Universal ATI (Radeon & Rage) Drivers?! They're Out!

[Dragnov]

Hey I just visited the ATI site to go check if they had any new drivers after an extended period of time, just for the heck of it. They totally revamped their site and it looks much nicer. Furthermore, isntead of the usual driver download page of selecting your video card, you're only given drivers for each operating system. Are these the universal drivers I heard they were going to do ages ago?

Looks like ATI is finally getting their act together. I think I might get the Radeon 8500 soon now.

 

[AaronP]

well, with the new 6043 drivers, my Radeon 8500 runs ULTRA SWEET! I had some minor issues before, the new drivers cleared up every single one of them, and gave a speed boost as well! it's a great card.

 

[dbal]

Yep the new ATi site is great in terms of layout and usability!
But one question especially for you Aaron...What are these 6043 drivers version everyone is talking about? What cards they support, since searching the site for XP, all cards (from my VE all the way to the 8500), have the 6015 version recommended from ATi and 6025 going under "final qualification tests".....? Are they officially released, beta, what???

 

[AaronP]

they are unnoficial beta drivers. The best place for info on them is Rage3d

 

[dbal]

Unofficial beta is supposed to be version 6025 according to ATi! U mean somebody is two steps forward giving them away on the net so soon????:Q

 

[dbal]

bump

 

[DClark]

Rage3D.com is the place to go for the newest leaked beta drivers. That's the first place they will generally show up, and threads start up on the various new leaked drivers. Since ATi employees also visit (and occasionally post) at Rage3D.com, I figure leaked driver (though not always intentionally leaked) provide ATi a kind of "Open Beta" testing of drivers. A couple times when there have been bugs in a driver, a new leaked driver has appeared shortly after which fixes the problem (the last one I remember is the 7112s 2D icon problem, with the 7115s being leaked less than a week later).

I'm running the 9021s for Win9x/Me, yet I think only the 9013s are the newest on ATi's site. I also have tried the 9016 and 9017s in addition to the 9021s. But these are all beta drivers, and you should take them as is; if someone has problems with an official driver, the last thing they should do is try a beta driver. Beta drivers are for people who's system doesn't have any problems with the official drivers and want to see if the beta drivers improve performance.

But as to "unified drivers", all the RV100, R100, RV200, and R200 cored cards use the same driver (depending on the OS). The Rage128Pro cards use a different driver.