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ATI Technologies 9800XT - 100-505076 FireGL 256MB DDR SDRAM AGP 8x Graphics Card User Manual

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RADEON
™
9800XT
User's Guide
P/N 137-40594-10
Copyright © 2004, ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.
ATI and all ATI product and product feature names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks
of ATI Technologies Inc. All other company and/or product names are trademarks and/or
registered trademarks of their respective owners. Features, performance and specifications are
subject to change without notice. Product may not be exactly as shown in the diagrams.
Reproduction of this manual, or parts thereof, in any form, without the express written
permission of ATI Technologies Inc. is strictly prohibited.

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Summary of Contents for ATI Technologies 9800XT - 100-505076 FireGL 256MB DDR SDRAM AGP 8x Graphics Card

  • Page 1 Copyright © 2004, ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved. ATI and all ATI product and product feature names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ATI Technologies Inc. All other company and/or product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Features, performance and specifications are subject to change without notice.

  • Page 2: Disclaimer

    Disclaimer While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this document, ATI Technologies Inc. assumes no liability with respect to the operation or use of ATI hardware, software or other products and documentation described herein, for any act or omission of ATI...

  • Page 3: Table Of Contents

    Table of Contents Disclaimer..................... ii Product Notice..................ii Introduction........1 Features At A Glance ..................
  • Page 4 Using a Monitor vs. Using the TV Display.......... 31 Reducing Edge Distortion ................. 33 Changing Display Configurations............34 Using Games and Applications..............34 NTSC/PAL Support for RADEON 9800XT ........... 35 VPU Recover ....................36 OVERDRIVE™....... 37 SMARTGART™...

  • Page 5: Introduction

    Introduction The RADEON™ 9800XT graphics accelerator delivers unsurpassed 3D graphics performance. • Powered by the RADEON 9800XT Visual Processing Unit (VPU). ® • Third generation to support the latest Microsoft ® DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL features. • Cinematic experience with a new level of quality and consistency.

  • Page 6: Features At A Glance

    Features At A Glance The RADEON 9800XT includes: • CINEMATIC RENDERING: With its highly programmable cinematic shader engines, the RADEON 9800XT visual processors are designed to bring the most detailed worlds to life with motion picture effects. • UNSURPASSED 3D PERFORMANCE: Eight parallel rendering pipelines, 256-bit memory interface, blazing fast clock speeds, and AGP 8X support come together to deliver incredible...

  • Page 7: Ati's Catalyst™ Software Suite

    ATI’s CATALYST™ Software Suite Multiple Displays and 3D Gaming Experience ATI’s CATALYST Software Suite provides multiple display functionality, and the advanced graphic features, such as SMARTSHADER 2.1, for the ultimate 3D gaming experience. For help installing the CATALYST Software Suite, refer to the Getting Started Guide. The CATALYST Software Suite installs the ATI display ®...

  • Page 8: Hydravision

    HYDRAVISION™ In addition to the multiple display functionality available with ATI’s CATALYST Software Suite, you can also use HYDRAVISION for advanced multi-monitor management. For more information on HYDRAVISION, please refer to the HYDRAVISION User’s Guide PDF located on your ATI Installation CD.

  • Page 9: Multiple Displays

    Multiple Displays Connecting Your Monitor(s) Your RADEON 9800XT provides hardware support for one DVI-I monitor or two VGA monitors using the supplied DVI-I-to-VGA adapter. A TV can also be used to expand your desktop by using the S-Video out. Plug the monitor cable into your card (if you are running multiple monitors, connect their cables to the appropriate connectors), then turn on the PC and monitor(s).

  • Page 10: Display Configurations

    Display Configurations Your RADEON 9800XT graphics accelerator card provides dual display functionality and TV Out. The following table lists the different ways you can connect displays to your card. Display Connector(s) Used Comments Configuration VGA connector OR DVI- One CRT CRT- cathode ray tube I connector with DVI-I- display...

  • Page 11: Catalyst Software Suite

    CATALYST Software Suite The following section provides an explanation of each ATI tab added to the Display Properties after installing the Catalyst Software Suite. Features presented in the following pages may not be supported in all operating systems and/or may appear differently. ATI Displays Tab The ATI Displays tab provides multiple monitor features.

  • Page 12: Enabling/Disabling Secondary Displays

    Enabling/Disabling Secondary Displays ® Access the Windows Control Panel. Double-click Display. Click the Settings tab and then the Advanced... button. Click the ATI Displays tab. Click the enable/disable button for the display device you want to enable/disable. Click OK or Apply to save the changes. Enabling Extended Desktop Mode ®...

