6800 (Vinilla) Unmasking survives deiver change. HOW?

I have had a "Leadtek A400 TDH GeForce 6800" for about three weeks now. When
the card first arrived from NewEgg I, of course, ran Rivatuner. The
pipelines and shader unmasked just fine with zero artifacts. I assumed that
the changes Rivatuner made to unmask the pipelines and shader were made in
the driver and thus would have to "load" every time I started windows. That
was fine with me. Satisfied with the results I did not alter the bios to
make the changes "permenant".

The other day I had occasion to change drivers. Since I had not made the
unmasking "permenant" with an altered bios I assumed that wiping out the old
driver would also wipe out the Rivatuner Pipeline and Shader unmasking and
that I would have to run Rivatuner again after installing the new driver.
After installing the new driver I booted Rivatuner and was surprised to find
Rivatuner still reporting all 16 pipelines and 6 shaders unmasked and
working.

Since the unmasking appearently survived a driver change I am somewhat
confused as to just what Rivatuner DOES change in the unmasking of the 6800
pipelines and shader. It is also possible that the unmasking did not survive
the driver change and Rivatuner is reporting bogus information.

Can anyone here tell me just what Rivatuner changes in unmasking those four
masked pipelines and one masked shader?

Thanks

On 6/9/2005 11:23 AM Joe brightened our day with:

Can anyone here tell me just what Rivatuner changes in unmasking those four
masked pipelines and one masked shader?

Thanks




The RivaTuner NVStrap driver is independent of the Forceware drivers,
the unmasking loads every time you start windows as long as RivaTuner is
installed.

--
"I don't feel tardy"

Steve ¤»Inglo«¤
www.inglostadt.com

"Joe" wrote in message
news:tO%pe.7797$R21.7548@lakeread06
I have had a "Leadtek A400 TDH GeForce 6800" for about three weeks
now. When the card first arrived from NewEgg I, of course, ran
Rivatuner. The pipelines and shader unmasked just fine with zero
artifacts. I assumed that the changes Rivatuner made to unmask the
pipelines and shader were made in the driver and thus would have to
"load" every time I started windows. That was fine with me. Satisfied
with the results I did not alter the bios to make the changes
"permenant".
The other day I had occasion to change drivers. Since I had not made
the unmasking "permenant" with an altered bios I assumed that wiping
out the old driver would also wipe out the Rivatuner Pipeline and
Shader unmasking and that I would have to run Rivatuner again after
installing the new driver. After installing the new driver I booted
Rivatuner and was surprised to find Rivatuner still reporting all 16
pipelines and 6 shaders unmasked and working.

Since the unmasking appearently survived a driver change I am somewhat
confused as to just what Rivatuner DOES change in the unmasking of
the 6800 pipelines and shader. It is also possible that the unmasking
did not survive the driver change and Rivatuner is reporting bogus
information.
Can anyone here tell me just what Rivatuner changes in unmasking
those four masked pipelines and one masked shader?

Thanks

RivaTuners 'driver' is what it uses to access the vid cards BIOS. The
BIOS itself is low level data, like a table. When that driver makes a
change to a bit, well, that bit is *CHANGED*. If you don't do that,
how is the card going to know what you want it to look at? Anyway,
yes, that change is permanent. Until you use RivaTuner and driver and
change it back.

"Inglo" ioo@??.¿¿¿ wrote in message

On 6/9/2005 11:23 AM Joe brightened our day with:

Can anyone here tell me just what Rivatuner changes in unmasking
those four masked pipelines and one masked shader?

Thanks




The RivaTuner NVStrap driver is independent of the Forceware drivers,
the unmasking loads every time you start windows as long as RivaTuner
is installed.

Does that mean that the RT driver must be loaded for the flipped bits to
stay flipped?
McG.

On 6/9/2005 3:07 PM McGrandpa brightened our day with:

"Inglo" ioo@??.¿¿¿ wrote in message
m


On 6/9/2005 11:23 AM Joe brightened our day with:



Can anyone here tell me just what Rivatuner changes in unmasking
those four masked pipelines and one masked shader?

Thanks






The RivaTuner NVStrap driver is independent of the Forceware drivers,
the unmasking loads every time you start windows as long as RivaTuner
is installed.



Does that mean that the RT driver must be loaded for the flipped bits to
stay flipped?
McG.




It's a driver that gets added to your "non plug 'n play" list. You
don't have to have RivaTuner running. I don't know the actual
specifics, just that although it's implemented in software via a driver,
it has nothing to do with the actual video drivers.

