[SRX660]

The video card is in a pentium 3-700 computer so i don't think it will be pushed too much. Maybe later on when superstar upgrades to a pentium 3.0 or athlon 64 then he will have to think about a PCI-e video card. Granted he wont be able to play the latest games. In another thread he has said they the main use of the computer is for photo and video editing. The card should handle that fine.

SRX660

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well yes sorry about that i just skipped through that sorry guys

i just thought i would give a demonstration of the card cause mines the same

once again sorry for photo and video editing thats no worries the cards fine for that i maunly built my computer for DVD editing and the card runs fine from what i have heard vodeo editing isnt that extensive on video cards i no mine runs fine

once again sorry about breezing over the specs goodluck with the new card
troppo

[troppo]

well yes sorry about that i just skipped through that sorry guys

i just thought i would give a demonstration of the card cause mines the same

once again sorry for photo and video editing thats no worries the cards fine for that i maunly built my computer for DVD editing and the card runs fine from what i have heard vodeo editing isnt that extensive on video cards i no mine runs fine

once again sorry about breezing over the specs goodluck with the new card
troppo

[superstar]

Well the "ATI Sapphire Radeon 9550 256MB 128Bit AGP4X V+D+T" card is nice. Does what I want it to do. Plays good games too! It was def a good buy. It surprised the heck out of me. It's really good.

It brought a cd with it. It had two options.

1. To install the drivers and icon program that you can use to configure it.

2. To install an overclocking program.


What the f is an overclocking program? & how can I set my video card for optimum use?


It plays games nice! But I know I can tweak it or something to work better from what I heard? I dunno how to do that.

Hey Troppo what is the little yellow adaptor and yellow cable wire for? I tried to hook it up to my tv thinking that I'll be able to see whats on my desktop on my tv, but nothing showed up. Im assuming I prob need to set it to use that output? I mean the little yellow plug looks the size of one of the outputs on the back of teh vid card. But one end of the little adaptor looks diff in pins than what the output on the vid card is like. Maybe I have it the wrong way? I dunno. What the [bleep]

Edited by superstar, 22 May 2006 - 01:17 AM.

[troppo]

well heres some background info that i have researched on the radeon 9550:

to start of the 9550 has the same GPU as the 9600 but the 9600 has faster clocks on both the memeory and the GPu so this means that the 9550 GPU can be overclocked to the 9600 specs (providing that the card is cooled enough) i have overclocked my 9550 to the 9600 specs ive got my clocks to 370 on the core and about 260 on the memory (from 250 on core and 200 on ram) BUT i would NOT suggest pushing it this far i have been able to overclock to these settings but after having the side of my case of and touching the RAM it was extreamly hot! so i turned my memory clock down a bit.

from day to day i run the clocks at 340 and 230 (core, RAM) it does it fine you notice a slight improvement (obveisly not that much because is not like unlocking pixel pipelines or anything but you do notice a fair difference)

but ATi are onto this and have placed a "clock lock" in their drivers but there are ways of getting around this

one way is to download and install softmod drivers
if your interested you can look here
http://www.techpower...d/downloads.php
these are the ones i use currently with my card and with overclocking and the new drivers i notice a fair decent gain in performance i was quite impressed

but there are other ways to overclock the card like flashing the bios to a radeon 9600 but this is alot more difficult and risky i would suggest just downlaoding eaither of these two programs:

ATI tool which i am sure is what you have on your cd
http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

or

rivatuner
http://download.guru3d.com/rivatuner/

now the only problem with overclocking these cards is that they do not have a tempreature sensor so its all pretty risky. i had to judge mine by feeling the card when running a bench mark test

this is the one i use
http://www.futuremar...nload/3dmark03/

i have tried 3dmark06 but its way to intensive for the tests i was only running about 1-2 frmaes per second
but this bencmark is for the new pci express supercards i am happy to talk you through the steps if you are interested in overclocking.

i hope this has helped a little i would suggest downloading 3dmark03 and running the benchmark and saving your score in a .txt format and then updating your drivers then doing another benchmark and compare them after that then overclock and see if that helps again,

goodluck with it all if you need any more info im always here to help,
troppo

[superstar]

Where do I download the newest drivers for my card? I am running win xp home with service pack 2.

