ATI RADEON

[shanehi]

I got one! WOO-HOO!

I finally found a Best Buy that had some (two were sold out). The sticker on the box says $279!! Ha! But the tag on the shelf said $199 and then the rebate printed at the register. The dude working the register was impressed -- he said "You got lucky!"

Luck had nothing to do with it, my friend! The good people on these boards have everything to do with it!

Thanks all!

P.S. I can't wait to install this thing!

 

[TAsunder]

Interesting discussion.

I've got one of those 10% off at best buy coupons.. makes me wonder if the Radeon should be my target this weekend (if they still have them / still have them on sale).

Everyone seems to agree it has nice image quality.. but the frame rate is important too for futureproofing the product. If something gets 30 fps more now in 16 bit color, what happens when Quake 4 comes out and runs like crap in 32 bit but nice in 16 bit, except for radeons where it still runs like crap? That is my primary concern.. 30 fps now may mean the world in a year.

Am I wrong here?

Also, have the issues that the anandtech review pointed out been resolved (driver problems, VIA problems, etc.)?

 

[Dark4ng3l]

The extra texture unit, hiden surface removal(new games wil not eat as much frame rate as geforce when more overdraw is in a scene). Plus the radeon is direct x 8 ready and has tons of features. Plus it's faster in 32 bit' high resolution and has beter max/min fps.

 

[TAsunder]

Dumb Question that makes me look like an idiot #2:

How does the 32 mb card perform compared to the 64?

 

[Bakwetu]

Tasunder, check Anand's review link

 

[TAsunder]

See I told you it made me look like a dumb idiot. I wouldn't even consider this if it weren't for that 10% burning a hole in my pocket and the extra case, mb, and cpu I've got lying around begging to have money wasted on it.

Thanks for the link.

 

[waltski]

Gotta tell you guys, this 32MB Radeon DDR beats the hell out of the Cardex GeForce MX video card I just returned. Bought my Radeon at Fry's Electronics for $200 -$50 rebate=$150. I kept getting artifacts on my screen with the GeForce MX from opening and closing windows. Hitting the refresh would get rid of them, but the next time a window opened, a little stream of dots would follow the angle of the opening window and stay. Tried the stock drivers that came with the card, tried the NVidia reference 6.18 drivers, and evev tried underclocking the card; nothing I did worked, I still had artifacts. I called Cardex technical support, who told me it sounded like a memory problem on the video card, and to return it for a different card. I sent the damned thing back to Neutron, Inc., the company I bought it from, who insisted that there was nothing wrong with the card, and wanted to charge me $30 for testing it. They would not allow me to try a different card, but wanted to ship back the original, defective card, as well as charging me shipment to return it. After arguing back and forth, they finally agreed to "just charge me a 15% restock fee", which I was glad to get, so I could walk away from those losers without too much of a loss. But, boy, am I glad now I didn't receive a good GeForce MX!!! The Radeon plays QII (which I still play)like a dream in 32 bit mode, much smoother than the GeForce MX ever did. Color is richer than the Geforce MX, and I have yet to try the newer ATI drivers posted on the Web...
Get one of these Radeons while you can!

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Quake 2 suports 32 bit color???????????? Thats new to me

 

[waltski]

Sorry to mislead; display settings at 32 bit...

 

[BAMAVOO]

Da Radeon Kicks major ARSE in 32bit now..IT WILL ONLY GET BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Trust me I traded vid cards like a MOFO and this RADEON 64meg VIVO has found a home until it burns out!!! (Well until ATI brings out something better :=) )

 

[TAsunder]

Note:

I got one of these this evening with the 10% off and all that. The graphics are nicer for sure in UT and Q3, but not ludicrous. I tried overclocking with powerstrip and had very unimpressive results. UT at 190+ memory or core would have major graphical errors, and with any sort of overclocking at all q3 showed some noticeable impurities (grainy white rectangles on many textures). UT also fluctuates a lot more with the radeon. Where I got 40-60 fps consistently before I now get 30-80 with a much higher average. In some places it lags noticeably more though. This could be because I turned all the details on.. but I was epxecting it to run smoother at highest settings than a v3 at medium settings. When overclocked, UT typically ran 5-15fps slower than at core speed.

