Waiting for FX not ATI

[TourGuide]

I've been researching the 9700 bandwagon for some time now and I've decided to wait for FX and take a pass on ATI.

I've gotten too used to my applications WORKING (read - GAMES) and my install process being relatively painless and not having to deal with onscreen corruption. Most of all though, when I plug a $300 or however many $ piece of hardware into my system it had better be a reasonably smooth experience. I see the people who have stuck with ATI for so long writing these MULTI-page install guides JUST to get the card installed and these do not begin to address the "known issues" that will arise after you successfully install. Since when did that become acceptable?!

No, my Ti4600 will suit me fine until the FX shows up. I am sure there will be problems with the FX too but I am also sure that a YEAR after owning the card I won't be dealing with issues like - onscreen corruption after XP comes out of sleep mode, or - system hardlocks trying to play a cool game with all the details maxed out. (And these are from the WHQL drivers 3.0 catalyst no less).

I'll pay more up front so stuff works. Watch as I extend my middle finger to ATI.

 

[CurtCold]

Originally posted by: TourGuide
I've been researching the 9700 bandwagon for some time now and I've decided to wait for FX and take a pass on ATI.

I've gotten too used to my applications WORKING (read - GAMES) and my install process being relatively painless and not having to deal with onscreen corruption. Most of all though, when I plug a $300 or however many $ piece of hardware into my system it had better be a reasonably smooth experience. I see the people who have stuck with ATI for so long writing these MULTI-page install guides JUST to get the card installed and these do not begin to address the "known issues" that will arise after you successfully install. Since when did that become acceptable?!

No, my Ti4600 will suit me fine until the FX shows up. I am sure there will be problems with the FX too but I am also sure that a YEAR after owning the card I won't be dealing with issues like - onscreen corruption after XP comes out of sleep mode, or - system hardlocks trying to play a cool game with all the details maxed out. (And these are from the WHQL drivers 3.0 catalyst no less).

I'll pay more up front so stuff works. Watch as I extend my middle finger to ATI.

Get out your popcorn and wait. You prolly won't notice much difference between the 4600, and 9700 anyway. I would take that finger you have pointed towards ATI down though, if it wasn't for the 9700 you'd be paying $$$$ more for that FX

 

[TheWart]

I really hope your are not implying that the Radeon 9700 Pro has been out for a year, lol! It is still a relatively "new" card, so yea, there are going to be some issues, but no real known ones. Certain peopl ehave problems, yes, but that is 99% b/c their system is screwed up (not enough good power, OC'ing wrong, etc). I for one have not had any trouble with my 9700 Pro, and look foward to the debut of the R350 right around the time of the FX just to see Nvidia squirm a little. Also, as for the multi-page install guides, yea, ATI driver uninstalltion/installtion is quite a laborious process, compared to Nvidia's for example, but you get the extra performance, so it doesn't bother people who are able to build their own systems from scratch and have a lot of computing experience.

 

[TourGuide]

OK, I'll give you the one about competition. I am glad for ATI being around to keep things semi in check price wise. It that respect ATI is a good deal.

I think their traditional weaknesses have not changed much. Regarding there being no real problems - Read this from the Catalyst 3.0 Release Notes:

Known Issues
The following section provides a brief description of known issues associated with the latest display driver:
· Setting Full Screen Anti-Aliasing to 2x and running the game Unreal Tournament 2003 may result in possible but infrequent system reboots. This issue is occurs with the RADEON? 9000 Pro under the Windows XP operating system
· Playing a DVD with the Windows Media Player and dragging the Player window to the left until the Player is partially outside of the screen results in the wrong positioning of the overlay window. This issue occurs with the RADEON? 9700 under Windows XP
· Display corruption is seen at boot time and when resuming from standby mode. This issue occurs with the RADEON? 9700 under the Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems
· Running the game Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 with all options set to maximum and the display set to 1024x768 32bpp results in a system hang. This issue occurs with the RADEON? 8500 under the Windows 98/98SE and Millennium edition operating systems
· Setting the desktop to 32bpp results in the game Starfleet Command exiting back to the desktop. This issue is noticed under Windows XP with the RADEON? 9700 card installed
· Flashing and missing textures are noticed when running the benchmark for the game Unreal 2003. This issue is noticed under Windows XP with the RADEON? 7000 card installed

I would call those some REAL problems.....from the (LOL) WHQL drivers.

