Radeon 9600 Pro MUST use Fastwrites?!?!?!

[XOR]

I just read this over at OmegaCorner:

"*** IMPORTANT FASTWRITES UPDATE ***
An important info has come to my attention, if you have a Radeon 9600 Pro card,
regardless of the manufacturer, you MUST enable Fastwrites to make it work
properly, if not, you may experience crashes and lockups!


Does this just apply to the Omega drivers or is this univeral? Currently my Fastwrites are turned off both in my BIOS and SmartGart TAB. And I have been unable to play NWN for more than a couple minutes, although the rest of my system and games seem stable.

[spyre]

Universal until they fix the problems for 9600 cards with hardware mouse in games and agp reads and writes

[MoRTiZ]

Then again, enabling Fastwrites bring in a whole new slew of problems such as random lockups.

So far, the only game that I've experienced lockups is the Command & Conquer Generals/Zero Hour series. Thats about it. So shouldn't be such a huge problem till ATI fixes it but it is still annoying anyway!

I'll take the word that ATI is looking into this matter seriously and hopefully will have a fix by the next release.

[spyre]

If you check the bios update sticky above a user has just reported that the latest bios for the 9600 cards fixes the issue so it may be worth giving that a go

[XOR]

My card is a Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro Atlantis 128MB, not a Fireblade, which BIOS should I use?

[spyre]

Unfortunately not every bios is on any of those sites

You could try that bios most likely the only differences are the clockspeeds of the memory and VPU which you can edit with one of the bios edit utils

I'd recomend though emailing Sapphire and see if they can send you a newer bios for the card (if they do please email it me as the more bios's we have the better)

[AIW Guru]

WTF!?!?! My AIW 9600 pro requires fast writes for stability?! MY BOARD DOESN'T EVEN SUPPORT FAST RIGHTS! (ECS K7S5aPro rev 5.0 latest cheapoman bios) I know that there is a cheapoman which does force fast writes but I didn't flash with that one because the the chipset itself doesn't support it and it's been known to cause stabilbity issues of its own.

That being said, I have never had that system crash in the long two weeks that I've owned it. not even a game although I've only played one repeatedly on that particular system.
I do most of my gaming on my AIW 8500DV.

Anyway, is this a serious concern? Do I need to move this card to a system that does support fast writes?

[XOR]

Well I just e-mailed Sapphire about this, I'll let you all know how it turns out.

[bloodbob]

OH THATS REALLY FING SAD

What happens if your mother board doesn't support fast writes I was under the opion it was an optional part the standard.

If I was a 9600 owner right about now I'd really be hoping this isn't a hardware problem. If it is wait for the XTs to come return the Card and say your motherboard doesn't support fastwrites the card requires fastwrites( which it didn't say on the box) get instore credit or a refund and get a XT instead it will cost ATI $$$$ too.

[AIW Guru]

If this is a hardware limitation, I'll be getting my money back from ATI. My board just doesn't support fastwrites. If this GPU requires it, it's not AGP comliant.

[spyre]

A new bios upgrade has been reported as working without having to enable fast writes so I was just passing along that information

I cant confirm its true or not as I dont own a 9600 card

The card doesnt require fast writes to work as such its just a workaround for the driver bug (which can also be bypassed by lowing the troubleshooting tab one notch)

It will be fixed in later drivers so isnt a hardware bug

Only certain games are affected

NWN, C&C generals for example

This issue has been on my list for months and there are several threads about it but nobody complains unless its suddenly mentioned by Omega *sigh*

[AIW Guru]

Generals? Damn! I play that game. Oh well, as long as they fix it with a driver. I'm still playing generals on my 8500DV (3.7 ) so it's not an issue for now. but...they better friggin' fix it.

[XOR]

Hey I've been complaining big time about my 9600 Pro and Neverwinter Nights for a while now on this forum and Bioware's (more so on Bioware's). I have yet to play the game for more than 20min. And that's the longest, It usually crashes much sooner. I really want this issue fixed... I just noticed that little blurb while checking out teh Omega Drivers and was stuned, since every other person has always told me to keep fastwrites off or face the wrath of god upon my machine.

