i don't get it (ati driver myths)

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: CheapArse
ati drivers are crap, its a gamble, you won in this case. but if i buy $200-$400 card, i dont want to hassle with the fvcking drivers to get it to work.

You always have to hassle with drivers. My Audigy card has taken to randomly needing me to reinstall the drivers when I boot Windows, doesn't happen every time, but has happened 2 or 3 times in the last 2 weeks.
Every driver has issues, otherwise why would anyone release new ones?!

You don't want to spend lots of money on a $200-$400 card? Are you going to buy a GF FX? That seems to lack perfromance and have some driver issues at the moment, but as ATi HAVE DONE I expect they will get sorted. Even nVidia stuff doesn't work perfectly first time every time.

(GF 4 owner)

 

[Insane3D]

I have never had tv issues....My old radeon 8500 non dv card had terrible tv out problems and this one look crisp and clean...The issues I listed are the many talked about at www.rage3d.com

My issues....

1) DVD player stuttered...I did multiple reinstalls and problem still existed...I use windvd anyways and the ati player is quite substandard compared to it.

2) I get echoing effect when running pause tv mode. I though it was a creative audigy issue and that cat 2.5's would solve and no go...

3)Get infinite loop error when fsb is greater then 153fsb...it is a mobo and card conflict as it runs fine at 166fsb with my epox 4g4a+...

4)I get the atimmc.exe failing to shutdown when I shutdown tv or player sometimes....I have to ctrl-alt-del and manually turn it off...This is a highly documented problem and quite popular at rage3d.com

I had a few more I worked through with update to 2.3 and 2.4 cats...ATI may eventually get to them but it is sad to know that cd drivers that come in the box are so incompetent to make it work out of the box....

I was not disputing your issues, I was just posting an opposite experience...mine.

 

[Insane3D]

Insane3D, it may work with your card, but the scary part is that people actually use products from other mfgs. that aren't ATI.

I know, and I was not disputing anyone's issues, just posting an opposite experience to show that not all people will encounter this stuff. Sometimes when people have a rough time with any hardware, they just assume that anyone that get's the same thing will encounter the same issues and they often try to convince everyone that this is what you should expect when you buy said hardware.

The worse part about ATI support (other than their unresponsiveness) is that they ONLY address their products and don't bother to support issues from other mfgs.

Well, one could argue it's not their problem if they do not choose to use the reference design. If someone has trouble with a Nvidia card using a non-reference design, like Asus for example, and there are certain issues that crop up only on that card, is it Nvidia's responsibility to solve it?

I'm not buying another TV wonder, I've gone down that road and its garbage. I'm also not getting locked into an AIW card that'll be obsolete for gaming purposes in a year.

Well, I actually agree that the TV Wonder is extremely problematic, and I would suggest that anyone considering getting a seperate TV tuner card should look at other products by companies like Hauppage and others. As for the AIW cards becoming obsolete that is to be expected with any video card. If your primary concern is gaming and high FPS, then a video card and seperate TV tuner card might be a better choice. Sometimes we forget that while a certain product may not make sense to us due to how we use or systems, it might be the perfect product for someone else.

 

[nord1899]

Originally posted by: magomago

Originally posted by: Sid03
both gta3 and nfs5 had horrible driver issues. i think they got fixed with revisions, but they had problems nonetheless.

i'm not saying the problems were limited to those games... i'm just giving examples.

How about the fact that the game has bugs? We tend to blame our problems on hardware when in reaity most games are shipped incomplete so they can garner sales in that time frame and then developers go back and begin to iron out bugs

*cough* Battlefield 1942

I was amazed at the score of that game...upon release it was full of bugs and and it was so ridiculous that a 1.4 Ghz Oc'd T-brd with a g3ti200 and 512 megs of pc2100 ram skipped (now its MUCH smoother...)


But I woudl've rated that game a 7.9 mainly because of bugs and whatnot.

BF1942 didn't run right until patch 1.2 came out. That release should have been on the CD instead of the rushed 1.1 version. At 1.2, everything on it ran like a dream.

 

[imported_Mike]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: CheapArse
ati drivers are crap, its a gamble, you won in this case. but if i buy $200-$400 card, i dont want to hassle with the fvcking drivers to get it to work.

You always have to hassle with drivers. My Audigy card has taken to randomly needing me to reinstall the drivers when I boot Windows, doesn't happen every time, but has happened 2 or 3 times in the last 2 weeks.
Every driver has issues, otherwise why would anyone release new ones?!

You don't want to spend lots of money on a $200-$400 card? Are you going to buy a GF FX? That seems to lack perfromance and have some driver issues at the moment, but as ATi HAVE DONE I expect they will get sorted. Even nVidia stuff doesn't work perfectly first time every time.

(GF 4 owner)

i guess drivers are ymmv, people contest ati makes perfect drivers and the best cards..., i am a gf 4 owner and have had 0 problems so far...granted ive only been running for 2 months on it...

 

[stonecold3169]

I had an ATI Radeon 64ddr VIVO that I got ~3 months after it had come out. The card was rock solid, never gave me any problems in any games (I'm by no means a hardcore gamer, but I do fiddle around with a whole bunch of them), and the VIVO function always kicked major booty, I loved it.