You cannot blame the problems people are having with these cards on "their hardware being fubar-ed". Sorry, that's not an arguement as there are too many people out there with robust system builds who are having the same problems. No the card hasn't been out for a whole year yet, but I should not have to DICK with it SO MUCH in order to get it to function properly (keep in mind that for some people this isn't even achievable).

 

[CurtCold]

Originally posted by: TourGuide
OK, I'll give you the one about competition. I am glad for ATI being around to keep things semi in check price wise. It that respect ATI is a good deal.

I think their traditional weaknesses have not changed much. Regarding there being no real problems - Read this from the Catalyst 3.0 Release Notes:

Known Issues
The following section provides a brief description of known issues associated with the latest display driver:
· Setting Full Screen Anti-Aliasing to 2x and running the game Unreal Tournament 2003 may result in possible but infrequent system reboots. This issue is occurs with the RADEON? 9000 Pro under the Windows XP operating system
· Playing a DVD with the Windows Media Player and dragging the Player window to the left until the Player is partially outside of the screen results in the wrong positioning of the overlay window. This issue occurs with the RADEON? 9700 under Windows XP
· Display corruption is seen at boot time and when resuming from standby mode. This issue occurs with the RADEON? 9700 under the Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems
· Running the game Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 with all options set to maximum and the display set to 1024x768 32bpp results in a system hang. This issue occurs with the RADEON? 8500 under the Windows 98/98SE and Millennium edition operating systems
· Setting the desktop to 32bpp results in the game Starfleet Command exiting back to the desktop. This issue is noticed under Windows XP with the RADEON? 9700 card installed
· Flashing and missing textures are noticed when running the benchmark for the game Unreal 2003. This issue is noticed under Windows XP with the RADEON? 7000 card installed

I would call those some REAL problems.....from the (LOL) WHQL drivers.

You cannot blame the problems people are having with these cards on "their hardware being fubar-ed". Sorry, that's not an arguement as there are too many people out there with robust system builds who are having the same problems. No the card hasn't been out for a whole year yet, but I should not have to DICK with it SO MUCH in order to get it to function properly (keep in mind that for some people this isn't even achievable).

1. Only the 9000 pro, and at 2x, who cares? Difference inbetween letting the game choose and 2x isn't going to be that big anyway.
2. WMP overlay in left corner, just move it to the lower right corner, again not that big of a deal.
3. 8500 in 98se, ME, get a better OS, or choose higher resoloution.
4. Starfleet command...never played it..haven't heard of it until now
5. Benchmarking 2K3 with the 7000? Who cares once again. As long as they can play the game that should suffice anyway.

All of these issues do need to be fixed, this is true, but all of the said issues really aren't that big of a deal. Now if the games/apps woudln't work at all that would be a different story.

Alot of the 9700 problems that I have read/heard after the intial launch date, are just failures on end users most of the time. I do agree that uninstalling and installing cards with ATI does need to be simplified. The fact is most end users aren't upgrading like people in these forums. At the time that most end users upgrade they usually just get the latest and greatest DELL, Compaq, Gateway etc.

I have and still use both ATI and Nvidia. Both have the ups and downs. ATI's drivers have been significantly better as of late. FX is overdue. I have read numerous rants/raves about the 8500 that I now have. I haven't had any problems with the 8500 so far. I never had issues with my GF2 either aside from driver updates.

 

[Tab]

Heh, I dont know about you guys, but I dont want to pay $300 to $500 for a video card! Honestly, the GeForce FX Ultra Version will be around $500

 

[spanky]

good for u.

 

[daction]

I personally can't see Nvidia retailing GeforceFX for $499, my prediction is still $399-$449 for the highend version. If it's $499 then MANY more people will go with ATI based on price alone sheesh, I hope Nvidia doesn't do this.

 

[blade2]

Originally posted by: TourGuide
I've been researching the 9700 bandwagon for some time now and I've decided to wait for FX and take a pass on ATI.


No, my Ti4600 will suit me fine until the FX shows up. I am sure there will be problems with the FX too but I am also sure that a YEAR after owning the card I won't be dealing with issues like - onscreen corruption after XP comes out of sleep mode, or - system hardlocks trying to play a cool game with all the details maxed out. (And these are from the WHQL drivers 3.0 catalyst no less).

i point out again, that a year hasnt passed since the 9700 Pro has passed!! yeesht! what rubbish you are spouting - im sure the FX will be absolutely problem free, because Nvidia is great and ATi suck - i wish people would open their minds - im currently an Nvidia man but i realise that Ati rule the roost and thats the way it is, none of this "boohoo, well the cards are crap even though they are better" - sounds so childish

 

[WyteWatt]

Well the Geforce FX Ultra could be $360. I know its just a estimate from this website but my point is no one really knows for sure how much it will be when it first comes out.