[XOR]

Well when I turned Fastwrites on it did fix the hardware mouse issue, but NWN still crashed during module load (as it normally does at various times). And it did make my other games a bit glitchy so I prompted turned it back off.

P.S. Just out of curiosity, what should my PCI Read/Write and AGP Read/Write be set to? Currently both PCI are ON and both AGP are OFF.

[grydlok]

Originally posted by spyre


Only certain games are affected

NWN, C&C generals for example

This issue has been on my list for months and there are several threads about it but nobody complains unless its suddenly mentioned by Omega *sigh* [/B]

I noticed when I played NWN after I swapped out my 9600 for my 8500. I never bother to come here and read I just enabled Fastwrites,
the game worked,
I was like hmmm.
Finished playin and never looked back.

[grydlok]

I don't know why some people has big issues with NWN.

I went from a AMD/Nforce1 setup to a P4 system (went through 2 diff mobo's) and back to a AMD/Nforce2 system. Through that span I went from a 7200, 8500,9100 to 9600pro. I had issues at the begining but I beating the game 3times and played many multiplayer modules. Hell i even used a FX 5200 for a day and I had more issues with that card than any of my ATI cards.

[XOR]

OMG! I just got a response back from Sapphire....

Here is what I sent them:

Apparenetly, after poking around the ATI and Rage3D forums, it seems that there is a long standing issue with ATI's Radeon 9600 Pro based cards involving a combination of AGP FastWrites, VIA chipsets, and Hardware driven mice. Which in turn causes many games to hard lock and then crash (Neverwinter Nights being the particular game in my case). Turning AGP FastWrites ON in both the Motherboard BIOS and in the SmartGart tab apparently stabilizes the card, but at the same time makes the rest of the system unstable. People suggested I contact you guys directly for a possible BIOS upgrade. My Card is a Sapphire "Atlantis" Radeon 9600 Pro with 128MB of DDR RAM.

And here is there response:

Dear Customer,

This is just a rumor we are not aware of this problem, and we do not have bios updates here for R9600 users.

How's that for customer support?

And then there is my reply:

Well, many games that use a hardware mouse (rather than a strictly software based one), immediately lockup and crash on the 9600 series of cards if FastWrites are not turned on. I, and many others, have tested this and shown it to be true. While FastWrites are off, if the hardware mouse option is selected Neverwinter Nights will crash within 2 minutes. With Fastwrites on (or hardware mouse not selected) the game will run beyond that. I don't see how this can be a "rumor" when it is actually happening.

P.S. Are there future plans for BIOS upates on this line of cards?

[XOR]

WTF! So the tech immediately responds and gives my the address of another "engineer" that might be able to help me out so I e-mail him the following:

I was asked by another Sapphire Support Tech to contact you conerning the matter of a possible BIOS upgrade for the Sapphire "Atlantis" 9600 Pro line of cards. The issue is as follows, for whatever reason games that utilize a hardware implementation for mouse control (rather than a strictly software based one) will hard lock and crash within a couple minutes if FastWrites are not turned on both in the Motherboard BIOS and on the SmartGart tab. This said, turning FastWrites on causes instabilities in some systems and just aren't available on older systems.



This issue has been tested and confirmed not only by myself but by many others. As a quick example Neverwinter Nights will crash within two minutes if the hardware mouse option is selected and FastWrites are turned off. However if FastWrites are turned on or the hardware mouse option is not selected the game will run beyond that. ATI has confirmed there is an issue involving FastWrites and certain VIA Chipsets, but has given me no further information. They apparently are "looking into it".



Would it be possible for you to look into this matter as well and possibly work with ATI to find a solution or even better provide a BIOS upgrade that will fix this issue. I have seen "hacked" BIOS upgrades that supposedly are a work around, but I refuse to use them as they have not been 100% tested and would certainly void my warrenty if I used them. I would feel much better getting a BIOS upgrade from you guys that I know was meant for my particular card, not just a general 9600 series card.

To which he responds:

I am sorry I do not have bios to send out to end users.

