changing them away from defaults. While its slowed down, 3dmark still reports clock speeds at what they are apparently set at.

Any ideas?

PC is a XP3200 (running at 207/11) with 1 gig corsair 3200 mem on a Asus A7N8X-D board.

Any help would be apreciated.

[jimmor]

If you want to easily overclock your asus 5950u card, then you either need to, use a proprietary ASUS overclocking tool, or, flash your card with any other manufacturers bios.

ASUS bioses are not made in accordance with Nvidia design spec. For some reason only known to asus, they decided to store and initialise Core and Memory parameters in a proprietary way. Which means you cannot use the normal driver coolbits or rivatuner methods of overclocking !

If you decide to flash with another manufacturers 5950u bios, then it may also be an idea to read the 59xxx bios modding guide for ideas on what other improvements are possible.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...95&postcount=1

[kmanlcn]

Fantastic of asus eh?!!!


As I think I stated, the asus drivers / overclocking tool seems to do nothing but blue screen me.


Thanks for your advice.

[Redeemed]

First things, never use any drivers beyond version 56.72 with that card.

Trust me, I'm using a V9980 Ultra myself. Either the ASUS driver or nVidia foreware driver will work- 56.55 and 56.72 offer the best performance. I've tried ALL drivers upwards of those versions with each newer driver only LOWERING performance. So, the lesson is with this card STAY AWAY FROM NEWER DRIVERS. The version I recommend is 56.72, but 56.55 works nearly as well.

Make sure you uninstall the current driver before installing the "replacement" driver. After you successfully install either of the two driver versions I mentioned, then you can either use PowerStrip or Coolbits2.0 for OC'ing. You can use the ASUS provided SmartDoctor- but it doesn't offer much.

Okay, my V9980 Ultra is currently set at 515MHz core/ 980MHz mem. I'm using stock cooling PLUS a cyclone blower to exhuast the hot air out the back of my case. In the mainboard bios (I'm using the ASUS K8V SE Dlx) I have the AGP voltage up to 1.7volts. At my oc the system is unstable with only 1.5volts.

Before you try ANY oc, make sure you have proper ventilation in your case. If not you very well may fry your card. In the temperature section under the Advanced section of your Display Properties, it say the core slow down threshold is 140*C, and that is default. Whether it is true or not I'm not sure. If my card gets towards 60*C then I notice a slowdown in games, so I figure it probably isn't at my OC.

I get around 64003DMark points in 03 with 4xaa/8xaf, vsync enabled, image quality at Ultra High via PowerStip, and a 1024x768x32 resolution. In 3DMark05 (same settings) I'm just shy of 2k 3DMark points. In 2001SE I get just below 18K3DMark 01 points (with the same settings). I'm using an A64 2800 @ 2.16GHz.

Which means you cannot use the normal driver coolbits or rivatuner methods of overclocking !

So far I've had no problem with either the ASUS drivers or nVidia forceware drivers. The only problem with the ASUS drivers is they seem to cause a "minor" conflict with ASUS PcProbe- that is all. I've used both Coolbits and PowerStrip successfully.

[jimmor]

Originally Posted by Redeemed

First things, never use any drivers beyond version 56.72 with that card.



So far I've had no problem with either the ASUS drivers or nVidia forceware drivers. The only problem with the ASUS drivers is they seem to cause a "minor" conflict with ASUS PcProbe- that is all. I've used both Coolbits and PowerStrip successfully.

If you are going to limit yourself to using old drivers, then yes you will likely have less overclocking issues.

But by doing so you may be missing out on at least two important points. The first being that older drivers have bugs and some serious issues with current games, etc. And the 56xx drivers you recommend had many issues with my Aopen 5900nu. One particular problem with the 56.72 driver was that it regularly refused to switch in or out of 2D and 3D modes. Caused stuttering and many other associated problems. And although this particular problem may not have much affect on a ASUS 5950u since it doesn't have a 2D mode, the fact that this type of simple but infuriating problem exists indicates that the driver is buggy and therefore is not to be trusted. No matter how many of the 5xxx drivers I tried, for general use I actually kept going back to 53.03 because, apart from known limitations with newer games, it caused the fewest overall issues with my particular card.

