A important question about my X700 and Hypermemory.

Hey forum members (especially Ivan and Chazman),

I have a X700 128 Mb DDR-1 videocard (351/297). I was playing the game America's Army. I started monitoring graphs with ATI Tray tools (I have Omega 6.1)...

While playing it I started to monitor free video memory + free texture memory. This is the graph I get, you can see it as attached file I hope

As you can see my video memory is 0 fast in the graph, but some magical way ATT sais 120 still free!? Please help me Ivan and Chaz

I must also say that the gaming is a bit laggy. I run at 1280*800 everything highest.

I have a Fujitsu Siemens with 1.73 Sonoma, 1 GB DDR 2, 80 GB SATA 5400 rpm 8 mb cache, X700 128, 15.4" WXGA.

Please help me mates... I have read the topics on Hypermemory and I read that 5.2 and up (catalyst) enables hypermemory automatically.

Please help me

Hitman

 

Hi Hitman,

Is AA an Opengl game? I bet it is. There is the same issue with Quake 4. I guess ATT just reports the dedicated MEM amount wrong. It surely uses all of your dedicated, and then switches to main ram (so called Hypermemory).

I guess this is the scenario:
Perhaps ATT reports available mem for ALLOCATION. Not actual amount. So maybe Opengl games do the allocation in a different way and ATT still reports 120 MB free. The thing is that Hypermemory controller (the one that Ati is so proud of) can dynamically change the physical content of HM and VRAM (following some algorythms). In other words, Ati card can load and unload or swap any texture or any part of the video memory either to HM or back in VRAM depending of the usage. That is very fast because the card is on very fast PCI-x bus (which is very fast two-way bus in fact, in comparison to AGP). And in fact FEAR max textures and QUake 4 max textures (we are talking of 250-600 MB) are quite fast even if they are contained in the "slow" main ram (Hypermemory). That is good. What is not good is that you need to have a lot of RAM in those cases. Usually allocation can be more than 1GB.

Try lowering the texture details (medium or something) see if there is some difference, if not - then your hypermemory works fine and something else is making the game choppy. Also advanced shadows and volumetric light can be pain in the ... But that is the GPU story.

Resolution directly hits GPU - not memory, so if your lag is GPU connected, lowering res should increase the speed.

5.13 and 6.2 are the best drivers for Ati so far, 6.1 is so,so

Hypermemory is enabled from 5.7 and above (Chaz told me )

Cheers,

 

Thank you very much for your fast reply Ivan!

I have one question about Omega 6.2 catalyst...when I installed that, it asked: "Is your videocard an IGP or laptop?"

I thought yes, so I clicked yes... Everything was fine...then I decided to overclock a bit (I was gonna play a game) and then I saw overclocking was disabled! So I decided to take off 6.2 Omega and install 6.1 Omega.

Any people have experience with this problem? Thank you very much.

I played Falcon 4 Allied Assault, there I never ran short on memory Too bad I cannot test it on another game Is there a way I can activate HM manually?

Thanks
Hitman

 

According to driverheaven.net...if you say IGP or laptop, they just disable the overclocking features because people were in danger of overdoing it on those machines. Overclocking an IGP isn't a good idea...and most mobility solutions aren't nearly as overclockable as their desktop counterparts(mostly due to cooling capabilities).

If you choose "no", it'll allow you to overclock.

 

Hi Hitman,

If you are using drivers 5.7 and above HM is already "enabled". The proof is that you can probably turn on max textures in some games that will warn you that you have no enough memory (like fear). Another is to watch the process size in NHC OSD and see the difference between lets say medium and maximum textures. You will see extremely big numbers in comparison. Like 240 on medium, and 660 on maximum. Just don't worry, HM is working well and from my experience it is not slow at all. I play FEAR on max textures - no difference in FPS (well maybe 1 or so), Quake4 suffers more, and I didn't see any improvement in the look. Only in performance. BTW it takes around 550mb RAM - for textures only, but works!

And about 6.2, I don't remember that question. I must be too fast while installing , and my OC works fine.

Cheers,

 

Yes Ivan I truelly believe you are the master of X700 overclocking

You have the same videocard (read that in a thread). I also had 2270 stock, out of box. I clocked it over to 354/306 and got 2312. I thought that was enough, I was happy with my small 'overclock'

I am scared of overclocking like you, because I think your notebook has better qualities then my Fujitsu Siemens (think of fan etc.)... My gaming goes now around 351/306...when I am angry 354/312

Too bad Omega 6.1 with ATT is activating hypermemory with the game America's Army. It is the only game I play

I am gonna upgrade to Omega 6.2 today, and I am gonna say 'no' if they say if it is a laptop. Hopefully that will solves my lagging problems.