  • Page 13: Virtually Repositioning Your Displays

    Enabling/Disabling To enable a Secondary display see Secondary Displays on page Enabling To enable Extended Desktop Mode see Extended Desktop Mode on page ® Access the Windows Control Panel. Double-click Display. Click the Settings tab and then the Advanced... button. Click the ATI Displays tab.

  • Page 14: Ratiometric Expansion

    Click OK or Apply to save the changes. Ratiometric Expansion Your RADEON 9800XT offers ratiometric expansion (or digital panel scaling as it is commonly known). This expands a low resolution image to fill a higher resolution panel. However, ratiometric expansion is only available on the Primary display.

  • Page 15: Ati Color Tab

    ATI Color Tab The ATI Color Properties page allows you to configure Gamma, Brightness, and Contrast color settings for both your desktop and full screen 3D environments. You can also save settings to a color Profile for easy recall later. In addition, you can assign unique hotkey combinations that allow you to adjust Gamma, Brightness, and Contrast color settings within your full screen 3D applications.
  • Page 16 NOTE: Some 3D applications can switch easily between full screen mode and windowed mode, and do not load their own Color settings. In windowed mode, you can make slider adjustments or select a different profile, then switch back to full screen mode to see the effect immediately.
  • Page 17 Lists all of the Desktop or Full Screen 3D profiles that you have saved. Selecting a profile from the list loads Profiles drop- those custom color settings for either your Desktop or down list your full screen 3D application (depending on the state of the radio buttons).

  • Page 18: Color Hotkeys Settings

    Opens the Color Hotkeys Settings dialog. There you can assign hotkeys for adjusting your color settings Hotkeys within a full screen 3D application environment. To button activate this button, you must select the Full Screen 3D radio button. Defaults Restores all of the color settings to the default values, button then click Apply or OK.

  • Page 19: Ati Options Tab

    Add button Adds a hotkey combination to the assigned list. Remove Removes a hotkey combination from the assigned list. button Disable Disables all hotkeys. To disable a single hotkey hotkeys combination, remove it from the assigned list. checkbox ATI Options Tab The ATI Options tab provides detailed driver information and access to the card’s specifications.
  • Page 20 ATI Options Tab Shows the Catalyst version number, 2D version number and the driver build Version Information information. Gives access to the Details tab which lists the card’s hardware details and driver Details button information. Reactivates any disabled graphics warning Reactivate all messages.

  • Page 21: Ati Overlay Tab

    ATI Overlay Tab The ATI Overlay tab allows you to configure the brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma properties of your video overlay. Video Overlay Video overlay allows for the viewing of streaming video on your PC. However, there is only one video overlay, which is only available on the Primary display.
  • Page 22 ATI Overlay Tab Adjusts the brightness of the video image. Brightness Adjusts the contrast in the video image. Contrast Adjusts the vividness of the color. Sliding it all the way to the left removes all color and produces a Saturation black and white picture.

  • Page 23: Clone Mode Settings

    Clone Mode Settings Clone Mode Options Video content is displayed on your Primary display Standard only. Video content is displayed on your Primary and Secondary displays. Video content is displayed on your Secondary display(s) is always in full screen Theater Mode mode.

  • Page 24: Direct 3D And Opengl Settings

    ® Control Panel ® This tab allows you to fine-tune settings for Direct 3D ® and OpenGL applications. Direct 3D and OpenGL Settings ® 3D Settings tab allows you to select either Direct 3D ® OpenGL , displays existing settings, and create unique application profiles.
  • Page 25 3D Settings ® ® Select either Direct 3D or OpenGL for... Controls the overall performance/image quality of your graphic application. Moving the slider to the Performance/ left will maximize application performance, while Quality slider moving the slider to the right will maximize image quality.
  • Page 26 SmoothVision (Anti-Aliasing) improves image quality by removing jagged edges from 3D images, resulting in smoother, more natural- SMOOTH looking objects. Selecting Application VISION 2.1 Preference will result in high quality images, with a negligible reduction in the application’s performance. Anti-Aliasing can be applied using different sample patterns and sample points such as 2X or Anti-Aliasing 4X.
  • Page 27 The number of samples taken when anisotropic filtering is performed can vary. By moving this slider to the right, as the number of samples taken Anisotropic increases, the quality of the final image increases Filtering slider significantly. 16X provides extremely detailed, crisp-looking images as a result of the largest number of texture samples possible.

  • Page 28: Smartshader Effects

    TRUFORM uses High Order Surface geometry to generate more detailed and realistic terrain and character models for applications that support this TRUFORM technology. Select Application Preference to enable TRUFORM. Select Always Off to disable TRUFORM. Resets to the dialog’s default values. Defaults SMARTSHADER EFFECTS ®...

