I've listened to that mp3 with the FX spinning up earlier, it sound horrible but since you don't have anything to compare it with
(i.e background sound of someone talking or something) it's very hard to know the actual noicelevel...
I'll have to try it out in the store first.
ATI and me? Well here's a short version of the story:
One and a half year ago i was about to buy a Geforce3, but i heard so much good about the coming ATI Radeon 8500 that i
decided to wait for it and buy that instead. (This was in September 2001).
I got the card in October and soon found out that there were numerous problems. A couple of games didn't start at all
(Colin McRae2 is one i remember) and lots of games that did start had graphic problems...
I read that the drivers weren't good at that point, but new drivers would be out "very soon" that would sort things.
(As well as enabling trueform, which didn't work on the card on release).
Time went, i don't remember exactly when the new drivers arrived but it was a loooong wait!
What do i find... Nothing changed! Same problems existed and trueform still didn't work!
(I tried all drivers during this period, official and betas, nothing worked ok)
I had already been in contact with ATI support a couple of times, without getting any help, so i was beginning to despair.
I decided to return the card and get something else...
It was now the problems started... The store where i bought the card didn't accept anything but broken PC hardware.
But since they understood my situation, they contacted ATI for me.
He gave me a mailadress so i could talk to someone in ATI myself, which i did. Nothing happened for a long time
and when i finally got an answer they wanted me to mail them and specify my problems!
(I had already done that about 25 times or so).
At this point or so, i bought a Geforce3 even though i still didn't know if i would be able to return the 8500.
(The Geforce has worked flawless ever since btw)
I used an old Voodoo2 card from December to February, and was fed up with everything.
Suddenly i get a mail saying that it must be my hardware configuration or faulty hardware that causes all this,
the ATI card was perfectly ok. No return.
He said that my problem was an exception, no one else had any problems with their 8500 so it must be
my PC... I mailed him a link to the Rage3D forums technical support section for 8500 and told him
to have a look at the thousands of complaints there! I didn't get a reply...
I contacted the store again, and he got REAL mad with them and said he would handle this himself.
Finally, in the second half of March, he called and said that i could bring the card in and i'd get my money.
(I haven't told you about the numerous mails telling me to download new drivers, which i've already told them
i had done. Or the mails asking for my system specs, which i also had told lots of times.
The first THREE mails i recieved was standard replies, telling me to do things i had already told them didn't work)
.............
I know that ATI is better today, the drivers are supposed to work very well. But i'm not very keen on getting
another ATI card after this.
I have never had any hardware that caused me so much problems as the 8500, i have never seen so bad
support and i have never had so much problems returning something faulty...
I know i had lots of bad luck, and maybe i should've checked the returnpolicy of the store beforehand.
That would've saved me lots of headache... But it doesn't take away the extremely poor support i got
from ATI.
It's a pity, the 9700 sounds like a great card and i would probably have bought it if it weren't for all this.
Thomas.
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