G73 5870 softmod to firepro 8800

Wow this is Awesome! I was wondering how I could convert my radeon to a fire, finally got my answer!

But still I have one more question to ask you, can you convert it back to a radeon after, if yes how do you do it ? Simply reinstall normal driver in windows ?

Thx

 

Yup just uninstall the drivers, maybe run driver cleaner or something if you want then just install the new ones.

 

Unbelievable! With Mobility Radeon driver, I got about 90 seconds to render. With the same objects and settings (5 objects and some lightings using mental.ray.daylighting preset), it only took 14 seconds! it's awesome!

But I have problem. I installed the Performance Plugin for 3ds max ( http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/fire/Pages/fire_win7-64.aspx). When I try changing the Graphic driver with atid2k11.drv (Preference Settings > Viewports > Choose Driver), it's said that the card is not supported --it's not recognized as Firepro 8800, but the Device Manager does say it's Firepro V8800 (FireGL).

I also tried installing the ATIStream SDK from the latest package (8.773.1.1) but it's said it cannot detect GPU having openCL capability.

Is there something I missed?

Thanks in advance

 

I'm not too sure as i never used those before. About rendering speed increasing i find that odd. Are you rendering using quicksilver or vray rt? Because by right a firepro should only speed up viewport rendering instead of the actual rendering. Scanline, Vray, MentalRay all use the cpu to render. You might want to post your question in the guru3d forums. Under the rivatuner section. I got all my info from the guys over there.

 

As mentioned earlier, I rendered using mental.ray.daylighting preset which is a mental ray I believe. I tried the quicksilver, for same objects, lightning and view, it's only 5 seconds -- but the rendered image is NOT good.

Matter of fact, So do I! I feel not sure about it. It should be using vray and openCL to achieve such an improvement.

Anyway, there was something wrong in my setup. I followed your tutorial but then I checked, after installation, the atikmdag.sys in SysWoW64\drivers and DriverStore was exactly the same as the original atikmdag.sys from the ATI package. Weird though. But I managed to overwrite those files with the patched one (yes, I have to change the owner and security settings of the system folders first). After restarted the Windows, finally the performance plugin detected it as FirePro. The plugin works nice for the viewports

Now, I'm looking for solutions so that the openCL can work with radeon (there's ATIStream SDK in the latest package as I posted earlier).

Another questions, after I softmodded my radeon, is the gaming performance decreased due to the firepro driver optimization? Because I still can enjoy my games as usual (including playing youtube without having disable H/W acceleration)

Btw, thanks for guiding the softmod -- nice job

 

I believe you do loose a bit on the gaming performance. Especially on games that have improvements on newer driver updates. But at the same time games are very "playable" even on the firepro drivers. The reason why you can still enjoy youtube is because with H/W disabled, it uses the cpu to play. Anyway glad to be of help. Decided to write this guide then because i found it difficult to get started with all the info here and there when i wanted to do it. I believe updates would come soon from the guru3d side.

 

This mod should offer superior performance in 3D applications, a little less in games.
You lose overdrive and video hardware acceleration. Web-based video won't work
unless you disable hardware acceleration. You can also use a greasemonkey script called
"Youtube enhancer" to deal with this issue.


0. Disable Driver Signature Enforcement in Windows 7 by command line:
http://www.killertechtips.com/2009/05/05/disable-driver-signing-windows-7/

Download Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider here:
http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=dseo

Use it to run in "test mode" to stop driver signature enforcement.

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1. Download the latest ATI FirePro drivers from
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/fire/Pages/fire_win7-64.aspx

Use 7-zip or another extraction tool to extract the files from the executable to a folder on your hard drive.

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2. Download, extract and install RivaTuner.
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

Download atiogl.xml
http://www.mediafire.com/?ndndizfaave

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3. Save the following text as a text file and change the extension from .txt to .rts
for compatibility with RivaTuner scripts. Call it atikmdagfix.rts or whatever you want to call it.


[Common]
SrcFile = atikmdag.sys
BakFile = atikmdag.sy_
MakeCRC = 1
Packed = 1




; script for win7_x64 driver 8.723

DstVar0 = force ATI Mobility FireGL V8800 capabilities

Src0 = B8 94 00 00 00 E8 86 5B 00 00 3B C5 74 46
SCM0 = FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF 00
Dst0 = B8 94 00 00 00 E8 F2 6D 00 00 3B C5 EB 46
DCM0 = 00 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 FF

Src1 = B1 46 38 0B 75 B4 48
Dst1 = B1 46 88 0B 90 90 48



Src2 = BA 2E 00 00 00 48 8B CB E8 36 BA FF FF 85 C0 0F 84 88 00 00 00
SCM2 = FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
Dst2_0 = BA 2E 00 00 00 48 8B CB E8 36 BA FF FF C7 03 68 98 00 00 90 90
DCM2 = 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00


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3. Find the file called "C7112278.inf" in your extracted driver files and open it in a text editor.

FirePro_8.773.1.1_Win7x64_112278\$HWNDPARENT\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF

If you open Control Panel - System - Device Manager and look at your current display drivers,
click on Properties, then click the Details tab. Change the drop-down list from Device Description
to Hardware IDs and you should see the number 6898 before the ampersand (&) in each section.
That's because the hardware ID of the Radeon HD 5870 should be 6898.

In the open information file C7112278.inf scroll down to find the identification line for the
FirePro V8800 and see that it's 6888. Change that number to 6898, then save the file.