$360 price estimate

 

[BFG10K]

I too am looking forwad to see what the FX can do but at the same time I've been enjoying my 9700 Pro for several months now. Yes it has a few issues but the drivers are getting better and better and it's still the best video card I've ever used.

Watch as I extend my middle finger to ATI.

Your loss.

You prolly won't notice much difference between the 4600, and 9700 anyway.

There's a big difference in performance between the two cards, especially if you like using anisotropic filtering. The Ti4600's anisotropic is so slow it's unusable in most cases.

 

[scottrico]

lol
driver problems?

I am still waiting for game developers to use the features in my geforce 3.
My 9700 is the best card I have ever owned. I have had no problems with any games.
And yes, I have them all.

My geforce 3 had all kinds of driver issues.

geforce fx, lol, I will beleave there is such a card when I see it.

Btw, a game crashing is the game developers fault. They should test their software on the kind of systems their customers will be using. If they dont like it, they can go make xbox games!

peace

 

[daction]

"geforce fx, lol, I will beleave there is such a card when I see it."

You didn't see it online when Nvidia debuted it at Comdex?

 

[KingofFah]

A friend called me a "nvidia-fanboy", and that is about right. However, every card has its problems. If you remember, just a short while ago people were having problems with refresh rates in 2k/xp. Unless you used the refresh-rate fix or knew what you were doing in the registry, you had to deal with 60hz in games.

Watch as I extend my middle finger to ATI.

I really do not like ATI a whole lot, but I do not think that is necessary. Seems like a blatant attempt to start an arguement.

 

[heliomphalodon]

I recently bought a PowerColor 9000 PCI card, because I wanted to use the DVI output to drive my LCD panel. I learned that this card won't work in an Intel N440BX motherboard, apparently because that mobo has on-board video. I also learned that, even in a mobo without on-board video, it's not possible to use two 9000 PCI cards. IMHO this is weak -- either scenario ought to have worked. All these failures were with fresh installs of XP Pro with SP1 and DX9, with several versions (including the latest) of the drivers from both PowerColor and ATI. I tried everything -- perhaps you saw my posting asking for help with this -- nothing worked. I'll be selling the cards, and I doubt that I'll buy another ATI-based product.

Just my $0.02

 

[JackBurton]

WTF is the point of this thread? To tell people your going to wait for nVidia's FX card? Who f&*king cares?! Get a freakin' TNT for all I care!
This thread just made it on my "Most Worthless Thread" list, and it ranks VERY high at that!

 

[TourGuide]

Seems like a blatant attempt to start an arguement.

No this is not an attempt to start an argument, it is mearly an attempt to illustrate my frustration with ATI. (Back in the days of Win9X I was doing this to Bill Gates all the time.) They clearly have a powerful card, but these "minor" issues create major headaches for end users. I think there is a lot more ATI could be doing to make their technology more useable.

WTF is the point...

The point is, I'm bored and I felt like editorializing. If you don't like that TS. I'm interested in a discussion of the relevant points. What are YOU bringing to the thread? Nothing!

 

[Excelsior]

*CRAP THREAD*

Thats great your 4600 works well, but so many other people who haven't gotten a new card in a long time are getting 9700s cause they are simply the superior card. Hell, why are you even waiting for the FX to come out, skip that generation and save yourself a lot of money. And since when has the 9700 been out for a year! Press Release from ATI. And, everyone knows the jump from Geforce 3 to 4 was not near as revolutionary as the 9700 itself. I will say ATI has some work to do in the driver department, but give them some credit. As for me and a lot of people, we will be happy with our card till it doesn't provide enough performance to satisfy our gaming needs, then we will evalutate the market and make a decision, not bash a product we haven't installed in our own system.

And flicking off a company...real mature.

 

[JackBurton]

What are YOU bringing to the thread? Nothing!

Hey, you can't do much with crap.

 

[Spicedaddy]

THANK YOU SO MUCH, I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER I COULD'VE LIVED WITHOUT READING THIS INSIGHTFUL THREAD!!