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ATI Technologies X1650 Computer Hardware User Manual

1. Radeon X1650 PRO User s Guide P N 137 41146 10 Copyright 2006 ATI Technologies Inc All rights reserved ATI the ATI logo and 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 diagrams Reproduction of this manual or parts thereof in any form without the express written permission of ATI Technologies Inc is strictly prohibited 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 concerning such products or this documentation for any interruption of service loss or interruption of business loss of anticipatory profits or for punitive incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing performance or use of the ATI hardware software or other products and documentation provided herein ATI Technologies Inc reserves the right to make changes without further notice to a product or system described herein to improve reliability function or design With respect to ATI products which this doc
2. Connect the DVI I connector of the interconnect cable to the DVI I connection on the Slave card 3 Connect the remaining DVI I connector of the interconnect cable to your monitor On graphics cards with two DVI I connectors only one DVI I connector on the Slave card supports Transition Minimized Differential Signaling TMDS required by CrossFire If CrossFire does not appear in the Catalyst Control Center or is not available try connecting to the second DVI I connector on the Slave card Before CrossFire can be enabled you need to close the 3D application or video playback that is currently running You will not be able to start CrossFire if a 3D application game or video playback such as a DVD movie is running Close all open 3D applications games and movie player applications then enable CrossFire The CrossFire Edition card must be installed on the 1st boot up slot on your motherboard A message recommending the reversal of graphics card positions appears if the Master graphics card is not installed in the correct PCI Express slot Typically the Master graphics card should be placed in Slot 0 Slot zero See your motherboard s manual to determine the correct CrossFire placement of Master and Slave graphics cards for your system CrossFire Aspect in Catalyst Control Center is Not Displayed CrossFire aspect is only available for the Master g
3. The basic requirements of a CrossFire system are a CrossFire certified motherboard with two PCI Express x16 slots a CrossFire Edition graphics card and a compatible CrossFire Compatible graphics card A CrossFire Edition graphics card works with all members of the same brand family Thus a Radeon X1650 PRO CrossFire Edition graphics card can be used with any Radeon X1650 product For an up to date listing of CrossFire certified motherboards see ati com crossfire 102 CrossFire Overview CrossFire Rendering Modes A CrossFire system has four possible display modes e SuperTiling e Scissor Mode e Alternate Frame Rendering e Super Anti aliasing The first three are performance oriented modes while Super Anti aliasing is a quality oriented mode Each mode uses a different method for dividing the workload required to render a 3D image across multiple GPUs Only one mode can be in operation at any given time The ATI Catalyst display driver will automatically select the best of the three performance modes when a 3D application is started without requiring user intervention The user can also choose to improve image quality by selecting the new Super Anti aliasing modes in the Catalyst Control Center CrossFire Overview 103_ SuperTiling In this mode each frame to be rendered is divided into a number of tiles in an alternating checkerboard pattern so that half of the tiles are assigned to
4. each of the two GPUs Each tile is kept to a relatively small 32x32 pixel square so this method does a good job of balancing the workload across each GPU regardless of what is being rendered on the display doing so without any software overhead eo 1 PCI Express CrossFire Compatible Graphics Card 2 Radeon X1650 PRO CrossFire Edition Graphics Card 3 Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express CrossFire Compatible Graphics Card 4 Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express CrossFire Edition Graphics Card 5 Final Rendered Frame on Display SuperTiling has the advantage of being able to work with practically any 3D application However there are a small number of applications where the SuperTiling workload distribution does not provide optimal performance For these special cases Scissor Mode can be used 104 CrossFire Overview Scissor Mode In this mode each frame is split into two sections with each section being processed by one GPU The ideal configuration is determined automatically for each application 1 1 PCI Express CrossFire Compatible Graphics Card 2 Radeon X1650 PRO CrossFire Edition Graphics Card 3 Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express CrossFire Compatible Graphics Card 4 Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express CrossFire Edition Graphics Card 5 Final Rendered Frame on Display Although Scissor Mode is generally a less efficie
5. SuperTiling mode If Catalyst A I is not enabled any Direct 3D applications that are running on a system based on graphics cards with 16 pipeline graphics processors will use SuperTiling Mode 15 What type of performance improvement is expected Performance enhancements experienced on a CrossFire system depend on the application or game being used Performance improvements can be increased up to 100 and the latest graphics intensive programs will generally see over 80 performance improvement at high resolutions and image quality modes 16 How many independent displays can be connected to a TM CrossFire system While CrossFire is designed for optimal use on a single display it is possible to drive multiple monitors using a CrossFire system when CrossFire is not enabled If the motherboard contains an integrated video connection and SurroundView is enabled more displays can be added Additional troubleshooting tip are covered in the Reference chapter CrossFire Overview 101_ r e CHAPTER 7 Welcome to CrossFire ATI CrossFire is the ultimate multi GPU performance gaming platform using ATI CrossFire ready motherboards and ATI graphics cards CrossFire Overview This section provides an overview of the main features and configurations for CrossFire These topics will be covered in more detail in other chapters of this manual Allowable CrossFire System Components
6. a standard Red Green Blue RGB color signal for televisions The signal is split and compressed into separate luminance and color values luminance Y red minus luminance R Y and blue minus luminance B Y The value for green is not transmitted The display device automatically fills in the color values that are not red or blue DVDs are encoded using component video so display devices will provide enhanced playback when this type of connection is used A common variant of this format used in North America is YPbPr Composite Video Composite video is a type of analog video signal that combines both brightness and color information into a single signal It typically uses a single RCA connection for the video channel and separate RCA connections for the left and right audio channels The quality of the video signal is reduced by the process of mixing the brightness and multiple color channels together into a single channel For this reason it is inferior in signal quality than either S Video or component video Composite video is the broadcast format for analog television signals worldwide and connections are typically available on VCRs DVD players and video games Compositing Engine A chip that is available only on CrossFire Edition graphics cards This chip takes the signals from the GPUs on both the Master graphics card and the Slave graphics card and combines the results according to the selected operating mode I
7. been moved or occluded It does this by optimizing the storage of buffer regions in the graphics card s memory buffer Other applications are typically not adversely affected when this is enabled Lighting In 3D computer graphics refers to aspects and quality of the virtual light source being used to make an object visible Lighting can strongly affect the mood of a scene For example a harsh light could be a bare lightbulb that is glaringly bright on the objects closest to it while casting strong shadows in the background A softer light would be more diffuse and not cast shadows such as you would get outdoors on a typical overcast day Mipmapping The most memory intensive aspect of 3D graphics are the textures that give an object its realism like wood marble leather and cloth Because objects in real life become less detailed as they move farther away from the viewer 3D programmers simulate this by using less detailed lower resolution texture maps on distant objects These texture maps are merely scaled down versions of the main texture map used when the object is up close and they use less memory ATI Technologies 130 NTSC The name for the type of analog television signal used throughout the Americas except Brazil and in Japan It draws a total of 525 vertical interlaced frames of video at a refresh rate of 60 Hz making it relatively flicker free The acronym refers to the National Television Sy
8. bus used for attaching computer ATI Technologies 131 peripherals to a computer s motherboard PCI encompasses both integrated motherboard components such as built in graphical processors and peripherals that fit into an expansion card slot such as a separate graphics card PCI replaced the older ISA and VESA bus standards and was itself superseded by the AGP standard for the main graphics card bus PCI Express PCle The successor standard to the PCI and AGP bus standards with a significantly faster serial communications system further opening up bandwidth for more communications between such peripherals as graphics cards and the computer s CPU PCIe cards can come in several physical configurations the fastest currently being X16 which is typically used for graphic cards and X1 typically used for other peripherals such as separate multimedia cards Pipeline In relation to computer graphic processors refers to the number of separate arithmetic units available for rendering the output on a display In general more pipelines available on a graphical processor means there are more 3D rendering capabilities available increasing overall 3D performance Pixel All computer images are made up of tiny dots Each individual dot is called a pixel a word created from the term picture element A pixel is the smallest indivisible unit of a digital image and can be only a single color The size of the pixel depends
