ATi releases new drivers (smoothvision enabled)

[Soccerman]

Funny, yesterday (for me on the 13th ATi accidentally released their new drivers and quickly (about 5 minutes later) took them off the website!

oops! but no matter, they're supposed to be released on the 14th as far as I can tell. anywho, here's a review posted of them on a Radeon 8500. as soon as I can grab a copy of these, I'm going to give them a go on my Radeon LE!

Edit: the version numbers for these appear to be 7206 for windows 9x, and 3286 for windows XP (haven't seen anything about 2k :-| )

 

[KpocAlypse]

Post the results(if you can see the screen....)

I was tempted to use'm on my Vivo 64, but stopped before i hit install....Don't feel like doing a Re-install tonight if they pooch something

 

[Soccerman]

Post the results(if you can see the screen....)

lmao good one..

you know, for some reason I've NEVER had a problem with drivers screwing over my computer. the only possible thing they might have done (I might not have noticed) is slowed a game down, or introduced a bug, but I haven't noticed. I only wish NFS4 would run better c'mon get those bug fixes going!

 

[RSMemphis]

<< Post the results(if you can see the screen....)

I was tempted to use'm on my Vivo 64, but stopped before i hit install....Don't feel like doing a Re-install tonight if they pooch something >>



They are not backwards compatible. Only for the 8500 and 7500...

Sorry, man!

 

[Soccerman]

lmao!

didn't u know...

you can run ANY radeon with the 7xxx/8xxx drivers? yep, your Radeon is officially a 7xxx series (I think almost all are considered a 7200) card.

I would know, I've used 2 of these drivers already

btw, notice the link above is the review? the drivers aren't quite released yet, like I said, read the post

 

[nortexoid]

interesting...i would like to know what smoothvision looks like in games...perhaps take screen shots w/ it on/off for those of u who have an 8500

 

[RSMemphis]

Yawn... I know, I know...

However, linky poo:



<< ATi Radeon 8500 Win9x & WinME Drivers
v4.13.7206
Date: Nov 13, 2001
Size: 10.50mb
Download Here
Release Notes:
Drivers are not backwards compatible with older Radeon cards
Smoothvision is available for D3D & OpenGL applications
Files are dated Nov 7, 2001 >>



Same release notes for all drivers. But please, don't let me refrain you from laughing your ass off...

 

[dowxp]

hmm, where do u get them? i dont see it on the ATi site.. =(

 

[MisterNi]

<< hmm, where do u get them? i dont see it on the ATi site >>


They're going to be released on the 14th. Soccerman states that in his post.

 

[mchammer187]

nice to hear smoothvision is working (in some instances )

my only question is will i get my card from Dell first or will ATI come out with good drivers first

with these ones i'm leaning toward the latter

ordered 10/3/01 @ 12:30 AM DELL SUX

 

[AthlonMan]

ATI drivers, there is one big joke

 

[Soccerman]

the drivers are to be released today (14th) according to Rage3D and other sites. as mentioned before the were posted accidentally, so if you can find them on the net somewhere like where RSMemphis linked to above

no doubt they'll be released on ATi's website shortly.

 

[Leon]

UT framerate went down from 90s to 45fps with these drivers in one of my rigs. PIII 800, Radeon 64Mb VIVo. Running in OpenGL mode results in missing textures all over the places.

Not that I care much, I use it primarily for Photoshop.

 

[RSMemphis]

<< UT framerate went down from 90s to 45fps with these drivers in one of my rigs. PIII 800, Radeon 64Mb VIVo. Running in OpenGL mode results in missing textures all over the places.

Not that I care much, I use it primarily for Photoshop. >>



As I posted above, those drivers are not really intended for older Radeons, so I am not surprised.
I fear that ATI will choose to only fully support 8500/7500 boards from now on, ignoring the older ones.

 

[bustone]

<< I fear that ATI will choose to only fully support 8500/7500 boards from now on, ignoring the older ones. >>



i guess that will somewhat encourage users of older ATI cards to get the 7500 or 8500, but wont it also piss a lot of them off knowing ATI isnt supporting them anymore?

 

[Soccerman]

heh, Leon check your FSAA settings! is anything enabled? is smoothvision there?? TELL MEEE!!

btw, do u have the 3286's? they're intended for XP as far as I can tell, I hope you're running that if you're using the 3286's!

 

[Ramiel]

>>I fear that ATI will choose to only fully support 8500/7500 boards from now on, ignoring the older ones.<<

I believe the 7500 uses the same drivers as the old Radeons. It has the same core and everything so unless ATI does some really strange things to the drivers anything they should be backward compatible.

-later

 

[Leon]

<< heh, Leon check your FSAA settings! is anything enabled? is smoothvision there?? TELL MEEE!!
>>



No FSAA was enabled. It could be just problems with my rig, I dunno. Like I said, I only use it for Photoshop and ftp server, but I figured I'd test it anyway.

Leon

 

[RSMemphis]

<< I believe the 7500 uses the same drivers as the old Radeons. It has the same core and everything so unless ATI does some really strange things to the drivers anything they should be backward compatible.

-later >>



Yes, you are right indeed. The new drivers are for the 8500 only.

They will get out unified drivers later, apparently. But fixing up the 8500 was terribly necessary!

 

[Soccerman]

you might be right (I've yet to download these), but it would be an odd departure from what they've already done. like I said, I've run the unified drivers without problem (in fact one of the later ones fixed some rendering artifacts that I think were caused by HyperZ).

anywho, Leon, you said FSAA was enabled? just to be sure, I'm guessing you meant it WASN'T, right?

BTW, Anand has his review of the drivers up on the Front Page, so check it out!

 

[Soccerman]

as much as I don't know about Toms Hardware guide (when it comes to their testing etc. and results compared to others), I feel that you should also see the Radeon 8500 numbers coming out of there now (using windows 9x drivers).

Toms look at the Radeon with the new 7206 drivers. I always take his reviews with a grain of salt, but I'm certainly hoping these are representative scores of real life.

 

[RSMemphis]

Yeah, the new reviews from Toms and Anand are really nice...

It's not really a departure, all release drivers will still be unified. These are BETA, though...
I think they will try to get unified beta drivers out, too, but right now, there was too much pressure.

 

[Soccerman]

heh the thing is, even the beta's worked fine (now I'm scared of trying these) for me (the ones released on the front page of Rage3D are betas, for ALL radeons).

even the Beta's were unified.. now I'm not so sure if these are ok to run on anything other than a 8xxx series card, but previous ones were fine with it.