AMD Phenom Quad-Core Processor (Vista/7) TLB Patch [Archive]

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Maergoth

11-14-2009, 10:39 PM

If you have one, this is something you should seriously consider. I don't know if this has been mentioned before, or if it's impact was evaluated per EQ2 specifically. If so, feel free to remove this.<a rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_lookaside_buffer" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transl...ookaside_buffer</a>The AMD Phenom 9600 was apparently released flawed. Certain "rare" situations caused crashing, bluescreen or otherwise. Instead of recalling said processor, they decided to team up with windows and some motherboard companies and include a patch to fix the problem. This patch caused massive performance hits, technically and practically.I have a fairly well off computer:nVidia 8800GT 512mb4GB DDR2 800 speed RAMAMD Phenom 9600 Quad-CoreBrand new ASUS motherboard.I was frankly unable to run the game during raids on max graphics. I would be constantly under 5FPS with complex shaders on and NO spell results. After this patch, I'm running at 15 in the same situations.Similarly, in a non raid situation, Toggling the patch off netted me *30* frames per second more, with shadows. I went from 40 FPS up to 70, even higher as the zone cached. Re-enabling the patch would drop my framerate back down instantly.I ran into this problem even more so since I started playing Dragon Age: Origins on the off nights, and thankfully.. this un-patch fixed many problems *INCLUDING* crashing while zoning (memory errors.. curious.)I can't say I know for sure whether or not undoing this patch has any negative effects. I was told Firefox was one of the evil programs that had complications with the processor before the patch, and I've had no problems running it at all.The program you want to run is called TLB_Disable.exe.A walkthrough for getting this all set up is located here (I don't know how this patch is handled in Windows XP):<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/o-ss/5634-helping-hand-vista-service-pack-1-vs-your-phenom.html" target="_blank">http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...our-phenom.html</a>While it's downloading, take a look at some benchmarking (For those that don't understand benchmarking.. just compare the TLB patched processor numbers to the non-TLB patched version.. it's significant enough that you don't really need to understand what it means, just aknowledge the 20% loss or so in performance over-all.)<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/phenom_9600_black_edition/" target="_blank">http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/H..._black_edition/</a>It seems a little complex at first, but it really is simple. If you don't know how to set up the auto-run on boot via administrative tools, just run it when your computer starts. That link provides downloads to both an enable AND a disable for the patch. NONE of it is permanant and if you do not like the outcome or experience problems, just re-enable the patch.Hope this helps some people out, I've been wrestling with performance issues for a very long time in EQ2 and this was a huge leap in the right direction. If anyone has any contributions to this, please post them.

BDoodle

11-15-2009, 06:53 PM

Two things straight off the bat:1. The results supplied by the performance review do not show an equivalent system to the standard 9600 (TLB fix enabled) - 200MHz x 11.5 = 2.3GHz standard clock speed. <-- This was compared to over clocked systems! Of course the over clocked systems had better results! (Further to this, the review admits that they could not achieve a stable system when over clocking with some setups!)2. What tech support person in their right mind is going to offer support to you if you are not using the system within the manufacturers specified parameters? (ie. If you do decide to use the unfix, make sure you fix it again before seeking help on any issue.)BDPS. If it's good enough for Steve Jobs, it's good enough for me... (Intel inside) <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Maergoth

11-15-2009, 07:32 PM

I also provided feedback with personal experience. I gained 25-50% more frames per second in multiple situations. I replaced my crappy Pentium D processor with this crappy Phenom processor. Price wise, this was one of the best deals for your money.After applying this fix, this processor is scoring over 25k in 3DMark, whereas the best processor available to the public is at a little over 35k. The processor WITH the patch is barely over 18k. The performance review was posted for those educated enough to break it down into useful information.If you require support for their product, turn the patch back on and have them diagnose it from there. I repeat, EVERYTHING about this is easily undone, and with my experience (short of overclocking) you gain without loss. Even in an overclocking situation, you can make anything unstable if you overclock it enough. To force a 20%+ gain on this processor, you'd be adding a significant amount of heat which would add instability in ALL situations and possibly damage if you do not supply proper cooling. This fix does so without temperature change, with no guaranteed negative effects. It's also harmless on the processor, there is zero risk besides extremely rare crashes which I have yet to experience.Try it or don't, I'd rather have 30% more frames per second and ZERO crashes while zoning than comply with AMD's lazy patch instead of a recall on a "faulty" chip. I find it worth mention that you can make cheap junk work well with minor effort.

TSR-DanielH

11-18-2009, 04:58 PM

Thanks for posting this information. I typically use intel processors myself so I missed this. For anyone reading this post, please make sure you understand what this will do before attempting it. I generally wouldn't recommend this kind of thing for people without a decent amount of computer knowledge.