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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...
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IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS • Read Instructions - All the safety and operating instructions should be read before the product is operated. • Retain Instructions - The safety and operating instructions should be retained for future reference. • Heed Warnings - All warnings on the product and the operating instructions should be adhered to.
CHAPTER 1: Introduction Congratulations on the purchase of your ATI Radeon graphics card. We hope that you will enjoy countless hours of trouble-free computing. ® Radeon X1950 XTX Features Graphic Features • Native PCI Express • 256MB or 512 MB GDDR4\GDDR3 on-board memory. •...
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® 2 Radeon X1950 XTX Features • Conserves video memory bandwidth. • Loss-less Z-buffer compression • Z Cache optimized for real-time shadow rendering. ™ VideoShader • Seamlessly integrates pixel shaders with video in real time. • All format DTV/HDTV decoding. •...
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• Render-to-vertex buffer support. • Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL High Dynamic Range (HDR) Rendering • 64-bit floating point HDR supported throughout the pipeline • Includes support for blending and multi-sample anti-aliasing. • High precision 10:10:10:2 integer format support. •...
4 Before You Begin System Requirements Hardware • Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon®. • 512MB of system memory; 1GB or more for best • Optical drive for installation software (CD-ROM or • Specialized PCI Express® 550 watt or greater power Operating •...
Record Your Serial and Part Numbers The serial number and 102 part number printed on the graphics card are required for registration. They are located on a sticker on the back of the card. Serial number (S/N) 102 part number (P/N) Write the numbers, shown in bold above, down before installing your new ATI product.
CHAPTER 2: Installing Hardware This chapter will guide you through the physical installation of your new Radeon graphics card. Consult your system builder or OEM to ensure that your system has an adequate power supply. A PCI Express specialized 12V graphics card power connector. A 450 watt or greater power supply is recommended.
6-pin Power Cable Connector 6-pin Power Connection Power connector to Graphics Card Power connector to Power Supply Installing the graphics card Turn off the computer, monitor, and other peripheral devices. Unplug the computer’s power cord and disconnect all cables from the back of your computer.
Connect the power cable to the 6-pin power connection on the graphics card. Screw in or fasten the graphics card securely. Make sure the cables are not interfering with anything inside the computer (for example, a cooling fan) and replace the computer cover. Reconnect any cables you have disconnected and plug in the computer’s power cord.
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10 Connecting Devices DVI-I VGA-DVI-I Adapter S-Video In/Out CATV Composite Supports a digital monitor. Supports an analog monitor on a DVI-I connection. Supports a TV, VCR, or camcorder. Supports a TV antenna or cable service. Supports a TV, VCR, or camcorder.
CHAPTER 3: Using Multiple Displays Connecting Your Monitors ® Your Radeon X1950 XTX 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 Standard VGA Monitor Connector.
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12 Connecting Your Monitors Note: If you use multiple monitors, the must be the primary graphics card. Normally, the system BIOS determines which graphics card will be the primary. To connect your monitors Power off your computer and monitors. Plug the monitor cables into their appropriate connectors. Power on your monitors first, and then restart your computer so that ®...
Display Configurations ® Your Radeon X1950 XTX graphics card provides dual display functionality. The following table lists the different ways you can connect displays to your card. Display Connector(s) Configuration Used Single DFP DVI-I connector display DFP Display* + DVI-I connectors DFP Display DFP Display + DVI-I connector +...
CHAPTER 4: Installing Software and Drivers This chapter will guide you through the installation of the drivers and software associated with your Radeon Installing Drivers and Software in ® Windows You will need to install the Radeon the following cases: •...
16 Monitor Configuration 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.
To configure your primary display Navigate to the Control Panel and choose Display, or right-click on the desktop and choose Properties. Choose the Settings tab and select the screen resolution and color depth that best suit your requirements and your monitor’s performance.
™ 18 Installing the Catalyst To manually reinstall drivers If your CD-ROM auto-run is not enabled and the ATISETUP utility does not start automatically, follow these steps. ® In the Windows task bar, click Start. From the Start menu, select Run. Browse to SETUP.EXE on the root directory of the ATI Installation CD-ROM.
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™ Installing the Catalyst Software Suite 19 Not all software components are installed using the Express installation. Custom installation allows you to select individual software components for installation.