The second, and more important to my mind, point for anybody with a 5900nu, 5900u or 5950u card is that the core and memory parameters in a ASUS bios cant be modified as extensively as all other manufacturers bioses. So regardless of which drivers are used, staying with a ASUS bios limits the potential of the card. For example, using a suitably modified 5950u bios, my Aopen 5900nu 128Mb card running at 530/970 could achieve 8k+ scores with 3dmark03. And this was readily achieved with 66.81, which was another driver I found to work excellent with my 5900 card. But of course it is probably best to remember that ultimate scores in themselves are not usually that important to a cards real world use !

[jimmor]

Originally Posted by Redeemed

First things, never use any drivers beyond version 56.72 with that card.

In 3DMark05 (same settings) I'm just shy of 2k 3DMark points.

Redeemed,

The 56.72 driver is not fully compatible with 3dmark05 testing, so any scores are meaningless !!

[Redeemed]

If you are going to limit yourself to using old drivers, then yes you will likely have less overclocking issues.

But by doing so you may be missing out on at least two important points. The first being that older drivers have bugs and some serious issues with current games, etc. And the 56xx drivers you recommend had many issues with my Aopen 5900nu. One particular problem with the 56.72 driver was that it regularly refused to switch in or out of 2D and 3D modes. Caused stuttering and many other associated problems. And although this particular problem may not have much affect on a ASUS 5950u since it doesn't have a 2D mode, the fact that this type of simple but infuriating problem exists indicates that the driver is buggy and therefore is not to be trusted. No matter how many of the 5xxx drivers I tried, for general use I actually kept going back to 53.03 because, apart from known limitations with newer games, it caused the fewest overall issues with my particular card.

Though definitely a valid point, the drivers I mentioned work flawlessly on my ASUS V9980 Ultra. No other driver offers the real world performance that 56.55 or 56.72 offer- I've tested from the 52.xx series up to the latest- and still the 56.55 and 56.72 offer the best performance in games. I used FRAPS to count FPS. I mostly play first person shooters, so those were the main kind of games I tested with. But those drivers also performed best when playing Battle for middle earth, and a handfull of 3rd person titles.

Over all my testing was more limited to the first person genre, but it allows you to draw the conclusion that the 56.55 and 56.72 do offer the best performance.

Those drivers might be buggy, but they have posed NO problem for me thus far, and I have the same card as the author of this thread has. That is why I recommend them. Point in case, if he used ANY driver above 56.72 he'll LOSE 25% or more in performance. Is that worth it to you? I chose no, and stuck with 56.72. I have had ZERO problems with my card. And it is oc'd to 500 core, 975 mem with the AGP voltage at 1.7. Runs fine and respectably cool with the cyclone blower I added on.

As to those drivers not supporting 3DMark05, ok- so? Thank you for pointing that out, but they offer better performance in 3DMark05 than any newer driver. Well, they do on the ASUS 5950U that is. And they DO offer superior performance to newer drivers in the real gaming world. They also have zero stability problems as well. This is with an ASUS 5950U mind you. Other manufacturer's cards might not handle those drivers as well, but the ASUS card loves 'em.


As to what you mention of the ASUS bios, I take your word. Seeing the oc you mention, I just might ditch the ASUS bios. Thank you for pointing this out, I'm sure it'll help with performance as well.


Being that kmanlcn has the same card as I have, the results of my testing would be the same for him and his card. I've gone through a ton of tests with each driver from the stock 52.16 up to the latest drivers. I ran all the 3DMark series with each driver, Aquamark03, and GLExcess, as well as many games with FRAPs- the end result was that 56.72 and 56.55 offer the best performance for the ASUS v9980Ultra. There are no stability issues with these drivers when ran on an ASUS V9980Ultra. Now my results might be different had I used a 5950U from some other manufacturer, but for the ASUS V9980U kmanlcn would be better off using Forceware or the ASUS driver version 56.72.

[kmanlcn]

Thanks to everyone who has answered. Will be taking it all on board this weekend and seeing where it gets me.

I did try Everquest 2 (game im mainly playing just now) with the older drivers I tried - and had heaps of screen bleeding through so we will see how it goes.

May post more then.