--
"I don't feel tardy"

Steve ¤»Inglo«¤
www.inglostadt.com

"Inglo" ioo@??.¿¿¿ wrote in message
. com
On 6/9/2005 3:07 PM McGrandpa brightened our day with:

"Inglo" ioo@??.¿¿¿ wrote in message



On 6/9/2005 11:23 AM Joe brightened our day with:



Can anyone here tell me just what Rivatuner changes in unmasking
those four masked pipelines and one masked shader?

Thanks






The RivaTuner NVStrap driver is independent of the Forceware
drivers, the unmasking loads every time you start windows as long
as RivaTuner is installed.



Does that mean that the RT driver must be loaded for the flipped
bits to stay flipped?
McG.




It's a driver that gets added to your "non plug 'n play" list. You
don't have to have RivaTuner running. I don't know the actual
specifics, just that although it's implemented in software via a
driver, it has nothing to do with the actual video drivers.

Understand that. What I was really curious about is whether the actual
BIOS is changed. Seems it is not, this is strictly a software
implementation. But, that's actually better. It's not flashing the
BIOS every time you change something.
McG.

Okay to set the record straight. Nothing in the bios on the video card
is changed (having changed many bios's on nvidia cards in the past).

When you load RivaTuna it installs its NVstrap driver into the kernel
(see RivaTuna help). These kernel drivers are independant of any video
driver installed on the system and they are able to access hardware
directly (and not having to go through Windows HAL). The NVstrap driver
loads before the kernel and is able to overide the bios default settings
therefor allowing the Video Driver and Direct X to access the full 16x1
Pipes and 6 vertex shaders on the card.

Reinstalling the video driver makes no difference to this approach as
the NVstrap driver is still loaded.

If you were to re-install windows or delete the nvstrap system file then
this would not be loaded. So for example I use Linux on my system quite
a lot and in my linux configuration my pipes are set back to 12x1 and 5
vertex shaders on my 6800 (inno3d card), as this is the bios settings.

Hope this helps, Kindest regards

Zoozer

McGrandpa wrote:
"Joe" wrote in message
news:tO%pe.7797$R21.7548@lakeread06

I have had a "Leadtek A400 TDH GeForce 6800" for about three weeks
now. When the card first arrived from NewEgg I, of course, ran
Rivatuner. The pipelines and shader unmasked just fine with zero
artifacts. I assumed that the changes Rivatuner made to unmask the
pipelines and shader were made in the driver and thus would have to
"load" every time I started windows. That was fine with me. Satisfied
with the results I did not alter the bios to make the changes
"permenant".
The other day I had occasion to change drivers. Since I had not made
the unmasking "permenant" with an altered bios I assumed that wiping
out the old driver would also wipe out the Rivatuner Pipeline and
Shader unmasking and that I would have to run Rivatuner again after
installing the new driver. After installing the new driver I booted
Rivatuner and was surprised to find Rivatuner still reporting all 16
pipelines and 6 shaders unmasked and working.

Since the unmasking appearently survived a driver change I am somewhat
confused as to just what Rivatuner DOES change in the unmasking of
the 6800 pipelines and shader. It is also possible that the unmasking
did not survive the driver change and Rivatuner is reporting bogus
information.
Can anyone here tell me just what Rivatuner changes in unmasking
those four masked pipelines and one masked shader?

Thanks


RivaTuners 'driver' is what it uses to access the vid cards BIOS. The
BIOS itself is low level data, like a table. When that driver makes a
change to a bit, well, that bit is *CHANGED*. If you don't do that,
how is the card going to know what you want it to look at? Anyway,
yes, that change is permanent. Until you use RivaTuner and driver and
change it back.

"Robert Jones" wrote in message

Okay to set the record straight. Nothing in the bios on the video
card is changed (having changed many bios's on nvidia cards in the
past).
When you load RivaTuna it installs its NVstrap driver into the kernel
(see RivaTuna help). These kernel drivers are independant of any
video driver installed on the system and they are able to access
hardware directly (and not having to go through Windows HAL). The
NVstrap driver loads before the kernel and is able to overide the
bios default settings therefor allowing the Video Driver and Direct X
to access the full 16x1 Pipes and 6 vertex shaders on the card.

Reinstalling the video driver makes no difference to this approach as
the NVstrap driver is still loaded.

If you were to re-install windows or delete the nvstrap system file
then this would not be loaded. So for example I use Linux on my
system quite a lot and in my linux configuration my pipes are set
back to 12x1 and 5 vertex shaders on my 6800 (inno3d card), as this
is the bios settings.

Thanks. It's good to know about this stuff. I have my 6800 GT in now,
have given the 6800 to my son. I did try the RT unmasking and it didn't
work. That 6800 stayed 12 and 5 no matter what RT did. It was worth a
try. I guess for better understanding of what RT was doing, I should
have read the docs
McG.