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™ 20 Installing the Catalyst Software Suite...
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 settings, enable or disable connected display devices, and change the orientation of your desktop.
22 Video Advanced View by selecting Advanced and clicking on the Next button. ™ Catalyst Control Center: Advanced View (may not appear exactly as shown) Video Use the Video aspect to use preconfigured profiles that best match your viewing environment. Switch to the Advanced view to manually adjust video overlay and choose a preferred viewing mode, such as Widescreen or Fullscreen modes.
Use 3D Refresh Rate Override to set a refresh rate of your choice when a full-screen application or game has a default refresh rate that is lower than optimal. Choose one of the Display Detection Options to prevent screen flicker when detecting a display.
24 Component Video Properties ™ • A CrossFire Ready motherboard with two PCI Express slots. ™ • A CrossFire Edition Series graphics card. • An interconnect cable, supplied with the CrossFire graphics card, connecting the two cards to a single monitor. ™...
Hotkeys Manager The Hotkeys Manager allows you to create shortcut key combinations to quickly perform tasks such as changing a graphics setting or opening an application. A hot key is a combination of one or more modifier keys, such as Ctrl, Alt, or Shift, and any letter from the alphabet. Note: Hotkeys Manager is only available in Advanced View.
™ 26 CrossFire To access Preferences • Click Preferences in Advanced View of the Catalyst Center. ™ CrossFire Access CrossFire • Select CrossFire Enable CrossFire ™ From the Tree View pane, click CrossFire Click Enable CrossFire ™ When CrossFire is successfully enabled all display devices, except the ™...
™ Catalyst Control Center: CrossFire (may not appear exactly as shown) Profiles Manager Use profiles to create customized environments for your desktop, video, and 3D applications. Define and save into a profile your own personal video settings that can be quickly activated manually, through a hot key, or by file association.
CHAPTER 6: Using TV Display and Capture Features This chapter describes how to use the TV display and video capture features of your Radeon Using TV Out ® Your Radeon X1950 XTX has TV Out capability. Viewing Your PC’s Display on a TV You can attach your Radeon same time.
30 Using TV Out Power off your computer and your TV. Looking at the back of your PC, locate your DVI connection. Using a DVI cable,attach one end of the cable to your graphics card and the other to your TV. Connecting to a TV DVI Connection on graphics card DVI Cable...
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 on a TV A TV is designed primarily to show moving images. The large dot pitch of a TV will yield poor quality static images.
32 Connecting to HDTV 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.
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.
CHAPTER 7: Using the Radeon with CrossFire ® The Radeon X1950 XTX can be used as a Slave graphics card in a ™ CrossFire system. For the full system requirements necessary to put together a working ™ CrossFire system, see the CrossFire ™...
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™ 36 CrossFire Rendering Modes 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. ™...
Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express Graphics Card Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express Graphics Card 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.
™ 38 CrossFire Rendering Modes Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express Graphics Card Final Rendered Frame on Display Although Scissor Mode is generally a less efficient means of splitting the workload than using SuperTiling, there are a few cases where it can be more efficient.
Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express Graphics Card Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express Graphics Card 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.
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40 Super Anti-aliasing Mode PCI Express Radeon ® X1950 XTX Master Graphics Card Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express Partial Frame Rendered on PCI Express Final Rendered Frame on Display Some types of textures, especially those with transparent portions, can exhibit aliasing that is not removed by MSAA techniques.
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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 the 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.
CHAPTER 8: ™ CrossFire The following are frequently-asked questions about CrossFire For the latest information, please consult the CrossFire ati.com/crossfire What combination of products are required to build a working ™ CrossFire system? Three components are required: ™ • a CrossFire graphics card.
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Which slot does the CrossFire motherboard? ™ The CrossFire Master card must go into the primary PCI Express slot (slot zero) on the motherboard. Note: To determine which PCIe your motherboard manual. Alternately, to determine whether or not a CrossFire in the correct slot, connect your display directly to the DVI-I connection on the Master graphics card instead of using the ™...
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To access and enable CrossFire following: • Click CrossFire ™ CrossFire ™ When CrossFire is successfully enabled, all display devices except the one used by CrossFire displays that are disabled when CrossFire ™ CrossFire is disabled. To change to Advanced View: •...
