How dumb would you have to be to preorder GF-FX now???

[sharkeeper]

No dumber than a person that orders a bunch of Radeons when they first come out. (that order was from July 2000.

Cheers!

 

[Hockeyfan6781]

whoever said nvidia had something in their pocket was right... the NV35 due out in September..... Probably a supped up GFFX with a 256bit memory bus

 

[nick1985]

nvidia for me. i like drivers that DONT fvck up my system

 

[HendrixFan]

I wouldnt be too sure about drivers for the GFFX, this is a completely new design they have here. This isnt a revision of an older core, as was the case up to the GF4. Instead of tweaking drivers with each release, they had to start fresh.

The drivers for the 9700 work very well for me and many others. There have been tremendous improvements on ATI's end with drivers since their crappy Rage 128 drivers that i struggled with.

 

[nick1985]

i have heard too many horror stories about ATI compatibility to believe anything

 

[KickItTwice]

Isn't the R350 basically just going to be a refresh of the R300 ? R300 has been around since last august. Thats why I said that the R350 would have mature drivers.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

More on R350 - Joe "Steejee" West - Hardware: ATI - (108)
[Spicy Story] Sounds like ATI has an Ace up their sleave: a top dog at ATI has told us that the R350 will debut in march, and as told before will be 10% faster than the FX, but the kicker will be that it's also $150 cheaper. The massive price difference is due to the fact the R350 will be a 10 layer PCB, while Nvidia's fastest will require 12 layers. Graphics wars are gonna be interesting in the coming months to say the least...

Source

One word - DAMN.

 

[The Sauce]

Nvidia's hurdle and ATI's advantage is this: ATI just needs to announce its next card with PREviews of it beating the GF-FX in selected benchmarks and Nvidia's "thunder" is gone (not to mention - loss of sales) by all but the most diehard Nvidia fan.

Well that is exactly the situation for me. I was all ready to lay down some smack for a GFFX and now I don't know. Think I'm going to have to wait and see what happens with r350. At the very least it should drive prices down.

 

[HendrixFan]

Originally posted by: nick1985
i have heard too many horror stories about ATI compatibility to believe anything

Try it for yourself. I can link you to threads here and in other forums decrying Nvidia cards as well. The 9700 is a solid card with great drivers. If you have "heard" stories and choose to steer clear of ATI, go ahead. Dont parrot claims that you yourself havent validated though. You certainly wont hear me complaining about the Matrox card...

 

[PCMarine]

Originally posted by: MichaelD


IMO, you'd have to be almost as dumb as those people that preordered a Matrox Parhelia. I will wait for the reviews.

Heh, yea I feel sorry for those whole spent a fortune on preorderign the parhelia thinking that it would blow the competition out of the water

 

[KickItTwice]

Originally posted by: nick1985
i have heard too many horror stories about ATI compatibility to believe anything

It's called FUD. Don't listen to the hype.

 

[BD231]

Originally posted by: nick1985
i have heard too many horror stories about ATI compatibility to believe anything

So you judge the 9700pro based on past hardware and drivers when the better part of the people who have the card have no issues whatsoever ?, and you havn't even owned an ATI card? I'm sorry but I've heard plenty of N-Vidia driver "horror" stories and your reasoning is just plain anger for something you've never even delt with.

Chiz: Is the 9700 working fine right now?, oh it's working fine? Hmmmmm........

You run your computer on a mad overclock, blaming ATI for any problems your having is redicules

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: BD231

Originally posted by: nick1985
i have heard too many horror stories about ATI compatibility to believe anything

So you judge the 9700pro based on past hardware and drivers when the better part of the people who have the card have no issues whatsoever ?, and you havn't even owned an ATI card? I'm sorry but I've heard plenty of N-Vidia driver "horror" stories and your reasoning is just plain anger for something you've never even delt with.

Chiz: Is the 9700 working fine right now?, oh it's working fine? Hmmmmm........

You run your computer on a mad overclock, blaming ATI for any problems your having is redicules

No, its not working "fine" now, yah, I can surf the net, post on AT, play games, but I CAN'T use my PVR, can't watch DVDs half the time, and still have sh1tty slowdowns in BF1942.

