Possible to flash Quadro FX1300 to PCX 5900 ?

[wolf]

So as the title suggests, I have a Quadro FX1300, and spec wise it seems virtually identical to a PCX 5900, same clocks, amount of onboard shaders, ROPS etc.

The only difference is the Quadro appears to be based on NV38 and the Geforce on NV35.

I assume there's no real benefit to doing this, outside of seeing it represented as a Geforce in windows and apps, so it's more of a curiosity, but if anyone with bulk experience flashing has any insights I'm willing to listen. I think it;'s been 15+ years since I flashed a card.

 

[eidairaman1]

If chips were the same, maybe.

 

[Dr. Dro]

So as the title suggests, I have a Quadro FX1300, and spec wise it seems virtually identical to a PCX 5900, same clocks, amount of onboard shaders, ROPS etc.

The only difference is the Quadro appears to be based on NV38 and the Geforce on NV35.

I assume there's no real benefit to doing this, outside of seeing it represented as a Geforce in windows and apps, so it's more of a curiosity, but if anyone with bulk experience flashing has any insights I'm willing to listen. I think it;'s been 15+ years since I flashed a card.

Probably not since they have different chip designations. But why not just change the card name on the INF? Not sure NVCleanstall works on GeForce FX-era GPUs, but you should be able to do it easily enough by hand. Curious though, is this a Windows 98 or XP machine?

 

[wolf]

But why not just change the card name on the INF?

This would suit me fine, just having it display as Geforce, how does one do this?

Curious though, is this a Windows 98 or XP machine?

XP, it's being tested and run in my retro rig.

FWIW it overclocks nicely too, from 350/550 to 425/700, uplifting performance a solid ~20% and having it perform much like the regular and faster clocked AGP FX 5900, so if flashing were possible I'd likely bump the clocks too.

 

[Dr. Dro]

This would suit me fine, just having it display as Geforce, how does one do this?

XP, it's being tested and run in my retro rig.

FWIW it overclocks nicely too, from 350/550 to 425/700, uplifting performance a solid ~20% and having it perform much like the regular and faster clocked AGP FX 5900, so if flashing were possible I'd likely bump the clocks too.

AFAIK on this generation you have to modify the driver INF file. I don't remember drivers that old, it's been a very long time since I played around with any of this, but in nv_dispi.inf (I'm not even sure drivers of this age already use this inf structure, so sorry in advance), you should look for:

%NVIDIA_DEV.00FB% = "NVIDIA GeForce PCX 5900"
%NVIDIA_DEV.00FE% = "NVIDIA Quadro FX 1300"

00FB being the 5900 and 00FE being the FX 1300, you rename it and reinstall the driver (might trigger driver signature validation error, but XP should not mind)

 

[wolf]

@Dr. Dro thanks for the tip, I'll try this for sure but any other takes on flashing are still welcome.

The whole cards look virtually identical too, just some minor differences in display output/logic from a glance. might take the cooler off and see what the chip says, a review of a PCX 5900 had it as a 5900XT on the chip itself, which is faster clocked.

ome

 

[eidairaman1]

@Dr. Dro thanks for the tip, I'll try this for sure but any other takes on flashing are still welcome.

The whole cards look virtually identical too, just some minor differences in display output/logic from a glance. might take the cooler off and see what the chip says, a review of a PCX 5900 had it as a 5900XT on the chip itself, which is faster clocked.

View attachment 354404
View attachment 354405ome

I would have a spare eeprom or spi flasher for such an old card

 

[:D:D]

Flashing will not change ID. Maybe through resistor changes or as it's an old card soft strap.

I changed a GT640 ID to a Quadro K600 because some software functions were reported as working with Quadro but not GT640.

No GPU usage for GT640 in nvidia-smi

I have 310.19 driver installed and GT640 graphics card. With command “nvidia-smi -a”, for GPU usage it is shown “N/A”. In fact, for the most of output there it is “N/A”. Anyone else have this problem? Please fix this Nvidia. :)

forums.developer.nvidia.com

Example of before

and after

Quadro driver installed no problem and card appeared to work fine although it didn't solve my issue but found another way around it shortly afterward.

Read https://envytools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/hw/io/pstraps.html to get some info but probably undocumented and some experimentation required. IMO best done in UEFI such as using UEFI shell or RU.EFI

 

[Ruru]

Wonder can it be done via Rivatuner? I used to set my GF4 Ti 4200 to be detected as Quadro4 back in the day and it worked just fine.

Also, is there even difference between NV35 and NV38? I'm not sure but could NV38 be just a binned NV35?

 

[Dr. Dro]

Ooh, there's the PCX 5950 too! I forgot about that. Both being NV38 should considerably simplify things. I'm not sure a straight flash works, but the soft strap thing @:D:D brought up could be the solution you are looking for. Unfortunately I don't have the faintest clue where would you even begin researching the soft strap settings for a GPU this old. They're >20 by now.