Ex-Nvidia,3dfx,S3,ATI,etc Power user's review of Radeon

[DominoBoy]

BTW, I have a GeForce2 now, but I admit the Radeon is awesome. I would have probably bought the 64mb Radeon instead of the GF2 but everybody was sold out of the 64mb Radeon, and I got tired of waiting. I still like my GF2 though. I guess I must be an Nvidia hater since I own their card but admit that other cards are also good.

ROFL!!!!!!

Deal with it Compellor.

 

[pidge]

You ATI freaks

 

[Compellor]

Sleepy Tim,

Well, I guess I'll just go crawl back under the rock I came out from. It's obvious you know more about video cards than than I do, and that I'm just an ignorant "punk" that should just "shut up." I'll follow that advice on one condition: you do the same.

Oh, for your information (not that it means anything to you): I've owned video cards from ATi, Matrox, 3Dfx, and nVidia -- but that doesn't matter, because I haven't the right to make a comment on anything I don't currently own. It could possibly lead to someone's buying decison, and only YOU have that priviledge, since you OWN or have owned every single current video card.

Forget the call...I was always taught not to talk to strangers (or weirdos).

Tell you what I will do, though. I'll contact you whenever I want to make a post here on these forums. I'll then ask you to review my replies before posting them -- just to make sure that everything is up to your "standards." I'd hate to see myself telling people the wrong information without your sage advice, since you're so much more intelligent and experienced than I am. Sound good to you?

<Compellor crawls back under his rock>

 

[SleepyTim]

LOL

Lets just agree to disagree Compellor. This is nuts. I didn't really think you would call me, and I should not have even made the offer. It was just a quick reaction out of frustration.

I was only trying to make it clear that if nobody buys products from companies that had certain problems in the past, then nobody would ever be buying products from anybody, and they would all be out of business.

Believe me, I defend Nvidia when people say &quot;They have the worst compatability&quot;, because of the GeForce1 problems that were so publicized when it launched. There are poeple that don't GeForce2 cards because they remember that stuff with the GeForce1, but it's not fair. That's the same point I was making about ATI and their Radeon drivers. Heck, I even defend 3DFX when people say...... well, there is too much to list, but you get the point.

Anyway Compellor, I apologize to you (here in front of everybody) for getting so involved with this discussion. As an Nvidia and ATI owner, I believe strongly in the things I said, but I am man enough to admit that I got carried away. I hope we can move on from this.

I apologize Compellor, and no hard fellings my good man.

 

[Subversal]

Compellor:

Your system is the almost the exact specs for the new system I am building... everything running great I assume? No probs whatsoever? Just curious.

My soon to be specs:

AMD Duron 700
ABIT KT7
128 MB PC133
GeForce 2 GTS 32 MB
Diamond Monster MX300
2xWD 15.3GB
Memorex 48x CD-ROM
Plextor 8432 CD-RW
Enlight 7237 300w
Windows 98 SE/Win2kPro

 

[Jrvr6]

pidge
The ATI Radeon is one of the years most over hyped video cards. Sure it has great 2D quality but that is where the hype ends. It offers texture compression but only in Direct 3D via DXTC. HyperZ is fine and it is a great innovation but it only works in OpenGL and not Direct 3D. Unreal Tournament plays like crap on my ATI AIW Radeon. I have it overclocked to 183/183. Since HyperZ does not work in D3D, it really blows on UT. It very choppy during heavy intense scenes. Under Quake III though, it does play really nice. The major games play fine but if you play as many different games as I do, you will see many D3D problems with the ATI Radeon, especially if you have FSAA enabled. I have a Geforce 256 and Geforce 2 GTS. The Geforce is blurry and kind of faded looking but the Geforce 2 GTS that I have is near in 2D quality as the ATI AIW Radeon. ATI has the luxury of making their own video cards. NVIDIA only makes the chips. Video card manufacturers decide how much filtering there is in their cards. So 2D quality varies by the card you have. But the ATI AIW Radeon does look sharper in 2D.

One major problem I have with my ATI AIW is really starting to annoy the heck out of me. I think this is specific to my system because I haven't heard people mention this before. After about 1 hour, my system locks up if I am watching TV with my ATI AIW Radeon. It doesn't do it if I am playing games or browsing the web with the TV feature off. I don't know what to do. I wish there were newer ATI AIW Radeon drivers available. If I was to go back to my Geforce 2 GTS, how much would I lose in features if I was to install the ATI TV wonder compared to the ATI AIW RAdeon? I really like watching TV on my PC and capturing video in MPEG2 format. Would I still be able to do so with the ATI TV Wonder?

