Radeon 64 Win98 vs W2k

[ikaika1]

I was thinking about getting a Radeon 64, but I keep hearing about all these driver issues and problems Radeons have in W2k (I run W2k exclusively). I was wondering if anyone wanted to share some of their experiences, and possibly some benchmarks on both the w98 and W2k platforms. I want to see what kind of performance hit Ill be taking. Also does anyone have any real evidence that driver support for 2k will get better? Thanks for your time and opinions.

 

[Dean]

I don't use win2k myself, but here is a snippet from hardOCP. The win 2k drivers for the radeon are still inmature right now, but they'll get better




<< Stuck an ATI Radeon in the DamageBox tonight for some real-world testing. I'm running Win2K, and the install went very smoothly until the ATI DVD thingy told me the DVD drive wasn't in DMA mode. Pretty observant, that ATI DVD program. But why no DMA? I had no idea. So I moved everything around on to another IDE channel and rebooted a bunch of times, until I got Ultra DMA back on my DVD drive. I'd blame the Radeon, but I have no idea why that happened.

Anyhow, this card works great in Win2K for the most part. OpenGL is purtier than the GeForce or the Voodoo 5, IMHO. DVD playback is gorgeous, and it only uses 20% of my Athlon 800 doing it.

I was getting pretty pumped about this Radeon until Blue Screen o' Death visited the DamageBox for the first time in months. Ugh.
>>

 

[hans007]

i've heard that 3d games are about half speed of win98, i also use win2k exclusively, so you are probably better served with a nvidia or 3dfx card

 

[ikaika1]

Well hans, normally Id agree, but I'm into the Radeon for the DVD playback, the TV out, and the fact that I can get a retail 64 DRR for about 200$. Which saves me around 130$ (the cost of a GTS or V5+ Hollywood Decoder Card w/ TV out at pricewatch.) I guess I guess I might have to do some dual booting for a little while <Shudder>.

PS. Saw one in action today. It IS pretty, and on W2k at 42fps at 1280x1074x32, about half the speed of the Nvida/Radeon in W98 <Sigh>.

 

[Bingo13]

Be prepared for a lot of dual booting with the Radeon. The W2K driver set is still very very young compared to the Win98 set. I had to take mine out of the W2K box because of the number of BSOD's every day (clean install). This was with the released drivers and the xx35 betas.
It is a very nice card, just not ready for W2K yet.