9. graphics card works with all members of the same brand family For example A Radeon X1800 CrossFire Edition will work with a Radeon X1800 CrossFire Ready graphics card 3 What motherboards support CrossFire The optimal configuration for a CrossFire system is one based on a Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition motherboard Motherboards from other manufactures will be certified as CrossFire Ready when they become available 4 Are there specific BIOS motherboard settings for CrossFire On some motherboards the BIOS may be set by default to support only a single PCI Express X16 slot Ensure that both PCIe X16 slots are enabled in the BIOS For information on configuring your BIOS settings consult the manual that came with your motherboard ATI Technologies 5 Which slot does the CrossFire Master card go into on the motherboard The CrossFire Master card must go into the primary PCI Express slot slot zero on the motherboard Note To determine which PCle slot is the primary slot consult your motherboard manual Alternately to determine whether or not a CrossFire Edition card is in the correct slot connect your display directly to the DVI I connection on the Master graphics card instead of using the CrossFire DMS 59 VHDCI connector with both graphics cards seated in their respective slots on the motherboard If an image appears on the screen upon boot up the card has been
10. link and the bottom connector is dual link Note Some Radeon X1650 PRO graphic cards have one DVI I connector and one VGA connector To connect your monitors 1 Power off your computer and monitors 2 Plug the monitor cables into their appropriate connectors 3 Power on your monitors first and then restart your computer so that Windows can detect the new hardware settings 4 When the New Hardware Found Wizard appears at the appropriate prompt insert the ATI Installation CD to load the drivers for your Radeon X1650 PRO card To set up a multi monitor display 1 From the Start button click Control Panel then Display Click the Settings tab to access the basic multi monitor configuration settings Note ATI provides Catalyst Control Center software that provides many additional configuration features It can be accessed by clicking the Advanced button from the Display Properties gt Settings tab 2 Select the Monitor icon identified by the number 2 3 Click Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor 4 Set the Screen Resolution and Color Quality as appropriate for the second monitor Click Apply or OK to apply these new values e Refer to your Windows online help and documentation for further information on using the Settings tab Note When you use multiple monitors with your card one monitor will always be Primary Any additional monitors will be designated as Secondary ATI Technologies Display
11. monitor The maximum display resolution for TV is 1024 x 768 Choosing a resolution higher than this will cause the TV display to disappear if it is the only display device Using Games and Applications Some older games and applications may program your Radeon X1650 PRO directly to run under a specific display mode This may cause your TV display to turn off automatically or become scrambled your PC monitor or portable LCD display will not be affected Your TV display will be restored once you exit the game or if you restart your computer Connecting to HDTV View computer output directly on your High Definition Television HDTV or other component input device Provide a big screen experience for your computer that is ideal for playing games giving presentations watching movies and browsing the Internet HDTV uses YPbPr connectors to receive input YPbPr stands for the following e Y Green e Pb Blue e Pr Red ATI Technologies Connecting to HDTV 15 The HDTV Component Video Adapter can be used in place of the standard A V Output cable to connect to an HDTV or other component input device using component video cables You must have a monitor attached to your computer before installing the ATI HDTV For proper operation of your ATI Component Video Adapter ATI display drivers must be correctly installed eh op Ooo l VIDEO IN 1 ATI HDTV Video Output Cable ATI HD
12. on how the display resolution has been set The smallest size a pixel can be is determined by the display s dot pitch which is measured in millimeters mm Pulldown Pulldown is a telecine technique used to transfer motion picture film shot at one frame rate to a video format at a different frame rate Typical NTSC video contains more frames per second than motion picture film for even division between frames so that every 4 frames of film can be reproduced as 5 separate NTSC frames the extra frame created by interlacing interpolated frames This feature produces a smoother NTSC video image from a motion picture film source and can be used for better edge image ATI Technologies 132 processing in the Vector Adaptive Deinterlacing feature within Catalyst Control Center Refresh Rate Also referred to as vertical refresh rate This is the rate at which a monitor or television can redraw the screen from top to bottom NTSC television systems have a refresh rate of approximately 60 Hz whereas computer displays typically have refresh rates of 75 Hz or more At refresh rates of 70 Hz and lower screen flicker is often noticeable Rendering Rendering refers to the final drawing stages where the 2D image that appears on a display is derived from its 3D descriptions What appears on the display may look three dimensional but it is really just a 2D grid of pixels designed to appear that way Resolution The resolu
13. only with compatible UL Listed personal computers that have Installation Instructions detailing user installation of card cage accessories se ATl Techoologies Table of Contents Introduction 6s ce wn ckcouss cur enswdaetecen cs 1 Radeon X1650 PRO Features 1 System Requirements 4 Using Multiple Displays 7 Display Configurations 9 Using TV Display and Capture Features 11 Using TV Out 11 Connecting to a TV or VCR 12 Connecting to HDTV 14 Installing Software and Drivers 17 Installing Drivers and Software in Windows 17 Monitor Configuration 18 To set up a multi monitor display 19 Reinstalling Drivers 19 Installing the Catalyst Software Suite 20 Catalyst Control Center 000 23 Launching Catalyst Control Center 23 CrossFire FAQ 00cce eeu ee eeeeeee 95 Welcome to CrossFire 0000000 101 CrossFire Overview 101 Reference iscdicsiereris brea ceeeeweeas ae 109 Troubleshooting 109 Product Registration 113 Customer Care 113 Additional Accessories 115 Compliance Information 115 IMO sae 0 5 2 he ln ee 2 ee ee eee 139 ATI Technologies Radeon X1650 PRO Features 1 CHAPTER 1 Introduction Congratulations on the purchase of your ATI Radeon X1650 PRO graphics card We hope that you will enjoy countless hours of trouble free computing Radeon X1650 PRO Features Features e 157 million transistors on 90nm fabricatio
14. placed in the primary slot on the motherboard 6 Are there any software settings required for CrossFire to work Yes there is a setting in the Catalyst Control Center that needs to be enabled for CrossFire to operate When all of the hardware and software has been properly set up and installed the CrossFire aspect appears in Catalyst Control Center To access and enable CrossFire in Catalyst Control Center do the following Click CrossFire in Advanced View Then select Enable a CrossFire When CrossFire is successfully enabled all display devices except the one used by CrossFire will be disabled Multiple monitors displays that are disabled when CrossFire is enabled reappear after CrossFire is disabled To change to Advanced View e Click the Dashboard View button and select Advanced View e Select Displays Manager in the tree view 7 What is the difference between a CrossFire Edition graphics card and a standard graphics card from the same family CrossFire Edition graphics cards include a compositing engine a chip that takes the partially rendered image from the Slave graphics card and merges it with the partially rendered image from the Master ATI Technologies 10 11 12 13 97 graphics card The result is a complete frame rendered at up to twice the performance of a single graphics card How are the graphics cards connected on a CrossFire sy
15. reception which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures Re orient or relocate the receiving antenna Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver ATI Technologies 116 Compliance Information Connect the equipment to an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected Consult the dealer or an experienced radio TV technician for help The use of shielded cables for connection of the monitor to the graphics card is required to ensure compliance with FCC regulations Changes or modifications to this unit not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could void the user s authority to operate this equipment Industry Canada Compliance Statement ICES 003 This Class B digital apparatus complies with Canadian ICES 003 Cet appareil num rique de la Classe B est conforme a la norme NMB 003 du Canada For further compliance information ATI Research Inc 62 Forest Street Marlborough MA 01752 USA 508 303 3900 CE Compliance Information EMC Directive 89 336 EEC and amendments 91 263 EEC 92 31 EEC and 93 68 EEC Class B Digital Device EN 55022 2003 CISPR 22 Class B Limits and Methods of Measurement of Radio Interference Characteristics Information Technology Equipment EN 55024 1998 CISPR 24 1997 A1 2001 A2 2003 Immunity of Information Technology Equ
16. the drop down list 5 Click OK to return to the desktop To set up a multi monitor display 1 From the Start menu click Control Panel then Display Click the Settings tab to access the basic multi monitor configuration settings 2 Select the Monitor icon identified by the number 2 3 Click Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor 4 Set the Screen Resolution and Color Quality as appropriate for the second monitor Click Apply or OK to apply these new values e Refer to your Windows online help and documentation for further information on using the Settings tab Note When you use multiple monitors with your Radeon X1650 PRO card one monitor will always be Primary Any additional monitors will be designated as Secondary Note You can also enable multiple monitors using ATI s Catalyst Control Center Reinstalling Drivers You can install new drivers or reinstall existing drivers if there was a Windows conflict Reinstall the drivers at any time using the ATISETUP utility located on the ATI Installation CD ROM The ATISETUP utility will start automatically if you insert the ATI Installation CD ROM into your optical drive after the operating system has started ATI Technologies 20 Installing the Catalyst Software Suite To manually reinstall drivers If your CD ROM auto run is not enabled and the ATISETUP utility does not start automatically follow these steps 1 In the Windows task bar click St
17. A is a rendering technique designed to remove jagged edges shimmering and pixelation problems that are common in rendered 3D images Rather than simply determining the color of each pixel on the screen by sampling a single location at the pixel s center anti aliasing works by sampling multiple locations within each pixel and blending the results together to determine the final color The latest generation of ATI s Radeon GPUs with SmoothVision HD technology uses a method known as Multi sample Anti aliasing MSAA This method takes samples from 2 4 or 6 programmable locations within each pixel and uses gamma correct sample blending for high quality smoothing of polygon edges The new CrossFire Super Anti aliasing mode takes advantage of the programmable sample capability of SmoothVision HD to provide higher quality anti aliasing on CrossFire systems It works by having each GPU render the same frame with anti aliasing enabled but uses different sample locations for each When both versions of the frame are completed they are blended in the CrossFire Compositing engine The resulting image has effectively twice the number of samples so 4x and 6x Anti aliasing becomes 8x and 12x Super Anti aliasing respectively CrossFire Overview 107_ 1 PCI Express CrossFire Compatible Graphics Card 2 Radeon X1650 PRO CrossFire Edition Graphics Card 3 Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express CrossFir
