Overclocking old Geforce2 Ultra!

megamaced

megamaced

Geek Geek Geek!
I've never overclocked a graphics card before, so it's something I want to try. Hey, I gotta live dangerously every once and awhile ;)

I want to overclock an aging nVidia Geforce2 Ultra 64MB. I heard that these were pretty good overclockers in their day? The computer's processor is a Pentium 3 ~1.0GHz, so by today's standards this computer is OLD

But that doesn't bother me too much, I don't really play brand new commercial games. However it can be quite annoying when a free GPL game such as Racer or VDrift run at only 12FPS :(

I suspect that my CPU is more of a bottleneck then the GPU, but I'd still like to overclock the nVidia.

Can anyone give me a few pointers? Is anyone here old enough to remember what is was like, overclocking an old Geforce2?!

BTW, although the Geforce2 is AGPx4, I can only run it in AGPx2 mode. Will this hinder the overclocking abilities? Also, I have to use the nVidia legacy drivers for this card, will that also hinder the overclocking?
 
You'll be able to use the latest nvidia drivers with that card. Also try getting the registry addon "coolbits" Its always proved to be a decent hack. I install as few programs as possible so dont really use rivatuner.
Download GeForce Overclocking - CoolBits Reg - Easily overclock your video card, and have smoother video and better frame rates - Softpedia

Thats card isnt as bad as you think. My Geforce4 mx420 is no where near as good as the GF2 ultra and I can play Bf1942 with everything on full settings (except the AA) but with Hitman 2 I can even have that on full AA (4xS or whatever its called)

The latest game ive got is Rome TW and I had to lower some settings with that but its still works at 1024x768.

You might be surprised by that card. You've got 3 times the mem bandwidth and DDR ram! :) But like you said, the pentium 3 isnt really up to spec, nor will the pc133 be (or is it pc100 :confused: you have?)

Heres decent spec list Comparison of NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for overclocking all I can remember is that the GF2 Ti GPU could hit 300 OK and from the look of the list on wiki its seems to be a similar card.
 
The computer runs over a 100MHz bus, so I have to use PC100 :(

I've checked the nVidia website and the latest drivers no longer support the Ultra. The only Geforce2 card still supported is the MX - probably because it was so popular.

The computer dual boots Windows and Linux, so I guess I would use NVCLOCK for Linux. Have you used NVCLOCK?

I've been reading up on the Ultra on the internet and was quite shocked to find out that it used to retail for $400 :eek: Especially considering I bought it off eBay last year for £5 :D
 
Id not heard of nvclock, but its a linux thing so.... I can never be bothered persuing linux. Too much hard work for me! Besides I only really use two programs and neither work with wine.

Ebay is great sometimes for cheap stuff. Ive just got a new harddrive for my laptop (only a little 'en but double what I did have!) and 512mb a ddr400 for £18. Snap-On ratchet set with torque wrench and limited edition screwdriver set for £150. Books are a good one on ebay, ive had a few for 1p. My best buy was an alarm for my bike, £25 brand new and its the dogs!
 
I got a PC mag from about 3 years ago, i am amazed to be seing GeForce 4 cards in it for about 200 quid, stuff really changes quick :o
 
I'd guess a 5% overclock, which is usually what you can do with most cards. But if tis a good overclocker then you might be able to get 10% out of it.
 
Looking at those benchmarks it seems almost pointless overclocking the Ultra. There's not much point putting more stress on the card only for it to deliver minor improvements

I was playing Warsow today in Linux and I noticed that it wasn't the graphics that were lagging, but the sound. This could only be because the processor is under too much stress - well hey, it's only a 1 gigahertz :)

I was thinking about overclocking the processor but the problem is that the motherboard and RAM only support 100MHz. So if I did jump up the front side bus i'd also be overclocking the motherboard and RAM as well.

So what I want to ask is, is it OK to overclock the motherboard and RAM?

This computer is not my main computer anyway, but I use it as my 'gaming' computer because it has AGP (albeit only x2). My main computer, a Celly 2.8GHz, only has PCI (and I don't mean of the express variety :( )
 
Most people end up overclocking their motherboard and RAM though RAM is easier to get round if you can change the ratio.
Even if your chipset supports higher bus speeds the PCI bus will be overclocked untill you hit the next standard FSB (ie 100, 133, 200 or whatever) so in that sense every overclock results in the motherboard being overclocked regardless of chipset capabilities.
 
I finally got around to overclocking this old dog today using NVClock on Ubuntu 6.06. The default clock speed is 250MHz and the memory 460MHz. I managed to get the memory up to about 501MHz but any further and the desktop would start going funny. Basically the desktop was replaced with a screen full of colours. Reminded me of the flicking colour screens when the Commodore64 loaded a game from cassette :D I thought that strange because I was only expecting artifacts and distortions in game, not on a 2D desktop. Maybe part of the cause is down to NVclock, which I do not entirely trust.
The link which Zeus provided also showed the Geforce Ultra bottoming out at 500MHz memory speed, so I guess mine is no different in that respect.

The GPU core is more interesting though. The guys doing the overclock in that link only got it to 290MHz, but so far I've got it to 310MHz with no artifacts. I would carry on but somehow I just don't trust NVClock and I feel I might push the graphics card too hard without realising it.

BTW, when testing for artifacts is it better to use a graphically intense game? I've been switching between Cube and Enemy Territory but worry that they aren't pushing the Geforce enough. Do you think the demo of UT2004 would be better?
 
Use ATi tool, i think its got an artifact scanner on, people use it for overclockers cards like the 8800GTX too, i sued it when i overclock my radeon 9600, i got no artifacts from 250mhz stock all the way up to 490mhz on passive cooling :D, memory wouldent overclock good at all though, its wierd how all old cards seem to be really good overclockers on the core.
 
I compared the stock and overclocked framerates using GLXGEARS. I was running XGL and Beryl at the time.

Stock:

7614 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1518.802 FPS
12587 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2494.156 FPS
12482 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2496.120 FPS
12588 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2499.329 FPS
12587 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2496.107 FPS

Adjusted low-level clocks on a nVidia Geforce 2 Ultra
Memory clock: 501.130 MHz
GPU clock: 314.996 MHz

10866 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2162.577 FPS
13647 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2721.642 FPS
13603 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2708.212 FPS
13647 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2717.962 FPS
13560 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2702.176 FPS

So that works out at roughly 206 FPS extra. Of course the difference won't be that dramatic in game. I should get 3D Mark and try and run it under WINE or Crossover

Willz said:
Use ATi tool, i think its got an artifact scanner on
Click to expand...

So this ATi tool runs on Linux and supports the nVidia card right?
 
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