ELSA Synergy II-32: Overclock to TNT2 Ultra possible?

Did you ever wonder if you wasted money buying the best hardware? Could the mainstream product be good enough and match the flagship's performance by overclocking it?
The Synergy II from ELSA was not a mainstream product. It was targeted to professionals who required the best hardware for computer-aided design applications.
Nevertheless, it uses a regular TNT2 chip - just with optimized drivers for CAD applications.
But are there enough reserves that would allow this chip to perform like a TNT2 Ultra?
Resources:
VOGONS Vintage Driver Library:
www.vogonsdriv...
Coolbits (Wikipedia):
en.wikipedia.o...
nVidia Drivers:
www.nvidia.com...
You can support me on Patreon:
/ bitsundbolts

[@Sitharii]

As someone who his 1st discrete graphics card was an nVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra from Creative(1999) ,this video immediately caught my interest !! Due to the transition from AGP interface to PCI-e ,my card sits on the shelf for all those years since 2001when i changed it ,so it's always nostalgic to watch videos about those first nVIDIA models ,thanks !!

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Excellent video. 15:00 - the Dynamite Hercules TNT2 Ultra was the fastest TNT2 by far, a very good card for the year 1999.

[@bitsundbolts]

I definitely have to try a few more things with this chip. I also think that a Diamond Viper 770 is waiting for me. I wonder if, with enough cooling, TNT2 chips would just work at 175 MHz without issues. We shall see!

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

@@bitsundbolts I only have a TNT2 M64 and the maximum stable core frequency is 145 mhz. As far as I know the 220 nm TNT2 Pro was the most overclockable of the series.

[@bitsundbolts]

nVidia may have recycled poor quality chips with those TNT2 M64s. I don't think I have one of those.

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

@@bitsundbolts as far as I know, the M64 has the same chips as the normal 125/150 mhz TNT2. But it could also be that nvidia used some chips with lower quality for the M64.

[@wishusknight3009]

I had a Gulimot Maxi Gamer TnT2 Ultra that had default clocks of 175/195... Sadly it made it through its 1 year warranty period and started artifacting. Down clocking it to Pro spec cured the issue. This may have been a 220nm specimen, if they really existed. It had a somewhat later build date and I purchased it a while after the Pro launched. But it also ran _really_ hot. So if it was a 250nm chip, they may have over volted it a little bit to get that. This was the last time i ever bought a factory overclocked card. After it wouldn't reliably work at all I quietly replaced it with a VooDoo3 3000 which i still own. Edit, now at the end of the video I notice he mentions my card! lol... Except mine was marketed as the Maxi Gamer. But same company and same card. Though the clocks on mine were 195 for the ram I am pretty sure.

[@retroianer3835]

Yes,the TNT1 and TNT2 chips runs best with the 2.08 Detonator drivers. But I find the TNT1 and 2 cards uninteresting for a todays Retro System build. I would prefer the GeForce 256 DDR/2 GTS for games until 2001, or a a GeForce 2 MX/400 for GeForce 256 SDR performance, because the 2MX cards are easy to find and cheap on ebay. The TNT cards have no support for hardware texture compression and the 8-Bit Paletted textures support for much older games like Final Fantasy 7. The only advantage over the same old Voodoo3 is the 32 bit colour support and support for larger textures until 2048x2048. Voodoo3 is still limited to 256x256 pixels for textures, so 16MB is more than enough for this card.

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

Never had issues with ff7 on tnt2 that I could notice. Everybody said it was a problem, but I could never see why. Also, GeForce was mostly useless aside from 32bit. I'd rather use a dx8 Radeon for the free anisotropic filtering and rotated grid anti aliasing on par with voodoo 5.

[@CWar8747]

New sub here, the good olddays oveclocking, very good video.

[@bitsundbolts]

Thank you

[@Toysrme]

I had a diamond viper TNT 2 Ultra with a Peltier on it and would run 250mhz on the core. Fast card!

[@awnordma]

The TNT2 driver choices is somewhat comical, even in the era you had to search for the best one. Back then the official release cycle wasn't what it is now and the beta driver scene was big. I was introduced to it after having an issue Shogun Total War and reading about them on the official FAQ page.

[@fradd182]

Yeah, and on top of that - how much is the cost to Nvidia to host the old driver files, $5 per year? Probably no more than 100MB is needed for all drivers of 90's and early 2000's.

[@virtualtools_3021]

@@fradd182 gotta save that money to upsell gamers on DLSShit 3.0 with all new BullShit rendering

[@bob9483]

TNT2 pro frequencies should be possible. TNT 2 ultra is hard!

[@bob9483]

Because of the memory

[@bitsundbolts]

The Elsa Synergy II uses SGRAM. If I am not mistaken, most other models use SDRAM. I don't know if that is the reason I could easily overclock the memory to 185 MHz

[@bob9483]

@@bitsundbolts What’s the ns rating on the ram ?

[@pete8475]

Memory errors in dual channel are VERY common with those nforce 2 boards.

[@bitsundbolts]

Good to know. I will try with different memory modules to see if something changes.

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

Didn't have issues with mine. I wonder if people used mismatched dimms or cheap brands, but I usually bought high end modules to help overclock the fsb. If you weren't overclocking athlons, there was no benefit over p4 aside cost.