18. Access Points Launching Catalyst Control Center Using the System Tray 1 Right click the ATI icon in the Windows System Tray 2 Select Catalyst Control Center from the popup menu Launching Catalyst Control Center Using the Desktop Shortcut When you first installed Catalyst Control Center the setup wizard provided you with the option of placing a shortcut on the desktop e Double click the Catalyst Control Center desktop shortcut Launching Catalyst Control Center Using Hot Keys e You can press the predefined combination of keys Ctrl Alt C to launch Catalyst Control Center or you can define your own hot key sequence by using the Catalyst Control Center s Hotkey Manager ATI Technologies CHAPTER 6 CrossFire FAQ The following are frequently asked questions about CrossFire For the latest information please consult the CrossFire Web site at ati com crossfire 1 What combination of products are required to build a working CrossFire system Three components are required a CrossFire Edition graphics card that works as the Master graphics card e a CrossFire Ready graphics card from the same brand family that works as the Slave graphics card e a CrossFire Ready motherboard with two PCIe X16 slots Additional detailed information on the requirements for each of these components can be found within this FAQ 2 What graphics cards work with CrossFire A CrossFire
19. Configurations 9 Display Configurations Your Radeon X1650 PRO graphics card provides dual display functionality The following table lists the different ways you can connect displays to your card Display Connector s Comments Configuration Used Single DFP DVI I connector DFP digital flat panel display display Single CRT DVI I connector CRT cathode ray tube analog display with DVI I to VGA display adapter CRT display DVI I to VGA HDTV adapter Component Adapter to HDTV YPbPr cable DFP display DVI I connector HDTV YPrPb adapter available from HDTV HDTV cable shopati com YPbPr CRT display DVI l to VGA DFP display adapter DVI I connector CRT display DVI I to VGA The DVI I connector can support a CRT display adapter DVI I to CRT display using the DVI I to VGA VGA adapter adapter ATI Technologies KORDIN EVA EO ATI Technologies Using TV Out 11 CHAPTER 3 Using TV Display and Capture Features This chapter describes how to use the TV display and video capture features of your Radeon X1650 PRO card Using TV Out Your Radeon X1650 PRO has TV Out capability Viewing Your PC Display on a TV You can attach your Radeon X1650 PRO to a TV and a monitor at the same time You can also connect it to your VCR and record your monitor s display Note A TV can only be connected to one DVI connector IMPORTANT INFORMATION for European Cu
20. Suite ATI Technologies Launching Catalyst Control Center 23 CHAPTER 5 Catalyst Control Center The Catalyst Control Center is a graphical user application providing access to the display features contained within the installed ATI hardware and software Use the Catalyst Control Center to fine tune your graphics settings enable or disable connected display devices and change the orientation of your desktop Many of the features show you a preview of the changes before they are applied The Catalyst Control Center offers you two views of the software e Basic View is a simplified view that includes wizards to get the inexperience user up and running e Advance View allows the advanced user to access and configure the complete feature set of the software The Catalyst Control Center can be customized for easy access to the features you use most Use the Catalyst Control Center to access a comprehensive online help system or connect to the ATI Web site Launching Catalyst Control Center Launch Catalyst Control Center from one of the following access points e Windows Start Menu Windows System Tray e Desktop shortcuts e Predefined hot keys ATI Technologies Launching Catalyst Control Center Using the Start Menu From the Windows task bar click Start e Click to Programs gt Catalyst Control Center gt ATI Catalyst Control Center Other Quick Launch
21. TV Cable 2 Backplate of the ATI Graphics Card 3 Male RCA Patch Cables available from consumer electronics dealer 4 Typical HDTV Video Input Connections Note Input and output cables lengths should not exceed 50 feet 15m Installing your ATI HDTV video cable 1 Turn on your component input device and set it to YPbPr input Note See your HDTV or component input device manual for configuration information specific to your device ATI Technologies 16 Connecting to HDTV 2 Turn on your computer Note Your TV will not display anything until Windows starts This can take several minutes Using Your ATI HDTV Video Cable Use the HDTV Video Cable to watch DVD movies and play video games on your High Definition Television Copy protected DVDs restrict playback to 480i and 480p modes For maximum performance when you watch DVD movies or play computer games on your HDTV you should find the mode and screen resolution that provide the best result on your TV and use those settings exclusively ATI Technologies Installing Drivers and Software in Windows 17 CHAPTER 4 Installing Software and Drivers This chapter will guide you through the installation of the drivers and software associated with your Radeon X1650 PRO graphics card Installing Drivers and Software in Windows You will need to install the Radeon X1650 PRO drivers and software in the following cases e After you have ins
22. able to your graphics card and the other to your TV or VCR Refer to the illustration 4 Power on your TV or VCR first then your computer ATI Technologies Connecting to a TV or VCR 13 Connecting Your S Video Out to a TV or VCR 1 S Video Connection on graphics card 2 TV or VCR 3 S Video Cable with or without S Video to Composite Adapter 4 Computer Using a Monitor vs Using TV Display Using your TV for your computer s display can be useful however the display on your monitor may change or looked squashed This distortion occurs because the display adjusts to fit the dimensions of your TV To correct the monitor s display use the monitor s control buttons to adjust its display size and position ATI Technologies 14 Connecting to HDTV Some single frequency monitors may not work with TV display enabled If you experience problems when TV display is enabled disable TV display to restore your monitor s display Viewing Text ona TV A TV is designed primarily to show moving images The large dot pitch of a TV will yield poor quality static images The small text sizes commonly used for PC desktops can appear blurred or unclear on a TV You can compensate for this degradation by using larger fonts Using a TV as the Only Display If you plan to move your computer to a place where you are using TV display only make sure that you have the TV display feature enabled prior to removing the
23. alue From the intensity and spread of this highlight users can differentiate between a hard smooth surface such as metal or porcelain or a soft textured surface such as fabric or skin Super Anti aliasing A feature that improves image quality by combining the results of full screen anti aliasing across two graphics cards in a CrossFire configuration The two graphics cards work on different anti aliasing patterns within each frame The results of which are combined by the compositing engine on the CrossFire Master graphics card to produce 3D images featuring smoother contours lines and shading effects ATI Technologies SuperTiling A graphical load balancing scheme where two graphics cards are used to render alternate small 32x32 pixel squares in a fine grained checkerboard pattern This configuration increases image rendering quality as each card processes half of the complex 3D objects in the pixel squares SuperTiling is better optimized for most applications than Scissor Mode where two graphics cards are used to render the top and bottom halves of the screen since the checkerboard pattern better ensures a more even distribution of what needs to be rendered This type of graphical operation is only available in Radeon CrossFire graphics cards running Microsoft Direct 3D games or applications S Video Short for Separate Video S Video is a type of analog video interface that produces a
24. art 2 From the Start menu select Run 3 Browse to SETUP EXE on the root directory of the ATI Installation CD ROM 4 Click OK Installing the Catalyst Software Suite ATI s Catalyst Software Suite provides software required to enjoy all the features of your ATI graphics card The Catalyst Software Suite has several distinct software elements including e Driver Catalyst Control Center HydraVision not included in the Express Install Remote Wonder Software TM SurroundView To install the Catalyst software suite Note Optical drive refers to any drive capable of reading CD ROM media 1 Insert the ATI Installation CD ROM into your optical drive If Windows runs the CD ROM automatically proceed to step 5 2 Click Start gt Run es Type the following D ATISETUP If D is not your optical drive substitute the correct drive letter Click OK Click Install under Software Install Click Next and click Yes to the license agreement NOQA Click ATI Easy Install to begin the Installation Wizard ATI Technologies Installing the Catalyst Software Suite 21 8 Follow the Wizard s on screen instructions then choose either Express or Custom Install Not all software components are installed using the Express installation Custom installation allows you to select individual software components for installation ATI Technologies 22 Installing the Catalyst Software
25. atible UL Listed personal computers that have Installation Instructions detailing user installation of card cage accessories e Grounding For continued protection against risk of electric shock and fire this accessory should be installed only in products equipped with a three wire grounding plug a plug having a third grounding pin This plug will only fit into a grounding type power outlet This is a safety feature If you are unable to insert the plug into the outlet contact your electrician to replace the obsolete outlet Do not defeat the safety purpose of the grounding type plug e Secure Attachment All card securement pins shall be completely tightened as to provide continuous bonding between the option card and the PC chassis Lightning For added protection for this product during a lightning storm or when it is left unattended and unused for long periods of time unplug it from the wall outlet and disconnect the antenna or cable system This will prevent damage to the product due to lightning and power line surges Power Lines An outside antenna system should not be located in the vicinity of overhead power lines or other light or power circuits or where it can fall into such power lines or circuits Antenna Installation When installing an outside antenna system extreme care should be taken to keep from touching such power lines or circuits as contact with them may be fatal Note This graphics card is for use
