Radeon 8500 review with Smoothvision update!

[RSMemphis]

It was already posted that ATI had released the drivers yesterday, here is the matching review:

Radeon 8500 smoothvision test

Mmmm, I like it.

What they always forget is that they get a dual head graphics card for the price of a GeForce 3 classic with about the same level of 3d acceleration.

It will be interesting to see if the Quake/Quack issue was resolved, they do not mention that...

Edit: Fixed the link!
Edit: This was my 100th post. That's a nice coincidence. It was always my first "new topic" post.

 

[Sugadaddy]

fixed

 

[RSMemphis]

Man, you are fast.
You must have fixed it within ten seconds... LOL!

 

[Adul]

are the drivers available already?

 

[Adul]

guess so.



<< SmoothVision is now functional

Image quality issues with Quake related to conflicts in texture resolutions have been resolved

Greater control of image quality/performance trade-offs are now available to the user

Performance under WinXP is now on par with Win2K and WinME

Pixel Shader and Bump Mapper Performance enhancements

Stability issues with certain AMD platform motherboards with KT266 chipsets and select AMD760 chipsets, have been resolved
>>

 

[Soccerman]

lol I DID post a link in my thread guys.. good job reading

 

[Leon]

<< At this point, we feel obligated to rate the Radeon 8500 as the card has been on the retail market for a month now and ATi has taken strides to improve upon the product. However, frankly we were hoping for more with this driver release. The R8500 still couldn't drive AA correctly, if at all in certain games and still at least one other title we are aware of, is basically non-functional on this card.

>>

 

[RSMemphis]

<< are the drivers available already? >>



Yes. But they have been pulled again, and are due back today.

driver mirror

 

[RSMemphis]

<< lol I DID post a link in my thread guys.. good job reading >>



I saw that. Which is why I did not post them in this thread. This thread is about the review...

 

[ibbilbo]

What the heck are the REAL driver version numbers. Anand calls them 7.13.06, HotHardware has them as 7.63.01, and 3DChipset has them as 4.13.7206!!!!!!!!!!
I'm very confused.

 

[RSMemphis]

The drivers, per ATI webpage, are:

6.13.10.3286 for Windows XP (6 seems to be the XP code, the last four the version of the driver)
5.13.10.3286 for Windows 2000 (5 is the 2000 code, the versions are probably very similar)
4.13.7206 for Windows ME/98 (you get the picture, 4 for ME, different version number)

Anand used XP drivers, your quote from 3dchipsets concerns the 98/ME drivers

Confusing, confusing...