Push overdrive limits over the top!

vanillaportal said:

what's the purpose for having us key in the 2D/3D clocks manually?
I am actually looking for ways to change my default 2D clock, will the RacerX toold allow me to do that?

Click to expand...

The reason for that is so that this tool will be as "universal" as possible to work with as many cards as possible.
It's primary purpose was to unlock the higher OC's in the OD panel, however due to all the different interactions involved, it had to be enhanced to compensate for various models.
The CCC "syncs" with the profile.xml file. I was changing a ton of stuff in the profile file to test a few things out and watched CCC sit there with a pop up about synchronizing settings for several seconds. Also just changing too many different clock settings all at once can cause the OD panel to be blank for a few seconds before it comes back.

Unfortunately it's not as simple as just changing some clocks and you're done.
The driver itself also interacts with all of this when CCC is running.
The profile .xml file is basically a configuration or settings file for CCC.

Anyway, to answer your question, this does allow for certain adjustments beyond default clocks, but if you set them wrong, you may not get into windows.
Then you'd need to get into safe mode, remove the reg file entry, restore your profile.xml file and reboot.

I'm working on a detailed instruction sheet, but it's a work in progress as this program is still evolving somewhat.

With all the different internal clocks these cards have, there is a lot more to it then meets the eye.
for example, watching a video i've watched the memory clock cut itself in half on occasion, and if I set the lower limit down, it will cut itself down even further.
Also you need to remember that just because you lower clocks a bit, the original voltage is still there.

Bottom line, some clocks can be adjusted a bit, but if you adjust them the wrong way, you may be spending a lot of time trying to fix things.

What card do you have and what exactly is it you want to change and why?

I have a HD6950 with unlocked shaders using REB, everything is working well except on legacy games. For example, I still play WarCraft 3 Frozen Throne a lot and since the game is too old and too light on the graphics, the HD6950 will keep switching automatically between 250/150 and 880/1375 during game play, it wont stay in 3D mode clock.

I found that whenever the memory clock is flipped from 150 to 1375 or from 1375 back to 150, I'll get screen flicker during gameplay. This is an old problem dated back with my previous card (HD4850). I tried using AB (unofficial method) to fix the memory clock to 1375 and the flicker is completely cured. Thus I am looking for a way to fix the 2D memory clock to 1375 to prevent it from switching between difference clocks.

My current workaround for legacy games is to force higher level of AA (4X or 8X SSAA). By doing so, it stresses the GFX card enough to kick it into 3D mode completely and also prevent it from automatically switching between 2D/3D memory clocks. It works for now, but I am looking for better solutions to just keep the memory clock consistent in both 2D/3D mode.

Am I explaining it clear? I know it sounds a bit strange, but it is an known issue that memory clock switching will cause screen flicker, and it's quite annoying.

There may be a way to do it, but I'm not sure if it would work.
technically with this tool, you should be able to just increase the 2D memory clock "minimum" and it "may" work, but for reasons below you may have issues.

Reason being, in 2D mode voltages are lower, and I don't know if you crank up the 2D memory clock if it will work unless you could ensure the voltage would increase as well.
Also your temps may go up if it did, so you'd have to keep an eye on them.
also, I don't know if the lower 2D gpu clock would be "happy" with it being low, and the memory clock being high.


A lot of variables to look into first.

Okay, the latest tool is attached.
I'm "hoping" it will finally solve the 68xx users problems.

If someone with a single 68xx card is willing, open the tool and do the following:

First, let it backup the profile file to the desktop.

Second, let it create a default file without adjusting the uppers at this time, and let it install into the registry.
reboot and see if you get into windows.
If so, open CCC and see if all the sliders are there, and what the new upper limits show.
If all is good, you can run the tool again to just change the uppers and let it install again into reg and reboot.

If for some reason Windows doesn't like it, boot into safemode, run the tool and do the following:
1. Click the Purge registry button to remove the reg file.
2. run the restore button to restore your saved default profile file.

Since these are the only 2 things touched, a reboot should put you right back where you were before this.


Then let me know if it worked or not.
Thanks.

Tried newest version with HIS 6850 @ ICEQ turbo bios. BLUESCREEN when loading to windows. I did left upperlimits 900/1250 (overdrive current limits). Hope this helps, can test with other settings if needed.

Alright guys, I'm looking to find updated info about the 6950 limits "unlock"...

I've read this whole thread to find that it is possible to unlock the 6950 speed limits. But it seems that the RacerX program is still experimental. In my case, I have 2x radeon 6950 2gb with unlocked shaders...