26. aturalistic detail and movement is possible VGA Connector A type of graphics connector sometimes also called an analog connector It is the most common type of video connector available consisting of 15 pins set in three rows The VGA is an acronym for Video Graphics Array which is also the name for the video resolution mode of 640x480 pixels the lowest standard resolution supported by virtually all video cards Video Immersion II A technology that integrates digital video features such as advanced adaptive de interlacing temporal filtering and video gamma enhancement to produce high quality video along with an integrated digital TV decode capability It also supports component output support for EDTV displays at 480i interlaced scanning 480p progressive scanning and for HDTV displays at 720p and 1080i VideoShader HD A feature that integrates pixel shading technology with video filtering and processing functions It accelerates noise removal de blocking adaptive ATI Technologies 138 de interlacing frame rate conversion color space conversion and more It also enables better MPEG 2 decoding with motion compensation VPU Recover A feature designed to significantly reduce the number of system crashes caused by problems occurring with the graphics hardware If the display driver detects that the graphics processor has hung VPU Recover will attempt to reset the graphics processor eliminatin
27. cted to your monitor If you have problems during start up restart your computer in Safe Mode While starting Windows XP press and hold F8 until you see the Windows Advanced Options Menu Use the arrow keys to select Safe Mode and press Enter Check the system configuration utility of your operating system for the interrupt assignments Contact ATI s Customer Care or your local technical support 110 Troubleshooting ATI Technologies General Troubleshooting Problem No Display Possible Solution Check that the card is seated properly in its expansion slot e Ensure that the monitor cable is securely fastened to the card Make sure that the monitor and computer are plugged in and receiving power If necessary disable any built in graphics capabilities on your mother board For more information consult your computer s manual or manufacturer Note some manufacturers do not allow the built in graphics to be disabled or to become the secondary display Make sure that you selected the appropriate monitor when you installed your enhanced driver Screen Defects Appear Check if your monitor supports the resolution horizontal kHz and vertical Hz refresh rates as required by the graphics card Check your current resolution refresh rate and color depth settings in the Settings and Monitor tabs in your Display Properties dialog Warning Ensure that both video card and monito
28. d throughout the pipeline e Includes support for blending and multi sample anti aliasing e 32 bit integer HDR 10 10 10 2 format supported throughout the pipeline e Includes support for blending and multi sample anti aliasing e 2x 4x 6x Anti Aliasing modes e Multi sample algorithm with gamma correction programmable sparse sample patterns and centroid sampling e New Adaptive Anti Aliasing feature with Performance and Quality modes e Temporal Anti Aliasing mode e Lossless Color Compression up to 6 1 at all resolutions including widescreen HDTV resolutions e 2x 4x 8x 16x Anisotropic Filtering modes e Up to 128 tap texture filtering e Adaptive algorithm with Performance and Quality options e High resolution texture support up to 4k x 4k Avivo Video and Display Platform e High performance programmable video processor e Accelerated MPEG 2 MPEG 4 DivX WMV9 VC 1 and H 264 decoding and transcoding ATI Technologies Radeon X1650 PRO Features 3 e DXVA support e De blocking and noise reduction filtering e Motion compensation IDCT DCT and color space conversion e Vector adaptive per pixel de interlacing e 3 2 pulldown frame rate conversion e Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time e HDR tone mapping acceleration e Maps any input format to 10 bit per channel output Flexible display support e Dual integrated 10 bit per channel 400 MHz DACs e 16 bit per channel f
29. dow Mask In CRT monitors the shadow mask is a metal plate full of tiny holes that is attached to the inside of the glass screen It focuses the beams from the electron guns at the back of the CRT The distance between these holes is called the dot pitch ATI Technologies SmartShader HD SmartShader HD contains advanced vertex and pixel shading capabilities A shader is a small program that runs on the GPU and describes how an image should be rendered Vertex shaders manipulate the individual polygons that make up 3D objects and pixel shaders operate on the individual pixels that fill in these polygons to create a visible image SmartShader HD is designed to alleviate the resource constraints of earlier shader hardware paving the way for more complex detailed and realistic shader effects in applications requiring high performance 3D rendering SmoothVision HD SmoothVision HD incorporates improved anti aliasing anisotropic filtering and 3Dc compression features designed to further enhance image quality Anti aliasing performance is improved providing better overall detail and image quality The enhanced anisotropic filtering ensures sharper and clearer pictures at higher frame rates and the new 3Dc compression technology makes it possible to display higher polygon counts for 3D rendered objects Specular Highlight The bright usually small intense light reflected from a 3D surface with a high refraction v
30. dware functions for games and other high performance 3D applications Dithering A computer graphics technique that takes advantage of the human eye s tendency to mix two colors that are adjacent to each other to produce smooth boundary transitions Dithering adds intermediate color values between two or more boundaries producing smoother more natural look to 2D images or 3D objects Dot pitch Dot pitch specifies the sharpness of a monitor s display It is measured in millimeters mm and is the distance between the individual phosphor sub pixels in a CRT display or cells of the same color within an LCD display ATI Technologies 126 the smaller the number the sharper the image The most common dot pitches for monitors range from 24 mm to 31 mm Also if a monitor with a 24 mm dot pitch is set to its highest possible resolution the pixel size will equal the dot pitch If the monitor is set to lower resolutions the pixels will be comprised of multiple dots DVI Acronym for Digital Video Interface a standard video connection used on many current computer displays There are three types of DVI connections DVI A analog DVI D digital and DVI I integrated capable of either analog or digital It supports high bandwidth video signals over 160 Hz so it is most often used for high resolution displays EDTV Acronym for Enhanced Definition Television a format that produces better television image qual
31. e Compatible Graphics Card 4 Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express CrossFire Edition Graphics Card 5 Final Rendered Frame on Display Some types of textures especially those with transparent portions can exhibit aliasing that is not removed by MSAA techniques Another form of anti aliasing known as Super sample Anti aliasing SSAA can be useful in these cases because it affects every pixel in an image Although it normally operates more slowly than MSAA the power of multiple GPUs can make SSAA practical to use SSAA first renders a scene at a higher resolution than that which is output to the display which is then downsampled to the display s resolution This approach normally has two main disadvantages it requires rendering many more pixels than normal which can have a drastic impact on performance and that it results in an ordered grid sample pattern which does a poor job of anti aliasing some types of jagged edges CrossFire s Super Anti aliasing overcomes both of these problems It takes advantage of the second GPU to render the additional pixels required for each frame so there is little or no performance impact It can also make use of a more effective sample 108 CrossFire Overview pattern that does a better job of anti aliasing near horizontal and near vertical edges resulting in better overall image quality Two of the new Super Anti aliasing modes use a combination of MSAA and SSAA to achieve th
32. e ultimate in image quality They work by not only using different multi sample locations on each GPU but also by offsetting the pixel centers slightly In effect each GPU renders the image from a different viewpoint about half a pixel width apart The new 10x and 14x Super Anti aliasing modes operate in this manner combining 2x SSAA with 4x and 6x MSAA respectively Both of these modes work together with SmoothVision HD Anisotropic Filtering AF The new Super Anti aliasing modes can be enabled by users through the ATI Catalyst Control Center interface Note Enabling the Super Anti aliasing modes x8 x10 x12 x14 disables performance enhancing multi GPU rendering to provide better image quality ATI Technologies Troubleshooting 109 CHAPTER 8 Reference This chapter provides information on troubleshooting where to get additional accessories and how to register your product plus warranty and compliance information Troubleshooting The following troubleshooting tips may help if you experience problems ATT s documentation contains helpful installation configuration tips and other valuable feature information Please contact your dealer for more advanced troubleshooting information General Troubleshooting Problem Possible Solution Computer Does Verify that the installation instructions were properly Not Boot Up followed Properly e Check that the card is properly installed in your system and conne
33. g the need for a system reboot and allowing users to continue using the computer without interrupting or losing their work YPbPr A type of analog composite video signal that splits and compresses the standard Red Green Blue RGB colors of a television signal into separate luminance and color values The Y stands for the luminance channel while Pb and Pr represent the blue and red channels respectively both of which have the luminance value subtracted from them It is an equivalent color space to the chrominance based YCbCr which is used for digital video Z buffer The portion of video memory that keeps track of which onscreen elements can be viewed and which are hidden behind other objects In the case of a 3D image it keeps track of which elements are occluded by the foreground in relation to the user s perspective or by another 3D object
