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OK, I Screwed up by buying a Radeon video card

S

stranger707

Member
About 3 months ago I started a flamefest on this forum by asking why I should buy an ATI card. I have been a staunch Nvidia fan for years, and I have had no problems with the GeForce cards. I have bought GeForce 2 Pro's, GeForce 3 Ti200's, GeForce 4 4800's and many more. They all worked fine in AutoCAD and many, many games.

But many people who posted on my original post 3 months ago convinced me to try an ATI card. So last month I bought two new cards: an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro for my machine and an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro for my son's computer. My son soon bought Battlefield 1942 and tried out the 9800 Pro. What a disaster. It locked up the computer over and over. We updated the Catalyst drivers, and the problems never abated. I was disappointed by the ATI product support solution to the problems with this new DirectX 9.0 game -- to turn off the best rendering capabilities of the 9800 Pro.

This problem is not isolated to Battlefield 1942. I have experienced the same problems with Call of Duty on my 9700 Pro.

I finally bought an Nvidia 5700 Ultra for my son's computer so that he could play Battlefield 1942 on LAN games without having the computer lock up. Since we installed the 5700 Ultra he has had no problems.

So I wonder why the ATI crowd can recommend these video cards. They obviously cannot perform, they obviously cannot meet the minimum specifications that they claim to achieve.

Why would you recommend such a product???????
 
driver cleaner = your friend
reformatiing = your friend
bios update = your friend
not being a moron = your friend

BTW, LOL @ buying a 5700Ultra. what a friggin waste of money. a stick of gum and a button more and you had a 5900NU

i personally have used multiple cards from each brand, never a single problem..i dont know whats so hard about properly removing old drivers...

:beer: better luck next time
 
there is probably nothing wrong wtih ur video cards. it's likely the catalyst drivers u download or got, because the latest version sux and is very glitchy with most higher end cards.
 
Did you consider it might be the other hardware in your PC? The 9700 and 9800 had some conflicts with some earlier motherboards, which was fixed with a bios update. You're calling the product crap based on what happened to you with 2 games. You're saying that no one in the world who has owned a nvidia product has ever had problems with it?
I personally am not loyal to any one brand, but I believe you're jumping to a conclusion about a company. It also seems you went in expecting it to fail.
 
Ok, but when you buy a computer product that has software (drivers) and hardware, the product is the sum of both. If ATI can't produce a fully functional set of drivers for the video card, the hardware is worthless. I don't care whether there is no problem with my video card. I care whether ATI can provide hardware and drivers that will function fully in my computer with the software that I use. Otherwise, they are selling worthless crap!
 
Originally posted by: stranger707
Ok, but when you buy a computer product that has software (drivers) and hardware, the product is the sum of both. If ATI can't produce a fully functional set of drivers for the video card, the hardware is worthless. I don't care whether there is no problem with my video card. I care whether ATI can provide hardware and drivers that will function fully in my computer with the software that I use. Otherwise, they are selling worthless crap!
Click to expand...

THEY DO!. how come i have used 2 9700pros and 1 9800pro without a single problem? did you even remove your old nvidia drivers or, if you did, try a reformat? i bet not....its your fault. deal with it. ATI drivers work fine IMO.

 
I am going to chime in here. I have a 9800np and it does sort of blow. It plays most games fine, but it will lock up frequently with call of duty. The biggest problem is that ATI driver have a known isuue with CS and getting 40fps in a 5 year old game is ridiculous. I am finally giving up, I just ordered a new MB and will do a fresh install of W2K, if it doesn't go smooth you might see this card on FS/T soon.
 
Originally posted by: Todd33
You should not have to reformat a drive to switch video cards, stop suggesting that.
Click to expand...

if all else fails, yes you do. or at least you should before you return the cards in a furious rage a buy a 5700Ultra.
 
I prefer NVIDIA over ATi for the reasons you mentioned above... however... It appears that you did you didnt do your videocard homework...

You may need a bios update, you may need different drivers (the newest cats have a specific texture corruption fix for BF1942), you should AT LEAST use driver cleaner and to be prudent i format every time i change hardware (once every month or 2).
 
anyways, my cousin plays battlefield, call of duty, and unreal 2004, and it works perfectly fine with the radeon 9800 pro
 
hehe I will find it hilarious if he's here complaining and never tried a reformat. If you still have your 9700 and 9800 stranger707, I'll take em off your hands, you won't ever have to look at em again. 🙂
 
Nick 1985. For 5 years video card manufacturers have recommended a full uninstallation of video card drivers and support software when changing video cards. Most sub-100 IQ computer users are aware of this fact and comply with it when they change a video card.
 
Originally posted by: sharq
hehe I will find it hilarious if he's here complaining and never tried a reformat. If you still have your 9700 and 9800 stranger707, I'll take em off your hands, you won't ever have to look at em again. 🙂
Click to expand...

ill bet he didnt even use driver cleaner. he probably just popped them in there and wondered why BOTH werent working....
 
Originally posted by: stranger707
Nick 1985. For 5 years video card manufacturers have recommended a full uninstallation of video card drivers and support software when changing video cards. Most sub-100 IQ computer users are aware of this fact and comply with it when they change a video card.
Click to expand...

but did you run DRIVER CLEANER. not just un-installing the driver. sub-100 IQ eh?
 
Originally posted by: JACKHAMMER
And to prevent a flame fest, yes I am habign problems on a fresh install
Click to expand...

You seem to have old drivers, as the CoD issue was fixed in Cat 3.8.

Did you get the latest drivers from ATis website? The drivers from the CD are terrible.

Use driver cleaner in safe mode when changing drivers, especially with ATi.
 
Nick, none of the video card manufacturers call for a 3rd party software (driver cleaner) to install a new video card. They all call for you to do a full uninstall of the previous video card drivers. Yes, that is all ATI asks for in their instructions. And a reformatting of the hard drive -- give me a break. Why don't I just do a complete re-installaation of the operating system. GeForce cards don't require that. What is the weakness with the ATI cards??
 
You're willing to spend ~$500 (or more) on those 2 cards, but you're not willing to take the time or effort to figure out what was wrong? or fix it?
 
Nope, the 4.2s. Like I said though, I am going to be trying a different MObo and processor - hopefully that will fix things.
 
I didn't spend $500 for that card. I got the 9800 Pro for $230. And, actually, your logic is strange. Why should I have to spend more time fixing a problem on a video card that is more expensive, really expensive. Rolls Royce drivers don't expect more problems with their cars than Volkwagen drivers. They expect perfection.
 
Although its possible you got burned stranger, the sheer amount of people with good luck with nvidia and ati hardware should point to other problems. I have nvidia and ati hardware, and I think both drivers are quite good considering how bad video drivers used to be.

I don't use a driver cleaner, I don't reformat every time. But if I had the problems you described, I'd sure start with both those tasks.
 
I am running call of duty on a Radeon 9700pro and on a 9800pro, no problems on either. The problem you may be having is that whenever I SWITCH from nvidia to ati OR back to nvidia, the computer looses it mind for some reason. Just to make us all happy (and maybe you, that 9800pro will blow away the 5700), try this:

Find a spare hard drive. Install your OS of choice from scratch with the Radeon 9800pro. Install OS, motherboard drivers, updates to OS, directx9, THEN Catalyst 3.7 Omegas. Reply back with the results. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Nick, please lighten up a little, and try some constructive assistance, I am sure this can be worked out without namecalling.

Edit, and good point budman, please check for a quality PSU.
 
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