[HOWTO] ATI Radeon overclocking

Message

shimbob · Post by **shimbob** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 6:14 pm

ya, I'm aware of the theory, mostly wondering how well the Radeons follow it.
I will definitely try underclocking my laptop.

ps I'm using cpufreqd to clock my 3ghz chips as low as 300mhz. waaay cooler.

pps the neat thing about cpufreqd is that it picks a frequency based on a number of variables, including the current CPU load. Do the Radeons have any counters that can be watched and have the core/mem speeds adjusted based on that?

ppps I can underclock my 9100 as low as 0.0mhz. the next step up is 7.5mhz, but running startx will lock the machine, hard. Will play with it later to find minumum freq where X still runs

BetterUnborn · Post by **BetterUnborn** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 9:45 am

Well, it's just theory ...

But one thing caught my interest: how can you possibly underclock your cpu that far??
In my centrino I have only 4 steppings from 800MHz .. 1,6GHz. I can't go below 800MHz, though it definitely would be nice to do that. Is there a trick I haven't found yet?
And there is rumor that a cpu becomes unstable with too slow clock ... but 3GHz -> 300MHz is most I've ever heard of beeing stable.

nazgum · Post by **nazgum** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 5:52 pm

Thanks for this great tool.

I have a radeon9700 Mobility like an above poster, and it also reports the clock settings incorrect for me.

However I can still use the tool to underclock it some to reduce the heat of my video card [loathe ati - my card always overheats, not enough to be dangerous but enough to put lil artifacts if I use anything that is 3d too long like vmware] and generaly it is not overheating so much now [and no artifacts!]

shashir · Post by **shashir** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 8:38 pm

Seems to be like a perfect program.

shimbob · Post by **shimbob** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 11:41 pm

BetterUnborn wrote: But one thing caught my interest: how can you possibly underclock your cpu that far??
In my centrino I have only 4 steppings from 800MHz .. 1,6GHz. I can't go below 800MHz, though it definitely would be nice to do that. Is there a trick I haven't found yet?
And there is rumor that a cpu becomes unstable with too slow clock ... but 3GHz -> 300MHz is most I've ever heard of beeing stable.

I think it really depends on which cpufreqd driver you're using in the kernel. Do you compile your own kernels? (silly question, this is gentoo!

I'm using the "Intel Pentium 4 clock modulation" driver, which gives me the best results. I once used another driver (Intel Enhanced Speedstep or something) and it was like your situation, only 3gz or 1.5ghz.

Rock stable here. (oh, and lowest freq is actually 375mhz, not 300)

Gander at the following:

Code: Select all

azuz linux # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4     CPU 3.06GHz
stepping        : 9
cpu MHz         : 383.404
cache size      : 512 KB
(clipped)

azuz linux # cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
383323 766647 1149971 1533295 1916618 2299942 2683266 3066590

and

zlab dylan # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 3
model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
stepping        : 4
cpu MHz         : 2993.404
cache size      : 1024 KB
(clipped)

zlab dylan # cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
375000 750000 1125000 1500000 1875000 2250000 2625000 3000000

Hasw · Post by **Hasw** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 5:53 pm

Some mobility revisions seems to have a different register access method, I'll work on a update for rovclock.

IIRC the "Intel Pentium 4 clock modulation" does not adjust the core voltage, so it can't be compared with Speedstep, with reduces the multiplier and voltage to save power.
The clock modulation stops the clock with a specific ratio, which isn't effective as Speedstep.

pumpkin0 · Post by **pumpkin0** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:31 am

Hello

THX A LOT for this tool. It helps me to cool down my system. You are doing the work xorg's radeon-team should do.

I'm using xorg 6.8.1 and this 7500-variant:

0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: IBM: Unknown device 0530
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping+ SERR+ FastB2B+
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 66 (2000ns min), Cache Line Size: 0x08 (32 bytes)
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
Region 0: Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Region 1: I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
Region 2: Memory at c0100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0
Status: RQ=48 Iso- ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA+ ITACoh- GART64- HTrans- 64bit- FW- AGP3- Rate=x1,x2,x4
Command: RQ=32 ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA+ AGP+ GART64- 64bit- FW- Rate=x1
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

underclocked to 100/200 it still gives me decent speed. Underclocking to 50/80 crashs the system if i run glxgears (first some funny effects, then hard lock). I will try to find the optimal clocks now ...

jingo · Post by **jingo** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:29 am

pumpkin0 wrote: underclocked to 100/200 it still gives me decent speed. Underclocking to 50/80 crashs the system if i run glxgears (first some funny effects, then hard lock). I will try to find the optimal clocks now ...