Thank you for your fast replies mate, you are always very helpfull.

Hitman

 

I would also try the ATI drivers - the Mobility Catalyst 6.2. Those are very stable. I am using them on my X700 with no issues.

Even though you have DDR memory, you can go higher than 312MHz with it. I'd try to kick it up to at least 330, but do at your own risk. Go in small (5-10MHz) increments and then test stability using the built-in ATT Benchmark utility.

Chaz

 

Thanks Hitman!
Ups, I was mistaken. I thought you were using 6.2 Ati catalyst! Now I realized you were talking about Omegas. Well I don't use them anymore. Ati mobility is just fine for me. And I agree with Chaz about the small increments. I'm sure 350/350 will be no problem for your card. Remember that GPU is producing the most of the heat, and mem is actually very fast. Even DDR. You will get around 2700 3dmark05with 350/350 and after all that is the default ATi clock for x700! Let me know if you get some problems.
It is also good to install NHC for temp monitoring and check with Everest if you can monitor GPU temp. I did the analysis and 350/350 shows no considerable heat increase. Degree or two of a difference. And by some unfortunate circumstances, my card wasn't cooled properly (an airpocket in thermal paste on the heatsink) and was running at 110! Normal is around 80-85. Now i got it fixed, but just wanted to tell you how Ati can work on much higher temps without any damage. (Or I was extremely lucky!). Tested and verified.

Cheers,

 

Thanks for your replies mates! I just love it when a forum moderator and a forum fan has the same videocard You can always ask things...

One question Ivan..you say you use normal catalyst drivers (not Omega). Do you think that is better? But you use ATT too right, did you download this seperate? I have Fujitsu Siemens M1437G, I don't know if they have 6.2 Catalyst already.. I will check it today. By the way be ready a review is coming up soon

Thank you guys very much,

By the way my real name is Charlie da Silva, from Peru.

Charlie

Edit: I saw the thread of you Ivan mate. You also have video memory left, even on highest textures with the game Quake 4. Did you fixed this or not? By the way mate, when I put all the textures on lowest, I CONSTANTLY have max fps....But I want to play at max, I dont care if 128 of my 1024 mb goes to the videocard... Maybe you have a solution Chazman?

 

Greetings Charlie.

In Quake 4 and Doom 3 (both are based off the same engine), you won't have any problems on the "high" setting, just don't go ultra. I don't even do that on my 256MB card. The Ultra mode will use over 500MB of video memory.

I think, as Ivan was mentioning, that the problem with the video memory counter and Quake 4 is that it is an OpenGL game - doesn't work properly. I haven't found any solutions yet.

 

Thank you for your reply Chazman

One question: Do you think Omega catalyst is better then normal catalyst?

Charlie

 

Hi Charlie from Peru!
I think ati mobility is ok. Omega has good drivers too. It is more of a personal choice. Ati tray tools is along NHC the best ati tool. NHC is enough for up to 400/400 on my x700 without latencies. Then ATT kicks in. ATT is the best tool for automatic profile mangement, extreme overclocking and monitoring. It can be downloaded separately.

Don't worry about HM. As I said (and Chaz) the problem is in ATT and OpenGL games. Not necessarily the wrong calculation, more like wrong representation. I think OpenGl use (Allocate) the memory in a different way. That is why you get wrong numbers.

And Da Silva is a very popular surname overhere. Eduardo da Silva is an ex Brazilian that is now Croatian and plays soccer overhere. The best Dinamo goalgetter. And when we already talk about soccer: Croatia-Argentina 3:2! 30 mins ago! YEEEEEEEEEEES!

Cheers,

 

Great mate!

Croatia is a very good soccer-country. Very good of them that they won from Argentinia...Argentinia is very good

I think that America's Army does not support HM at all, I can feel the lag... I hope I am getting a 6800 Go soon

Charlie da Silva from Peru

 

Hey Charlie, what are the requirements for America's Army?

I would try turning down the texture quality, then you should get better performance if you are indeed running out of video memory.

As for Omega vs. Catalyst - I like ATI's drivers better. Omegas - I had some weird issues, especially when on battery. I like the Catalst drivers because they are more compatible.