ATI Technologies HD3800 Series User manual

User Manual

This Manual applies to the following VGAs:
HD3870XTG4 (PCI Express)
HD3850PG3 (PCI Express)
XHD3870XTG4 (PCI Express)
XHD3870XTG3 (PCI Express)
XHD3850PG3 (PCI Express)
HD385P3 (PCI Express)
HD383P3 (PCI Express)
XHD3870X2 (PCI Express)
XHD3850X2 (PCI Express)
HD3870X2 (PCI Express)
HD385XT3 (PCI Express)
RX385PA3 (AGP Bus)
HD 3800 Series (CrossFire Edition)

Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.............................................1
1.1 System Requirements ................................................. 3
1.2 Performance............................................................... 5
1.3 Software Compatibility............................................... 5
1.4 Monitor Compatibility................................................ 6
CHAPTER 2 HARDWARE INSTALLATION...........................7
2.1 What’s Included in the Package ................................ 7
2.2 Installing the Card ...................................................... 7
2.3 Board Layout.............................................................. 9
2.4 Power Supply Requirements .................................... 23
2.4.1 Additional Power Connection Requirements .... 23
2.5 Multiple Monitors .................................................... 27
2.6 ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Display Configurations........ 29
CHAPTER 3 SOFTWARE INSTALLATION ..........................30
3.1 Uninstall Old Graphics Drivers ................................ 31
3.2 Installing on Windows XP ........................................ 32
3.3 Installing on Windows Vista..................................... 34
3.4 Displays Manager .................................................... 39
3.5 Displays Manager Standard View............................. 40
3.6 Displays Manager Advanced View........................... 42
3.6.1 Enable Clone Mode......................................... 42
3.6.2 Enable Stretch Main Vertically ........................ 43
3.6.3 Enable Stretch Main Horizontally.......................43
3.6.4 Swap displays in Extended Mode .................... 44
3.6.5 Change desktop size........................................ 45
3.6.6 Change Color quality ...................................... 45
3.6.7 Change display refresh Rate ............................ 45
3.6.8 Force changes to a specific display setting ....... 46
3.6.9 Detect a newly connected display device........ 46

3.7 Display Options....................................................... 48
3.8 Using the CRT/TV Features ...................................... 51
3.8.1 How to use TV-out cables correctly................. 51
3.8.2 How to change the TV settings ........................ 52
3.8.3 TV Properties........................................................54
3.8.4 TV Adjustments....................................................55
3.8.5 To select your TV format by country..................56
3.8.6 To set your TV output to PAL .......................... 57
3.9 Using the HDTV Features ........................................ 58
3.9.1 Installing your ATI HDTV video cable ............. 58
3.9.2 Using your ATI HDTV video cable .................. 58
3.9.3 HDTV Support .....................................................59
3.9.4 Add an HDTV format ..........................................60
3.10 Color Desktop.......................................................... 63
3.11 ATI Overdrive (optional) .......................................... 65
3.12 HDMI Video and Audio (optional) ........................... 68
APPENDIX A SPECIFICATIONS ........................................69
A.1 Hardware Specifications .......................................... 69
A.2 Programming Information ........................................ 71
A.3 Resolution Table...................................................... 71
Radeon™ HD 3800 CrossFire™ Edition ....................................77

Chapter 1: Introduction
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series of GPUs allow you to experience the
power of HD with graphics processing designed for how you work and
play. Advance to the next generation of HD game performance and life-
like realism thanks to DirectX® 10.1 capabilities and plug-and-play ATI
CrossFireX™ multi-GPU upgradeability. Watch the latest Blu-ray and
HD-DVD videos in full 1080p HD – and upscale beyond - without placing
huge demands on your CPU. Enjoy break-through efficiency with more
processing performance per watt and energy-saving features to help save
you money.
Features
•ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series
•Superscalar unified shader architecture
•Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1 support
Shader Model 4.1
•PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus interface
•Anti-aliasing features
Multi-sample anti-aliasing (2, 4, or 8 samples per pixel)
Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA) for improved
quality
Super AA (ATI CrossFire™ configurations only)
•ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU support for highly scalable
performance
Use up to four GPUs with an AMD 790FX based
motherboard
•High-speed 128-bit HDR (High Dynamic Range) rendering
•ATI Avivo™ HD video and display technology
•Built-in HDMI and 5.1 surround audio
•Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for Blu-ray™ and HD DVD

ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series User Manual
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•ATI PowerPlay™ energy conserving technology
•Dynamic geometry acceleration
•Game physics processing capability
•OpenGL 2.0 support
•Native HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)
DVI-to-HDMI dongle (optional)
Flex cable for ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series (optional)
ATI Avivo™ HD Video and Display Platform
•Dedicated unified video decoder (UVD) for H.264/AVC and VC-1
video formats
High definition (HD) playback of both Blu-ray and HD DVD
formats
•Hardware MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and DivX video decode acceleration
Motion compensation and IDCT
•Two integrated 400 MHz 30-bit RAMDACs
Each supports analog displays connected by VGA at all
resolutions up to 2048x1536
•MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264/AVC encoding
and transcoding
ATI CrossFireX™ Multi-GPU Technology
•Scale up rendering performance and image quality with two, three, or
four GPUs
•Integrated compositing engine
•High performance dual channel bridge interconnect

Chapter 1: Introduction
3
1.1 System Requirements
Hardware • Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon®.
• 1GB of system memory
• Optical drive for installation software (CD-ROM or
DVD-ROM drive).
• A 500 watt or better power supply with 750 Watt
6-pin PCIe power connector.
Operating
System
• Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2).
• Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition.
• Windows® Vista Ready.
Monitor • High-resolution MultiSync or multi-frequency
monitors or any other type of VGA monitor.
• Digital flat-panel (DFP) displays or digital CRT
display.
ATI
CrossFire™
Requirements
To implement an ATI CrossFireX™ configuration
using the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series, requires:
• An ATI CrossFireX™ certified motherboard with
two (2) PCI Express® x16 slots and correct PCIe™
chipset driver.
• A second ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series graphics
card.
• One ATI CrossFireX™ internal bridge interconnects.
• A specialized PCI Express® 550 watt or greater
power supply. Consult your computer system manual
to ensure the power supply is designed to
accommodate a high-end graphics card with a peak
dissipation above 150 watts.

ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series User Manual
4
Connections
The following illustrates the connections on the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800
Series graphics card.
ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series Connections
1. DVI-I Dual Link
2. S-Video Connection
3. DVI-I Dual Link (HDMI™-compatible)

Chapter 1: Introduction
5
1.2 Performance
The ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series is a graphics accelerator card.
Computer functions like disk access and numerical calculation are not
accelerated by the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series. It is not unusual to
obtain an overall system speed increase of 2 times for graphics-heavy
applications after installing the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series. The
speed of pure graphics operations, like dragging objects with a mouse,
scrolling, and resizing, will be remarkably improved.
1.3 Software Compatibility
The key function of the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series is its VGA
compatibility. Unlike coprocessor-based, or IBM®8514A-type display
cards, the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series is 100% compatible with your
DOS computer. This means that all DOS software will run correctly with
the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series VGA without modification.
The VGA compatibility includes backward compatibility with the EGA,
CGA and MDA standards. All DOS software will include drivers for at
least one of these display types and will be fully compatible with the ATI
Radeon™ HD 3800 series. The ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series is also
fully compatible with VESA BIOS extensions for resolutions higher than
640x480.
When the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series is used in VGA, backward
compatibility, the graphics engine of the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series
card is not used. The speed in these modes will be comparable to the
fastest type of standard VGA card.

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1.4 Monitor Compatibility
The ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series will work with any VGA, Super
VGA or Multisync monitor.
Super VGA monitors can support IBM® standard VGA plus the 800x600
extended mode used by most VGA cards, and the 1024x768 interlaced
mode used by most VGA cards and the IBM® 8514A.
Multisync monitors are more expensive and will work at all Super VGA
resolutions plus additional higher resolutions or refresh rates. The most
useful multisync monitor specification for determining maximum
resolution and refresh capability is the horizontal frequency range. For PC
use, the lower limit of the range must be no less than 30KHz. The upper
limit is usually 48K Hz, 57K Hz or 64K Hz. These correspond to a
maximum resolution of 1024 x 768, 60 Hz refresh, 1024 x768, 72 Hz
refresh rate; and 1280x1024, 60 Hz refresh rate, respectively.
By default, the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 series will drive your monitor at
a screen refresh rate of 60 Hz. In other words, it repaints the screen 60
times per second. If the screen is not displayed properly when you boot
your system, your monitor may not support the refresh rate for the
resolution chosen. In this case, you must either lower the resolution to one
that can be supported at 60Hz or lower the refresh rate. The maximum
refresh rate supported by your monitor is specified with the Refresh Rate
utility.
Refer to your manual for information on the monitor’s capabilities. If you
are not sure what refresh rate is supported, you can always try a higher
rate. If the screen looks good, the rate is supported (and will be easier on
your eyes).