GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS on non Ultra card?! - 2006/12/11 07:09Hi, I'm new to the boards but have used NiBiTor quite a bit in the past. I have a question about a dilemma concerning my Inspiron laptop's GeForce Go 6800 card. Basically, would I be able to flash a GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS? Here are the reasons why I think it could be possible and/or impossible... - Both cards have NV42 cores - Ability to flash GeForce 7900 GS's to a GSX (mix of GTX and GS) - Different memory, GDDR3 versus DDR1 or DDR2
So, I was thinking of a potential hybrid BIOS, which would have the memory timings of the GeForce Go 6800 copied over to the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS. However, I don't know exactly if this is possible or even feasible given that there are so many entries there in the first place... Any ideas are welcome.
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vick_n
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Re:GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS on non Ultra card?! - 2006/12/14 00:57I can upload my version of the video card BIOS, and the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS is already on this site. There was some discussion about this back on NotebookForums about flashing a higher voltage BIOS. However, I noticed that there were four VID's in the GeForce Go 6800 BIOS, and eight VID's in the Ultra BIOS. The 3rd VID in regular GeForce Go 6800 was 1.1V, which is the card's default voltage. The 8th VID in the Ultra BIOS is 1.38V, card default voltage.
People thought they could write in the voltage table a certain voltage and get that voltage on their regular GeForce Go 6800. Example, run card at 1.2V with VID 02. Or, run card at 1.3V with VID 02. Clearly, this is not possible; upon research on the voltage values, it seems that these are simply used by the driver to call upon the proper VID when operating the card. So, my goal is to see if the Ultra BIOS can unlock some extra VID's. By the way, the 2D and throttle operation for the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra is also VID 02, or 1.1V...
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Mavke
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Re:GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS on non Ultra card?! - 2006/12/14 08:31Okay, get us the BIOS, and we will check it out. And indeed, many people think they can do whatever in the voltage table and think it will give the voltage they just type. Wrong! It is the VID and which VID that is active that controls the voltage. And in the voltage table you can give the VID a certain label, nothing more, nothing less. But it is just the label and doesn't do anything on the voltage itself. But selecting, activating another VID does do that.
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vick_n
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Re:GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS on non Ultra card?! - 2006/12/14 10:55Oops screwed up on previous post. This is the 6800 ultra bios from this site.
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vick_n
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Re:GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS on non Ultra card?! - 2006/12/14 10:59Okay, this file is the 6800 bios from my laptop video card; rom was taken with nibitor 2.9a.
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vick_n
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Re:GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS on non Ultra card?! - 2006/12/23 05:17Hey, I am almost 100% sure that it would be OK to flash the 6800 NU with the Ultra bios but... one thing that scares me is the fact that the NU uses DDR1 and not DDR3 memory. They use the same amount.
My question is, if I modified the Ultra bios to change all timing tables to match the ones found in the 6800 bios, would that be sufficient to ensure I don't screw up the memory? Oh yes, I would also make sure to select a low voltage for the core first and then work my way up if the first bios works.
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Raptor
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Re:GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS on non Ultra card?! - 2006/12/23 05:54you have to look on the memory the non ultra card to make sure its using ddr3 memory . if not you could goof up a good card ....
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vick_n
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Re:GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS on non Ultra card?! - 2006/12/23 06:10That's the thing, it is NOT running DDR3 memory, just regular DDR. Basically both cards have a NV42 core, and 256 MB of memory total (similarities). As far as differences go, the Ultra has a higher clock speed with a much higher core voltage of 1.38 volts in 3D operation and DDR3 memory that's set at 1040 MHz, while the regular 6800 Go (mine) has a core voltage of 1.1 volts in 3D mode and DDR memory set at 650 MHz.
I hope that clears up my question. At this point, I'm really starting to doubt this flash is possible.
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vick_n
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Re:GeForce Go 6800 Ultra BIOS on non Ultra card?! - 2006/12/29 06:51Hey, I apologize for posting yet again, but just wanted to let everyone know that I'm not going to try it. The performance gains would probably be minimal at best, whereas the losses would be great.
I've compared the 2 bioses with a hex editor as well as looking at the values in advanced memory timings, and studied the advanced timings when the card was running. My conclusion from all this is that there are different scripts for different types of memory, not just simply timings alone. Thus, simply copying the timings will not solve anything, as they would not be interpreted correctly by the bios scripts.
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