Soooo happy with my new Radeon LE

[White Widow]

I just got my new Radeon LE from NewEgg today, and I am very pleased. I had purchased a new Prophet-II MX, but after I heard about the LE 2 days ago, I decided to give it a shot. Out of the box, mine will do at least 200/200 (haven't gone higher) and the video quality is AMAZING! I could never go back to an Nvidia desktop now. Compared to both my old Geforce256 SDR and the Prophet-II, this card is hands-down the winner in all categories. DVD is much better, especially at higher resolutions. After some initial driver fiddling, I am running the 7078beta drievrs with 100% stability and all the Hyper-Z features enabled. I don't even get that snow that some people complain about. The best part is that on my Celeron 600@900 I can get 78 beautiful, 32-bit, fps in Quake3Demo at 1024x786 HQ mode. That kicks my old Geforce's ass. For $85, this card is a steal! The Geforce2MX has a tough road ahead.

-Aaron

 

[Taz4158]

Another convert. Glad you're enjoying it.

 

[ddiccico]

Same here, just received mine. Beta drivers seem solid in 98 and 2k, my only complaint is that UT in OpenGL is *very* dark - probably not radeon's fault, but anyone know how to change this?

 

[dirkdaring]

That's GREAT news! I just ordered mine today and was wondering if it was good enough to replace my GeForce2MX with.

Can't wait now to try it out.

Dirk

 

[demenion]

Yeah, the Radeon LE seems like a really good card for its' price. I'm running the 7078 drivers with my 64 MB Vivo and getting 108 fps in Quake 3 1.27h in timedemo 1 with a tweaked config.

All texture/geometry/graphic settings maxed, hi-quality sound, 1024x768 32 bit, lightmap, trilinear filtering and texture compression.

cg_gibs 0
com_blood 0
cg_shadows 0
cg_drawgun 0
cg_drawattacker 0
cg_lagometer 0
cg_draw3dicons 0
cg_fov 100

The reason I turn all these off because It takes too much viewing space and hurts my fragging skills

 

[Lichee]

hey ddiccico, try using D3D in UT. That should fix your problem.

Lichee

 

[pidge]

"Same here, just received mine. Beta drivers seem solid in 98 and 2k, my only complaint is that UT in OpenGL is *very* dark - probably not radeon's fault, but anyone know how to change this?"

Well, since UT in OpenGL is still beta, I wouldn't consider it any video card manufacturers fault if there were any problems.

 

[yuriy]

White Widow: Did you use original heat sink @ 200/200 Redeon LE?
What software are you using for overclocking? PowerStrip?
Thank you!

 

[White Widow]

I am using the Powerstrip to overclock, and Radeon Tweaker to mess with the rest - I haven't changed most default settings, though. I haven't replaced the default heatsink, but I have a nice 80mm case fan that provides some decent air flow over the card, which probably helps.

I was initially somewhat disappointed with the 3DMark2000 scores, but when I saw the FPS and pure visual beauty in actual games, I was never going back to the GF. Anyone know when the new 3DMark2001 comes out?

-Aaron

 

[yuriy]

Grate! I'll try put my Radeon on 200/200 tonight
Yes, I have 80mm case fan too. I am not sure how good it is.
3DMark2000 scores are 4400 so far.

 

[oldfart]

The LE heatsinks are pretty good size, quite a bit larger than the HS/fan combo that comes on the regular cards. A 50mm fan will fit perfectly on the LE HS if you want to put one on.

 

[ddiccico]

<< try using D3D in UT >>

I do use d3d because ogl is so dark, but it's nice to have both options

 

[ddiccico]

one more question:
I enabled hyperz using the registry hack in w98, but in 2k I don't see the same registry entries. under ati tech, there's a drivers folder, but it doesn't have any entries, it has an opengl subfolder but that also doesn't have any entries. did anyone change hyperz in 2k?
thanks

 

[oldfart]

I dont know where the keys are in Win2K. Get a tweak program like the one from Humus.. It will mke the entries for you.

 

[mamisano]

Is there a web page for the Radeon like NVNews.net or Riva3D for Nvidia?

Thanks!

 

[PassatVR6]

I read all the posts about this card and it sounds like a killer deal. I still cant decide between the Radeon LE and a Geforce2MX. It sounds like the Gforce2MX will provide better framerates even if the Radeon LE is overclocked, am I right?