My overclock has nothing to do with this. I can run Prime 95 stable for 2 days in a row while running memtest98 (did that last night), and the same symptoms occurred when I don't run overclocked. I can lock my AGP bus at 66mhz (which I have), so how does a rock stable overclock have anything to do with my 9700pro acting up? I've had to disable fastwrites AND 8X AGP to avoid complete lockups when watching TV on my tuner. After each lockup or blue screen, I have to go through the same cryptic procedure of installing, uninstalling drivers, wading through ATI's 10 releases (what happened to a UDA???) for each driver, and then crossing my fingers hoping it works.

Everything worked fine on a GF4 Ti4200 Turbo with a heavy overclocked system as well. At first I thought it was DX 9, but it didn't matter. Now Windows occasionally says its my Video card; E-mailed ATI 3 times detailing my problems...no response.

Like I said to some other joker who claims ATI drivers are "rock solid", some of us expect more from our video cards and our PCs, especially a $400 part that is supposed to be top-of-the-line with "rock solid" drivers. Whatever. Again, half the posters here don't even own a 9700pro, so how the fvck would they know anyways?

Chiz

 

[rbV5]

My ATI drivers are pretty damn solid with my AIW 9700 pro, Including the multimedia functions...as usual

 

[KickItTwice]

Chiz ? Your wading through 10 different releases for each driver? What are you talking about? Just install the CAT 3.0a driver and control panel and be done with it. I'm sorry if there is something I'm missing here.

 

[Ferocious]

Really dumb....considering the R350.

Heh, I went from a V3 card to a 9700 Pro card.

Never owned an Nvidia card. Though I tried and returned several of them over the years.

 

[chizow]

No, there's more than that. There's the WDM drivers, DVD decoder drivers, MMC drivers....those don't install by default with the 3.0's............ATI knows there's a problem with the 9700pro, Directdraw, and Video overlay. The WDM drivers specifically say it. They've beat around the bush in the last 2 driver releases saying "fixes lock-up issues with TV capture" or some crap like that. Go over to Rage3d forums, half the people who own an ATI TV Wonder can't even get it to work with an ATI 9700pro...ironic.

Chiz

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: BD231

Originally posted by: nick1985
i have heard too many horror stories about ATI compatibility to believe anything

So you judge the 9700pro based on past hardware and drivers when the better part of the people who have the card have no issues whatsoever ?, and you havn't even owned an ATI card? I'm sorry but I've heard plenty of N-Vidia driver "horror" stories and your reasoning is just plain anger for something you've never even delt with.

Chiz: Is the 9700 working fine right now?, oh it's working fine? Hmmmmm........

You run your computer on a mad overclock, blaming ATI for any problems your having is redicules

No, its not working "fine" now, yah, I can surf the net, post on AT, play games, but I CAN'T use my PVR, can't watch DVDs half the time, and still have sh1tty slowdowns in BF1942.

My overclock has nothing to do with this. I can run Prime 95 stable for 2 days in a row while running memtest98 (did that last night), and the same symptoms occurred when I don't run overclocked. I can lock my AGP bus at 66mhz (which I have), so how does a rock stable overclock have anything to do with my 9700pro acting up? I've had to disable fastwrites AND 8X AGP to avoid complete lockups when watching TV on my tuner. After each lockup or blue screen, I have to go through the same cryptic procedure of installing, uninstalling drivers, wading through ATI's 10 releases (what happened to a UDA???) for each driver, and then crossing my fingers hoping it works.

Everything worked fine on a GF4 Ti4200 Turbo with a heavy overclocked system as well. At first I thought it was DX 9, but it didn't matter. Now Windows occasionally says its my Video card; E-mailed ATI 3 times detailing my problems...no response.

Like I said to some other joker who claims ATI drivers are "rock solid", some of us expect more from our video cards and our PCs, especially a $400 part that is supposed to be top-of-the-line with "rock solid" drivers. Whatever. Again, half the posters here don't even own a 9700pro, so how the fvck would they know anyways?

Chiz

From what I am reading, your complaints are common to about 3% of ATI Radeon users. Personally I believe it has to do with your computer's configuration and something you missed (and most likely DX9). Forget e-mailing ATI (they answer but you might get old waiting - try the forums at Rage3D (they can help just about anyone and the tech people from ATI visit regularly to help).