Did you find the optimal underclock?
What is the generel ratio between core and mem clock?

I use this on my Thinkpad T42 to save power and avoid the fan running all the time!

Liquid Crystal · Post by **Liquid Crystal** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:28 pm

This thing ROCKS man!

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lspci -v
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M22 [Radeon Mobility M300] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems: Unknown device ff10
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
        Memory at 90000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        I/O ports at c000 [size=256]
        Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] #10 [0001]
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-

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rovclock -i
Radeon overclock 0.6b by Hasw (hasw@hasw.net)

Found ATI card on 01:00, device id: 0x5460
I/O base address: 0xc000
Video BIOS shadow found @ 0xc0000
Reference clock from BIOS: 27.0 MHz
Memory size: 131072 kB
Memory channels: 1, CD,CH only: 0
tRcdRD:   5
tRcdWR:   3
tRP:      5
tRAS:     10
tRRD:     4
tR2W-CL:  3
tWR:      3
tW2R:     2
tW2Rsb:   1
tR2R:     2
tRFC:     17
tWL(0.5): 2
tCAS:     4
tCMD:     0
tSTR:     1
XTAL: 27.0 MHz, RefDiv: 6

Core: 398.25 MHz, Mem: 297.0 MHz

Code: Select all

glxgears
14138 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2827.600 FPS
14137 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2827.400 FPS
14138 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2827.600 FPS

This gave me a boost of 800+ FPS in glxgears

Thanks a lot for the great tool

ravloony · Post by **ravloony** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:28 pm

ok, really stupid question, but where should i put the ebuild in my overlay folder? media-gfx maybe? Does it even matter?

R4miu5 · Post by **R4miu5** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:20 pm

Hi, this tools seems really great. Couldn't you ask one of the developers to take it into the official portage tree? or you could ask breakmygentoo

Hasw · Post by **Hasw** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 11:12 pm

ravloony wrote:ok, really stupid question, but where should i put the ebuild in my overlay folder? media-gfx maybe? Does it even matter?

I put it in sys-apps, but I think it doesn't matter on your local overlay. It seems there are now enough reports that it works, so I can submit the ebuild

mArrAtoN · Post by **mArrAtoN** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 12:50 pm

works great with 9550

pumpkin0 · Post by **pumpkin0** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 5:24 pm

jingo wrote:Did you find the optimal underclock?
What is the generel ratio between core and mem clock?

The mem-speed is the limiting factor. Don't go below 100 MHz for memory.

At 80/110 my R51 stay's 100% slient. At 60/100 X goes south.

dwr_budr · Post by **dwr_budr** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:31 am

Hasw! Dude! I have registred here just to say big thanks for this tool

Below are my 5 cents about compatibility.

Asus A9250 with 256RAM (pretty shitty card)

Original: 240/200
glxgears: 2150

OC'ed: 290/225
glxgears: 2475

It probably would do more. But I have tested it for stability only at mode written above. This improvement has given me around 5+ fps in ET. Which is always useful on Radar

System: Asus P4B266 / P4 1.6 @ 1.9 / 1GB RAM etc.

PS This card is weird. Just tried 290/200 and got 2760fps in glxgears. Looks like it doesnt like memory OC'ing.

shimbob · Post by **shimbob** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 10:45 pm

Hasw wrote: IIRC the "Intel Pentium 4 clock modulation" does not adjust the core voltage, so it can't be compared with Speedstep, with reduces the multiplier and voltage to save power.
The clock modulation stops the clock with a specific ratio, which isn't effective as Speedstep.

you're right.
Using the P4 clock modulation, my temperature sat around upper 50s.
now using the ACPI P-States driver and the temperature idles at 43.
Couldnt get the SpeedStep driver to work

apoc2222 · Post by **apoc2222** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 2:46 pm

Another big big THANK YOU

It's working perfectly on my x600 mobility (samsung x25)

saquel · Post by **saquel** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 10:39 am

First of all. Really nice tool that you've created.

Just wanted to report that works also with my Hercules 3D Prophet FDX 8500 LE. This is not good graphics card for overclocking though.

