Anyone interested in getting a AGP upgrade, here it is and pretty damn cheap.

http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2699206

This is where I got mine from finally.

I have been considering buying one but my 9800pro is still hanging in there pretty well.

heh it's a ViVo one as well they are modable to XT PE versions as this model has 12 pixelshader pipes & 5 Vertex shader units you can open up all 16 Pipes and 6 vertex units, I could ask around how that can be done hehe :)

the X800 XT PE was the card I had because it was faster than an X850 XT but about 5% slower than a X850XT PE version and it had a single slot cooler.

and I had the 9800 Pro as well, I must say the the R420 [X800XT PE ] was a great improvement, so that X850 Pro ViVo should give ya a very nice boost when modded to X850 XT PE version, especially for that money :P ;)

wrote on 27.07.06 at 13:34:13:

and I had the 9800 Pro as well, I must say the the R420 [X800XT PE ] was a great improvement, so that X850 Pro ViVo should give ya a very nice boost when modded to X850 XT PE version, especially for that money :P ;)

I still find the performance acceptible in games like FEAR and Half-Life 2 so can't justify spending the funds.

I don't play games as much as I use to so don't have a pressing desire to replace the board.

Just finished playing Thief 3, which took me a year to get around to playing after having the game for a year =)

It was a very good game.

hmm sounds nice to test on my X1900 XTX hehe , does the Voodoo 5 run it as well?

wrote on 27.07.06 at 13:45:43:

Just finished playing Thief 3, which took me a year to get around to playing after having the game for a year =) It was a very good game.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it ;)

Now that I got this card, I'm going back to replay that game (along with some others). It was a little choppy with the 9600 that I had so I want to see what this does. I realize it's not the X1900XT or anything but it's better then the X1600 Pro card I was looking at getting and much better then my 9600 so....  Besides at only a 140$, it's not a bad buy at all.

I got a post that shows how to unlock the card. I'm not home right now so I'll post it tomorrow (at girlfriends) but I do know that it's a two step program. First you have to over clock the card using ATI Tools or some other program to see if it'll take the XT PE speeds , second there is a bios that you have to upload to the cards to make it work. You can do this with the X800 GTO cards as well but you have to make sure the core clock and memory handle it before you update the bios or you'll fry the card.

Does flashing the BIOS also open the additional pipelines?


Quote:

12 pixelshader pipes & 5 Vertex shader units you can open up all 16 Pipes and 6 vertex units

yes, you flash the bios from the X850 Pro with the X850 XT and XT PE bios which unlocks the cards. Problem is, you have to make sure that the memory and core clock will handle the speeds of the XT bios. If the card over clocks to the XT and PE clock speeds, you should be able to do a bios update on the card and have it work. I'll post links to the site I found later today that explains in pretty good detail on how to do it. Plus it's got all the bios for download as well.

yeah that's it , that Jan for the explanation, I thought it could e done via Riva Tuner but that was with the 6800 AGP 128MB and 256MB cards heh got mixxed up there  :-X

Here's that link to the instructions and to the different Bios's that are out there.

http://www.overclock.net/ati/28036-how-mod-your-x850-x800.html?highlight=Sphere

Here is detail instructions on upgrading the bios.

http://www.overclock.net/faqs/44936-how-flash-your-x850pro-xt-pe.html

oh also another main thing is that the X850 Pro's must have ViVo otherwise do not Flash them it will not work!

They dropped the price to 119.00