Has this RacerX program been tested on 6950 crossfire?

And if so, have any of you guys tried combining the effects of the RacerX program with the RBE voltage "editing options" to raise the card voltage and compensate for the Card throttling back and fourth...???

And lastly, is it possible for me to unlock the speeds of both my 6950 using this RacerX tool considering I'm using a Crossfire setup? And if so, could I get a Step by Step walkthrough?

That would be INSANELY AWESOME!

Alright guys, I'm looking to find updated info about the 6950 limits "unlock"...

I've read this whole thread to find that it is possible to unlock the 6950 speed limits. But it seems that the RacerX program is still experimental. In my case, I have 2x radeon 6950 2gb with unlocked shaders...

Has this RacerX program been tested on 6950 crossfire?

And if so, have any of you guys tried combining the effects of the RacerX program with the RBE voltage "editing options" to raise the card voltage and compensate for the Card throttling back and fourth...???

And lastly, is it possible for me to unlock the speeds of both my 6950 using this RacerX tool considering I'm using a Crossfire setup? And if so, could I get a Step by Step walkthrough?

That would be INSANELY AWESOME!

Click to expand...

You know you can just unlock the limits of your cards with MSI afterburner right? The voltage and the Clock speeds.

The voltages will cap out way higher than you would ever get too with out blowing up your cards as well as the clock speeds will be higher then you could ever reach with out blowing up your cards. Unless you are using Liquid Nitrogen 24/7 which I doubt plus and even then you could still never reach the new cap.
I know it can be done because I did it with two HD6950's. The only reason I could see you wanting to do what you want to do is. Because you want something different. Otherwise you could do it at a much lesser risk than what you are talking about.

***Edit ***
The only thing you couldn't do is to control the voltage throttling with the MSI AB option. You would have to manually adjust it.

From my experience, MSI AB doesn't allow me to unlock speeds and voltage... I'm talking here about going over the 840/1325 limit. Last time I tried with MSI AB, that was not possible, and if I'm correct this is why this thread was ever started... right?

You guys probably knew about this but I sure as heck didn't... MSI AB is locked @ first when you try to raise de clock speeds and change voltage... You have to edit the MSI AB config file...

Here's a link that will show whoever's interested how to do this :

http://www.overclock.net/amd-ati/986597-overclocking-6950-a.html

MAKE SURE you compensate any OC you do to your card with proper Fan response to cool it down :O)

EDIT ***

I think you guys are gonna love me for this... I've found something that pretty much fixes a lot of BSODs when trying to OC the 6950 in Crossfire using MSI AB...

MSI AB crashes to BSOD when you hit apply (after tweaking the clocks or whatnot...) whatever the settings you put in... That is because one card is shut down (or idle...) You need to disable ULPS:

Here's the link, Read up carefully: http://www.overclock.net/amd-ati/667144-crossfire-disabling-ulps.html

Hmmm... I have one more problem with MSI AB... I've set my settings within AB to run both my cards (6950 unlocked shaders only) @ 900mhz/1350mhz... and when I open up 2 instances of GPU-Z... I can see that during playing (@ full load), one of my cards is getting up to 900/1350 but the other stays @ it's stock no matter what I do (800/1250)... Is this normal???

I've also noticed that the name for both cards isn't Exactly the same... Well ... they're both 6950... but on has Cataclyst 11.2 in it's name in GPU-Z and the other just some numbers with no "cataclyst 11.2"...

Pls help

1st post just joined because of this thread

I installed my brand new MSI r6950 2gb HD twin frozr last nite and I am wondering why on AMD overdrive and CCC it shows my GPU clock @ 250mhz and my memory clock @ 150mhz

I replaced a gigabyte 5830 and it showed the correct stock speeds

the 6950 seems to work great as I tried it in a couple of my games and threw all graphics settings to max and my frame rates were still higher than with the old card at lower settings

I would like to get CCC and AMD to show the proper stock settings and hoping this thread can point me in the right direction

I am still pretty much of a noob when it comes to this but I built this system a year ago (my 1st) and it has been great and now I am addicted and building another with the old GPU for my daughter

jonathan1107 said:

Hmmm... I have one more problem with MSI AB... I've set my settings within AB to run both my cards (6950 unlocked shaders only) @ 900mhz/1350mhz... and when I open up 2 instances of GPU-Z... I can see that during playing (@ full load), one of my cards is getting up to 900/1350 but the other stays @ it's stock no matter what I do (800/1250)... Is this normal???