It should go from this:

"ATI FirePro V8800 (FireGL)" = ati2mtag_EvergreenGL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6888

to this:

"ATI FirePro V8800 (FireGL)" = ati2mtag_EvergreenGL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6898


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4. Now find the script file you made earlier as a .rts file and double-click on it to launch it with RivaTuner.

If RivaTuner was installed correctly, the script file should launch it. Otherwise you may have to tell Windows
to let RivaTuner open the file, which means finding it in your Program Files x86 folder.

Once RivaTuner launches it will want you to locate the file the script is intended to patch.
It's going to be looking for atikmdag.sys, but what it should find is atikmdag.sy_ in the extracted driver files.
Change the name in the window that searches for it to atikmdag.* and you should be able to find it.
Look in the following folder:
FirePro_8.773.1.1_Win7x64_112278\$HWNDPARENT\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF\B112107

After you select it, RivaTuner should report that it successfully modified the file.


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5. Copy over the atiogl.xml file in the same folder with the one you downloaded earlier.

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6. Go to Control Panel - System - Device Manager and select your current video driver.

"Update driver software"

"Browse my computer for driver software"

"Let me pick from a list of drivers..."

"Have Disk..."

Find the folder where you extracted the FirePro drivers to and edited them,
then drill down to the file you altered first, called "C7112278.inf".

Select it. Choose "ATI FirePro V8800 (FireGL)" from the list and hit "Next..."

Screen goes crazy for a second, then voila! You have a FirePro V8800 2GB.

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7. Run DSEO again. This time we're going to sign a system file. Paste this into the dialog box:

c:\windows\system32\drivers\atikmdag.sys


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8. If you have a watermark and want to get rid of it, go here:

http://deepxw.blogspot.com/2008/12/remove-watermark-v03-build-20081210.html

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9. Now download the performance plugins if you use 3DS Max 2010 and 2011 or AutoCAD (although they may not work):
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/fire/Pages/fire_plugins.aspx

Install the performance plugins for your apps and you're done.
Enjoy dramatic performance enhancements in your 3D apps!
Don't forget about the web video playback problem and the solutions for it!

 

Unfortunately 3dsmax still sees the "real" hardware and will not, even with this mod, let you install the performance driver.

Same goes for the latest quadro mod as well. Max is just smarter then our driver mods lol!

**it will let you install them but max 2012 will refuse to let you select it as the renderer.

 

What about Max 2010 and 2011?

 

I've actually never used the max drivers with this. But even with the default drivers try loading up a scene with a lot of stuff going on in the view port. You'll instantly notice the difference.

 

I'm using firepro softmod. I installed the performance driver. It is working and my 3ds max 2011 is reading it as firepro. And it has fine viewport performance. It has small icon in right top of each of your viewport to navigate the camera.

Try installing the performance driver from the latest package (in amd site). You'll notice more difference

Actually, the firepro softmod miss I thing: the openCL. It's available in mobility 11.3.
I don't know how to combine both , but when I use radeon for openCL in vray 2.0, there's improvement in rendering time. Not 100% optimized though (I think)

 

I don't know if using catalyst 11.3 and above would help with this or not. The guys over at guru3d forum are actually trying to get one a 5 series card for one of the members who used to make a script. No word from the writer of this script so far. Guess we still have to wait a while before an updated script surfaces.

 

3ds max 2011 has by default always the rotation cube in the top right corner so that does not mean at all that it detects your gpu as a firepro -.-'

 

Are there any development news for the g73 and firepro drivers? Just wondering if I should still stick the OP instructions or use new ones if it exists?

Thanks!

 

Gerard i followed your instructions to the letter but my scores are horrible



Specviewpref 11 64bit

Viewset Composite
catia-03 4.76
ensight-04 18.81
lightwave-01 17.43
maya-03 6.96
proe-05 1.41
sw-02 14.38
tcvis-02 3.43
snx-01 6.84

Do you have any idea what i could be doing wrong ? My specs are same as yours.

 

Thanks smile gerard, i did it ! months later, after testing inventor, directx version, my ATI drivers were automatically updated and no more possibility to use Solidworks 2010.. After softmod, T've re install our factory's Solidworks, and it has detect correctly a fire pro, with notable enhancements. (assembly rotation goes faster without graphic simplification)
But I've lost some games. I've re install some with success and other are dead.
First week I could turn from 8800 to 5870 twice without restart, after that, computer asked for restart... not a good solution to keep my computer for both job and games with my children.
I could install the latest Catalyst control center to fix picture size when using a 47" LCD TV with HDMI connexion.
It would be great to have a "soft switch" between "job" and "games"...

 

Sorry haven't really been looking into this for quite a while. So no idea if there are updates. About the switch between job and games, i guess maybe a dual windows installation might do the trick. It is troublesome for sure. I'll look into it when i have time. Also i do plan to retire my G73.

 

Here is my Scores
Specviewpref 11 64bit (Win7 SP1 x64)
5870m Core 750 Mem 1100
Driver 8.982.3

catia-03 11.58 no result
ensight-04 16.68 no result
lightwave-01 37.80 no result
maya-03 27.86 no result
proe-05 3.14 no result
sw-02 28.96 no result
tcvis-02 12.79 no result
snx-01 16.97 no result

Everything is good except ... i can't make OpenCL work... still looking for it.