How do I unlock Pipelines using Riva tuner?

[Stumps]

I decided to check out riva tuner today...see what it it could do for my BFG 7800GS OC, now I discovered something interesting, my 7800GS is a G71 core with 2 Quads and 2 VP's disabled...they show up in the low level settings as disabled...how do I get them to enable...do I need to flash the BIOS of my 7800GS to somethings, which if I do I'm not goin to bother with...no sense in killing a $400 graphics card or is there another way to enable them with out modifying the card....I would like to see what my 7800GS is capable of with 24 PP's and 8 VP's...it should esentailly be a 7900GT then.

 

[Stumps]

For the none believers

 

[40sTheme]

Huh! Now that is pretty interesting. I've never heard of unlocking a 7800GS... very nice find.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: 40sTheme
Huh! Now that is pretty interesting. I've never heard of unlocking a 7800GS... very nice find.

I wouldn't have found it either if it wasn't for your thread on FEAR benchmarking...the funyy results I was getting prompted me to have a look at the lay out of my GPU.

 

[40sTheme]

I'm just good like that.
I just checked. No disabled ones on the 7950GT....

Not like I care that much, though.
I would love to see someone find a way to unlock that stuff on yours.

 

[Stumps]

I've been doing a google search and apparently the A2 G71 revision of the 7800gs can be unlocked....I just can't find how....how do people do it with 6800nu's and 6800gs...it must be similar.

 

[MichaelD]

Wow, nice find Stumps. There's GOT to be something on the web about unlocking your card. I'm not intimitely familiar with the different versions of the 7800's so I'm not sure how involved the process would be (i.e. possible soldering/resistor replacement or the like) but if your core is "the good one" I"d assume the rest of the card's architecture would be the same, no?

 

[AmdInside]

A little off topic but...hahaha Stumps. Just checked rig profile. Do you really still have an AMD K6III PC?

 

[chizow]

Hehe nice, is that the AGP version? If so, those 7800s are proving to be quite the little AGP beasts. Incredibly cheap now, something like $160 after $40 MIR at Newegg now. I almost pulled the trigger on this 5-6 months ago when my 9700pro died but at the time the extra pipes and VS were laser neutered and they were still @$250. I guess they just stopped caring at some point and disabled the pipes via BIOS or software.

Anyways, its a pretty simple process, I did it with my 6800 GS OC using RivaTuner. You have to go through one of the more advanced tabs to find NVStrap, which then gives you options to check and enable the disabled pipes and VS. I don't have RivaTuner on this new build so I can't walk you through it myself but a Google search should turn up a walkthrough if you look for it. Here's one I found on the topic: Unlocking the 7800GS

At some point they may have changed the 7800GS GPUs since the Gainward 7800 AGP extreme version had the full 24 pipes and 16 (?) VS. I tried to find one but had no luck as it seems Gainward only sells in the EU and abroad now. D:

Anyways, good luck! If that is in fact the AGP version and you can unlock it, that's a really hot deal for AGP users looking to breath one last breath into their aging AGP rig.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: Stumps
I decided to check out riva tuner today...see what it it could do for my BFG 7800GS OC, now I discovered something interesting, my 7800GS is a G71 core with 2 Quads and 2 VP's disabled...they show up in the low level settings as disabled...how do I get them to enable...do I need to flash the BIOS of my 7800GS to somethings, which if I do I'm not goin to bother with...no sense in killing a $400 graphics card or is there another way to enable them with out modifying the card....I would like to see what my 7800GS is capable of with 24 PP's and 8 VP's...it should esentailly be a 7900GT then.

Stumps mine says G70 core 2 quads and 2 vetex disabled too?
I wonder if I could unlock too?


Edit :I tried with the customize button and restarted my computer and they did not unlock. Mabe i'm doing something wrong?

 

[aka1nas]

Your chip may have the quads physically disabled versus being disabled in software. Rivatuner can't help you in the former case. Someone with more specific knowledge of that model might be able to shed more light on it.

 

[schneiderguy]

Here is how to do it: (at least this is how I do it with my 6800nu)

open rivatuner
go to low level system settings
click the check box by "allow enabling hardware masked units"
click customize
click directly the left of the pixel/vertex shaders you want to enable
click "OK"
you should now see the "active pixel/vertex configuration" box updated showing the unlocked pipes
click apply
restart computer

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: AmdInside
A little off topic but...hahaha Stumps. Just checked rig profile. Do you really still have an AMD K6III PC?

yep, and it has a little sister to go with it a K6-2+ 550 PC with similar specs...both run Windows 98 SE and my old games that don't run on WinXP.....they are sweet little rigs....never give any problems at all....they just work.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: schneiderguy
Here is how to do it: (at least this is how I do it with my 6800nu)

open rivatuner
go to low level system settings
click the check box by "allow enabling hardware masked units"
click customize
click directly the left of the pixel/vertex shaders you want to enable
click "OK"
you should now see the "active pixel/vertex configuration" box updated showing the unlocked pipes
click apply
restart computer

Yeah, I've tried that but when the PC restarts the still remain locked...

But I've done a bit of digging around the net and found out that a BIOS update with a customised BIOS is required to unlock them....a few people have had success with unlocking G71 based XFX 7800GS's