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ATI's NEW R300 take that nVidia!!!

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  • MelkorMelkor Elite Ranger
    I won't argue your earlier comment sanfam about ATI making good hardware. Hell, their original ALL In Wonder was my first OpenGL capable card (back in the days when Quake 2 was brand new). But even back then there were driver issues. It wasn't apparent to me at first until other 3d capable games came out. At which time the driver issues started to make themselves apparent. And here we are, 5 years later and they've still not managed to correct the problem. I can understand if there's issues with drivers and what-not when things like DirectX is upgraded. But there's no excuse for having problems from one game to another. Case in point. Friend of mine bought one of their cards a while ago. Came with a prepakaged game called "incoming". The drivers that came on the installation CD, were NOT compatible with the game! He had to download new ones from their website just to be able to play the games that the bloody card came with in the first place! I dont know about you but I have a problem with that. Hell, I remember talking to you about simmilar issues. Sorry... but until they get their act together I'll never buy or reccomend an ATI card for anyone who intends to do more than surf the web, check e-mail and watch DVDs. If games are even remotely involved, ATI disqualifies themselves by their pathetic driver support.

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    Is bad....is bad to open airlock in space... air go out like WOOSH!
  • SanfamSanfam I like clocks.
    nVidia did bad stuff with their drivers. With the GF3, they got a lead on ATI for the card release. With that, they flooded the market. But right when the ATI Radeon 8500s came out, nVidia released a new driver set which boosted performance by an incredible amount.

    The fact that nVidia knew ATI was coming out with a better card and held out on the consumer was a bad thing. The release was perfectly timed. It was no coincidence.
  • MelkorMelkor Elite Ranger
    Sanfam, I hate to say this but your claims don't hold water and your comparing them to M$ and Intel is just plain wrong. M$ and Intel made the mistakes of trying to dictate to the consumer. nvidia on the other hand is merely trying to deliver on what we expect from them. Beyond the fact that what you're citing as evidence of them "holding out" on the public doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. It'd be one thing if those drivers were designed so that only the Geforce 3 or even the Geforce 3 Ultra got the performce boost. But I can tell you for a fact that my Geforce 2 also got that boost. Does that mean they were holding back on me? No, that simply means they found a more efficient way to write the drivers. It's not the first time that's happened. Though ya know what? It doesnt really matter to me if it was coincidence or not. Ya see, nvidia does some things with their driver sets that no other video card manufacturer can claim. They don't release half-writen alpha or beta level drivers (*hack* Matrox G-400 *Cough*) and they don't spend their time squashing one set of bugs, only to create more (*cough* ATI *wheeze*). Instead they consistantly release drivers that either improve the visual performance of their cards, or improve the overall speed of their cards. Notice I said "cards" because unlike all the other manufacturers, nvidia's drivers support all the cards they've made clear back to the TNT not just the card of the month, not just the "Ultra"s or the "MX" series cards.. but ALL of them. I'm sorry sanfam, but I dont care how much you or other people point out circumstantial events/evidence and say "AH HAH!, they're doing something bad here" because the fact is, unlike the other manufactueres who sell their products on promises and bug-ridden support, nvidia actually delivers....consistantly.

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    Is bad....is bad to open airlock in space... air go out like WOOSH!
  • TyvarTyvar Next best thing to a St. Bernard
    I will chip in my two bits.

    The biggest reason why the R300 isnt romping all over the place is its low clock rate, When ATI starts shipping the .13 micron R300's around march, which are going to be running at the levels it was originaly intended to run at, you are going to see it doing a heck of alot of improvement, plus it will have some other modifications.

    Im very interested to see how it goes head to head with the NV35.. assuming it gets released around then.

    I think once both of them are out at .13 micron they will be neck and neck, becuase they have alot of the same features, and performance
  • MelkorMelkor Elite Ranger
    From a pure hardware standpoint I have to agree with you. But it doesn't mean jack if their drivers are shit.... which ATI is notorious for.

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    Is bad....is bad to open airlock in space... air go out like WOOSH!
  • The 9700 is early, almost premature IMO, it's an attempt to say "we're faster than you"...but the .13 NV30 will be out by november to december, and will also be DX9 spec, and will probably be faster..if the 10000 isn't slated until march, it will have to go up against the 35, which will be faster still...

    I wonder if all of these new cards are going to require an external power plug like the 9700 does.
  • Vertigo1Vertigo1 Official Fuzzy Dice of FirstOnes.com
    [url="http://www.descentbb.net/ubb/Forum8/HTML/003763-2.html"]click here[/url]

    I asked a poster about the unified driver situation, and he elaborated a little.

