Couple o' questions from a new ATI 9700 user

[squidman]

Howdy, i just bought the powercolor 9700 card from newegg. First, i'd have to note, that people who were hatin on this card are WRONG. Nothing is underclocked, and the card is actually made by ATI, on Ati's canadian plant (lol, they crossed "Made in Taiwan" on the box), and is totally the same as ati. Even the board reference number is made ATI style. Powercolor = Ati.

And now, my questions:

1) whats an ASIC?
2) Why does it say 9500 Pro/9700 under catalyst? Does catalyst have optimizations for 256 bit ddr interface that 9700 has?
3) Which games support TruForm II?
4) Are there programs to check bords temperatures?
5) What are your catalyst settings?
6) In 3dmarkSE 2001 i get 14000 marks on default (default driver settings too), and 9000 on 1600x1400. Is this normal (*note: im not showing off. My previous card couldnt even run 1400x1600
7) Are u satisfied with it?

Thx!

 

[Schadenfroh]

1. Application Specific Integrated Circuit, a chip designed for a particular application
2. dont worry about it, 9500 and 9700 are VERY similar
3. there is a truform2?
4. yes
5. i use detanators
6. yes
7. i like my geforce

 

[SmuvMoney]

Originally posted by: squidman
Howdy, i just bought the powercolor 9700 card from newegg. First, i'd have to note, that people who were hatin on this card are WRONG. Nothing is underclocked, and the card is actually made by ATI, on Ati's canadian plant (lol, they crossed "Made in Taiwan" on the box), and is totally the same as ati. Even the board reference number is made ATI style. Powercolor = Ati.

And now, my questions:

1) whats an ASIC?
2) Why does it say 9500 Pro/9700 under catalyst? Does catalyst have optimizations for 256 bit ddr interface that 9700 has?
3) Which games support TruForm II?
4) Are there programs to check bords temperatures?
5) What are your catalyst settings?
6) In 3dmarkSE 2001 i get 14000 marks on default (default driver settings too), and 9000 on 1600x1400. Is this normal (*note: im not showing off. My previous card couldnt even run 1400x1600
7) Are u satisfied with it?

Thx!

1) Already answered...

2) I believe Catalyst drivers listed it as 9500/9700 series because they are both r300 chip-based. I'd say yes to the optimizations since the 9500 is a stripped down version of the 9700 - less pipelines or smaller bus.

3) Half-Life/Counter-Strike, RTCW, and Madden come to mind. Truform II - for the previous poster - is the 2nd iteration of Truform for Radeon chips. Even though the 8500 supports this fully in hardware, the 9x00 series support it more via software so it can be slower.

4) I'd have to send to your Asus mobo's web page or Google on this one. I run USDM for my Epox 8RDA. It does the job for me, but I haven't really run any others so I can't say if it's "THE BEST EVAR" or anything like that. I believe that there is a generic MotherBoard Monitor out there, but I'd have to Google it to find it again.

5) I set my catalyst settings to as high as my games will be playable. I usually stick with High Quality (8xAF/2xAA) or Optimal Quality (16xAF/4xAA) for both OpenGL and D3D. Don't do this for 3dMark though as most run run the defaults for that.

6) I'd say 14000 3dmarks based on your setup sounds pretty good. Since I don't run 3DMark anymore, I will not claim to be an authority. I do know that the CPU overclock probably helps a little here.

7) I was satisfied enough with my 9700 to buy a 9800. I broke my 9700 two months ago when I knocked two pieces off of the board. I used a Geforce 3 until the Hercules one came out. The rest is history so to speak.

I hope this helps.

 

[Guspaz]

I have a PowerColor 9700 Pro

1) What they said
2) The 9500 Pro and 9700 Pro are the same GPU, just the 9700 Pro is a faster speed and the card has a wider bus.
3) Probably whatever games support TruForm I. Half-Life does, but the specific mod MUST include support since TruForm needs special models. Natural-Selection does NOT support it.
4) Yes, I was able to do this on my old GeForce 2 MX, not sure what software can do it or if the 9700 can.
5) I mostly play Half-Life mods, so I run at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16X quality aniso.
6) It's better than I get... At default my 9700 Pro pulls in ~9800 3dmarks... however my CPU is holding it back.
7) Very! Except I need to RMA it because my card has the rolling lines problem.

 

[squidman]

Thanks you guys!

But does anybody know a link for a VGA temperature monitor proggie thats gonna work with radeon? I just wanna know what it is, and overclock the core (PRO has the same cooler as non-pro, so basically its a must to overclock

And for some reason (probably the drivers fault) IGI2's has corrupted land textures, and is jerking when inside buildings...awkward, considering the fact that other games ive looked at (Like UT2, Wolfenstein, C&C Generals (that require SO MUCH POWER!), and even DOS games (Dungeon Keeper I) run perfectly fine. Dang, and if i go back to catalyst 2.4 (came on CD) then almost every game is jerking, but IGI2 is fine. LOL!

 

[Rogozhin]

squid

maybe reinstall IGI2, i've had to do that on a game or two to get it to run properly.

try google for the temp sense software, I don't know any

rogo