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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 The two cards are connected by an external cable. The cable is attached from the Slave graphics card’s DVI-I connection to the ™...
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How many independent displays can be connected to a ™ CrossFire system? ™ While CrossFire is designed for optimal use on a single display, it is possible to drive multiple monitors using a CrossFire ™ CrossFire is not enabled. If the motherboard contains an integrated video connection and SurroundView be added.
CHAPTER 9: Reference This chapter provides information on troubleshooting, where to get additional accessories, how to register your product, plus warranty and compliance information. Troubleshooting The following troubleshooting tips may help if you experience problems. ATI’s documentation contains helpful installation/configuration tips and other valuable feature information.
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50 Troubleshooting General Troubleshooting Problem Possible Solution No Display • Check that the card is seated properly in its expansion • Ensure that the monitor cable is securely fastened to • Make sure that the monitor and computer are plugged •...
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™ CrossFire -Specific Troubleshooting Problem Possible Solution CrossFire ™ is Not In order for CrossFire Functioning 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.
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52 Troubleshooting CrossFire ™ -Specific Troubleshooting Problem Possible Solution “CrossFire ™ This error is occurred because CrossFire Currently correctly detect your graphics hardware or their is a Unavailable.” problem with the software. • Check the graphics card are installed correctly. •...
HDTV/HDTV Adapter Troubleshooting Problem Possible Solution The colors on my • Ensure that the connections between the Component TV display are Video Adapter and your HDTV are correct (Y=Green, incorrect Pb=Blue, Pr=Red). There is no • Your TV will not display anything until Windows starts; display on my TV this may take several minutes.
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ATI product, whether your product contains a defect, and whether your product is under warranty. Language Access English, ati.com French, Spanish, ATI TECHNOLOGIES INC. Portuguese, Attention: Customer Care German 1 Commerce Valley Drive East Markham, Ontario Canada L3T 7X6 English...
• 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.
56 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.
CHAPTER 10: Glossary Acronym for “two dimensional,” a term applied to computer graphics that are “flat.” Typical desktop applications such as word processors, spreadsheet 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.
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surfaces, allowing game programmers to include more texture and lighting details without affecting performance. 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 are partially transparent.
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® ™ operation is only available in Radeon CrossFire graphics cards running ® ® ® Microsoft Direct 3D and OpenGL games or applications. 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.
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single display within its existing ambient lighting environment, or to better color match two or more adjacent monitors. 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.”...
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 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 memory.
Component Video Typically used on DVD players and HDTV systems, component video is 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.
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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.
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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”, which produces better television image quality than Standard Definition Television (SDTV).
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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 in a 3D environment. Sometimes abbreviated to “fps.”...
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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.
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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.
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flicker-free. The acronym refers to the National Television Systems 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.
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® ™ PCI Express (PCIe 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.
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Resolution The resolution 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.
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(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 (480i) or use progressive scan (480p), the latter method providing the best overall image quality.
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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 ™...
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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.
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™ 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, ™ ™...
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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 A feature that integrates pixel-shading technology with video filtering and processing functions. It accelerates noise removal, de-blocking, adaptive de-interlacing, frame-rate conversion, color-space conversion, and more.
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Bitmap 23, 50, 61, 63, 67, 68 brightness 63, 66 Buffer 18, 36 Catalyst 24, 46 Catalyst A.I. Catalyst Control Center Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) 74, 77 chrominance CMOS 17, 23, 39, 50, 61 Color Color component Color correction Color Depth Compliance Information compliance information Component Video Properties...
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21, 65 Dashboard de-interlacing Depth Buffer Digital Digital Flat Panel (DFP) Digital flat-panel (DFP) display Digital Panel properties Digital Video Interface 22, 61, 65, 72, 74 Direct 3D DirectX Display Data Channel (DDC) Display Detection Options Display Options Displays Manager Dithering DMS-59 31, 65, 73...
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Frame Buffer frame rate Frames per second (fps) Fullscreen Fullscreen modes games TV display 23, 39, 61, 67 gamma 66, 67 Gouraud Shading 36, 37, 38, 39, 64 Graphical Processor Unit (GPU) Hardware installing 31, 33 HDTV HDTV Adapter Troubleshooting HDTV Component Video Adapter 17, 21, 54 Help...
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