34. higher quality signal compared to composite video The signal is split into two separate channels luminance Y and chrominance C Sometimes referred to as Y C video or Y C the connectors typically contain 4 pins within a single connection housing and are commonly found on consumer DVD players VCRs game consoles and related devices Texel Short for texture element the 3D equivalent of a pixel describing the base unit of the surface of a 3D object such as a sphere for a 2D object such as a circle the base unit is a pixel Texture Mapping In computer graphics two dimensional textured surfaces are referred to as texture maps Texture mapping is the process by which a two dimensional surface gets wrapped around a three dimensional object so that the 3D object takes on the same texture qualities For example if you take a 2D textured surface that looks like cloth and wrap it around a 3D sphere the sphere will now appear to have a cloth like surface Texture Preference Texture Preference is a feature enabling the user to select the texture quality level for the surface of a 3D object Selecting the highest quality possible will provide the most realism although it may also have some impact on the performance of any 3D intensive application ATI Technologies 136 Transition Minimized Differential Signaling TMDS A technology designed to reduce electromagnetic interference EMI and improve the dig
35. ipment ITE including EN 61000 4 2 EN 61000 4 3 EN 61000 4 4 EN 61000 4 5 EN 61000 4 6 nformations de conformit de la CE irective EMC 89 336 CEE et amendements 92 31 CEE et 93 68 CEE pour dispositif num rique de asse B N 55022 2003 CISPR 22 1997 Classe B Limites et m thodes de mesure des caract ristiques d interf rences radiophoniques Mat riel des technologies de l information EN 55024 1998 CISPR 24 1997 A1 2001 A2 2003 Norme sur l immunit de mat riel des technologies de l information et comprenant EN 61000 4 2 EN 61000 4 3 EN 61000 4 4 EN 61000 4 5 EN 61000 4 6 m oo Electrical Safety 73 23 EEC The Low Voltage Directive IEC 60950 1 2001 IEC 60950 1999 3rd Edition Safety of Information Technology Equipment BS EN60950 1 2002 BS EN60950 2000 3rd Edition UL 60950 1 2003 UL 60950 2000 3rd Edition CAN CSA C22 2 No 60950 1 2002 CAN CSA C22 2 No 60950 00 3rd Edition 2000 To meet UL safety requirements the computer s maximum room temperature should not exceed 40 C ATI Technologies Compliance Information 117 c UL US LISTED ITE ACCESSORY 2N37 E154871 Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment WEEE Directive Compliance This product was manufactured by ATI Technologies Inc ATI Technologies CHAPTER 9 Glossary 2D Acronym for two dimensional a term applied to computer graphics that are flat Typical desktop applications such as word processors s
36. ital signal delivered to flat panel displays Its encoding algorithm converts the original 8 bit graphic data into a more fault tolerant 10 bit signal which is then converted back to its original 8 bit form at the display device The signal is also DC balanced allowing for the option of transmitting the signal over fiber optic cable DVI connectors can incorporate up to two TMDS links with each link comprised of the number of signals required for standard RGB output Higher resolutions and refresh rates than standard are possible if multiple TMDS links are available by using multiple DVI connectors Trilinear Filtering A sampling method used to produce realistic looking 3D objects Trilinear filtering averages one of the bilinear filter mipmap levels along with the standard mipmap samples Vector Adaptive Deinterlacing A technique that provides smoother less jagged edges for interlaced video playback Interlaced video consists of alternating odd and even numbered scan lines which are then mapped to an equivalent pixel by pixel display on a CRT or Flat Panel Display Without correction jagged lines appear in a video image either as doubled scan lines or lines that are improperly interpolated With vector adaptive deinterlacing the difference in pixel values is considered across multiple lines and alternating frames using Pulldown detection on the interlaced video source and then intelligently re interpreted to produce smoother edge
37. ity than Standard Definition Television SDTV Applicable to the NTSC broadcast format EDTV displays are capable of depicting the standard 480 horizontal scan lines in a non interlaced format Instead it paints all of the scan lines in one pass which is called progressive scanning a process which also removes the jaggies inherent in the interlaced television signals Flat Shading A lighting technique that shades each polygon of a 3D object based on where the source of the light is and the angle of the polygon in relation to it It enables relatively fast rendering of 3D objects although it can make those objects appear faceted as each visible polygon is set to a particular color value and consequently does not produce as realistic an effect as obtained when using Gouraud shading Fog Term used to describe the blending of an object using a fixed color as objects are made to appear more distant from the viewer Frame Buffer The portion of the memory buffer on the graphics card used to store the image being displayed All rendering processes have been accomplished by ATI Technologies 127 this stage and this buffer contains only a one to one relationship of the data to be relayed to the display Frames Per Second In terms of 3D graphics refers to the rate at which the graphic processor can render new screens per second Higher rates equals better more naturalistic performance for such things as games set i
38. k Yes to the license agreement ATI Easy Install will start the Installation Wizard 6 Follow the wizard s on screen instructions to complete the installation The Express installation option is recommended By selecting this option the HydraVision multi monitor and desktop management software will automatically be installed along with the ATI driver Not all software components are installed using the Express installation Custom installation allows you to select individual software components for installation 7 When the Setup Complete message appears select Yes I want to restart my computer now and click Finish 8 After the system reboots the Found New Hardware message displays Digital Signature Not Found Click Yes or Continue to complete the driver installation Monitor Configuration Once the drivers and software have been installed you can configure your monitor Warning Choosing a refresh rate unsupported by your monitor may damage your monitor Consult your monitor s documentation if necessary ATI Technologies To set up a multi monitor display 19 To configure your primary display 1 Navigate to the Control Panel and choose Display or right click on the desktop and choose Properties 2 Choose the Settings tab and select the screen resolution and color depth that best suit your requirements and your monitor s performance 3 Click Advanced and select the Monitor tab 4 Choose a refresh rate from
39. loating point HDR and 10 bit per channel DVI output e Programmable piecewise linear gamma correction color correction and color space conversion 10 bits per color e Complete independent color controls and video overlays for each display e High quality pre and post scaling engines with underscan support for all outputs e Content adaptive de flicker filtering for interlaced displays e Xilleon TV encoder for high quality analog output e YPrPb component output for direct drive of HDTV displays e Spatial temporal dithering enables 10 bit color quality on 8 bit and 6 bit displays e Fast glitch free mode switching e VGA mode support on all outputs e Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions and refresh rates e Compatible with ATI TV Video encoder products including Theater 550 CrossFire e Multi GPU technology e Four modes of operation e Alternate Frame Rendering maximum performance e Supertiling optimal load balancing e Scissor compatibility e Super AA 8x 10x 12x 14x maximum image quality Note Not all features apply to all Radeon X1650 PRO graphics cards ATI Technologies 4 System Requirements Note CrossFire is supported in Catalyst version 5 13 with optional HDTV adapter available from ATI Online Store System Requirements Hardware Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 512MB of system memory 1GB or more for best performance e Op
40. ls dealing with such features as anti aliasing anisotropic filtering mipmap details levels and more Aspect Ratio The proportions of a display are expressed as a ratio of its width and height Common ratios include 4 3 for TVs and CRTs 5 4 for LCDs and 16 9 for widescreen displays Avivo Color Avivo Color is an advanced feature within Catalyst Control Center providing the user with precise control over how color is displayed on a monitor Avivo Color provides tools to adjust the Hue and Saturation values on a per monitor basis making it possible to optimize the use of a single display within its existing ambient lighting environment or to better color match two or more adjacent monitors ATI Technologies 122 Back Buffer A type of offscreen memory used to provide smooth video and 2D graphics acceleration This technique uses two frame buffers so the process is often referred to as double buffering While the contents of one buffer are displayed a second buffer called the back buffer holds the frame being worked on In this way users will only see complete smooth frames displayed onscreen Bilinear Filtering This filtering method reduces the blockiness caused when zooming into a 3D surface that is at a right angle to the viewer A newspaper photo examined closely enough will show that the picture is made up of tiny dots If the photo was enlarged it would start to look blocky and les
41. lso includes a range of productivity features designed to effectively manage applications in this environment HyperZ HD HyperZ HD includes a number of different technologies aimed at optimizing memory bandwidth efficiency particularly with respect to Z buffer operations The Z Buffer sometimes also called the Depth Buffer stores information used to determine the placement of objects in a 3D environment with respect to the viewpoint of the observer Reading and updating this buffer typically consumes more memory than any other part ATI Technologies 129 of the 3D rendering process making it a major performance bottleneck HyperZ HD technology reduces the memory bandwidth consumed by the Z Buffer thereby increasing performance while also making the 3D environment more realistic Keyframe Interpolation This feature is also known as morphing In an animation a start and end point are picked as the key frames In a 3D rendering the start point could have a character with a neutral expression and the end point could have that same character smiling Additional frames are interpolated inserted between the two keyframes in order that morphs transforms the image so that there is a smooth transition between the key frames KTX Buffer Region Extension This OpenGL programming term refers to a feature that rapidly updates portions of the display of 3D modeling applications that change very quickly or have
42. mory One large buffer is always used to display images to the screen this is the display buffer The rest of offscreen memory is typically used by applications as back buffers z buffers and texture buffers Catalyst Control Center Catalyst Control Center is the successor technology to the Catalyst software formerly available only through the Windows Control Panel It has a new user interface providing a more interactive means of controlling such things as 2D and 3D performance while providing immediate feedback using a more intuitive graphical user interface Color Component Three color components Red Green and Blue combine in various intensities to determine the color of each pixel on the screen The values of each color component are graphically represented by a corresponding color curve Color Correction Correct discrepancies between the real color value and the way a screen displays it Color discrepancies can be caused by a variety of sources including the lighting conditions in the work area and gradual shifts in color over time on monitors or flat panel displays Color Depth Color depth refers to the number of color shades available on your display and is measured in bits per pixel bpp Typical ranges are 256 colors 8bpp thousands of colors 16bpp and millions of colors 32bpp ATI Technologies 124 Component Video Typically used on DVD players and HDTV systems component video is