I currently have a vanilla GF3, and the problems I've had with some games is horrendous. I really hate having to keep multiple drivers on my comp just in case the newest one screws something critical up (anyone using detonators and upgrading frequently can attest to this). I remember when I first got MOHAA the weak after it came out the graphical corruption was insane, about a month later we got a newer set of drives that fixed it. Thats the only one that stands out in my mind, although there have been other issues, like CivIII refusing to play with certain driver revisions installed. The last quirk I encoutered with my GF3 was with the drivers that were non-beta before the ones that are available now, for some reason TV out was enabled and couldn't be disabled on plain GF3 cards. Normally not an issue, but powerDVD doesn't like TV out being turned on so I'd have to rip it to vobs to watch the stupid movie I just rented

To be fair though, there has always been a fix available eventually for my issue, and I remember back in the day when incompatabilities were much more common and ugly then they are now, so we've definitly come a ways

*EDIT* w00t, officially a Golden Member now

 

[BD231]

ATI drivers are no worse than N-Vidias at this point, and their driver support is tops.

 

[spanner]

You are just lucky the drivers happen to like your setup. Ati's drivers have improved but they are far from perfection. I'd say nvidia still has the upper hand when it comes to drivers. Also I wonder if the drivers for the lower end (i.e 8500) have improved any. My guess is they haven't.

 

[paperfist]

My cousin won't touch an ATI card because 'back in the day' and by that I mean the heydays of Win95 he owned an ATI card and the drivers were rubbish. BTW most likely is was Win95 that was rubbish Fast forward to 2003 and he still complains about those drivers and warns me not to buy an ATI card. Well I am a very satisfied 9500Pro owner. The myth comes from people like that who give things 1 chance and if it fails then it's branded for life.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Insane3D

I have never had tv issues....My old radeon 8500 non dv card had terrible tv out problems and this one look crisp and clean...The issues I listed are the many talked about at www.rage3d.com

My issues....

1) DVD player stuttered...I did multiple reinstalls and problem still existed...I use windvd anyways and the ati player is quite substandard compared to it.

2) I get echoing effect when running pause tv mode. I though it was a creative audigy issue and that cat 2.5's would solve and no go...

3)Get infinite loop error when fsb is greater then 153fsb...it is a mobo and card conflict as it runs fine at 166fsb with my epox 4g4a+...

4)I get the atimmc.exe failing to shutdown when I shutdown tv or player sometimes....I have to ctrl-alt-del and manually turn it off...This is a highly documented problem and quite popular at rage3d.com

I had a few more I worked through with update to 2.3 and 2.4 cats...ATI may eventually get to them but it is sad to know that cd drivers that come in the box are so incompetent to make it work out of the box....

I was not disputing your issues, I was just posting an opposite experience...mine.

honestly I didn't think you were....

I know you are likely a little bit more driver savvy then me and others...The troublesome area comes in the fact the card out of the box would have not worked even 50% without immediate download of drivers and an hour plus trip to rage3d.com...that is the disappointing fact to me and about ATI AIW products....

My radeon 8500Le worked out of the box but I could never get the tv-out to work right. ATI was at the time not supporting this product becuase it was made by another manufacturer (Apollo).

 

[Bovinicus]

I haven't really ever had problems with ATi's drivers. I have had probems with games in the past, and even recently. However, I have always been able to solve the problems through one method or another. The current drivers have far less problems and perform much better than the ATi drivers of many months ago. I have played many different games with my card. I wouldn't worry about getting screwed by ATi's drivers. Your chances of that are no worse than with any other mass market product.

 

[Insane3D]

I know you are likely a little bit more driver savvy then me and others...

Hey! Who are you calling savvy?!

 

[gregor7777]

The worse part about ATI support (other than their unresponsiveness)

But, let us not forget that a few ATi tech support people and even an engineers hang out and help at rage3d. That's rather unique.

 

[buleyb]

Originally posted by: tbates757

Originally posted by: nord1899
I can attest to poor drivers. 2 years ago, I had the AIW Radeon 32 (first gen radeon). Playing Rainbow 6 would cause all sorts of weird graphical screw ups. No drivers at the time worked.

So Ati did have driver problems. Do they still have them today? Most likely not.

"Johnny got C's and D's during his 7th grade year, but from 9th grade to the present he has really buckled down and gotten all A's." Should we still consider Johnny an average/below average student? I think the same applies to ATi.

Maybe we can just say Johnny sucks at the remedial things in life

 

[coolVariable]

I have a really old ATI Rage LT Pro that gives me a weird error in Counterstrike/TFC: I can see people through walls when they are close to windows/edges ...

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: gregor7777

The worse part about ATI support (other than their unresponsiveness)

But, let us not forget that a few ATi tech support people and even an engineers hang out and help at rage3d. That's rather unique.

Yah, but a dedicated and ATI supported site/forum would be more helpful IMO. XBox forums are similar but feedback from tech support is EVERYWHERE over there.

"Johnny got C's and D's during his 7th grade year, but from 9th grade to the present he has really buckled down and gotten all A's." Should we still consider Johnny an average/below average student? I think the same applies to ATi.

That isn't the best allegory IMO, Johnny's been caught cheating in the past

Chiz

 

[BentValve]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: gregor7777

The worse part about ATI support (other than their unresponsiveness)

But, let us not forget that a few ATi tech support people and even an engineers hang out and help at rage3d. That's rather unique.

Yah, but a dedicated and ATI supported site/forum would be more helpful IMO. XBox forums are similar but feedback from tech support is EVERYWHERE over there.

"Johnny got C's and D's during his 7th grade year, but from 9th grade to the present he has really buckled down and gotten all A's." Should we still consider Johnny an average/below average student? I think the same applies to ATi.

That isn't the best allegory IMO, Johnny's been caught cheating in the past

Chiz

Johnny did not get all As because Johnny failed the required gym class because he is a fat slob.