how to disable Powerplay ATI cards

I own a 4870, to be precise it is a Powercolor 4870 PCS+. It's a good card. Honest. However, like its green counterpart there is a downturn, I heard complains of low performance and stuttering during the game play. I have experience it myself. I was considering of modding this card but after much thought and some research (mostly googling) I found out that we don't actually need to do any mod on it. It might not help much, but at least it stops the stuttering and performance. Well it did for me. The trick is disable its Powerplay.

For anyone who experience the same and considering to disable Powerplay features in your ATI card here is some proper way:

1. go to the directory,
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\ATI\ACE
(this is for windows XP)

2. Keep that directory open.
start up catalyst control center
hit the Overdrive tab
hit the paddle lock image to enable the overdrive settings
hit the profiles tab at top of page
select profiles manager from drop down list
name a profile in blank box (Custom Power is my chosen name)
under "this profile includes" section at bottom of page select the dot for "the following settings". In the tree make sure only ATI Overdrive checkbox is selected.
hit the save button
hit the Activate and close button at bottom of page

3. now go to your open directory
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\ATI\ACE
You should see 5 new files in there in total.
One file is the same as you named your custom profile, right click it and select edit (my file is called Disable.xml)

The file will open in notepad where you can now change settings to nullify powerplay
Here are my new settings for example, I increased the core speed and voltage and applied a slight overclock to the 3dmodes in gpu and memory. I also increased the fan % to 100% from 41%.

4. Make your changes, close and save changes to the file. Rt click the file choose properties and change the file to read only. You are done.

Here is a screenshot of my new readouts idle at desktop. You will notice the 800mhz 1100mhz. Before it used to be 500mhz 1100mhz. Also the overclock sliders indicate 800mhz and 1200mhz which is the overclock settings I set when 3d mode kicks in.


Anyone with any ATI cards this should be the method to disable Powerplay, I recommend , don't resort to hacked BIOS's or sending your card back or switching brand names (NVidia has a version of powerplay too but easier to manipulate)

If you restart your computer, just make sure to open catalyst and ensure that your profile is activated. Simple once done