43. n a 3D environment Sometimes abbreviated to fps Gamma Sometimes confused with brightness gamma actually refers to the correction that is applied to any display device in order to produce more gradual increases or decreases in the perceived brightness for that device A change in gamma produces a non linear change in the color curve ensuring that perceived changes in color and intensity are consistently applied Gouraud Shading A shading method used to produce a smooth lighting effect across a 3D object A specific color is used at each vertex of a triangle or polygon and interpolated across the entire face HDCP HDCP is an acronym for High Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection It is a form of digital rights management designed to protect copyright of signals being transported across DVI or HDMI connections Several international regulatory bodies have recommended its incorporation into high definition display and playback devices HDMI HDMI is an acronym for High Definition Multimedia Interface It is a 19 pin connector used for transferring combined digital audio and video HDMI supports standard enhanced and high definition digital video signals and is designed for use with VCRs DVD players personal ATI Technologies 128 computers and set top boxes A DVI adapter can be used to transfer the video signal to an HDMI capable display although audio must be transferred from a differen
44. n process e Dual link DVI e Twelve pixel shader processors e Five vertex shader processors e 128 bit 4 channel DDR DDR2 GDDR3 memory interface e Native PCI Express x16 bus interface e AGP 8x configurations also supported with AGP PCI E external bridge chip e Dynamic Voltage Control Ring Bus Memory Controller e 256 bit internal ring bus for memory reads e Programmable intelligent arbitration logic e Fully associative texture color and Z stencil cache designs e Hierarchical Z buffer with Early Z test e Lossless Z Compression up to 48 1 e Fast Z Buffer Clear e Z stencil cache optimized for real time shadow rendering Ultra Threaded Shader Engine e Support for Microsoft DirectX 9 0 Shader Model 3 0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware ATI Technologi 2 Radeon X1650 PRO Features echnologies e Full speed 128 bit floating point processing e Dedicated branch execution units for high performance dynamic branching and flow control e Dedicated texture address units for improved efficiency e 3Dc texture compression e High quality 4 1 compression for normal maps and two channel data formats e High quality 2 1 compression for luminance maps and single channel data formats e Multiple Render Target MRT support e Render to vertex buffer support e Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL 2 0 Advanced Image Quality Features e 64 bit floating point HDR rendering supporte
45. ncreases the detail of the 3D objects each card can render as each card handles half of the total number of frames Essentially each card has more time to render a scene delivering a noticeable increase in 3D detail This type of graphical operation is only available in Radeon CrossFire graphics cards running Microsoft Direct 3D and OpenGL games or applications ATI Technologies Anisotropic Filtering A technique that preserves the surface details of an object as it recedes into the distance by utilizing and blending together the object s texture maps This makes 3D objects appear more realistic as the detail of their surface texture is retained in a smooth seamless fashion on the sections that move or fade away into the background Anti aliasing A method that smoothes out the jagged edges of a curved object A black curved line on a white background displayed on a computer screen will have some jaggedness along its edges due to the inherent limitations of using discrete pixels to display the image Anti aliasing smoothes out this jaggedness by filling in the white spaces between the jagged edges with varying shades of grey Aspect A group of related features in ATT s Catalyst Control Center software For example the Color aspect clusters together controls that handles gamma brightness contrast and other features relating directly to the display of color Similarly the 3D aspect provides a set of related contro
46. ndering modes are available e SuperTiling CrossFire renders alternate 32x32 pixel squares in a fine grained checkerboard pattern This configuration increases the performance as each card processes half of the complex 3D objects in the pixel squares ATI Technologies e Scissor Mode each graphics card renders up to half of the display either vertically or horizontally depending on the game or application e Alternate Frame Rendering the two graphics cards are used to render alternate frames of the display This configuration increases the performance of the 3D objects as each card handles half of the total number of frames e Super Anti aliasing improves image quality by combining the results of full screen anti aliasing across two graphics cards in a CrossFire configuration The two graphics cards work on different anti aliasing patterns within each frame The first three features are performance features settings automatically selected by ATI s Catalyst Control Center Super Anti aliasing is a display quality mode selectable using Catalyst Control Center 14 On what basis are different rendering modes chosen When Catalyst A I is enabled in Catalyst Control Center it determines the optimal rendering mode to use based on the application or game being used The default rendering mode is dependant on both the hardware configuration and the application being run typically it will be either Scissor or
47. nt means of splitting the workload than using SuperTiling there are a few cases where it can be more efficient It is supported by CrossFire in order to maximize compatibility and performance CrossFire Overview 105_ Alternate Frame Rendering AFR Mode In this mode all even frames are rendered on one GPU while all odd frames are rendered on the other The completed frames from both GPUs are sent to the Compositing Engine on the CrossFire Edition card which then sends them on to the display By allowing both GPUs to work independently AFR provides the greatest potential performance improvements of all the available modes It is also the only mode that allows the full vertex processing performance of both GPUs to be combined 8 1 PCI Express CrossFire Compatible Graphics Card 2 Radeon X1650 PRO CrossFire Edition Graphics Card 3 Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express CrossFire Compatible Graphics Card 4 Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express CrossFire Edition Graphics Card 5 Final Rendered Frame on Display The main limitation of this mode is that it cannot be used in applications where the appearance of the current frame is dependent upon data generated in previous frames since AFR generates successive frames simultaneously on different GPUs In these cases the SuperTiling or Scissor Mode is used instead 106 CrossFire Overview Super Anti aliasing Mode Anti aliasing A
48. phics memory size or continue with the reduced memory size Cannot Use ATI Overdrive ATI Overdrive is not an available feature on CrossFire systems Screen Rotation Function Does Not Work or is Screen rotation is not an available feature on CrossFire systems Unavailable Unable to get Ensure that the proper drivers for both graphics cards has CrossFire to been properly installed work ona If both graphics cards have already inserted onto the Windows XP motherboard connect a display to the DVI connection of Professional x64 Edition system the CrossFire Master graphics card and then install the drivers for both graphics cards VIVO on Slave Card Does Not Work If a VIVO Video In Video Out connection is available on the Slave card its functionality is not supported in this configuration If the graphics card is moved into the primary PCI Express slot VIVO functionality will return ATI Technologies Additional Accessories 115 e ATI Customer Care is unable to assist with refunds returns or exchange specific inquiries If resolving the problem being experienced is critical to your decision to keep the product it is your responsibility to ensure that you know and are within the period of time your reseller will allow for refunds returns or exchange e ATI is not responsible for any expense incurred accessing Customer Care It is expected that customers will review the expen
49. preadsheet programs or other programs that manipulate print or simple graphics such as pictures or line art are generally considered to be operating within a 2D environment even when they include simple three dimensional elements such as buttons 3D Acronym for three dimensional referring to computer graphics that appear to have volume and depth Various modeling processes take the representation of a three dimensional object provided by the computer program and render it by using various lighting components applying textures and setting layers of transparency or opacity as required in order to produce a realistic representation of a three dimensional object on a two dimensional display 3Dc An ATI hardware based compression technology that reduces the size of 3D texture data rendering more finely grained texture surfaces with greater efficiency It significantly minimizes the memory footprint of normal maps containing information on how light reflects off textured surfaces allowing game programmers to include more texture and lighting details without affecting performance ATI Technologies 120 Adaptive Anti aliasing Adaptive anti aliasing is a technique that applies a combination of multi sampling MSAA and super sampling SSAA on 3D objects to improve edge smoothness and fine detail Multi sampling works best on smoothing the edges of solid polygons but cannot effectively smooth edges within polygons which a
50. r support resolution and refresh rates you select Incompatible resolution refresh rate selection may result in monitor damage Refer to your monitor s documentation for recommended resolutions and refresh rates Off Center Screen Image Odd Colors or No Picture Try adjusting the brightness sharpness contrast and color balance controls of your monitor Try adjusting the centering and positioning controls of your monitor to position the picture on the screen Set the monitor s RGB inputs and sync switches if this option is available to 75 Ohms with the sync set to external Digital Flat Panel DFP monitor users refer to your monitor s documentation for the appropriate cable and connector to plug into the DVI I connector on the graphics card Operating System Warns that Video Card Isn t Properly Configured Check the driver installation and make sure that all software is correctly loaded corresponding to your operating system and applications e Re install the ATI drivers for your Radeon X1650 PRO card ATI Technologies Troubleshooting 111 CrossFire Specific Troubleshooting Problem CrossFire is Not Functioning Possible Solution In order for CrossFire to function the interconnect cable must be correctly connected to both the Master and Slave graphics cards 1 Connect the DMS 59 connector of the interconnect cable to the DMS 59 connection on the Master card 2
