About Radeon 9500 SoftModding !!!

[gilad_o]

Hello, I brought Radeon 9500 and I want to softmode it !
how I can do this?

thanks. :)

[GHoosdum]

Is it the Red PCB? What brand? What configuration is the memory on it...

[Thrax]

If the PCB is red, and the memory is configured in an "L" shape, you have a 75% chance of success.

[gilad_o]

I got Hercules 3D Prophet 9500 Radeon 128MB

[gilad_o]

what you mean when you said:
"PCB is red, and the memory is configured in an "L" shape" ?
i have hercules phropet 9500 radeon card!
I can do the softmod?

[Thrax]

That means nothing.

They made two or three editions of the 9500 card. One will allow you to soft-mod, two won't.

[gilad_o]

what is the safest radeon 9500 card to do softmod?

[MachineGunKelly]

First and foremost, It MUST have the ram chips in the locations shown like this:

[GHoosdum]

gilad_o said
what you mean when you said:
"PCB is red, and the memory is configured in an "L" shape" ?
i have hercules phropet 9500 radeon card!
I can do the softmod?

If you don't know what that means, I recommend against trying the softmod on your own.

[Thrax]

I concur with that statement.

[gilad_o]

Thrax what you ment when you said "pcb is red"?

[Thrax]

The card is red.

[MachineGunKelly]

IF the ram is configured in this manner then it is 'possible' that you can perform the softmod. Then it comes down to whether or not you actually have the extra 4 rendering pipelines built into the card (that were dis-abled at the factory.
THEN you need to get a couple of things....the correct hacked bios for your card AND the program that will allow you to perform the hack.
IF, IF, it works you 'could' see about a 2,000 point increase in 3D 2001 se. If it doesn't your card could look like crap on the monitor.

You still wanna try?

[GHoosdum]

"PCB" is the Printed Circuit Board... the base of the card. If the card itself is red, and the four little black square memory modules are in an "L" shape (two above the heatsink and two to the side) then the card is probably soft-moddable. The moddable card looks like this:

[gilad_o]

the card is red and the memory is configured in an "L" shape!
I know that i can do softmod with this card...people told me that i can. i wanted from u some updated article about radeon 9500 softmod...thanks.

[SimGuy]

AFAIK, the Hercules 3D Prophet 9500 's were moddable to the 9700 series of Radeon (at least according to data I've seen on other tech sites).

The easiest way to perform the softmod is to download RivaTuner 2.0 and the necessary scripts to perform the mod. You can find the necessary software over @ Guru3d.com (http://download.guru3d.com/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=%20163)

//Edit: I'll also refer you to this article here @ Short-Media.com, which could help you -> ATI: SoftModding Your ATI Radeon 9500 (http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=123)

[GHoosdum]

I don't think there are any current articles about it. The overclocking forum on www.rage3d.com has information about the BIOS update that you need: the warp11 BIOS. There's also information about a driver you can use, the Omega driver (www.omegacorner.com) which has an install option that allows the softmod.

[MachineGunKelly]

Or see the thread about it right above this one....
ATI: Soft Modding Your ATI Radeon 9500

[gilad_o]

i can burn the softmod into the bios of the card?
i mean, if i will format my computer i will have to do the softmod again? or i just need to do the softmod once?

[GHoosdum]

I dunno, SimGuy, I liked the Omega driver and stuff a LOT better than RivaTuner...

gilad_o: If you decide to go with RivaTuner, DON'T install the Omega Driver. If you decide to go with Omega, DON'T install RivaTuner. If you do Omega, you must first uninstall the ATi control panel (Omega has one built in) and it gives you the most up-to-date Catalyst driver (3.6) as well. There's a lot of information on the rage3d forum.

[GHoosdum]

gilad_o said
i can burn the softmod into the bios of the card?
i mean, if i will format my computer i will have to do the softmod again? or i just need to do the softmod once?

You burn the overclockable BIOS into the card... the softmod must be re-done every time you reformat your PC. It's purely software, and it's also un-doable if you wish.

[SimGuy]

GHoosdum said
I dunno, SimGuy, I liked the Omega driver and stuff a LOT better than RivaTuner...

gilad_o: If you decide to go with RivaTuner, DON'T install the Omega Driver. If you decide to go with Omega, DON'T install RivaTuner. If you do Omega, you must first uninstall the ATi control panel (Omega has one built in) and it gives you the most up-to-date Catalyst driver (3.6) as well. There's a lot of information on the rage3d forum.

I didn't even know you could perform the soft-mod automatically with Omega's drivers.

Wow. :):thumbsup:

[GHoosdum]

Omega makes a sweeeeet little package! ;)

[gilad_o]

ok..so if i will download omega drivers bla bla...
it will do the softmodding? 9500->9700?

[MachineGunKelly]

gilad_o, like evrything else that has drivers if you re-format your os you will have to re-install the driver set and the hack because they will no longer be there........just like for a printer, scanner, sound card, videocard, etc.

[SimGuy]

gilad_o said
ok..so if i will download omega drivers bla bla...
it will do the softmodding? 9500->9700?

