Geforce 6200 Overclocking... Unlocking Pipelines
This thread has become quite popular somehow, been messaged alot by many people on AIM and MSN about what steps they should take. Probably was even a bit short with some people and I apologize for that. But I figure I might post what I did, how I did it and what you may do if your curious about getting that extra push out of your Geforce 6200.
I do have one problem right now, I don't have my 6200 anymore. It was a good card, but I only bought it on a budget because my ATi 9800XT/Pro was on the fritz and I needed something cheap and effective immediatly. So I went to Fry's and probably paid $20 to $30 more on this card than I would have at Newegg, but I needed it fast so it was worth it. Of course after finding out it could be unlocked I realized it was well worth it.
There are many flavors of 6200's out there, and at the time of this posting, you'd probably be better off buying something more modern if your on the look for a budget card. The end result of my card was a Geforce 6200 at the price of I think $129 with the performance of a regular Geforce 6600. On a side note I currently run a 6600GT which is quite a bit faster and currently costs almost the same price I originally paid for the 6200. It's no 7800 series card, but it plays my games relatively well with my current setup which includes an X2 processor and 2GB of memory.
So how did I do it? Where did I get the information? Why did I do it? As I mentioned I needed a card quick, I wasn't expecting anything amazing... just something that worked without crashing or freezing my system. Now my memory is flaky, so I'll try to not tell a whole damned story. Instead from this point on I'll just give you the intel on unlocking this card.
First, let it be noted that this is generally safe to do, but I am not taking a chance so if you screw up your card, that is your problem - not mine. I did not do anything crazy, I didn't want to nor did I feel the need to do more. I am not greedy for performance so any mods I could have done that would only give a 1% increase in speed... I just did not do. That includes flashing the BIOS. All I did was use Riva tuner to unlock a couple extra pipes, and overclocked it to the point of artifacting and then backed it down a notch. The end result was a considerably faster card for a low price.
Let it also be known not all cards can do this. I do not know which cards are capable of it, and which are not. I can tell you with a good amount of assurance that a Geforce TC is not going to be capable of this. I don't know why, I don't even remember what the "TC" stands for, I think it is "Turbo Cached" but just remember "google is your friend" use it wisely, it's all I had when I did this and all I am about to tell you is from google searches which did not take me long at all.
So to do this mod; if that's what you wanna call it; all you will need is Riva Tuner. I also used coolbits to overclock, and if I recall the mod had still worked even after installing newer drivers so I didn't have to go through this again and again after updating drivers.
Now these steps have been posted in this thread for quite some time, so all you need to do is read through it a bit for questions and answers. I used the guide at DoomedPC to get me through this. I don't want to copy them and I think the deserve the credit. But I will give you some details I think would be of use for you but please bare with me, my memory is bad so no promises...
Below is my original post....
Good luck guys, I hope you will enjoy modding your card, but if not.....I think the stock 6200 was; imho; not a bad card. It is merely outdated, but the most important thing to me is stability. You can give me all the speed in the world, but if it's not stable I don't want to have anything to do with it. Oddly enough 30 minutes ago the very computer I am on now crashed while typing this thread. The first crash it's had since I built it back in early October or so. But I bet it had something to do with burning the DVD I am working on.
ROCK ON!
I do have one problem right now, I don't have my 6200 anymore. It was a good card, but I only bought it on a budget because my ATi 9800XT/Pro was on the fritz and I needed something cheap and effective immediatly. So I went to Fry's and probably paid $20 to $30 more on this card than I would have at Newegg, but I needed it fast so it was worth it. Of course after finding out it could be unlocked I realized it was well worth it.
There are many flavors of 6200's out there, and at the time of this posting, you'd probably be better off buying something more modern if your on the look for a budget card. The end result of my card was a Geforce 6200 at the price of I think $129 with the performance of a regular Geforce 6600. On a side note I currently run a 6600GT which is quite a bit faster and currently costs almost the same price I originally paid for the 6200. It's no 7800 series card, but it plays my games relatively well with my current setup which includes an X2 processor and 2GB of memory.
