Un-underclocking the ATI card

Hello, everyone I just bought by first Mac ever (a 2.16 Ghz Macbook Pro) a few days ago. Although I'm new to the Apple scene, I'm an experienced Linux user, so the UNIX philosophy is not completely lost on me.

Anyway, on to the question. I've read that it is believed that Apple by default underclocks the ATI video cards in my model by around 31%, for reasons of power consumption and heating. However, seeing as I almost always use my Macbook plugged in, I'm not too concerned with that, and would like to bring the card's clock rate up to what the manufacturer reccomends. I'm not overclocking, I just don't want to UNDERclock.

I know XP's ATItools can do this, but I'm not too keen on installing Windows XP. Are there any known ways of setting the clock rate to normal from OS X? (Or even Linux?)

Note: I know this may void my warranty, etc etc. I'm not even sure I'll do this yet, but I'd like to know if it's possible.

If you figure this one out, let me know. I've been looking around how to do this for a while and no results yet. I've overclocked it in XP but you just have to re-clock it every time you restart the thing. I hate windows but for LAN parties it's about my only choice. Games would run a lot quicker in OS X with the graphics up to speed

fliP said:

If you figure this one out, let me know. I've been looking around how to do this for a while and no results yet. I've overclocked it in XP but you just have to re-clock it every time you restart the thing. I hate windows but for LAN parties it's about my only choice. Games would run a lot quicker in OS X with the graphics up to speed

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how do you overclock it in xp?? cause i was really disapointed when BF2 put my default video setting to LOW even though i shelled out 500 extra for a 256 mb v-card

i tried "ati tool" and it really screwed my graphics up, made it all lines and stuff...

Ever thought about using the ATIccelerator?

slyseeker said:

Ever thought about using the ATIccelerator?

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thanks for the suggestion, it said my card wasn't supported

slyseeker said:

Ever thought about using the ATIccelerator?

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Thanks for the suggestion, slyseeker! I'll be giving it a try ASAP. Unfortunately, I'm not in the position to do it for at least a week, but once I try, I'll post back here and let everyone how it went.

ATI Tool 0.2.5 or whatever it is does work. Just don't try to clock it so high. Mine has ran great except for when I tried to oc it while it was already hot from playing UT2004 for a couple hours. I really want to OC it in Mac OS X so I can get rid of winbloze!

Keep an eye out for this page to show promising news: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/Mac_ATI_X1600_overclocking.html

slyseeker said:

Ever thought about using the ATIccelerator?

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I was about to go try it out now, but there is now a thing on their site that says:

(The Radeon X1600 in Intel-based Macs isn't supported yet.)

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This was not there before. Anyone else have other suggestions?