  • Page 29: Direct 3D® Compatibility Settings

    ® Direct 3D Compatibility Settings There are a few applications that can only support a limited number of texture formats. By selecting Support DXT Disabled, the driver will not support DXT texture texture formats formats, thus reducing the number of texture formats supported.
  • Page 30 ® OpenGL Compatibility Settings Explicitly set the Z-Buffer depth. Most applications Force Z-buffer depth will work best when Disabled is selected Improves the frame rate of games when Wait for Vertical Sync is enabled in Custom Settings. Enabling Triple Buffering may decrease application performance as there will be less Triple Buffering...

  • Page 31: Using Tv Out

    Using TV Out View your PC’s display on a TV Your RADEON 9800XT has TV Out capability. You can attach your graphics card to a TV and monitor at the same time. Or you can connect it to your VCR and record your monitor’s display.

  • Page 32: Connecting To A Tv Or A Vcr

    Connecting to a TV or a VCR To connect your RADEON 9800XT card to a TV or a VCR, use an S-Video cable. However, most TVs (and VCRs) have a Composite video input, in which case you can use the supplied S-Video-to-Composite video adapter.

  • Page 33: Starting Windows® With Tv Display Enabled

    S-Video Out S-Video In Composite In S-Video Cable TV or VCR NOTE: Newer TVs may have the Video Input on the front S-Video-to-Composite Adapter panel ® Starting Windows with TV Display Enabled The TV screen may become scrambled during the initial ®...

  • Page 34: To Enable/Disable The Tv Display

    To Enable/Disable The TV Display ® Access the Windows Control Panel. Double-click Display. Click the Settings tab and then the Advanced... button. Click the ATI Displays tab. Click the TV button. Click the enable/disable button. Click OK or Apply to save the changes. Using and Adjusting TV Out For information about how to use TV display, right click the ATI taskbar icon, point to Help, then point to ATI...

  • Page 35: Using A Monitor Vs. Using The Tv Display

    Using a Monitor vs. Using the TV Display Using your TV for your PC’s display is ideal for playing games, giving presentations, watching movies, and browsing the Internet. However, the display on your monitor may change or looked squashed. This occurs because the display adjusts to fit the dimensions of your TV.
  • Page 36 To Use Larger Display Fonts ® Access the Windows Control Panel. Double-click Display. ® For Windows XP, click the Appearance tab. For ® ® Windows Me, Windows 2000, click the Settings tab, the Advanced... button, then the General tab. In the Font Size box, select the size you want your displayed fonts to be.

  • Page 37: Reducing Edge Distortion

    Reducing Edge Distortion When using a TV for your PC’s display, you may see some edge distortion on the left and right side of your TV screen. This effect depends on your TV and the PC application you are running. To reduce edge distortion, you can increase the TV display’s horizontal size.

  • Page 38: Changing Display Configurations

    To Increase the TV Contrast ® Access the Windows Control Panel. Double-click Display. Click on the Settings tab and then the Advanced... button. Click on the ATI Displays tab. Click on the TV button. Drag the Contrast slider to the right to increase the contrast.

  • Page 39: Ntsc/Pal Support For Radeon 9800Xt

    NTSC/PAL Support for RADEON 9800XT The RADEON 9800XT can support both NTSC and PAL TV standards. The default setting is NTSC. To change to PAL requires configuring a switch on the video graphics accelerator card. For complete information on changing this switch see the Getting Started Guide that came with your RADEON 9800XT video card.

  • Page 40: Vpu Recover

    3 Select Enable VPU Recover. VPU Recover also generators an error report which is sent to ATI Technologies when the computer is next connected to the internet. Should you wish to disable this feature, remove the check mark from Prepare an error...

  • Page 41: Overdrive

    OVERDRIVE™ OVERDRIVE™ maximizes the performance of the VPU by dynamically increasing its speed to its optimal level. An on-chip thermal sensor constantly monitors the temperature of the VPU allowing for maximum clock speed to be always maintained while avoiding overheating. To enable OVERDRIVE: Open Advanced Display Properties.

  • Page 42: Smartgart

    SMARTGART™ SMARTGART is a suite of testing and diagnostics tools that perform a variety of bus tests to determine the optimal settings for your ATI graphics accelerator installed in your computer. SMARTGART automatically configures your graphics device to the optimal settings. SMARTGART does not actually disable any AGP functionality in your computer’s hardware.

  • Page 43: Retest All

    Some motherboard specifications may claim chipset support for Fast Writes but may not be compatible with many different graphics accelerators. This setting is disabled for many computers because the motherboard is not capable of supporting this feature. Retest All Click this button to retest all graphic bus capabilities. All tests and diagnostics are initiated immediately following a system restart.

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