I've also noticed that the name for both cards isn't Exactly the same... Well ... they're both 6950... but on has Cataclyst 11.2 in it's name in GPU-Z and the other just some numbers with no "cataclyst 11.2"...

Pls help

Click to expand...

I think it's a matter of waiting for a newer beta AB program. I gave up using it because of the 2nd gpu problem.

firkraag said:

1st post just joined because of this thread

I installed my brand new MSI r6950 2gb HD twin frozr last nite and I am wondering why on AMD overdrive and CCC it shows my GPU clock @ 250mhz and my memory clock @ 150mhz

I replaced a gigabyte 5830 and it showed the correct stock speeds

the 6950 seems to work great as I tried it in a couple of my games and threw all graphics settings to max and my frame rates were still higher than with the old card at lower settings

I would like to get CCC and AMD to show the proper stock settings and hoping this thread can point me in the right direction

I am still pretty much of a noob when it comes to this but I built this system a year ago (my 1st) and it has been great and now I am addicted and building another with the old GPU for my daughter

Click to expand...

Everything is working as it should. When in 2D mode (not gaming, etc) the card automatically downclocks to save on energy usage.

erocker said:

Everything is working as it should. When in 2D mode (not gaming, etc) the card automatically downclocks to save on energy usage.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info

Just to be certain I understand while I am gaming it will work at the factory clock settings or whatever I choose to overclock the settings to in the future

And what software should I use to see if my settings are working as they should because when I tab out of my game to see it still shows the lower settings

firkraag said:

Thanks for the info

Just to be certain I understand while I am gaming it will work at the factory clock settings or whatever I choose to overclock the settings to in the future

And what software should I use to see if my settings are working as they should because when I tab out of my game to see it still shows the lower settings

Click to expand...

GPU-Z. Once you tab out of the game the card will revert to it's 2D settings but you should be able to tell if it was running 3D clocks by looking at the readings in GPU-Z.

Nice user name Firkraag! Are you a Baldur's Gate 2 Fan? That's the best freaking game Ever !!!!!

TimoX, will your program work to finally solve the problem of the cards running to slow when contected to multiple monitors which produces tearing in the secondary desktop?
I need to increase the 2d memory clocks and due to the resctriction in the drivers to work with RBE in bios from 6000 series this is my only hope!!
I have a MSI R6850 Cyclone PE card...

Nice tool for my 6950! I have the shaders unlocked and afterwards (by RBE) the GPU-voltage set to 1,15. RaceX did it´s job either and I am running at 1000 MHz (liquid cooling).
The one and only "fault" is the voltage in idle. It is 1,0 V instead of 0,9 V. Perhaps Low3D instead of 2D-voltage?

Anyway: Thanks a lot!

€dit: Indeed that´s the fault. RacerX is writing the VID1 as idle-voltage into the registry, but it should be VID2 for 6950. Tested it by changing the value with RBE and flashing the changed bios.

€dit2: After some checking, flashing, driver reinstalling i have got it working with another guys regfile.

scamps said:

Nice tool for my 6950! I have the shaders unlocked and afterwards (by RBE) the GPU-voltage set to 1,15. RaceX did it´s job either and I am running at 1000 MHz (liquid cooling).
The one and only "fault" is the voltage in idle. It is 1,0 V instead of 0,9 V. Perhaps Low3D instead of 2D-voltage?

Anyway: Thanks a lot!

€dit: Indeed that´s the fault. RacerX is writing the VID1 as idle-voltage into the registry, but it should be VID2 for 6950. Tested it by changing the value with RBE and flashing the changed bios.

€dit2: After some checking, flashing, driver reinstalling i have got it working with another guys regfile.

Click to expand...

Where do you find the voltages in the registry ? I'd like to ckeck mine. thx

anyone figure out how to fix powertune to anything.. not just +20?

And for others.. sapphire's trixx is a nice little utility that will overclock your 6970-6950's to what ever you want. The only catch is though... you have to put powertune to +20 percent to get your clocks stable over 900. Currently have my shitty not unlockable xfx under water at 990 stable at 1.29 volts. This seems to max out the 20+ percent from powertune.
Trixx also allows you to run the memory slower and create custom fan profiles. Afterburner gave me too many headache's

Looking forward to trying some new overclocking software fella's. Keep up the good work.

Just like to report my success and say thanks to BAGZZlash and TimoX for all their hard work.

On my PowerColor 5850 PCS+ it did not work when I left everything at defaults (core 1000 memory 2000) but when I reduced the memory setting to a more reasonable value (1250) it worked no problem, and gave me a new power control slider (which I'm guessing doesn't have any effect on my card but I set it to +20% anyway)

In addition I'm running the Windows (8) developer preview and it still worked.

