ATI Technologies X1950 XTX User Manual
Radeon® X1950 XTX
User’s Guide
P/N 137-41074-10
ATI
ii
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, performanc e and specificatio ns 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 expre ss 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 o r this
documentation, for any interruption of service, loss or interruption of business, loss of anticipatory
profits, or for punitive, incidental or consequential damages in connectio n 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
document 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 noninfringement.
Macrovision
Apparatus Claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 4,631,603; 4,819,098; 4,907,093 ; and 6,516,132 licensed for
limited 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 limit ed viewing uses only unless ot herwise authorize d
by Macrovision. Reverse engineering or disassembly is prohibited.
IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS
L
• 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.
• Compatibility - This option card is for use only with IBM AT or
compatible UL Listed personal computers that have Installation
Instructions detailing user installation of card cage accessories.
• 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.
• Secure Attachment
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.
- All card securement pins shall be completely
iii
Note: This graphics card is for use only with compatible UL Listed
personal computers that have Installation Instructions detailing user
installation of card cage accessories.
iv
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Radeon® X1950 XTX Features 1
Before You Begin 4
Installing Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Connecting Devices 9
Using Multiple Displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Connecting Your Monitors 11
Display Configurations 13
v
Installing Software and Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Installing Drivers and Software in Windows
Monitor Configuration 16
To set up a multi-monitor display 17
Reinstalling Drivers 17
Installing the Catalyst
™
Software Suite 18
®
15
Catalyst™ Control Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Help 21
Displays Manager 21
Video 22
Display Options 22
Color 23
Monitor Properties 23
CrossFire
Component Video Properties 24
Digital Panel Properties 24
Hotkeys Manager 25
Profiles Manager 25
Preferences 25
CrossFire
Profiles Manager 27
™
™
23
26
vi
Using TV Display and Capture Features . . . . . . . 29
Using TV Out 29
Connecting to HDTV 31
Using the Radeon® X1950 XTX
with CrossFire™. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
CrossFire™ Overview 35
CrossFire
Super Anti-aliasing Mode 39
™
Rendering Modes 35
CrossFire™ FAQ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Troubleshooting 49
Product Registration 53
Customer Care 53
Additional Accessories 55
Compliance Information 55
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Radeon® X1950 XTX Features 1
CHAPTER 1:
Introduction
Congratulations on the purchase of your ATI Radeon® X1950 XTX
graphics card. We hope that you will enjoy countless hours of trouble-free
computing.
Radeon® X1950 XTX Features
Graphic Features
• Native PCI Express® X16 bus support.
• 256MB or 512 MB GDDR4\GDDR3 on-board memory.
• Full support for Microsoft ® DirectX
• High performance Ultra-Threaded shader engine.
• Eight vertex shader processors.
• Fo rt y-ei ght pixel shader processors.
• 512-bit internal ring-bus memory controller.
• 256-bit 8-channel memory interface.
• Native PCI Express
®
x16 bus interface.
®
Shader Model 3.0.
SmoothVision
™
• Fu ll-scene anti-aliasing method that smooths uneven edges and
improves blurred images.
• 2x/4x/6x Anti-aliasing modes with a loss-less compression up to a
ratio of 6:1 at all resolutions.
• 2x/4x//8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering modes with up to 128-tap
texture filtering.
HyperZ
™
• E nsures optimal hardware performance by discarding irrelevant
object data that is not visible to the user.
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.
• Adaptive Per-Pixel- De-interlacing and Frame Rate Conversion.
512-bit Ring Bus Memory Controller
• Programmable intelligent arbitration logic.
• New fully associative texture, color, and Z/stencil cache designs.
• Hierarchal Z-buffer with Early Z test.
• Lossless Z Compression (up to 48.1)
• Fast Z-B uffer Clear.
• Z Cache optimized for real-time shadow rendering.
• O pt imized for performance at high display resolutions, including
widescreen HDTV resolutions.
Ultra-Threaded Shader Engine
• Su pport for Microsoft ® DirectX
®
9.0 Shader Model 3.0
programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware.
• Full speed 128-bit floating point processing.
• Up to 512 simultaneous pixel threads.
• Dedicated branch execution units for high performance dynamic
branching and flow control.
• Dedicated texture address units for improved efficiency.
• High resolution texture support (up to 4k x 4k).
• Up to 1,536 instructions per rendering pass.
• 3Dc+ text ure compression
• High quality 4:1 compression for normal maps and luminance
maps.