Yep. Turns out there is a prompt during the install of the drivers that asks if you want to perform the "Soft Modification". Select yes and it will automatically perform the Soft-Mod for you, turning your 9500 into a 9700.

If you want to, you can download a new BIOS for the card and unlock it, allowing you to overclock your 9500 to a 9500 Pro (or if you perform the softmod, allowing you to overclock your 9500 to a 9700 Pro) :)

Enjoy!

[GHoosdum]

gilad_o said
ok..so if i will download omega drivers bla bla...
it will do the softmodding? 9500->9700?

Check out the readme file for the Omega Driver. It states:

"The 9500->9800 and 9700->9800 hack is still avaiable as an install option. (2k/XP)"

This only works if you have Win2K or XP, not 95,98,Me!!!!!

[gilad_o]

I will install the omega drivers and i will softmode my card.
after that i will o/c the card manualy to the pro version.

thanks u for the help! I will update u if i will have some problems.

[Templar]

"The 9500->9800 and 9700->9800 hack is still avaiable as an install option. (2k/XP)"

Is that Pro or Non-Pro?

[GHoosdum]

Non-Pro. The only difference between the 9700 and the 9700 pro is the clock speed. If you softmod a 9500 to a 9700, all you have to do is overclock to get a 9700 Pro.

The "9800" in this case is the fact that it allows some optimisations that were done for the Smartshader 2.1 for the 9800 to run on the 9500/9700 series, which only really has Smartshader 2.0...

And you'd REALLY have to OC that bad boy a lot to get 9800 pro speeds!

[Necropolis]

gilad_o,

Look in here, you have had the question answered. Please stop creating new threads asking the same question.

[gilad_o]

ok but i asked in the new thread about
ATI Radeon 9500 softmod

[Necropolis]

But that is what this thread is about :scratch:

[gilad_o]

i want to know if i can softmod ati! radeon card
not hercules radeon card

[Shorty]

gilad_o said
i want to know if i can softmod ati! radeon card
not hercules radeon card

In a word. Yes.

If it meets the requirements, any ATI built or third-party built Radeon 9500 non-pro can be modded.

Your mileage may vary, not every card can be modded as Im sure you have previously read :)

[gilad_o]

If i will do the softmod to my 9500 card to 9700 card, i will be able to download 9700 pro bios from omegacorner and changing my 9700 to 9700 pro?

[Shorty]

gilad_o said
If i will do the softmod to my 9500 card to 9700 card, i will be able to download 9700 pro bios from omegacorner and changing my 9700 to 9700 pro?

The validity of that operation is in doubt. It's a risk. If you have a bad flash, the card is dead. No warranty will save you either.

Softmodding your Radeon 9500 ---> 9700 will not invalidate your warranty. Then you can overclock the card a little.

I personally wouldn't suggest flashing to the pro BIOS, but it's the risk you take. I can't comment on it's success rate, as I don't know enough about it. My gut tells me that you might suffer the curse if you do try it.

[gilad_o]

humm ok...
after i softmod my radeon 9500 i can overclock it?
or i will need to flash my bios before i can overclock it?

[Necropolis]

You should be able to overclock after the softmod.

[Shorty]

Necropolis_uk said
You should be able to overclock after the softmod.

Yep.

So lets review this to make it clear.

The Radeon 9500 non-pro must meet the conditions for soft-mod ability (ram, PCB design).

It can ANY brand (not just ATI built).

Soft-modding does not invalidate your warranty.

Your success is based totally on the card ONLY.

Overclocking following the mod is possible without flashing to a pro BIOS (and invalidating your warranty).

Think we got it all covered here :)

[Necropolis]

I think thats everything :thumbsup:

[gilad_o]

thanks!
last quastion - i want to be sure.
if i will download the omega drivers it will softmod my card right?

[Shorty]

gilad_o said
thanks!
last quastion - i want to be sure.
if i will download the omega drivers it will softmod my card right?

Yep.

Don't install any standard ATI drivers, just use the latest OMEGA drivers with the softmod installation option.

[gilad_o]

10x and god bless you all! :)

[Shorty]

gilad_o said
10x and god bless you all! :)

Takes a bit of work to get there sometimes but we got there in the end huh ;)

Good luck with the mod and let us know how you get on :thumbsup:

[Necropolis]

Yep,

Hope after all this it works for you. :thumbsup:

[gilad_o]

look what I saw in ATI powercolor website!!! :

http://www.cptech.com.tw/powercolor/web/product_inside.asp?prd_id=Radeon9500(XR95-B3)

2 of the memory chips are gone!! WTF??
now i cant do sofmode right?

[Necropolis]

But what does your card look like? Is it the same as the one pictured?

[gilad_o]

i wanted to buy that card in this week...but now
i saw the picture and i dont know what to do..

[SimGuy]

PowerColor probably switched to a high density memory design, 4 chips, 2 per side.

SoftModdable? No idea...

[GHoosdum]

That looks like the 9700 PCB... it might be the 64MB version?

[gilad_o]

nope...128 mb