51. raphics adapter Make certain that the motherboard s system BIOS has Dual PCle slots enabled Also make certain that the master and slave graphics cards are in the correct PCle slot For more information see your motherboard s manual 112 Troubleshooting ATI Technologies CrossFire Specific Troubleshooting Problem CrossFire Is Currently Unavailable Possible Solution This error is occurred because CrossFire did not correctly detect your graphics hardware or their is a problem with the software Check the graphics card are installed correctly Check the interconnect cable is installed correctly e Close all running 3D applications Re install the Catalyst Control Center For information on installing the software see the Getting Started Guide that came with your graphics card The hardware capabilities such as memory size of the CrossFire Edition and regular card are mismatched Graphics card with different amounts of memory can by used with CrossFire However restarting your computer is required prior to using your system in CrossFire mode This will cause CrossFire to reduce the amount of memory being used on the larger card to match the memory size of the smaller card Clicking OK to the memory mismatch error message will restart your computer When disabling CrossFire you will be given the option to restart your computer to restore the original gra
52. re partially transparent Super sampling is able to more accurately calculate color values adjacent to transparent pixel shader values within polygons with partially transparent textures but is not applied universally since it is more processor intensive Adaptive anti aliasing works by using super sampled anti aliasing on transparent textures and multi sampled anti aliasing on all other textures This delivers exceptional levels of image quality while maintaining performance AGP The Accelerated Graphics Port AGP is a slot on the computer motherboard designed specifically for 3D graphics cards AGP runs 3D images much more smoothly and quickly than was previously possible with PCI video cards AGP runs at several times the bus speed of PCI and employs sideband addressing so multiple data transfers between the graphics processor and the computer can take place concurrently AGP is currently being phased out in favor of PCI Express PCIe Alpha Blending Alpha blending is used in 3D graphics to create transparent or opaque effects for surfaces such as glass and water Alpha is a transparency value so the lower the value the more transparent the image looks It is also used in animations to produce such things as fading effects where one image gradually fades into another Alternate Frame Rendering A graphical load balancing scheme where two graphics cards are used to render alternate frames of the display This configuration i
53. rements 5 To uninstall previous drivers With your current graphics card still in your computer 1 Close all applications that are currently running 2 Navigate to the Control Panel and select Add Remove Programs 3 Select your current graphics card drivers and select Add Remove The wizard will help you remove your current display drivers Note If the previously installed graphics card has any additional software installed it should also be removed at this point 4 Turn off your system and remove the old graphics card ATI Technologies 6 System Requirements ATI Technologies m CHAPTER 2 Using Multiple Displays Connecting Your Monitors Your Radeon X1650 PRO graphics card provides hardware support for two DVI I monitors and a VGA monitor using the supplied DVI I to VGA adapter It also provides TV output via an S Video Out connector Connections and Adapters for the Radeon X1650 PRO Card 1 Standard VGA Monitor Connector To connect a VGA monitor to the DVI I connector plug the supplied DVI I to VGA adapter into the DVI I connector then plug your monitor cable into the adapter 2 DVI I to VGA Adapter 3 DVI I Connection To connect a digital display 3 ATI Technologies Note If you use multiple monitors the Radeon X1650 PRO card must be the primary graphics card Normally the system BIOS determines which graphics card will be the primary Note The top DVI I connector is single
54. s card renders the top half of the screen while the second graphics card renders the bottom half This configuration offers a form of dynamic load balancing between the two cards as each only needs to render 3D object details on only half of the screen instead of the full screen at any one time This type of graphical operation is only available in Radeon CrossFire graphics cards running Microsoft Direct 3D and OpenGL games or applications SDTV SDTV is an acronym for Standard Definition Television that identifies lower resolution systems when compared to High Definition Television HDTV systems SDTV systems use the same 4 3 aspect ratio and 480 scan lines to produce a picture as regular analog television sets but digital decoding enhanced of the signal displaying a sharper and crisper picture SDTV broadcasts are either interlaced 4801 or use progressive scan 480p the latter method providing the best overall image quality SECAM An analog color video signal that originated in France and is used in many other countries including but not limited to much of Eastern Europe parts of the Middle East and Asia Like the PAL video standard SECAM also draws a total of 625 vertical interlaced frames of video at a refresh rate of 25Hz but uses a fundamentally different way of encoding its colors The name is an acronym for S quential Couleur avec M moire which is French for sequential color with memory Sha
55. s distinct This is also a problem for computer generated images especially for surface details Bit Depth Refers to the number of data bits required to store color information about a pixel Larger bit depth means a greater range of color information is capable of being encoded into each pixel For example 1 binary bit of memory can only encode to either 0 or 1 So a graphical bit depth of 1 means that the display can only show two colors the black and white of a monochrome display Four bit color depth is capable of displaying 16 colors because there are only 16 different combinations of 4 bits 0000 0001 0010 to 1111 Sixteen bit color is capable of reproducing 65 536 colors 24 bit color can display up to 16 777 216 individual colors and 30 bit color can display up to one billion individual colors Bitmap A bitmap is a graphic or character representation composed of individual pixels arranged horizontally in rows A monochrome bitmap uses one bit per pixel bpp Color bitmaps may use up to 32bpp depending on the color depth selected Brightness The amount of white or black that is applied to all colors onscreen By making the screen brighter you are adding more white to it This should ATI Technologies 123 not be confused with luminosity which measures the actual light level emitted from the computer display Buffer A name referring to portions of on board video me
56. s in interlaced video images VersaVision An ATI technology enabling accelerated display rotation and scaling Any desktop can now be rotated 90 degrees left or right or even 180 degrees while maintaining the full feature set of other ATI 2D and 3D technologies such as SmoothVision VersaVision works with single or multiple displays Vertex Shader Three dimensional objects displayed on a screen are rendered using polygons each of which is made up of intersecting triangles A vertex is a corner of a triangle where it connects to another triangle and each vertex ATI Technologies 137 carries a considerable amount of information describing its coordinates in 3D space as well as its weight color texture coordinates fog and point size data A vertex shader is a graphics processing function that manipulates these values producing such things as more realistic lighting effects improved complex textures such as hair and fur and more accurate surface deformations such as waves rippling in a pool or the stretching and wrinkling of a character s clothes as he or she moves Vertex shader units A feature built into the graphical processor which renders the texture magnitude and direction of the individual triangles that comprise each polygon of a given 3D object The more vertex shader units available within the graphical processor the more complex polygons that can be generated per clock cycle and hence finer more n
57. se associated with the available support options and will choose the method that best meets their needs and budget e ATI Customer Care reserves the right to limit support options for products that are not registered or are at End of Life Additional Accessories Additional and replacement cables installation CD ROMs manuals and other accessories for ATI products can be purchased from the online ATI store at ati com online accessories Compliance Information This section details the compliance information for this product FCC Compliance Information This Radeon X1650 product complies with FCC Rules part 15 Operation is subject to the following two conditions e This device may not cause harmful interference e This device must accept any interference received including interference that may cause undesired operation This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation This equipment generates uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and if notinstalled and used in accordance with manufacturer s instructions may cause harmful interference to radio communications However there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television
58. stem The two cards are connected by an external cable The cable is attached from the Slave graphics card s DVI I connection to the CrossFire Edition s DMS 59 VHDCI connection which is used to convey information from the Slave graphics card to the Master graphics card and transmit the combined signal to a display device Which games applications work with CrossFire CrossFire works with all full screen 3D games and applications If Catalyst A I is enabled in the Catalyst Control Center software the optimal rendering mode available for the application is automatically selected e TM Is a driver profile required to make CrossFire work No CrossFire is enabled by default for all full screen 3D games and applications What happens if you pair a 16 pipeline CrossFire Edition graphics card with a CrossFire Ready 12 pipeline graphics card In this scenario both graphics cards will operate as 12 pipeline graphics cards while in CrossFire mode What happens if the CrossFire Edition graphics card and the CrossFire Ready graphics card have different clock speeds Both cards will continue to operate at their individual clock speeds neither card is stepped down The compositing engine on the CrossFire Edition card merges the resulting images independent of the clock speed on either graphics card What are the rendering modes and what are their specific advantages The following dynamic re