You have to be kidding me right? Who are these people? Has it become a standard in the industry to not give a crap about the customer once they've gonna our money?

I e-mailed the "engineer" back the following:

I'm not asking you to send me one this minute, I'm asking you to look into this long standing issue and possibly find a fix. If you were previously unaware of this issue, you should now be aware, since I just brought it to your attention. I would appreciate it if you attempted to resolve this matter. I would have never purchased a 9600 if I knew such serious issues existed. This is effecting a lot of users and should be given some level priority, especially for those that do not have the ability to turn fastwrites on at all.

[Gurm]

You will soon discover, grasshopper, that ATI currently has the best driver/development feedback of any major hardware vendor.

[sireric]

Regarding all this:

At this time, the rumours of a BIOS fix to correct the "HW cursor hang" problems are just rumours. We have not reproduced it and I've contacted the person who reported it, but have not received any replies or system info. It is either a misreport or a by-product of something else (i.e. changing ram timings changes the problem or even system changes unrelated). If a BIOS change would really fix this problem, we would of done it. We will keep on investigating this. Contacting Sapphire or us to get the "fixed BIOS" is a waste, since we really have no "fixed BIOS". I wish we did.

Now, on our side, we have reproduced and found the cause of the problem. It's taken much longer than anticipated because it was a hard problem. A combination of specific chipsets and conditions were required. The short term work-arounds are still to disable HW cursors or to enable fast writes. We will have a new driver that fixes this problem as soon as is possible, but I don't know when yet. I'm sure that CM will post when a fix is available.

I'm sorry about the problems this has caused people, but problems like these do happen. Thank you for your patience.

[Sasquach]

Originally posted by sireric
Regarding all this:

At this time, the rumours of a BIOS fix to correct the "HW cursor hang" problems are just rumours. We have not reproduced it and I've contacted the person who reported it, but have not received any replies or system info. It is either a misreport or a by-product of something else (i.e. changing ram timings changes the problem or even system changes unrelated). If a BIOS change would really fix this problem, we would of done it. We will keep on investigating this. Contacting Sapphire or us to get the "fixed BIOS" is a waste, since we really have no "fixed BIOS". I wish we did.

Now, on our side, we have reproduced and found the cause of the problem. It's taken much longer than anticipated because it was a hard problem. A combination of specific chipsets and conditions were required. The short term work-arounds are still to disable HW cursors or to enable fast writes. We will have a new driver that fixes this problem as soon as is possible, but I don't know when yet. I'm sure that CM will post when a fix is available.

I'm sorry about the problems this has caused people, but problems like these do happen. Thank you for your patience.

we need u guys to post here much more often...

Its getting crazy in this here parts of the web

[AIW Guru]

Oh good. So a driver will fix it? That's cool. Thanks.

[sireric]

That's the plan.

In fact, there's nothing that cannot be "fixed" in the drivers, if the card can make it to booting windows. The BIOS only serves to boot up to windows, and to have the default values (timings, etc...). Once windows is booted, the driver takes over everything (except, possibly, VESA modes in a DOS window).

[AIW Guru]

Heh. As long as it can be fixed without sacrificing performance or features

[XOR]

Yes thank you for replying. I don't doubt that the BIOS fix was a rumor. I just didn't like the fact Sapphire was just pushing my problems and concerns aside with quick one sentence replies. It seemed to me the only word they saw in either of my initial e-mails was "BIOS" and then disreguarded the rest. Which made got me a little upset.

[Veridian3]

Just so we know, what are the problem hardware configurations that we should avoid...i.e. the ones that cause this issue?

[XOR]

Well I have a VIA P4X400 chipset, and no matter what I do I can't get AGP Writes to remain active under SmartGart (Note this is not the same thing as FastWrites). Even with AGP 1 WS Write enabled in the BIOS, SmartGart reports it as off, and changing it to on doesn't do anything, once the system is rebooted SmartGart shows it's still off. I wonder if upgrading to the new VIA Hyperion 4.49 drivers would help?

[sireric]

Might. You can also try to install the driver without smartgart (note: Only reasonably experienced people should try), to see if that helps (search the forum for instructions).