• Works with any single-channel or two-channel data format.
• M ult ipl e Render Target (MRT) support.
Radeon® X1950 XTX Features 3
• R ender-to-vertex buffer support.
®
• Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL
2.0
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.
• Includes support for blending and multi-sample anti-aliasing.
• 2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing modes
• Sp a rse mul ti-sample algorithm with gamma correction,
programmable sample patterns, and centroid sampling.
• New Adaptive Anti-Aliasing modes.
• Temporal Anti-Aliasing mode.
• Lossless Color Compression (up to 6:1) at all resolutions,
including widescreen HDTV resolutions.
• 2x/4x/8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering modes
• Up to 128-tap texture filtering.
• A daptive algorithm with performance and quality options.
4 Before You Begin
System Requirements
Hardware • Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon®.
• 512MB of system memory; 1GB or more for best
performance.
• Optical drive for installation software (CD-ROM or
DVD-ROM drive).
• Specialized PCI Express® 550 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
System
Monitor • High-resolution MultiSync or multi-frequency monitors
CrossFire™
Compatibility
• Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2).
• Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition.
• Windows® 2000.
•Windows® Vista.
or any other type of VGA monitor.
• Digital flat-panel (DFP) displays or digital CRT display.
If you are planning on using this graphics card as part of a
CrossFire™ system, the following is required:
• A CrossFire™ certified motherboard with two (2) PCI
Express® X16 slots and correct PCIe™ chipset driver.
(See
ati.com/crossfire for a list of CrossFire™
certified motherboards.)
• a CrossFire™ Edition graphics card from the same
product series that works as the Master graphics card.
More information on the requirements for each of these
components can be found within the CrossFire™ FAQ.
Before You Begin
Before you begin installing your new graphics card, please do the
following.
Before You Begin 5
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.
X
Y
Write the numbers, shown in bold above, down before installing your new
ATI product.
Serial number (S/N)
102 part number (P/N)
Uninstall Previous Graphics Card Drivers
To ensure the successful installation of your new Radeon® X1950 XTX
card, you must uninstall the drivers for the existing graphics card before
removing it from your computer.
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.
6 Before You Begin
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
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adequate power supply. A PCI Express
specialized 12V graphics card power connector. A 450 watt or greater
power supply is 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.
®
compatible system has a
7
Graphics Card Installation
1
2
Graphics Card
Power Supply
8
3
4
5
6
6-pin Power Cable Connector
6-pin Power Connection
Power connector to Graphics Card
Power connector to Power Supply
Installing the graphics card
1 Turn off the computer, monitor, and other peripheral devices.
2 Unplug the computer’s power cord and disconnect all cables from the
back of your computer.
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WARNING - Wait approximately 20 seconds after unplugging the
power cord before disconnecting a peripheral or removing a
component from the motherboard to avoid possible damage to the
motherboard.
3 Remove the computer cover.
If necessary , consult your computer’s manual for help in removing the
cover.
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WARNING - Remember to discharge your body’s static electricity by
touching the power supply or the metal surface of the computer
chassis.
4 Unscrew or unfasten and remove any existing graphics card from
your computer.
Note: If your computer has an on-board graphics capability, you may
need to disable it on the motherboard. For more information, see your
computer documentation.
5 Locate the appropriate slot and, if necessary, remove the metal back-
plate cover.
6 Align your ATI graphics card with the slot and press it in firmly until
the card is fully seated.
Connecting Devices 9
7 Connect the power cable to the 6-pin power connection on the
graphics card.
8 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.
9 Reconnect any cables you have disconnected and plug in the
computer’s power cord.
10 Turn on the monitor, and then your computer.
Your computer will beep, possibly show a warning message on your
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display, and the boot process will stop if the graphics card is not correctly
connected to the power supply.
Connecting Devices
The following illustration shows typical connections found on ATI
graphics cards:
Connector Types
VGA Supports an analog CRT monitor.
10 Connecting Devices
DVI-I Supports a digital monitor.
VGA-DVI-I Adapter Supports an analog monitor on a DVI-I connection.
S-Video In/Out Supports a TV, VCR, or camcorder.
CATV Supports a TV antenna or cable service.
Composite Supports a TV, VCR, or camcorder.
Connecting Your Monitors 11
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® X1950 XTX Card
1 Standard VGA Monitor Connector. To connect a VGA monitor
2 DVI-I-to-VGA Adapter.
3 DVI-I Connection. To connect a digital display.
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.