I also just noticed that it has altered my fan profiles in a good way, before at 72C the fan was unnecessarily fast at 66% and now it has dropped to 40%. Once it hits 81C though the fan speed jumps, then it cools off and the fan speed drops, and it repeats like that. Do you have any plans to make the fan speed adjustable in the tool? I used to use RBE to adjust my fan speed but now that the drivers no longer respect the BIOS fan profile I would like another alternative.

Thanks for the update. Actually this info will help, as I'm still trying to find a way to tweak the fan profile in this as well.
Unfortunately AMD has really locked the BIOS down as you said, making it a pain to have to use tweaks and third party programs for this stuff.

I use Afterburner. I have it set to load at startup with a custom fan profile, and I have 2 presets in it.
My default 3D clocks and my gaming overclock. Technically I could use the racerx tool to have my overclock 3d settings load at startup, but i don't game everyday, and the overclock does nothing for web surfing and such so there's really no need since I have to run AB anyway.

I don't run CCC and i don't have AB do any monitoring, just controlling fan profile.

Do have a way to change the powertune slider to 50%, but it needs to be tested. Not sure if it will actually do 50% on a card designed for 20, but the slider will do 50, or whatever number I choose.

The 20% doesn't do much for me and i've found that 0 is actually most stable on my overclocks. not sure if it is just one of my cards, or the fact that I have the voltage adjusted to 1.2, which maybe affects that indirectly????

Anyway, been a bit busy, but I plan on doing some more testing with my second card to see what else I can squeeze out of this.

TimoX said:

Thanks for the update. Actually this info will help, as I'm still trying to find a way to tweak the fan profile in this as well.
Unfortunately AMD has really locked the BIOS down as you said, making it a pain to have to use tweaks and third party programs for this stuff.

I use Afterburner. I have it set to load at startup with a custom fan profile, and I have 2 presets in it.
My default 3D clocks and my gaming overclock. Technically I could use the racerx tool to have my overclock 3d settings load at startup, but i don't game everyday, and the overclock does nothing for web surfing and such so there's really no need since I have to run AB anyway.

I don't run CCC and i don't have AB do any monitoring, just controlling fan profile.

Do have a way to change the powertune slider to 50%, but it needs to be tested. Not sure if it will actually do 50% on a card designed for 20, but the slider will do 50, or whatever number I choose.

The 20% doesn't do much for me and i've found that 0 is actually most stable on my overclocks. not sure if it is just one of my cards, or the fact that I have the voltage adjusted to 1.2, which maybe affects that indirectly????

Anyway, been a bit busy, but I plan on doing some more testing with my second card to see what else I can squeeze out of this.

Click to expand...

Hey TimoX, i joined to thank you for racerx, it is awesome, but as you can see in bold, i am in dire need of 50% powertune.

I am using 2x toxic 6950 (both unlocked) and have 50% in ccc with no tweaks. When setting the powertune, i MUST set it to 50% or i get throttled at 950/1350 (with 1.25v set in trixx).

When i use your program, i can run stable at 1.25 but with only 20% PT i get throttled as low as 925/1350.

I have tried every trick known to man to use trixx and ccc together but with crossfire, it refuses to keep the powertune that i set.

i am more than willing to test the powertune trick you have, even if you want to point out what registry or command. this will save my soul if you could, lol.

I'm looking at adding it to an upcoming version, along with options for voltage adjustment as well.
follow the instructions below to get 50% instead of 20% in CCC.


First, disclaimer:
Do this at your own risk, that includes others trying to change it.

Do you still have the racerx.reg file on your desktop?
If not, re-run the tool and when it asks to save it, save it as racerx.reg

you need to add the .reg after the name or it will save it as a generic file, because after it creates it do NOT merge it yet.

Now, right click on it and click "edit".
This should open it in Notepad.

look down about 4 lines and you'll see the number 14 in between a bunch of zeros.
Carefully change the 14 to a 32, making sure not to change or add any spaces or extra commas.
Close it and let it save it. Then click on it and allow it to merge.
reboot, then CCC should have the 50 back for you.


If it acts up or does some other thing, you can just delete that reg entry or run the tool to delete and reboot, and you're back to stock settings.

Lol I just replied to u at techimo as u typedvthis.

When I get home I will try it and report back.


Thanks again!

I went ahead and answered there as well should anyone go there to look.

Good luck, hope it works for you.