Will the new drivers and stuff make my card faster?

[warriorscot]

www.ati.com funnily enough has ati drivers and www.nvidia.com for nvidia drivers. Considering the age of the card a performance boost is unlikely.

[superstar]

Oh really? Cool sarcasm there buddy. Some people start to feel a little tuff now over the internet eh? Nah man I meant where I could download the drivers for the 256MB 9550 Sapphire Radeon card I have. Because all I can find is the drivers for the 128MB version.

[troppo]

well in my previouse post i gave you a web adress it was techpowerup.com it was in the middle and i no it was a long post so you probably just skipped over it but it doesnt matter.

the advantage of these drivers is that they are based on ati drivers but are tweaked to the best performance and warrior scott i have installed these drivers and noticed a pleasent increase in FPS.

there are also different drivers out there like omega drivers but i have never used them i would stick with the ones i sugested seens we both have the same card andi have tried these drivers.

just click on the link and it will take you to wear you need to go,
troppo

[superstar]

would I have to uninstall the ati drivers I installed with the card when I download the drivers that your telling me about Troppo?

[troppo]

well from memeory no its just like an update but if it asks you to delete the old drivers say yes and it will do the rest for u

it should tell you everything you need to no if not then post back.

have you tried the overclocking programs? they will gain you some improvement.

goodluck,
troppo

Edited by troppo, 24 May 2006 - 03:46 AM.

[superstar]

Hmm overclocking will void my warranty no? I should get a side fan for my case, and maybe some heatsinks for the video card ram right? I mean you did say yours got very hot! I mean I dunno how to apply those heatsinks but hey if I have to learn I have to learn.


Hey Troppo you have the same card as me. How do I get whats on my computer monitor to appear on my tv? The video card came with a long cable which is an obvious video in/out cable. & it came with a small adaptor with 8 pins on one end, and the other end of the adaptor is where you attach the long video cable.

I tried to attach everything to my videocard and attach it to the input of my tv, but I got nothing. I seen nothing on my tv. Than someone told me I had to restart my pc while it was all hooked up. So I did that and I seen my pc boot on my tv while I had my monitor on as well. & while it was booting on my tv the screen kept going up and down. Almost as if it were a bad connection or something. And by the time it went to my xp password input (before the desktop launches), my tv went blank. It was black. It did'nt show anything on my tv than. My monitor worked fine though. So I took off the video cable and the little adaptor because I do not want to ruin anything. I dunno maybe I have a faulty card? If so I need to take it back. Maybe it's the direction I put the little adaptor on the back of the vid card. I mean theres 8 pins on one end of the little adaptor, and if you look at where it supposedly goes on the back of my vid card its weird. It does'nt look alike. The hole where you put it into seems like something that needs an adaptor with more pins on it. I dunno. I want to test everything out so I know I did'nt throw my money down the drain.

Hopefully you know Troppo. Because I searched the sapphire site and they have no help on this card, but they do for other earlier versions. Thats weird. I mean even when you use the installation disc for this vid card it has an option called "online manual". If you click it a pdf file opens up with options to see stuff on vid cards but not the version we have. That is stupid. Anyways thanx for the help maybe you can tell me how to see this stuff on my tv. I'd like to play the games through that! It's probably the way I place the adaptor. I must be putting it in wrong. Please help. [bleep] little adaptor. I mean it came with it for a reason no? and with the long video cable. So obviously they should be useful with my card somehow.


I will try those alternative drivers you speak about. On one condition. That they really made a difference on your card. I tired to look for the drivers on the sapphire site but I can't tell which version of the radeon 9550 card there for. For all I know it's for an older version of my card.

Edited by superstar, 24 May 2006 - 05:19 AM.