[evilchickenking]

so your telling us that you guys are going to fix the aiw cards problems and not this one? where are your priorities? isn't the 9600pro supposed to be ati's big mainstream card? if it really is supposed to be, it should be a priority to fix!

[sireric]

I don't understand your comment. Not sure if I even want to.

1) I was giving you advice on how to work around SmartGart removing your fastwrite -- Nothing else.

2) There's a quick work-around for AIW users with Cat 3.9, and I'm sure that the Catalyst guys are going to do something to fix the AIW problem in a more correct way. It's just an .inf problem.

3) As I've stated a few entries above, we are working on the 9600 issue with HW cursors. Enabling fastwrite is simply a short term work-around for the problem (well, it's actually a really good way to avoid the problem).

[evilchickenking]

Originally posted by sireric
I don't understand your comment. Not sure if I even want to.

i was more or less making fun of how fast ati put out a fix for the AIW cards(minority of users) and hasn't put out a fix for this which effects more than the minority. figured since you worked for ati you would know about the AIW fix.
also out of the people who come to this site, we are the minority too, so just telling us is not as good as a driver fix. i assume you realilze this.

[ChrisRay]

Originally posted by evilchickenking
i was more or less making fun of how fast ati put out a fix for the AIW cards(minority of users) and hasn't put out a fix for this which effects more than the minority. figured since you worked for ati you would know about the AIW fix.
also out of the people who come to this site, we are the minority too, so just telling us is not as good as a driver fix. i assume you realilze this.

He "did" say they were having a hard time coming up with a workaround. Obviously one was fixed easier than the other, So they got that fix out immediately

[XOR]

Just a quick note, upgrading to the new VIA 4.49 drivers didn't change anything. AGP 1 WS Write still remains off even if turned on both under BIOS and SmartGart (once a reboot is done SmartGart shows it's off).

Just out of curiosity, how will I know if AGP 1 WS Write remains on if I don't have SmartGart installed? Right now that is the only way I can tell wether it is being read as ON or OFF.

P.S. Does VIA now about this 9600 issue? and what if anything are they doing to help?

[MoRTiZ]

I was one of those who tried upgrading my bios to no avail after suggestions from Spyre and other members in the other 'Upgrading Bios' thread.

I did post my reply that changing the bios to whatever versions didn't fix the hardware cursor problem.

Whatever the case, its good to know that 'sireric' is kind enough to point out that its just a rumour as I was a bit skeptical after reading that the user who supposedly got his card fixed by changing his bios 'still' has to have his fastwrites enabled.

Well, the only thing we can do now is to enable 'fastwrites' and wait for ATI to release the fix for that in their upcoming drivers. Thanks to sireric for clearing things up and I did find that enabling fastwrites isn't as bad as I thought it would be so just use the temporary fixes till then.

[cpharrboy]

Originally posted by Ne0_MoRTiZ
Then again, enabling Fastwrites bring in a whole new slew of problems such as random lockups.

So far, the only game that I've experienced lockups is the Command & Conquer Generals/Zero Hour series. Thats about it. So shouldn't be such a huge problem till ATI fixes it but it is still annoying anyway!

I'll take the word that ATI is looking into this matter seriously and hopefully will have a fix by the next release.

Im curious at just how many people actually have problems with Fastwrites turned on and how many just dont use the feature because they were told to. Ive used FastWrites since day one of owning my 9500 Pro all the way up til now with my 9800 Pro and havent had an issue yet with it being turned on.

[Leeghoofd]

are these lockups only with Via based mobos or also with Nvidia ones.
I just ordered a DFI Lanparty Ultra 400 together with an 9600pro for gfx speed
FAstwrites on then and see what gives or leave them off ?
any pointers in that please ?

[catfish]

The bios update did fix mine, and fast writes is off-bios/off-windows, so my other thread must have an error, I cant find the thread, nor do I care to change it.

I've had this 9600pro since they first came out, I had tried absolutly everything and after the bios update, it no longer locked up. I don't know what special was in the new bios.