Still, overall it seems like a decent purchase, especially for people with a v3 2000 or lower.

One thing to remember.. my Best Buy had the card listed at $199.99 and no rebate. I had to get them to scan it and look for a rebate before I knew for sure.

Aside: some guy in line in front of me had the coupons for 10% off any item in expensive categories and 15% off movies (limit 5). He told the cashier to THROW OUT the 10% off and when I asked if I could use it (and then give mine to a friend for a dvd player discount) the guy said NO!! If someone does this to you, have more courage than me and beat them with a blunt object.

 

[BFG10K]

This kind of philosophy truly sucks. Will you buy a card that can only renders in 8bit just because in runs Q3 at 400 FPS?

The 32 MB MX beats the 64 MB Radeon DDR at any setting at 800 x 600 or lower.

Radeon DOES have the best performance you can get on the market today. With the latest drivers, it beats the GTS in most D3D games and surpasses GTS in Q3A in 32-bit.

Just where have you seen this? Show us some evidence to back your claims. I have never seen this to be the case.

Radeon has little FRAME RATE FLUCTUATION compared to the GeForce2. Who cares about 60fps when you are at 20fps - 80fps. Radeon at 50fps will stay around 40-60fps range, which is much better than having games stutter on a GeForce2.

Not this fluctuation crap again. Just how did you calculate these magic numbers? What makes you think a GF2 fluctuates? You have no idea what you are talking about.

Also, the third texture unit of the Radeon has yet to be used and will be taken advantage once DX8 games come out, by that time Radeon will beat the GeForce2 GTS by at least 30% due to the extra texture unit

Using an extra texture unit will give a perfomance boost of 30%?

I'm afraid it isn't quite as simple as that.

 

[nippyjun]

It's funny how geforce owners just have to keep pissing on all other cards. The answer to your question is that the Radeon DDR for $150 is the best video card deal out there now period!

 

[MustangSVT]

TAsunder, so did u not get the $50 rebate? i also got the Radeon 32DDR today and was amazed by performance! (i had TNT 1 yes!) believe it or not i found TNT 16bit crisper, I noticed dull colors when i installed Radeon and set it in 32bit, but playing around with display settings made it ok. And I think im lucky? i got PowerStrip to overclock it from default 166/166. I went up by 5 and i kept on doing this and running Q3 and no artifacts or any crap like that! at first i thought PowerStrip was messed up (since going up by 5 and running Q3 took long time), but i finally saw some snow and text blurs at 230/215 (core/mem). All this done with just stock everything! i was impressed! playing around with it more, i found 220/205 at absolute perfect, so far im running it since i got it... about 7 hrs and nothing is wrong, except XL-R8R from madonion is running choppier then TNT (117/117) core /mem . anyone have any idea ?
All in all $150 radeon with all these performance is quite the best deal now, haven't tried GeforceMX, but in a long run (with cpu upgrade) i think Radeon will be much better.
OHOH also im running it in AGP2x (due to Abit BH-6 MB), is there much performance difference between 4x and 2x AGP? thanx guys (and gals)

 

[rpr]

Just wanted to add my name to the those who are extremely satisfied with the Radeon 32MB DDR. I picked mine up on Anandtech for $170 shipped last week. Well worth every penny. I was a bit nervous because i work mainly in 2D applications and was considering the Matrox line. However, I gave this a shot because I was looking for the best of both worlds. I'm not disappointed.

 

[Hawk]

I think the crappy 2d quality of most Geforces is reason enough to buy a Radeon! =)

 

[oldfart]

Hawk, just out of curiosity, how many Radeons have you sold? I LOVE my 64 meg VIVO!! Thanks for the umpteenth time for the great deal!

BFG, your obviously one sided Nvidiot posts are starting to get a bit old. Does anyone even bother to read them?

 

[MustangSVT]

BFG who? dont worry about him, im not rich and i have to work for every penny i got, and Radeon fits lots of things well with low price. Just wondering what speeds have u guys been able to clock it at? mine at 200/185 (core/mem) but i've heard that Radeons are clock locked like Voodoos. I mean the core and Mem speeds are made to be same. So im running both at 185Mhz then? (no complains tho, hehe) thanx guys now lets hope that ATI can do what Nvidia did for the drivers.