59. stems Committee which devised this color video standard in 1953 Offscreen Memory An area of memory used to preload images so that they can be quickly drawn to the screen Offscreen memory refers to all of the remaining video memory not taken up by the front buffer which holds the contents of the display screen currently visible OpenGL Short for Open Graphics Library this is an industry standard for cross platform 3D graphics development It consists of a large number of functions that can be called upon in various programs such as games CAD and virtual reality systems to produce complex 3D objects from simpler more primitive building blocks Implementations currently exist under Windows Mac OS X and various forms of Unix including Linux ATI Overdrive ATI Overdrive maximizes the performance of the GPU by dynamically altering its speed to an optimal level depending on usage An on chip thermal sensor constantly monitors the temperature of the GPU allowing for maximum clock speed to be maintained while avoiding overheating PAL An acronym for Phase Alternating Line the name for a video broadcast standard used in much of Europe except France most of Asia the Middle East Africa and Australia It draws a total of 625 vertical interlaced frames of video at a refresh rate of 25 Hz PCI Acronym for Peripheral Component Interconnect which is the specification for a type of computer
60. stomers Some PC monitors in Europe cannot be used simultaneously with TV display When you enable TV display in Europe the refresh rate for the monitor and TV is set to 50 Hz Some monitors may not support this refresh rate and could be damaged e Please check the documentation supplied with your monitor to see if your monitor supports a refresh rate of 50 Hz e If your monitor does not support 50 Hz or if you are not sure turn off your monitor before turning on your PC when using your TV asa display ATI Technologies 12 Connecting to a TV or VCR TV display is ideal for giving presentations and watching movies or playing games on a screen larger than a typical monitor The following tips will help you get the most out of your TV Out feature Connecting to a TV or VCR To connect your Radeon X1650 PRO card to a TV or VCR use an S Video cable Many TVs and VCRs have a Composite video input in which case you can use the supplied S Video to Composite video adapter If your TV has cable input only you can connect your graphics card to your TV through your VCR or an RF modulator that is available from most electronics stores To connect S Video Out 1 Power off your computer and your TV or VCR 2 Determine if your TV or VCR supports either a S Video or Composite video connection 3 Looking at the back of your PC locate your S Video Out Using an S Video cable or the supplied adapter cable attach one end of the c
61. t route as DVI output does not support audio HDTV Acronym for High Definition Television a format that produces much greater picture quality than a standard television and in a wide screen format that matches that of a movie theater screen The two most popular formats are 1080i and 720p where the number represents how many horizontal scan lines they have and the following letter represents whether the picture is interlaced or the product of progressive scanning technology Interlaced displays paint the odd numbered scan lines and then the even numbered lines to produce a picture whereas progressive scan paints all of the scan lines at once Both formats use an aspect ratio of 16 9 In contrast standard North American television signals are displayed using 480 interlaced 4801 scan lines with a more square aspect ratio of 4 3 Hue Refers to a specific color within the visible spectrum of light defined by its dominant wavelength A light wave with a central tendency within the range of 565 590 nm is visible as yellow In the standard RGB color space used by most computer displays hue refers to a coordinate of the color as described by its red green and blue values minus any additional brightness or saturation values for that color HydraVision HydraVision is ATI s multi monitor management software enabling users to manage the display of multiple windows and applications across two or more adjacent monitors It a
62. t then sends the final frames out to the display device It is capable of advanced blending operations without burdening either of the GPUs Control Point A control point is a user created point on the color curve Users can change the color of the screen by moving the control points with a mouse ATI Technologies CRT Acronym for cathode ray tube which is the main component of computer monitors and TVs Color CRTs use three separate electron beams fired through a shadow mask and onto the back of the glass screen The electron beams activate separate red green and blue values in various strengths in order to produce a colored image Dashboard The dashboard is the part of the Catalyst Control Center used to display a graphical representation of the features available in installed ATI hardware and software The dashboard can be used to access all of the aspects sets of related graphical features available on a graphics card The dashboard is only available in Advanced view and Custom view which is aimed at more experienced users Direct 3D Part of Microsoft s DirectX API designed for rendering 3D graphics on Windows systems It provides software developers with low level access to functions on graphics cards providing the type of performance necessary for intensive 3D applications such as games DirectX A Microsoft technology DirectX is an API that provides programmers with direct access to low level har
63. talled the card in your system e After you have reinstalled or upgraded your operating system This procedure applies to Windows XP Software Installation Prerequisites To install or remove the drivers you must have administrator rights or be logged on as a user with administrator rights Your operating system must be installed and running before you can install the Radeon X1650 PRO drivers Also make sure that you have installed Service Pack 2 for Windows XP Make sure your monitor cable is properly attached before you begin Note The installation dialog will display in English if your operating system s language is not supported To install ATI drivers and software Note Optical drive refers to CD ROM or DVD ROM drive 1 Start your system When the Found New Hardware Wizard appears click Cancel When the System Settings Change window asks you to restart your computer click No ATI Technologies 18 Monitor Configuration 2 Run the ATISETUP utility The ATISETUP utility will start automatically when you insert the ATI Installation CD ROM into your optical drive after the operating system has started If your CD ROM auto run is not enabled or the ATISETUP utility does not start automatically a Click the Start button in the task bar b Click Run c Select ATISETUP EXE from the root directory of the ATI Installation CD ROM d Click OK 3 Click Install under Software Install 4 Click Next 5 Clic
64. tical drive for installation software CD ROM or DVD ROM drive Specialized PCI Express 350 watt or greater power supply recommended Consult your computer system manual to ensure the power supply is designed to accommodate a high end graphics card with a peak dissipation above 75 watts Operating e Windows XP with Service Pack 2 SP2 System Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Windows XP Media Center Edition Windows Vista Ready Monitor e High resolution MultiSync or multi frequency monitors or any other type of VGA monitor e Digital flat panel DFP displays or digital CRT display CrossFire If you are planning on using this graphics card as part of a Compatibility CrossFire system the following is required e ACrossFire certified motherboard with two 2 PCI Express X16 slots and correct PCle chipset driver See ati com crossfire for a list of CrossFire certified motherboards Another standard Radeon X1650 PRO graphics card The Radeon X1650 PRO does not require a CrossFire Edition card for CrossFire support More information on the requirements for each of these components can be found within the CrossFire FAQ Uninstall Previous Graphics Card Drivers To ensure the successful installation of your new Radeon X1650 PRO card you must uninstall the drivers for the existing graphics card before removing it from your computer ATI Technologies System Requi
65. tion of any display is the number of pixels that can be depicted on screen as specified by the number of horizontal rows against the number of vertical columns The default VGA resolution of many video cards is capable of displaying 640 rows of pixels by 480 columns The typical resolution of current displays is set to higher values such as 1024x768 XGA 1280x1024 SXGA or 1600x1200 UXGA Saturation Refers to the intensity of a specific hue color A highly saturated hue is vivid and intense whereas a less saturated hue appears more grey A completely unsaturated color is grey In terms of the RGB color model a fully saturated color exists when you have 100 brightness in one of the three channels say red and 0 in the two others green and blue Conversely a fully desaturated color is one where all of the color values are the same Saturation can therefore be thought of as the relative difference between the values of the channels SCART SCART is an acronym for Syndicat des Constructeurs d Appareils Radior cepteurs et T l viseurs SCART is an 21 pin connector used ATI Technologies 133 mainly in Europe for transferring analog audio and video signals between VCRs DVD players personal computers and set top boxes It is sometimes referred to as P ritel or the Euroconnector Scissor Mode A graphical load balancing scheme where two graphics cards are used to render two halves of an image display One graphic
66. ument relates ATI disclaims all express or implied warranties regarding such products including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability fitness for a particular purpose and non infringement Macrovision Apparatus Claims of U S Patent Nos 4 631 603 4 819 098 4 907 093 and 6 516 132 licensed for imited viewing uses only This product incorporates copyright protection technology that is protected by US patents and other intellectual property rights Use of this copyright protection technology must be authorized by Macrovision and is intended for home and other limited viewing uses only unless otherwise authorized by Macrovision Reverse engineering or disassembly is prohibited Documentation Updates ATI is constantly improving its product and associated documentation To maximize the value of your ATI product you should ensure that you have the latest documentation ATI s documentation contains helpful installation configuration tips and other valuable feature information TI Technologies IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS Read Instructions All the safety and operating instructions should be read before the product is operated e Retain Instructions The safety and operating instructions should be retained for future reference e Heed Warnings All warnings on the product and the operating instructions should be adhered to e Compatibility This option card is for use only with IBM AT or comp

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