[troppo]

overclocking wont void your warranty besides even if the thing does break they have no way of telling.

but dont worry about going to all the trouble of replacing heatsinks and ram sinks even the 9600 doesnt have ram sinks all i was saying was make sure there is pleanty of air flow and you swhould be fine the only reason my ram was so hot was because i overclocked it way to far i mean from like 200 Mhz to 270Mhz thats an extra 70Mhz thats heaps thast running from 400Mhz effective to 540Mhz thast why it was so hot but a few even say 30 or 40 Mhz is fine and doesnt generate to much heat. but if your unsure overclock it little by little and run the benchmark test i told you about and feel the ram and see if its hot i found on mine that the GPu was fine not even hot at all and its got a really small aluminium heatsink and crap little fan.so dont worry about replacng heatsinks and ramsinks its not worth it!

ok about connecting your pc to the tv
first of all the cable should look something like 1) (bottom of page)
this is called an S-Video cable or connection this end goes to an RCA plug what you have to do is connect the S-video plug to the card and the RCA end into an extension RCA male to male plug or you can buy plugs like this one 2) (bottom of page)
ok so after you have done this then you need to left click on the ATi control panel icon in the system tray and click radeon 9550 secondary and then on extend desktop or something similar (sorry cant remember what the other cataylist version said) this should allow you to see your computer on the tv.

you can also adjust the resolution of the tv by on the desktop left clicking on the background and hit properties selecting the settings tab and with the little drop down menu select display 2. and selct default monitor on radeon 9550 secondary then adjust the resolution with the slider as normal.

all ati drivers work for all cards exept some really old ones dont like the new catalyst versions. but for our cards they are fine belive me i noticed a bit of improvement in games and in the benchmark. and look if your not happy with the drivers you can always change them back.

the drivers i am talking about wont be on teh ATi website follow the link i gave you and downlaod the catalyst version 6.4 these are the softmod drivers they are tweaked to the best performance beleive me they are better than regular ATI drivers and as i said if you dont like them change back.

goodluck,
troppo

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Edited by troppo, 24 May 2006 - 06:40 AM.

[superstar]

thx I'll try the thing for my tv troppo

[superstar]

Troppo you told me to download some drivers for my radeon 9550 from this site: http://www.techpower...d/downloads.php

There are actually various things to download there on that page. Actually I think there is 4 things to download on that page. From the box at the top on that page called "Catalyst 6.4 v6.14.10.6606", I downloaded something called "Softmodded Catalyst Package " which was 36.5MB. Is that all I should have downloaded? Or is there more on that page for me to download?

I assume the program you are telling me to download automatically overclocks my card? I have never overclocked anything so sorry about my inexperience. I won't install whatever it is you are telling me to until I buy a fan for the side of my case because you say that the card will get hot! I have my radeon 9550 card installed on my motherboard but I am not playing games because I have no side fan on the case of my pc. Well actually I am playing games I lied. I play them for 10-15 minutes a day. I don't play more than that because I still have to buy the fan for the side of my case because I do not want anything to ruin. I hope I'm not causing damage to the video card because I don't have a side fan on my case. As I said I am staying away from gamming until I get the fan. Let me know if I have to buy that fan now, or if it is not that important because I am a very busy person and have'nt had the time to go and get one.

[troppo]

there is no reason to go out and buy a fan quick smart it is fine to play games during the day theres no problem with that dont stress its fine

i dont have a fan on the side of my case. but i do have an intake fan an exhaust fan and a seperate intake for the CPU fan and the cards fine the only reason i said that the ram will get hot is because i overcloked mine TOO MUCH i overclocked it to 270MHz thats an extra 70 MHz thats way to much dont overclock it that much i was stupid DONT do it that much only a little by little

the program is called ati tool it will do it for you just downlad that and run the "max GPU" and "max memory" tests and it will do it for you it might take a while but its worth it

and download the drivers that say "softmodded cataylkst pakages' if you have 32 bit windows which im pretty sure you do have and install the complete package

troppo