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    "Isn't the universe a wonderful place? I wouldn't want to live anywhere else! Love to stay! Can't! Have to go. Kiss kiss, love love! Bye!" - G'Kar
  • TyvarTyvar Next best thing to a St. Bernard
    When the "10000" come out (the .13 micron R300's) they are not going to need the aux power connector. Thats part of the reason for going to a lower die size it reduces energy consumption.

    When ATI shifts to its .13 micron part they are going to add DDRII and other things along with a pretty good sized bump in the
    clock speeds, and they are probably going to do some other tweaking, so that while it may be slower then a top of the line NV35, I bet it wont be by a tremendous amount.

    I mean who expected the R300 to perform as well as it is, with beta drivers? we might be in for another suprise


    As for ATI's drivers, yeah, thats the sticking point, but eventualy they do get them right, Im running an 8500 (which I paid 100 bucks for) and its pretty damn stable, well in everything except morrowind, but morrowind was twitchy on my machine even when I was running a GeForce.
  • MelkorMelkor Elite Ranger
    That's just it Tyvar.. "eventually" they get the drivers right for all the cards... but it takes waiting until either a competitor comes out with an even faster card, or the card's almost done with it's "life" before they get around to doing it. I mean, I don't know about anyone else, but when I buy a piece of hardware, I want the damned thing to work. I don't want to play musical drivers or put sticky notes all over my monitor just to remind my ass what drivers I have to have installed to play which games. To expect customers to put up with that is bullshit. nvidia may have done things that people percive as questionable, but at least their cards, and their drivers, work!
  • TyvarTyvar Next best thing to a St. Bernard
    Got a point, but its not as bad as you mke it sound, the time was a major factor, The drivers I am running (the 9021's) work in all the games I play, so I dont have to change driver versions or anything crazy. And it only took them 6 months to release it!

    I guess we will have to wait till next month and see what the situation is.

    I personaly am not going to by a R9700, Im going to wait till the march refresh and get what ever has the best price/performance ratio
  • MelkorMelkor Elite Ranger
    "And it only took them 6 months to release it!" does any one else have a problem with waiting 6 months AFTER the card's gone on sale before they get a 100% working set of drivers?

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    Is bad....is bad to open airlock in space... air go out like WOOSH!
  • In my case,i haven't had any issues at all with my 8500 card(128 meg retail version btw)...Though i will admit that i've only had the card for the last 3 months or so,as an upgrade to a GF3 card no less..


    Initially,the card could only compete with a GF3 TI 200,due to early driver issues but with the last few driver sets released over the last 3 months or so,even before the catalyst series of drivers werwe available,we're seeing it easily outperforming any GF3 card and even going up against GF4 4200/4400's quite nicely...


    Here's my 3d mark score with the 8500 btw... [url="http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3365451"]service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3365451[/url]

    And here's the best i did with my classic GF3 overclocked to 230/530 mhz,essentially the same speed as a GF3 TI 500 card and even then,needing to use LOD tweaks,at the expense of visual quality,to even get it that high and with the cpu running 300 mhz higher that the Radion score... [url="http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3518664"]service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3518664[/url]


    Not bad for a 170$ card which also has killer DVD performance and the ability to hook up two monitors and nice tv output as well(much better than my GF3 anyways)

    [This message has been edited by superfly (edited 07-26-2002).]

    [This message has been edited by superfly (edited 07-26-2002).]
  • TyvarTyvar Next best thing to a St. Bernard
    [quote]Originally posted by Melkor:
    [b]"And it only took them 6 months to release it!" does any one else have a problem with waiting 6 months AFTER the card's gone on sale before they get a 100% working set of drivers?

    [/b][/quote]

    There was suppost to be a smiliy face there, specificly this one [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img] I guess I got lazy.
  • Alec MAlec M Award Winning Poster
    Don't know if anyone's been keeping with the 9700 news. Apparently Anandtech was mistaken about the drivers. The 9700 WILL be using ATI's Catalyst drivers after all, which means they are UNIFIED!

    On another note, some people have been putting the NV30's release date into next year (Nvidia's Q3 or Q4), so it may not be out as soon as everyone hopes. They've apparently been having problems with the 0.13 process. We'll see.

    However, for at least a few months, the 9700 will be the most powerful 3D card out there, which is a big accomplishment for ATI. Finally they have some good drivers and a kick ass product. I've been very happy with my 8500 so far, especially driver wise.

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    [url="http://slade__tek.tripod.com/"]Alec McClymont[/url]
    3D Artist - GVFX
    "Something is only impossible until it's not."
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