Finally - IMO (obviously) - ATI is more difficult to configure than Nvidia cards and takes more "work". If you just like to remove the old card and replace it with a new one with minimal fuss, Nvidia might be the better choice. If you are a "tweaker", the ATI card might be the more satisfying "challenge".

No, I din't care to waste my money on a 9700Pro when the games I have don't require it . . . I am behind the technology curve and rather proud to be considered "frugal" (ferengi). However, I have mostly owned ATI cards so I think I would "know something, anyway" - the Rage Fury 32; the original Radeon 64 VIVO and now the 8500. All of them - with the exception of my 8500 - have required real troubleshooting skills but eventually worked PERFECTLY in my O/C'd system.

 

[HendrixFan]

chizow, to be fair Nvidia drivers suffer from problems as well. Ive always been into multimedia more than games, and as such go the ATI route. My little brother has always been into games, and has gone the Nvidia route. He too has had problems with Battlefield 1942 with his GF4 4200 as well as problems with Dungeon Siege. He has had to wade through multiple drivers to find the best one for him (what happened to UDA??? - UDA means the drivers will work for any card, not that each driver set fixes problems without creating new ones) and he settled on the 30.82s. Perhaps some future games or even future patches for current games will force him to update drivers.

Personally, I havent had conflicts with my TV Tuner, but it is the old ATI TV Wonder that I got back in the day. I had to hack that sucker to get it to work properly in Win2K/XP, but since I got that working it has co-existed with the 9700 I have.

I certainly dont question your knowledge, and I appreciate your help with my Adaptec RAID problems around Xmas. But the driver issue between ATI and Nvidia isnt as black and white as it was in the past.

 

[rbV5]

ATI knows there's a problem with the 9700pro, Directdraw, and Video overlay. The WDM drivers specifically say it

Where does it say that?

 

[308nato]

Maybe its just me but I find the whole idea of video cards that exist on paper trouncing video cards that no one has seen yet to be...errr...amusing.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: 308nato
Maybe its just me but I find the whole idea of video cards that exist on paper trouncing video cards that no one has seen yet to be...errr...amusing.

You are easily amused.

Wouldn't you agree the topic's title - "How dumb would you have to be to preorder GF-FX now???" - is a bit provocative?

 

[Spicedaddy]

Originally posted by: rbV5

ATI knows there's a problem with the 9700pro, Directdraw, and Video overlay. The WDM drivers specifically say it

Where does it say that?

I think they've admitted it's a BKAC type problem...





(for those wondering, BKAC = between keyboard and chair)

 

[308nato]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: 308nato
Maybe its just me but I find the whole idea of video cards that exist on paper trouncing video cards that no one has seen yet to be...errr...amusing.

You are easily amused.

Wouldn't you agree the topic's title - "How dumb would you have to be to preorder GF-FX now???" - is a bit provocative?

That sir was my point.



I ordered mine from BB within an hour of it showing up. Get it shipped to my door overnight for free and I get a box of crap the kids can have along with some surprisingly useful coupons. If the card is outstanding, well, I will have it in my rig churning away at ye old pixel production. If it sucks I will be more than happy to run by BB at lunch within the next 30 days for a 100% refund per their most gracious return policy. At that time I will buy something else.

Where dumb fits in I don't know. Worrying how other people spend their disposable income seems to be dumb though.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: 308nato

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: 308nato
Maybe its just me but I find the whole idea of video cards that exist on paper trouncing video cards that no one has seen yet to be...errr...amusing.

You are easily amused.

Wouldn't you agree the topic's title - "How dumb would you have to be to preorder GF-FX now???" - is a bit provocative?

That sir was my point.



I ordered mine from BB within an hour of it showing up. Get it shipped to my door overnight for free and I get a box of crap the kids can have along with some surprisingly useful coupons. If the card is outstanding, well, I will have it in my rig churning away at ye old pixel production. If it sucks I will be more than happy to run by BB at lunch within the next 30 days for a 100% refund per their most gracious return policy. At that time I will buy something else.

Where dumb fits in I don't know. Worrying how other people spend their disposable income seems to be dumb though.

Which point? (Edit: I got it; "amused"/"provocative")

And if you mean Beast Buy by (the initials) BB, returning something may not be as simple as you describe.

And I never worry how other people spend their disposable income (although I might make fun of them behind their backs) . . .