Sam440ep-Flex: upgrading gfx to Radeon HD4350

I've got hold of a cheap used ATI Radeon HD4350 (PCI, 512MB), with which I'd like to upgrade my current Sam440ep-Flex setup and replace the Radeon 9250. I have installed the latest RadeonHD driver from the Enhancer Software pack.

The card arrives tomorrow and I'll be glad for some tips. Is there anything special I need to do in order to prepare my OS4.1 FE system for the card swap? Will I need to enable the "RadeonHD.chip" module in Kicklayout? (The driver installer placed the module into SYS:Kickstart but didn't add it to Kicklayout.) Do I need to change anything about my existing DEVS:Monitors display driver?

Is it better to use the VGA or the DVI output on the Radeon HD4350? Does Warp3D Nova support this card?

@trixie

AFAIK Warp3D is only for R7/R9 and some radeon (highend) HD77xx/HD7900.
If you have AEON's EnhancerSoftware just check/read Warp3dNova doc.

You will loose Warp3D compatibilty, so maybe keep the "old" 9250 on such system.

Just copy/update the RadeonHD.chip to SYS:Kickstart (add an entry in kicklayout) and IIRC add/change your monitor (DEVS:Monitors) to 'Radeon HD' and tooltypes:
CMPLENGTH=9
BOARDNAME=Radeon HD

(or whatever name you want)

IMO (or my eyes are getting old) DVI has more clear image/output in monitor, VGA blurs the image/output a little.

@trixie

Yes you need to enable the RadeonHD.chip module in Kicklayout.

You can use Radeon as the monitor driver in Devs:Monitors with tooltype CMPLENGTH=6
and it will work for the Radeon 9250 as well as a Radeon HD card.
I used DVI output when I had a working Flex and Radeon HD card.
No current Warp3D or Warp3D Nova support.
Invitations for anyone to do Warp 3D Nova drivers for Radeon HD Cards before the HD7000 series are open. Check with Hans if you are interested.

@trixie

The 4350 has much higher core clock and at least double the memory bandwidth of the 9250.

While there is no 3D support you should see a noticeable difference in software using compositing.

I'd recommend using the 4350 as the main card and keeping the 9250 as an exclusive output for Warp3D software and maybe fullscreen video since the 4350 lack overlay.

Sadly the Sam440 seems to be being left behind by Warp3D Nova. The supported 7000 and upwards series cards fail to initialise on the Sam440. I've read that a Uboot update could solve this but none has been forthcoming.

@Rob
Quote:
You mean the 4350.

@Rob

Quote:
Oh, I completely forgot to update my story in this thread

I got the card recognized and working OK, but I was surprised to see that the rendering of Intuition windows contents is noticeably slower than on the 9250. I mean: I run a program, it opens the window, the window stays empty for a second or two, then the contents gets rendered in. Window resizing is much slower, too. (Video playback feels faster using the Emotion player, though.)

I do have compositing on in Workbench, so I wonder if there's something else I need to enable or disable in GUI prefs to get better results?

I have the latest RadeonHD driver. By the way, the result is the same with an old 1.x version of the driver.

Is INTERRUPT=YES enabled in the ToolType of the monitor ?

@Trixie
Not sure if you still need some of the functions from this utility.
http://www.soft3dev.net/pages/sam440ep_setup.php

Also the HD4350 is relatively slow compared to the other Radeon HD cards when used with a pci to pcie adapter .
A Radeon HD6670 gave me good results.

http://hdrlab.org.nz/benchmark/gfxben ... aOS/Motherboard/Sam440EP/

@K-L

Quote:
Yes it is.


@Spectre660

Quote:
I do have this utility enabled in WBStartup. (No change if I remove it.)

I know the 4350 is a slower card but I definitely didn't expect such a noticeable downgrade. I hope there's some solution to this; maybe Hans could help?