 

[BenSkywalker]

A few misconceptions in here it seems-

"Plus the radeon is direct x 8 ready and has tons of features. Plus it's faster in 32 bit' high resolution and has beter max/min fps."

The Radeon is NOT DX8 ready at all, not even close. DX8 is a major overhaul particularly in terms of D3D and the Radeon isn't even close to having full feature support. The Radeon may be the closest, but in some respects it is more limited then the GeForce1 in terms of feature support(register combining for instance). Overall the Radeon has the best current gaming feature set, but people should not think that they are getting a fully DX8 compliant board.

Where does the entire min/max FPS line come from? I haven't seen a single thing that supports that any board has an edge in this category, I would like to see any links anyone can supply on this issue.

"Also, the third texture unit of the Radeon has yet to be used and will be taken advantage once DX8 games come out, by that time Radeon will beat the GeForce2 GTS by at least 30% due to the extra texture unit"

WTF? Where did you come up with this? When B3D comes back online we will see how the Radeon does under Evolva vs the GF2. The third texturing unit is a good thing, but the enormous fillrate shortfall of the Radeon conspires against it. As you increase texture passes, you reduce relative bandwith needs. The Radeon certainly should be much better on a comparitive basis, but the 30% number is something someone pulled out of an orifice.

Radeon Owners-

Has anyone here had any success with the UT OpenGL/S3TC patch? From what I have heard it seems that the Radeon is having serious problems with stability, though I have only heard from a small handful of users and many GeForce owners also had problems. Is the Radeon capable of handling the patch properly and if so how well?

 

[oldfart]

Hi Ben. Did you see the post on the rage3d board? I have that weird texture issue on large maps. I think its related to the broken Loki brightness function. If I run D3D, or the normal non Loki Opengl, I dont have the problem. Other than that it works fine. I'd love to see a fix for this!

 

[BenSkywalker]

Oldfart-

Can you start the game with S3TC on in OpenGL mode and then send me a copy of your UnrealTournament.ini and UNREALTOURNAMENT.log files located in the C:UnrealTournament/System file?

I'm going to repost this over at Rage3D to ask other to do the same, along with those running Radeons not having the problem to see if I can figure this out. I'm working on an updated article on this and have figured out fixes for most of the problems people are having with other boards, but I don't have enough feedback from Radeon users yet.

If you are using the instructions for the .ini file that I posted there is another that you can try on the front page of GameBasement, the original settings proved to be problematic for some people with performance being less then optimal on many machines, particularly those with lower amounts of RAM(128MB or less). The file available for dl right now will id your card as a GeForce, I sent it to "Wumpus" when he was having problems and I guess he didn't yank that portion but it doesn't make a difference(I had it set to V5 and it didn't change anything).

I have "OgreBoy's" thread over at Rage3D open in another window right now and will cut and paste this message their.

benskywalker@gamebasement.com

 

[oldfart]

Hi Ben. I sent you the info you asked for. Thanks for all the help!

 

[Mustanggt]

I think the GF2 MX is best bang for the buck right now. I found it for $115 for asus. buying the Radeon you got to come up with $200 + tax and wait 4 months to get your $50 bucks back.

 

[randomlinh]

i wanna know when the AIW Radeon comes out.. and there had better be stable win2k drivers for it....

 

[fodd3r]

ben the radeon is dx8 compliant. nvidia isn't the one who is soley deciding what goes in. last i checked ms doesn't give up control to anyone. the dx8 compliant specs were released long ago. plus why would ms not put in the radeon features? it makes no sense, they do have a good working relationship.

last i heard dx8 supports extensions. plus opengl has been getting a huge boost in popularity recently. if ms wants to compete with ease of use, support for all the latest features --in a timely fashion-- it won't shaft ati or any other graphics vendor.

as to register combining, well that's nice, but i'm not sure as to how big a deal it really is --i read about how lighting affects under doom3 are better with the geforces; however, i'm sure the radeon looks better in every other respect.