So how did I do it? Where did I get the information? Why did I do it? As I mentioned I needed a card quick, I wasn't expecting anything amazing... just something that worked without crashing or freezing my system. Now my memory is flaky, so I'll try to not tell a whole damned story. Instead from this point on I'll just give you the intel on unlocking this card.
First, let it be noted that this is generally safe to do, but I am not taking a chance so if you screw up your card, that is your problem - not mine. I did not do anything crazy, I didn't want to nor did I feel the need to do more. I am not greedy for performance so any mods I could have done that would only give a 1% increase in speed... I just did not do. That includes flashing the BIOS. All I did was use Riva tuner to unlock a couple extra pipes, and overclocked it to the point of artifacting and then backed it down a notch. The end result was a considerably faster card for a low price.
Let it also be known not all cards can do this. I do not know which cards are capable of it, and which are not. I can tell you with a good amount of assurance that a Geforce TC is not going to be capable of this. I don't know why, I don't even remember what the "TC" stands for, I think it is "Turbo Cached" but just remember "google is your friend" use it wisely, it's all I had when I did this and all I am about to tell you is from google searches which did not take me long at all.
So to do this mod; if that's what you wanna call it; all you will need is Riva Tuner. I also used coolbits to overclock, and if I recall the mod had still worked even after installing newer drivers so I didn't have to go through this again and again after updating drivers.
Now these steps have been posted in this thread for quite some time, so all you need to do is read through it a bit for questions and answers. I used the guide at DoomedPC to get me through this. I don't want to copy them and I think the deserve the credit. But I will give you some details I think would be of use for you but please bare with me, my memory is bad so no promises...
- You probably do not need to keep Riva Tuner installed for these tweaks to stick, but you will need to redo these tweaks if you reformat and reinstall windows.
- You don't have to redo all this if you update your drivers.
- I used coolbits for overclocking, it may not be Rivatuner, but I am not a bigtime overclocker myself.
- If you run into any trouble, I don't mind you contacting me, but please understand I don't have full memory of all these procedures and I cannot make your card unlockable if it just isn't capable of it. Remember, when I bought my card I wasn't thinking of doing this and all I had was the aforementioned guide with no one elses help but google.
- The cards which have 256 or even 512MB of memory are probably not worth it, I don't think the 6200 has enough speed to even handle that much memory. But I may be wrong... probably not though.
Below is my original post....
So far I've got my Geforce 6200 to 350/700, I forgot what the original speeds were, but from what I understand... the only difference right now between my card right now and the Geforce 6600 is 4 extra pixel pipelines... not too sure what difference that makes though.
I am still overclocking it, and feel that if I were to put some AS5 on the HSF, perhaps lap it... or just buy a new one all-together I can possibly push this thing VERY far.
But I am curious, being that I haven't been using NVidia for a while. What are the best drivers out right now? Should I stick with these 80.XX forceware beta's?
Good luck guys, I hope you will enjoy modding your card, but if not.....I think the stock 6200 was; imho; not a bad card. It is merely outdated, but the most important thing to me is stability. You can give me all the speed in the world, but if it's not stable I don't want to have anything to do with it. Oddly enough 30 minutes ago the very computer I am on now crashed while typing this thread. The first crash it's had since I built it back in early October or so. But I bet it had something to do with burning the DVD I am working on.
ROCK ON!
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However, I am sure I can get the artifacting taken care of with some extra tweaking of perhaps the AGP Volatges, and of course some AS5. To go further though I wanna find a good HSF for this card. I really think 500/850 is very attainable. Just scored 2097 points in 3D Mark, could've been higher if I hadn't had extra stuff in the background, but the score also reflects only overclocking, no tweaking of the drivers for poor quality and best performance... I have it on the default settings the way I ALWAYS bench it.
This card might just catch up with where I left my ol' Radeon 9800Pro/XT. I woul LOVE to see a 3000+ score
It's a PNY Verto Geforce 6200 128MB BTW.
Just scored a 2800 in 3D Mark 2005 at 400/700!!!! Which is about 1100 points higher than the scores at the same speeds with only 4 Pipelines....
Gonna do 425/700 next to see how it does.
Not bad at all for a $110 card, give or take.