[@devl547]

And TNT2 Pro chips can clock even higher. Asus AGP-V3800Pro can do 180 mhz core and 210 vram

[@bitsundbolts]

That makes sense since the TNT2 Pro seems to have been made in 220nm. I guess the heat of the chip was the main reason they were clocked lower.

[@blackbirdmergeznation2282]

First

[@masejoer]

congrats

[@Choralone422]

In the earlier days of 3D accelerators I rarely played with v-sync turned on due to issues like you saw in NFS Porsche Unleased. I had a 19 inch CRT monitor with high refresh rate up to 1600x1200 resolution so screen tearing wasn't much of an issue then. But I do play with a 75 fps cap these days as that is the max refresh my primary monitor will do atm. It's still great to see an old TNT 2 card! I remember when they were the standard for a bit if you wanted 3D with 32 bit color.

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

I had a viper v770, used the diamond drivers with 9x, Nvidia for XP. Had to use rivatuner to force on agp and multi texturing due to Nvidia crippling factory settings, and the XP drivers were worse than 9x for years? But it eventually got good enough.

[@ctiborkoza8944]

Great Video thanks 👍

[@kristoferstoll587]

The issue you were having with the game with the Porsche was that it was using "double buffer" vsync. Riva Tuner should allow you to enable "triple buffer" vsync and that would stop the framerate dropping to 30 and 20 while also stopping screen tearing. Obviously the vsync implementation through those early Nvidia drivers is crap. Forcing triple buffer vsync through Riva Tuner would have solved the issue (even Nvidia Inspector would work).

[@jimbodabimbo1483]

Those old nForce n400 mobos were always super picky about which memory modules they would boot and be stable with... Just found your channel today. Reminiscing

[@bitsundbolts]

Thank you! I will get back to that board some day. I may have damaged something while replacing the capacitors. Now I have a microscope and my see things I couldn't before.

[@wishusknight3009]

@@bitsundbolts Was this one an Ultra400? or does this one have the intergreted graphics?

[@bitsundbolts]

It is the NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400. No integrated graphics.

[@wishusknight3009]

@@bitsundbolts Ahh ok! I have had 3 boards based around the Nforce2, one was the Dual channel Ultra400 (MSI K7N2-Delta), and one was the single channel version (Asus A7N8X), but stil odly had the same 3 dimm slot arrangement. I also had the version with graphics that would not run the 400mhz fsb reliably (MSI K7N2-VIS). The most stable of the bunch was the single channel variant for sure. Either because "asus" or that is just how they were. These boards used to have issues with tossing their bios into the bin if you tried to push the FSB above 400 in any significant amount. ~bclock of 210 or so. I don't recall them being particularly fussy, but my K7N2-VIS hated 1t command rate. And also had issues with 400mhz 2-2-2 ram. So it had more limited performance. I would just simply run it 1:1 and at 333 with cl2 timings. The Delta though by far had the better performance of the 3, even with genaric ram, so long as they were reasonably matched sticks.

[@laharl2k]

The memory issues sounds like load problems. Try raising the NB voltaje a bit, or lower the speed of the ram. Make sure the IMC supports that speed with 2 or more sticks. Also some alcohol on the ram for good meassure

[@bitsundbolts]

I actually did test the memory with half the frequency. Same error - exactly at the same test position. It is absolutely repeatable. I'll try different modules first and see if something changes

[@laharl2k]

@@bitsundbolts taking a better look at it, it says unexpected interrupt. You sure its memory related? i would try different versions of memtest. Ive had some throw random errors at some positions while others didnt, and the memory was 100% stable. Not sure how that works. Other than that maybe its some power related thing. My only guess is that maybe the memory controller rail is noisy, most likely a bad cap. (doubt its degradation otherwise half the speed should work.) If its not that maybe another cpu, thats a really weird error you got there :P

[@bitsundbolts]

I already tried a different CPU and two different versions of memtest - error is reproducible at the exact same position during the memory test. Could be power related. I will try a different memory kit and see if I can reproduce it. Then I will have to check the caps again.

[@laharl2k]

@@bitsundbolts a quick way to test for the caps is just adding more caps on the underside of the board (oldschool overclocking style) If its the caps that should fix it. Otherwise im also out of ideas, ive never seen a memory controller die like that. The worst ive seen is a biostar board not posting with 333mhz ddr even if it was supposed to support 400mhz ddr (had to lower it to 266 manually) for it to post

[@DxDeksor]

Did driver 2.08 fix the visual issues you had in unreal's menu ?

[@bitsundbolts]

No, the menu still has the same issue with all three drivers. It only appears in 32-bit color mode. Switching to 16-bit solves the issue.

[@armchaircommenter6805]

Always a pleasure to watch your content, keep up the good work! Merry Xmas to you too! I assume that, like in my case, said travelling will involve a trip to Germany. Holla if you're anywhere near Munich and i'll buy you a Glühwein while we nostalgically reminisce about the good old days where graphics cards were still affordable. 😄😥

[@bitsundbolts]

I actually will be arriving in Munich, but then directly to Hauptbahnhof to continue. I am actually on my way to the airport now. Thanks for the offer though! Merry Xmas.

[@armchaircommenter6805]

@@bitsundbolts Ha, funny what a small world it is sometimes. Safe travels and have a good time with your loved ones then! 🎄

[@bitsundbolts]

Thank you! In Munich now - so much snow!! ❄️ Have a great time as well!

[@ulimativ1180]

Really enjoying your content!

[@bitsundbolts]

Glad to hear that!