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Radeon® X1550
Series
User’s Guide
P/N 137-71102-10
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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, 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, wi
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iii 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. • Compatibility - This option card is for use only with IBM AT or compatible UL Listed personal computers that have Installation Instructions deta
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v Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Radeon® X1550 Series Features 1 System Requirements 4 Before You Begin 4 Installing Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Graphics Card Bus Types 7 Basic Graphics Card Installation 7 Advanced Installation: AGP 9 Advanced Installation: PCIe™ 11 Connecting Devices 14 Using Multiple Displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Display Configurations 17
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vi Installing Software and Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Installing Drivers and Software in Windows® 21 Monitor Configuration 22 To set up a multi-monitor display 23 Reinstalling Drivers 23 Installing the Catalyst™ Software Suite 24 Catalyst™ Control Center 27 Launching Catalyst™ Control Center 27 Catalyst™ Control Center Dashboard 30 Catalyst™ Control Center Views 31 Hotkeys Manager 32 Profiles Manager 33 Preferences 35 Help 38 Information Center 39 Displays Manager 40 Displays Manag
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vii CrossFire™ FAQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Troubleshooting 103 Product Registration 105 Customer Care 105 Additional Accessories 107 Compliance Information 107 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
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Radeon® X1550 Series Features 1 CHAPTER 1: Introduction Congratulations on the purchase of your ATI Radeon® X1550 Series graphics card. We hope that you will enjoy countless hours of trouble-free computing. Radeon® X1550 Series Features Graphic Features • Native PCI Express® X16 bus support. • Four parallel rendering pipelines. • 32/MB/64MB/128MB/256MB/512MB GDDR3 on-board memory. • Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® Shader Model 3.x. • High performance Ultra-Threaded shader engine. • Two
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2 Radeon® X1550 Series Features • 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 Compr
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Radeon® X1550 Series Features 3 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 • Sparse multi-sample algorithm with gamma correction, programmable sample patterns, and centroid sampling. • New Adaptive Anti-Aliasing modes. • Temporal Anti
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4 System Requirements 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® 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 • Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2
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Before You Begin 5 102 part number (P/N) Write the numbers, shown in bold above, down before installing your new ATI product. Uninstall Previous Graphics Card Drivers To ensure the successful installation of your new Radeon® X1550 Series 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
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6 Before You Begin
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Graphics Card Bus Types 7 CHAPTER 2: Installing Hardware This chapter will guide you through the physical installation of your new Radeon® graphics card. Graphics Card Bus Types There are three possible card bus types. See the illustration below to determine if you have an AGP, PCI, or PCI Express® (PCIe™) graphics card. AGP, PCI, and PCIe™ Graphics Cards Bus Types AGP card and AGP expansion slot 1 PCI card and PCI expansion slot 2 PCIe™ card and PCIe™ expansion slot 3 Basic Graphics Card In
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8 Basic Graphics Card Installation Radeon® graphics cards that require a connection to the computer’s power supply will have a power cable connected to them. 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. WARNING - Wait approximately 20 seconds after unplugging the power cord before disconnecting a peripheral or removing a component from the motherboard
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Advanced Installation: AGP 9 Advanced Installation: AGP There are two types of installation. If your graphics card does not require a separate connection to the computer’s power supply, follow the Basic Install instructions. If your graphics card require a separate connection to the computer’s power supply, follow the Advanced Install instructions for either AGP or PCIe™, as appropriate. Graphics cards that require connection to the computer’s power supply will have a power cable connected
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10 Advanced Installation: AGP Power Cable Connector 4 4-Pin Power Connection 5 Power Extension Cable: Power Connector to Graphics Card 6 Power Extension Cable: Power Connector to Hard Drive 7 Power Extension Cable: Power Connector to Power Supply 8 Hard Drive 9 Power Connector to Hard Drive 10 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. WARNING - Wait ap
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Advanced Installation: PCIe™ 11 6 Align your ATI graphics card with the slot and press it in firmly until the card is fully seated. 7 Remove the power cable from the hard drive power connector. 8 Connect the power extension cable to the 4-pin power connection on the graphics card. 9 Connect the power extension cable to the power supply. 10 Connect the power extension cable to the hard drive. 11 Screw in or fasten the graphics card securely. Make sure the cables are not interfering with anyth
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12 Advanced Installation: PCIe™ Graphics Card Installation Graphics Card 1 Power Supply 2 6-pin Power Cable Connector 3 6-pin Power Connection 4 Power connector to Graphics Card 5 Power connector to Power Supply 6 Installing the Radeon® 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. WARNING - Wait approximately 20 seconds after unplugging the power cord before disconnec
