Hi,
I bought the Sapphire Atlantis 9500 128mb DDR, I opened the box proudly and found that my manual was missing. I was wondering if anyone could help me install the graphics card--my PC is way over the cards requirements, except i have a standard 4X AGP (1.5V) configuration, will that hinder the card in any way ? Ive heard rumours that the 9500 (non-pro) could be made to utilise its 8-pipelines to equal the performance of the 9700, im glad i got the card before they were sold out--save me some money.

Any help will be much appreciated-

Actually the cards that you can mod are not sold anymore. ATI caught onto this quickly and quit making the cards. So unless the card you have is black you're out of luck. The only thing you will be able to do is overclock it. As for setting it up, make sure you have the extra power cable plugged into the card. The voltage for the agp slot "should" be enough.

ya, most motherboards make before feb 2003 are gonna have AGP 4x. its the standard requirement

My card is black, but ive heard some people have had trouble installing the mod ?
Thanks for the help-

Lots of misinformation out there - you want the RED PCBs with the L-shaped memory. I got lucky and softmodded to 9700 Pro specs w/out artifacts. Even if the softmod fails, you get great value for the money.

Check these out:

1. Softmod resource: http://www.maxdownloads.com/~ian/wizzard/
(This is currently unavailable for some reason - I hope it's not permanent. This site had drivers and a great how-to and FAQ section on softmods and overclocking...)

2. Reviews on Newegg site: http://secure.newegg.com/app/CustratingReview.asp?item=14-102-271

If anyone knows where the w1zzard is now, please post for all to see...

Here are the FAQs from the original w1zzard softmod. I get a single artifact in the bottom left (small price) I have red pcb. I believe w1zzard can be contacted at w1zzard@gmx.net or ICQ: 3166214.

What kind of card do I have to buy?
A: You need a Radeon 9500 Non-pro (NP) 128MB on a 9700 PCB. The 9700 pcb has 2 chips of RAM on top and 2 chips on the right of the GPU (L-shaped). The new 9500 pro pcb has 4 chips all on top of the GPU in a straight line.


Q: I have a Radeon 9500 Non-pro 64MB. Will the patch work for me too?
A: Yes. But you will get a 9500 PRO 64MB with the patched driver.

Q: I have a Radeon 9500 Non-pro 128MB with the new pcb layout.
A: You will get a Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB.

Q: Will this work with a 9500 Pro card?
A: Nope. 9500 Pro can't be turned into anything.

Q: Which brand should I buy?
A: There's no difference in moddability between the cards. All OEMs have to use the same GPU and PCB.

Q: What is artifacting/checkerboard effect?
A: Artifacting is when you get undesired 'dots' or patterns on screen. The theory as of now is that artifacts are caused by undocumented defects on the 9500 NP's disabled by the 9500 drivers. Worst case scenario, the unused pipelines have a possiblity of being broken, resulting crashing and not booting up. You might get a card that works flawlessly or one that doesn't. It's a gamble.

Q: If I have artifacts when using hacked drivers, will I also have them if I hardmod the card?
A: Yes. You will.

Q: How can I guarantee I get a card that works?
A: You can't. Even the same supplier has cards that work, and those that don't.

Q: How can I overclock my 9500/9700?
A: The BIOS often ships locked on OCing. In this case you need to flash it with an unlocked bios (see warp11's site). However, many confirm that the Sapphire cards come unlocked by default.

Q: Do different bios' matter when OCing?
A: Yes. Different bios' spec'd for different memory cannot be used to OC the memory. (ie: cannot OC Infineon ram with Hynix bios) However, core clock does not seem to have compatibility problems.

Q: Is there support for Windows 9x/ME? When will you add support for 9x/ME?
A: Currently I do not plan on having patched drivers for these platforms. You may try Rivatuners Soft9700 script for 9x/ME.

Q: I installed your patch but my card still shows up as "Radeon 9500".
A: This patch does not change the cards displayed name. Run benchmarks to verify that the patch worked.

