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®
Radeon X1950 Pro
™
CrossFire
Getting Started Guide
P/N 137-41210-10
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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 ™ Installing CrossFire Graphics Cards . . . . . . . . . . 1 ™ Installing the CrossFire Bridge Interconnects 3 Display Configurations 4 Installing Software and Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 ® Windows New Hardware Found 5 ™ Installing the Catalyst Software Suite 5 ™ Enabling CrossFire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 ™ Launching Catalyst Control Center Using the Start Menu 7 Other Quick Launch Access Points 7 ™ Welcome to CrossFire . . . . . . . . .
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vi Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Troubleshooting 21 Product Registration 25 Customer Care 25 Additional Accessories 27 Compliance Information 27 FCC Compliance Information 27 Industry Canada Compliance Statement 28 CE Compliance Information 28 Informations de conformité de la CE 28
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1 CHAPTER 1: Getting Started ® Congratulations on the purchase of your Radeon X1950 Pro card. The ™ CrossFire Getting Started Guide will help you to successfully install your ™ new graphics card and associated software, and enable CrossFire .
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2 System Requirements ® ® 4 ® Hardware • Intel Pentium 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 450 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). System ®
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3 Uninstall Previous Graphics Card Drivers ® To ensure the successful installation of your new Radeon X1950 Pro 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 wiz
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5 CHAPTER 2: ™ Installing CrossFire Graphics Cards ® The following set of instructions assumes that one Radeon X1950 Pro graphics card has already been successfully installed in the primary slot (slot zero), and that the secondary slot (slot one) is empty. If you have not already done so, see the Getting Started Guide that came with the graphics card for installation instructions. Consult your system builder or OEM to ensure that your system has an adequate power supply. A 450 watt or gr
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6 450 Watt (or greater) Power Supply 1 ® Radeon X1950 Pro Graphics Card 2 ® Radeon X1950 Pro Graphics Card 3 ™ 2 CrossFire -Bridge Interconnects 4 ™ WARNING:Always handle the CrossFire Bridge Interconnects by the connector only. Do not push or pull on the flexible circuit cable.
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7 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 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. WARNING - Discharge your body’
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8 ™ 2 Press one end of the CrossFire Bridge Interconnect onto one of the connections on one of the graphics cards. ™ 3 Press the opposite end of the CrossFire bridge interconnect onto corresponding connection of the second graphics card. ™ Repeat the above steps to connect the second CrossFire Bridge Interconnect to the graphics cards. 4 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) a
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® Windows New Hardware Found 9 CHAPTER 3: Installing Software and Drivers This chapter will guide you through the installation of the drivers and software ® associated with your Radeon X1950 Pro graphics card. ® Windows New Hardware Found ® Windows may start the Add New Hardware Wizard to install the Standard VGA Driver. To correctly install your new hardware: ® • Cancel the Wizard if you are using Windows XP, and proceed to ™ Software Suite. Installing the Catalyst •If the Add New Hardwar
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™ 10 Installing the Catalyst Software Suite ™ 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 li
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11 CHAPTER 4: ™ Enabling CrossFire To take full advantage of running dual graphics cards, you must enable ™ ™ CrossFire and configure it in the Catalyst Control Center.Launching ™ Catalyst Control Center ™ Launch Catalyst Control Center from one of the following access points: ® • Windows Start Menu ® • Windows System Tray • Desktop shortcuts • Predefined hot keys ™ Launching Catalyst Control Center Using the Start Menu ® From the Windows task bar, click Start: ™ ™ •Click to Programs > Cat
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12 ™ Launching Catalyst Control Center Using Hot Keys • You can press the predefined combination of keys Ctrl+Alt+C to ™ launch Catalyst Control Center, or you can define your own hot key ™ sequence by using the Catalyst Control Center’s Hotkey Manager. ™ Enable CrossFire ™ 1 From the Tree View pane, click CrossFire in Advanced View. ™ 2 Click Enable CrossFire . ™ When CrossFire is successfully enabled all display devices, except the one ™ used by CrossFire , will be disabled. ™ Note: Cross
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™ CrossFire Overview 13 CHAPTER 5: ™ Welcome to CrossFire ™ ATI CrossFire is the ultimate multi-GPU performance gaming platform, ™ using ATI CrossFire ready motherboards and ATI graphics cards. ™ CrossFire Overview This section provides an overview of the main features and configurations for ™ CrossFire . These topics will be covered in more detail in other chapters of this manual. ® ™ Allowable Radeon X1950 Pro CrossFire System Components ® ™ The basic requirements of a Radeon X1950 Pro Cr
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™ 14 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. ™ The ATI Catalyst display driver will automatically select the best of the three performance modes when a 3D application is started, without requiring user intervention. The user can also choose