250/250(default) glxgears result:
11871 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2374.200 FPS

274/253 glxgears result:
12352 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2470.400 FPS

only ~100 FPS boost in glxgears.

omp · Post by **omp** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:00 pm

Is this safe to use?

atheb · Post by **atheb** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 10:08 pm

Hi,

with the Radeon Mobility M6 LY in my R32 Thinkpad I encounter the following problems:

using rovclock when xorg is running:
- the display gets garbled even by setting the core clock to its current value (141.75)
using rovclock from console (after stopping xorg):
- the system hangs randomly upon execution of rovclock
- but if it succeeds to set the core clock to its current value, the screen doesn't get garbled
haven't tried console without prior start of xorg yet.

I'm used to weird behaviour of IBM laptops, but perhaps there's another reason this time.
I wonder if possibly some setting in xorg is incompatible with the manual adjustment of the core clock.
(I'm using xorg 6.8.2-r1)

Code: Select all

lspci -v
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M6 LY (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: IBM: Unknown device 1905
        Flags: bus master, stepping, fast Back2Back, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 11
        Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
        Memory at d0100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

evildead · Post by **evildead** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 10:38 pm

wow, this program is awesome!!
Hasw, thanx a lot!

btw,
is there any chance you might figure out how to softmod the radeon 9500 to a 9700 like the omega drivers for windos do?

when running win2000 with my softmodded and overclocked 9500 i can play counterstrike source with all settings to max @ 1280x1024 and get around 50 -60 FPS, but alas, with winex/cedega it is unplayable,
i get around 20-25 FPS with all settings to low @ 800x600 :'(

(i hope you still follow this thread)

RobNyc · Post by **RobNyc** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 11:38 pm

does it go for radeon 9200 pro 256ddr?

OsZ · Post by **OsZ** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:14 am

Hi, just registered to say thanks for that small GREAT tool! SO, BIG THX TO HASW !

Have running my Radeon 9500 as 9700 overclocked now which just reminds me on the M$ Windows times. glxgears more than 4000fps

Just takes me to the question from evildead:

evildead wrote:
btw,
is there any chance you might figure out how to softmod the radeon 9500 to a 9700 like the omega drivers for windos do?

There are some HOWTOs available but here is shortly mine based on the ATI driver configured with fglrxconfig. Backup your xorg.conf before. In your xorg.conf you need to go to the ATI DEVICE SECTION and below IDENTIFIER and DRIVER you can add 'ChipID 0x4e44' - thats it - just as simple! Please browse for the chipid list for detailed chip informations. I have seen that somewhere in the net, can't remember where. 0x4e44 is the ID for the 9700. Please make sure that your card supports opening the additional 4 pipes. Restart your X windows and compare the fps with glxgears. If something went wrong just copy your backup xorg.conf back to /etc/X11 and restart X.

Cheers,
OsZ

evildead · Post by **evildead** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 10:59 am

OsZ wicked!
went from 540 to 700 FPS with gears!

thnx man... i couldnt have guessed it was that simple..

btw,
anybody here ever play counterstrike source through cedega?

it keeps randomly locking up my pc even if the videocard isn't overclocked....

quellthrix · Post by **quellthrix** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 4:14 pm

First off, I readily admit I'm new to overclocking, so I really don't know exactly what I'm doing. However, in an attempt to get back some lost performance by using ATI's crappy drivers for linux, I wanted to try to overclock my Radeon 9800 Pro. Now, how exactly do I do this?... look for some resources online to look for some core and memory frequencies to set? Bear in mind, I really am new to this.

Results of rovclock -i:

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leviathan rovclock-0.6c # rovclock -i
Radeon overclock 0.6b by Hasw (hasw@hasw.net)

Found ATI card on 01:00, device id: 0x4e48
I/O base address: 0xb800
Video BIOS shadow found @ 0xc0000
Reference clock from BIOS: 27.0 MHz
Memory size: 131072 kB
Memory channels: 2, CD,CH only: 0
tRcdRD:   5
tRcdWR:   3
tRP:      5
tRAS:     10
tRRD:     4
tR2W-CL:  3
tWR:      2
tW2R:     2
tW2Rsb:   1
tR2R:     2
tRFC:     17
tWL(0.5): 2
tCAS:     4
tCMD:     0
tSTR:     0
XTAL: 27.0 MHz, RefDiv: 12

Core: 378.0 MHz, Mem: 337.50 MHz

If I correctly assume what I'm doing, my card is supposed to have a core of about 380 and memory of 340, so this would appear right. Is all that's left to do is set the core and memory to some different values? Am I correct in thinking that I just have to find some values to plug in from some overclocking site?

Thank for any help provided.