Q: Will you update your patch when a new driver is released?
A: Definitely since i'm using a 9500->9700 card myself.

Q: I installed your drivers and can't find any place where I can change settings.
A: You probably didn't download ATI's Control Panel. It's no longer part of the driver. Get it from here.

Q: I can't extract the patched ati2mtag.sys from the .ZIP file. It seems to be broken on your server.
A: Please try to download it again. For some reason the server likes to abort transfers.

Q: What is this Radeon 9500 -> 9800 thing?
A: During development of Radeon 9800 drivers ATI found a way to increase performance for 9500/9700 drivers too. However they decided not to include these improvements for the 9500/9700 series at this time. They will be included in Catalyst 3.3 if they prove to be stable.
To verify the improvements I used 3DMark2001 standard pixel shader test with 6x Anti-Aliasing. This gave me a ~10% increase. Post your results here

This just in:

The W1zzard's new site is at: http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/

Everything you need (and need to know) to softmod your Radeon 9500 to a Radeon 9700 Pro can be found here, along with some OC links.

I was ill informed about this, I thought you could softmod the Radeon 9500 pro into the 9700 pro, should I RMA it and get the 9500?

And if I do buy it, it has to be from Sapphire, correct?

A further question, can't you just overclock the video card through Rage3D or something, you actually hafta unlock the multiplier ont the video card and such?

In answer to your three questions; No, No and No

1. I don't think the 9500 cards that were originally based on 9700 pcb are are in production any longer. I think that it was all about yields. Those 9700s that had a faulty pipeline or a GPU that would not run at 9700 speeds were basically clocked down to 9500s in much the same way that CPU rate their chips (saves money of course). Before long ATI designed a reference board solely intended for 9500 use. I would be surprised if you could get one of the original 9700 pcb versions now. I could be wrong of course

2. Sapphire were not the only company who used the ATI reference boards.

3. To O/C a radeon you first have to reflash the cards Video BIOS as the ATI BIOS does not support O/Cing

The chances of you getting a radeon 9500 (non pro) that will actually run excatly like a 9700 (non pro) are extremly low. your better of staying with your 9500 pro.
I was unlucky in getting a 9500 with the newer pcb design (black) . I can still use the 9500->9700 software mod but i get a lot of gfx corruption at the default memory clock, if i lower the memory clock down from 270MHz (540DDR) to 260MHz (520DDR) i get no gfx corruption at all, in fact i can even raise the core clock just fine. I you raise the AGP voltage up to 1.8V you can increase the memory clock to 300MHz (600MHZ ddr) without any gfx corruption.

You can do all this from rage3d, riva tuner, powerstrip, etc... but the only 9500's that are oc'able are from sapphire. unless you flash the video bios which may or may not work with your particular card therefore leaving you with a dud card.

all clear?
but if you can afford it go for a real 9700 or 9700 pro go for that instead.
Also the performance you get from a modded 9500 is similar to a 9700 not a 9700 pro.

I have the radeon 9500 BLACK pcb and the software MOD works fine. The catch? GET A SAPPHIRE CARD! I am running the card @ 325/310(620)mhz no problem. The card comes unlocked in the bios and all you need to do is go to http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/index.php. Disregard the Warps bios thing. You won't need it with a sapphire. Then get the newest version of powerstrip and overclock away.

No don't ever buy Sapphire products. Nearly all of them have time-bomb like defects that cause extreme screen corruption.

Visit the following site - a huge amount of people have this problem with Sapphire's 9xxx series, and sapphire tech support have done absolutely nothing to fix the problem.

http://forum.sapphiretech.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=20&whichpage=1

ok, so show me where someone complained about the 9500 series card? All I see is 9700. I say don't take no ones word for anything. Experience works best. If the forum said the sky is green some people would fall for it. I would rather find out for myself. Which I did. I have a Radeon 9500 NON PRO 128MB and it works just great! Nuff said!