DVD was really nice as well but looked like crap compared to my Sony stand alone DVD player. My Matrox G400 looks better on TV than the ATI AIW Radeon. But Matrox has always had the best TV out IMHO. I used the PowerDVD software on my Geforce 2 GTS. I don't really notice any quality difference on my PC with PowerDVD and Geforce 2 GTS and the ATI AIW Radeon except for a bit less CPU resource being used by the ATI AIW Radeon compared to the Geforce 2 GTS.

One thing I enjoy about the Geforce 2 GTS is that NVIDIA uses Unified drivers. One thing that left me dissapointed with ATI is their lack of support for their drivers which it seems like they tried to focus on with the ATI Radeon series. However, their older products leave much to be desired as far as drivers. NVIDIA's unified drivers ensure that my current video cards will be supported for years to come.

One last gripe. ATI's SPDIF connector does not work in Windows ME. If I was using my PC to play DVD's all the time, I would be terribly disappointed, especially since I have such a nice stereo system to compliment my stand alone DVD player. Their are other gripes I have as well but they are minor (forcing Z buffer to 16 bit to improve performance, lack of sigificant performance boost past 183MHz speeds meaning the ATI AIW Radeon core runs out of gas at 183-190MHz, still doubts that their next driver will be fully DX8 complaint since their current drivers seem incomplete, the most annoying still being that HyperZ is disabled in Direct 3D since most of my games are in Direct 3D, I tried enabling HyperZ and it really fudged up all of my D3D games). Anyways, those are my thoughts on the ATI AIW Radeon. If you want TV tuner capabilities and video capture, get the ATI AIW Radeon. If you want complete drivers with the best performance on your games and less problems with them, get the Geforce 2 GTS or better.
BTW, I have a Pentium III 700Mhz with an Asus CUSL2 mobo and Sony G400 monitor, 256MB of PC133 memory and 300watt Antec power supply running an all SCSI system.

-------------------------
AGN2 - Home of the former AGN forums community

Message edited by: pidge on 11/15/2000 16:55:56


I have a AIW Radeon comming for Saturday delivery 11/18/00 and let me tell you if it is not configured properly you will get the very results you are talking about. However, if you go to the proper sites you will get the proper support needed and your min fram rates will be far superior to the GTS'. Minimum frame rates are king not max!

Here are a couple of sites:
http://www.rage3d.com/
http://www.rageunderground.com/

Do your research and get that card to work properly before you get all emotional about it.

Jrvr6

 

[pidge]

My gripe about performance was towards D3D. Yes, I have tried different registry entries and the one that improves performance the most also corrupts my games the most. Don't tell me to do some research like a moron. I do intensive testing of my video card. I just discovered PowerVCR from the people who make PowerDVD. IT is a program which gives TV tuner cards the same features as the ATI AIW Radeon. Just thought I would mention it for people out there who just want the ATI AIW Radeon for the TV tuner features.

 

[Taz4158]

Well you either haven't researched thoroughly or there's a compatibility issue with your computer. Go to reage3d.com and see if you can get help there if you haven't already.

 

[oldfart]

Well, I know that Nvidia drivers and image quality really suck. I had a Riva 128 and it sucked sooooo bad. Because of this I wont buy a GF2.

Sounds kind of lame doesn't it?

 

[pidge]

oldfart,

That excuse would apply better if you were comparing Geforce 256 to Geforce 2 GTS. And I did get an ATI AIW Radeon so I am not just talking out of my arse because I hate ATI like others do. I am stating what I have observed. Sheesh. I never had any problems with my Geforce 2 GTS but I do recognize that people do have problems with them so don't tell me that I can't have problems with my ATI AIW Radeon, although I would rather not have any problems at all but that is almost impossible.

 

[Envelope]

My Radeon was stable from day one, not something I could say about my Geforce 2 GTS. I have an ASUS P3V4X MB and every time I powered down the system, I would have to take it out and let it POST in my Athlon system and then put it back in for the MB to recognize it. It's a known issue with the Elsa cards and some MB's. My Radeon 64 DDR is great, and the image quality is wonderful. Anyone thinking of buying a Geforce 2 should really consider a Radeon, if 2D is at all important to them.