-Matt

 

[Engineer]

I think Rage3D is as very close to what you're looking for:

Rage3D

 

[oldfart]

No, the LE will outperform the MX.

 

[White Widow]

Without a doubt the Radeon LE is faster than the MX. The *only* place where the MX will do better is in 16-bit color - the Radeon was NOT designed for 16-bit use. In many cases the Radeon will produce higher framrates in 32-bit than 16-bit at the same resolution.

I previsouly owned a Geforce256 for over a year and loved it (it replaced a Voodoo3) but the Radeon has stolen my heart. I think Nvidia is a great company that makes great boards, but the numbers (and visual quality!!!) don't lie. I never realized how sweet EMBM is...and from an $85 card.

-Aaron

 

[Soccerman]

hmm this card is making alot of noise, now I'm interested..

I have a few questions, what kind of RAM is it using?? what is disabled on the chip iself?

what is disabled in the drivers? what clock speed is it's default? what speed is your video card's RAM rated at (nanoseconds I mean)?

if I got a Radeon LE with RAM rated at 5.5 ns, I'd probably run it at the RAM's rated speed, not much higher, just to be safe (I don't want to ruin the card), similar to what I'm doing with my Voodoo 3..

recently I've been thinking alot about which card is the best, and frankly, none of them are.. the best way to cover most of your bases appears to be to have a V5 PCI, and either a GTS, or a Radeon..

I'm starting to wonder how good the next generation of Radeon is going to be.. I can't wait!

 

[White Widow]

Since I seem to be the first one here, let me address your questions.

I am pretty sure my card is equipped with 6ns Samsung 128bit DDR SDRAM. That would default to 166Mhz, but mine runs fine up to at least 200MHz - with no heatsinks, just bare. The memory speed is clocked at 148Mhz by default, but can be adjusted with Powerstrip.

The Radeon chip itself is identical to those used in the reatil version, with nothing disabled in the hardware. In the drivers, a couple of Hyper-Z features are disabled by default in Direct3D. These fatures can be activated through a few registry keys, or through one of several tweaking programs freely available.

Let me just add, again, how much cleaner my video looks. Perhpas I just had a bad OEM Geforce, but regardless, the improvement is tremendous. Sure, the gamers are faster, but they look BETTER. Hell, my desktop looks better. If only I had known...

-Aaron

 

[White Widow]

On another note, it seems to me from the prelilinary testing that Radeon performance scales very well with the CPU and not so much with it's own core/mem speed. The difference in performance between a Radeon at 148/148 and 200/200 is not as large as you would think, but clearly as the system clock and memory bus speeds increase, the video performance improves significantly. I would be really curious to see a comparison of a Radeon @ 183/183 on a bunch of different CPU's and platforms. I'm betting it puts out some sweet numbers on a high-end Thunderbird or a P4.

-Aaron

 

[Searchname]

I bought this card for my brother and just stumled across this at Reactor Critical.

According to official information from ATI, the company does not sell or support RADEON LE cards. All the questions about this card should be addressed to Althon Micro. That is why, there are no ATI logotypes on the boards and no Hyper-Z support in the drivers.

If I`m not mistaken, the accelerators are manufactured on ATI factories in China, because Althon Micro is only a distributor of ATI products, not manufacturer. The cards probably have the same manufacturing and 2D quality, so, if you want a good card with fast 3D for around $100 - RADEON LE is your choice.

Not sure what I am going to do, if anything. Just thought you guys should know!

 

[White Widow]

Thanks for the update, but that info has been out for a few days. It was of some concern at first, but no has found any problems with the cards. As many astute readers pointed out, it's no different than what Nvidia does with ALL their chips. ATI is simply selling extra chips to an Chinese OEM who is marketing them in the US. My last PowerColor Geforce was made in Taiwan. I wouldn't worry simply because the card is not made in Canada. Actually many &quot;real&quot; ATI cards in the US are manufactured in China, as one Radeon64 owner recently attested to.

-Aaron

 

[Soccerman]

wow, so it looks to be just an OEM Radeon?? hmm, I've got to buy me one of these.. It looks like a good replacement for my Voodoo 3 2000.. too bad I'd have to buy a PCI Voodoo 3-5 to have both running (such is the price of compatability)..

but if that thing lasts (if I can find it later on), that's going to be my next video card upgrade!