I do know that before the flash, my card had an NTSC bios and the dip switches on the card were set to PAL(I did this when I got it), after teh up date they are both on PAL. Maybe that has something to do with it?

[MoRTiZ]

are these lockups only with Via based mobos or also with Nvidia ones. I just ordered a DFI Lanparty Ultra 400 together with an 9600pro for gfx speed FAstwrites on then and see what gives or leave them off ? any pointers in that please ?

Unfortunately this isn't a motherboard specific problem so it happens in Via and Nvidia or any other boards with the 9600pro (Not manufacturer specific problem as well).

I'm currently using the Epox 8rda3+ which is based on the Nforce Ultra 400 chipset as well. Yes, just leave fastwrites on both in bios and in the ATI control panel.

Catfish, it's great that you've got the problem under control. Like what seriric mentioned before, it could be something else which you have done as well. And now that you mentioned that you've switched the ntsc/pal switch on the card 'might' have something to do with it. At least ATI has more ideas on what is goin on with the problem.

Anyway, I will try switching the ntsc/pal switch on my card and see if that works as I'm still using the same bios which has solved your problems as it gives off a far better monitor contrast than my original one.

[XOR]

My big probelm is not just with FastWrites though. Yes turning them on fixes the hardqware cursor issues, but Neverwinter nights still crashes with the same crash I have alwasy been getting even with hardware mouse turned off. Which apparently has been attributed to a combination of VIA chipsets and the fact AGP read/write are being forced to off.

Here was my inital post on this issue:

Originally posted by XOR
nwmain.exe generates the following error at various times and then exits:

Error Message

mostly upon loading between modules, loading games, or dealing with inventories, but it has happened at other points. The corrosponding application log is as such:

Event Viewer Application Listing

and contains the following dump:

Dr. Watson Log

This is always the Dr. Waston error generated. Same error, same memory range. Anyone know if this is at all related to the problems most Radeon 9600 users are having with Neverwinter Nights? All my in game video settings are as low as they can go, and the error happens even with sound disabled (special note: hardware mouse it turned off).

Detailed System specs:
Motherboard: Shuttle AV49N
Chipset: VIA P4X400 (VT8754) Rev3

Processor Manufacturer: Intel
Processor Type: Pentium 4
Processor Speed: 2.4Ghz

System RAM: 512MB DDR400 (Corsair)

Operating System / Service Pack: Windows 2000 with SP2

Video Card Manufacturer: Sapphire
Video Card Model: "Atlantis" Radeon 9600 Pro
Video Card RAM: 128MB DDR
Video Card Driver Version: 7.90.7-030625a-009907E (wxp-w2k-radeon-7-90-ogl-hotfix.exe)

Sound Card Manufacturer: Turtle Beach
Sound Card Model: Santa Cruz
Sound Card Driver Version: 5.12.1.4193

Other important information:
DirectX 9.0a installed
OpenGL version is: 1.3.3803
Neverwinter Nights Version: 1.30.7041
VIA 4.48 Drivers (had same issue with 4.43 though)

SmartGart Settings:
PCI Write - ON
PCI Read - ON
AGP Write - OFF
AGP Read - OFF
AGP Bus set at 4x (Fast Writes OFF)

And I have yet to successfully turn AGP 1 WS write ON in my BIOS and have SmartGart retain that change. So once again my question is:

How can I tell the state of AGP 1 WS Write if I install the Cats without the SmartGart? For all I know the VIA drivers could still be forcing it off, I'd just not be able to tell. Anyone know of any utilitizes that can monitor the status of these BIOS options?

[lovswr]

Well i upgraded from Omega's 3.8 to ATI's 3.9 late last night (actually about 0100 eastern). I did not try anyting other than IE. So today, I go to play Q3. I got cm_maxfps set to 100. I was only getting about 44 & nothing had changed other than the driver upgrade. Went to Omega's site to see if he had his 3.9's up (he did'nt) & saw that message in the first post. I did it & Q3 came back up to 100 (1280X1024). Have not tried anything else yet, but I'm happy now.


edit: Just finished a rather refreshful round of Nascar Racing Season 2003...I like these so much, that I don't think I'll be using Omega's this round.