[Redeemed]

If you experience issues while using the ASUS drivers, try switching over to the generic Forceware drivers. Out of both, the Forceware drivers seem to be the most solid. My recommendation still stands with version 56.72, I've had the best luck with it thus far.

Is it possible to flash the bios on my vcard so I'm not so limited in my oc's? Oc'ing is something I'm still new to, and BIOS flashing is something I've tried to avoid but am now seeing I'll need to learn.

If possible, where can I get a non-ASUS VGA bios from? Sorry if this is a rather non-intellectual question.

[quik_2_win]

I agree that the 50-series driver(s) work well for the nV30 series cards in general. That being said, I recall having similar issues with severe 'throttling' when using the 60-series driver on the nV30s, and if I remember, the solution was to install Rivatuner/ check box to allow overclocking of the 'low power 3D mode'/ set the 'low power 3D' core and memory clocks the same as the regular 3D clocks...
I have been using these settings on the 5800Ultra for a while, and the 61.77 driver. I went through all of the trouble because this driver (and above) are needed to run Doom3 as there is a substantial framerate increase over the 50-series driver in relation to that particular game...

[seahawk97]

What about playing Battlefield 2 with the ASUS V9980 Ultra? What are the best settings for my card under that game?

System Specs:
P4 @ 2.80 Ghz (stock)
Windows XP Pro (SP1)
Asus P4P800
5950 Ultra @ Stock Speeds
Creative Soundblaster ZS Platinum Pro
1 GB OCZ Memory
120 GB Western Digital HD w/8MB Cache

Getting Comcast Highspeed Internet Soon so I can upgrade my PC OS soon

Bums me out that the 7800GTX is PCIe only

Thanks

[Redeemed]

I agree that the 50-series driver(s) work well for the nV30 series cards in general. That being said, I recall having similar issues with severe 'throttling' when using the 60-series driver on the nV30s, and if I remember, the solution was to install Rivatuner/ check box to allow overclocking of the 'low power 3D mode'/ set the 'low power 3D' core and memory clocks the same as the regular 3D clocks...
I have been using these settings on the 5800Ultra for a while, and the 61.77 driver. I went through all of the trouble because this driver (and above) are needed to run Doom3 as there is a substantial framerate increase over the 50-series driver in relation to that particular game...

I think that might only be with your 5800 Ultra. My brother owned a 5200 and he got better performance with the newer 6x.xx drivers than the 5x.xx series. I don't think that this driver thing is experienced across the whole line of FX cards- only a few instead. I know that drivers version 56.55 and 56.72 DO work best for the 5950 Ultra, whether that holds true for any other GFFX I'm not certain as it WASN'T true for my brothers 5200 nor my friend's 5700LE.


Seahawk, your system is ROUGHLY the equivalent of mine (I'm running an A64 2800 on an ASUS K8V SE Dlx- s754). I've never played BF2 before, I don't do multiplayer gaming (not yet anyways ). I'd assume that if you ran at 1024x768 with 2xQ or 4xAA and 8xAF (I've never seen AF affect performance with this card, FSAA sure does though) with medium to high IQ settings it should run fine. Beyond that I wouldn't expect.

I could run Doom3 at 1280x1024 with 4xAA and 8xAF and maxed IQ settings (save for that "Ultra" setting- that was only at "high") and I averaged 45fps approximately. It peaked just above 60. HL2 is the same except that the IQ was LITTERALLY maxed. And VSYNC was enabled as well, still got around 80fps, peaking at just over 100 periodically. The only part I really noticed a slow down was at the end of HL2 when you are on the "Tram-Thing" in the citadel. Then I had to drop the resolution down to 1024x768 in order for it to run "smooth" (45+ fps in my opinion).

FarCry does seem to give my card a run for its money. If I disable AA I can play the game with maxed IQ setting at 1600x1200 and still get 45+ fps. But as soon as I enable FSAA and/or VSYNCE, that resolution HAS to be 1024x768. And even then it will sometimes drop below 30fps. The ONLY fail safe resolution with FSAA @ 4x is 800x600. Then again, I don't get the impression that other people are experiencing this with their 5950s- so maybe it is limited to ASUS V9980 Ultras or just my card. Hard to say. It plays and that's all I care about.