12 Connecting Your Monitors
Note: If you use multiple monitors, the Radeon® X1950 XTX card
must be the primary graphics card. Normally, the system BIOS
determines which graphics card will be the primary.
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 comp uter 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
X1950 XTX 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 > 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.
®
• R efer to you r Windows
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.
online help and documentation for
Display Configurations 13
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
Configuration
Single DFP
display
DFP Display* +
DFP Display
DFP Display +
HDTV
Single CRT
display
CRT display +
HDTV
DFP display +
HDTV
CRT display +
DFP display
Connector(s)
Comments
Used
DVI-I connector DFP - digital flat panel display.
DVI-I connectors
DVI-I connector +
S-Video-toComponent
adapter
DVI-I connector
with DVI-I-to-VGA
adapter
DVI-I-to-VGA
adapter +
Componet Adapter
to HDTV (YPbPr)
cable
DVI-I connector +
HDTV cable
(YPbPr)
DVI-I-to-VGA
adapter + DVI-I
connector
Using supplied S-Video to Component
adapter.
CRT - cathode ray tube analog
display.
HDTV (YPrPb) adpater
CRT display +
CRT display
DVI-I-to-VGA
adapter + DVI-I-toVGA adapter
The DVI-I connector can support a
CRT display using the DVI-I-to-VGA
adapter
Note: * Both DVI ports support dual-link DVI output compatible
with single-link DVI flat panel displays as well as ultra-high
resolution dual-link DVI flat panel displays.
14 Display Configurations
Installing Drivers and Software in Windows® 15
CHAPTER 4:
Installing Sof tware and Drivers
This chapter will guide you through the installation of the drivers and
software associated with your Radeon
®
X1950 XTX graphics card.
Installing Drivers and Software in
Windows
You will need to install the Radeon® X1950 XTX drivers and software in
the following cases:
• After you have installed the card in your system.
• After you have reinstalled or upgraded your operating system.
This procedure applies to Windows
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
Service Pack 2 for Windows
Make sure your monitor cable is properly attached before you begin.
®
®
XP.
®
X1950 XTX drivers. Also, make sure that you have installed
®
XP.
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.
16 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 CDROM 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 Click 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.
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The Express installation option is recommended. By selecting this
option, the HydraVision
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.
™
multi-monitor and desktop management
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.
L
Warning - Choosing a refresh rate unsupported by your monitor may
damage your monitor. Consult your monitor’s documentation if
necessary.
To set up a multi-monitor display 17
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 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.
®
• R efer to you r Windows
further information on using the Settings tab.
online help and documentation for
Note: When you use multiple monitors with your Radeon
®
X1950
XTX 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
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.
®
conflict.
18 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 Start.
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 grap h ic s ca r d. Th e Catalyst
Software Suite has several
distinct software elements, including:
• Driver
• Catalyst
• HydraVision
• Remote Wonder
• SurroundView
™
Control Center
™
(not included in the Express Install)
™
Software
™
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 > Run.
3 Type the following: D:\ATISETUP
(If
D is not your optical drive, substitute the correct drive letter.)
4 Click OK.
5 Click Install under Software Install.
6 Click Next and click Yes to the license agreement.
7 Click ATI Easy Install to begin the Installation Wizard.
8 Follow the Wizard’s on-screen instructions, then choose either
Express or Custom Install.
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.
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. 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:
• Basic View is a simplified view that includes wizards to get the
inexperience user up and running.
• 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.
™
Control Center to fine-tune your graphics
Help 21
Help
Use the Catalyst™ Control Center Help feature to access the comprehensive
online help system, generate a Problem Report, and get the installed
version information.
Displays Manager
The Displays Manager aspect is the central location for configuring your
display devices and arranging your desktop. Use the Displays Manager
aspect to quickly change your display setup, arrange your desktop in a
multi-monitor environment, and enable TV Out.
Those new to the Catalyst
to help you configure your display preferences. Experienced users who
prefer to manually configure their desktop setting should use the Advanced
View.
Note: The Catalyst
very first time it is accessed. Experienced users can easily change to
™
Control Center may use the Basic View wizard
™
Control Center will open to the Basic View the
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.
To access the Video aspect
• Select Video in either Basic or Advanced View.
Display Options
The Display Options aspect gives you additional control to optimize
performance of OpenGL
®
and Direct 3D® applications.
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