No hardware mods required if you have the right card, all you need is a program called Rivatuner, which you can get from here, Guru3D.com
This program will also allow you to overclock your card as well, remember only certain GF6200's will softmod.
NICE OC!!!
512MB?! Jesus... why haven't I seen one of those laying around?
Just so you know, there is a special version of the card out. I forget what it's called, but I am glad I didn't pick it up because it appearently doesn't OC or MOD at all.
But basically all the information I can give you or anyone else is already posted in this thread. I used Rivatuner to unlock the extra 4 pipelines, and FYI I didn't have to re-unlock the extra pipes after installing updated drivers either. Dunno about formats. I haven't done a full blown softmod to it as I don't plan on having this card forever, but I do like it above my Radeon 9800XT that's for sure. Benchmarks just under my XT, but it seems much smoother. Plus BF2 works without a hitch, crash, or whine.
I wouldn't know. But my guess is "no" being that the 6200 is a limited version of the 6600 and that you can unlock the 6200 to a 6600 level. I doubt, in fact am 99% sure, you can unlock anything in the 6600 that isn't already unlocked. Maybe OC it?
I am no expert, I've had a bunch of people asking me a bunch of different questions through IM since I started this thread.... I couldn't help them because I have no clue!
I read this topic and i'll have to say you've done a cool job mate
I have this Geforce 6200 but I can overclock it to only about 378/491 without
extra cooling. Can I overclock it further like the speeds you've done? without extra cooling? You said that 4 more pipelines can be unlocked on this card with Rivatuner. I have Rivatuner but I just cant figure out how to unlock the 4 piplines. I would be just grateful if you could help me. Waiting to appreciate your effort.
My system configuraton is
Intel P4 2.8Ghz HT
512MB DDR Ram @ 400 Mhz
Nvidia Geforce 6200 256MB AGP
80GB samsung HDD @ 7200 rpm
FYI
That's it!
As for the Overclock, my highest stable OC was generally 378/700? I forget, but it wasn't very much.
That's it!
As for the Overclock, my highest stable OC was generally 405/700? I forget, but it wasn't very much. I think I did 425, but it would artifact to hell and eventually freeze up, and I think I actually would generally run it at 378MHz core becuase I would occasionally freeze up randomly at 405MHz.
Follow the guide, it will show you the light
? cuz int he link one of the guys gave it says that after u restart the computer and u open up rivatuner u should know but i dunno? and wuts that stuff about 400/700!!!! in 3dmark05??
"128-bit NV43 (A2 8x1 3vp)" I think that 8x1 part is the part that says you now have 8 pipes instead of the normal 4. kthxbye.
locked, there are no more pipes to unlock. So with your GF 6200, the same
goes for that, once you unlock those extra pipes thats it. I use Riva-Tuner
as should anyone else that wants to unlock those hidden features. Also you
can use Nibitor to flash your 6200 to a 6600. What you really looking for is
upping the voltage to be able to reach higher clocks on your card. I have
my Evga card@ 500 core 800 mem, its not a 6600 GT but its better than it
was before. You can get Nibitor and other bios's (I recommend sparkles)
to flash. But be carefull and research what you want to do for risk of being
left with a dead board Here's the link: http://www.mvktech.net. They have
a lot of bios files from many manufacturers, along with many flash utils. Also
If you have a GF 6200/6600 GT NV 43 rev. A4 you cannot mod anything as
they are hard locked in the chip. The 6200 w/turbocache is a notoriously
poor overclocker, plus its only 64 bit and not 128 bit like the pre turbocache
versions, so keep that in mind. Anyway, hope this helps anyone wanting to
either softmod/hardmod their 6200's. Oh, almost forgot, you cannot unlock
extra pipes via a bios flash, only thru Riva-Tuner.
Filez: Nibitor: use to create a custom bios. You D/L a 6600 bios and use Nibitor to customize and create a new one to flash.
Riva-Tuner: Use it to unlock the extra pipes on your card, also you can do
other low-level tweaks to your card.
Later,
Corpse.
i've read in a lot of places that you can do it to the pny version, but never a BFGtech/3d fuzion card.
thanks for your time.
GT