What driver is recommended for a 9800 Pro?

[Viper96720]

THe 9800 Pro the extra power you have to plug in uses normal molex like the one you plug into your cd or hard drive. I was wondering if one of the fan only plugs were used by mistake.

 

[dirtrat]

Thanks for everyones help. I'm going to return the card to Best Buy for a refund. I bought it locally and I'm still within my return window since I've only had it less than a week. I don't know if this card is defective or just doesn't like my system but I've decided to wait until later for more video card choices. I know this may be a long time but I feel it may be worth the wait.

 

[Regs]

How are the 3.5 Drivers? I keep seeing everybody post "get the 3.5's!" but every site I look on reports bugs with them. If they don't offer any performance gain, nor do they offer any change over my 3.3 cats, why should I get bugged drivers?

My ATI came with 3.3 Cats, however I do not see many people running 3.3 :/. Is the 3.3 set horrible or something?

 

[FluxCap]

I never used 3.3s , just 3.2s and now 3.5s. I really like them a lot. No issues yet. I played my first game in 1600x1200 last night and got about 60 FPS

Sorry to hear that Dirtrat. Maybe it was something very hard to troubleshoot or a bad card.
One of the things bothering me over the past week is seeing people who can't get their 9700 Pro or 9800 Pro to work on their system. It sucks that some small compatibility issue prevents them from using a truly amazing card. I wish I could pass my luck onto those people.

 

[Viper96720]

I had a 9500 Pro that crapped out. Got a replacement one and it's been fine all along. Don't know what happened to the old one. Had it about 4 days went to go out
of standby and the screen was all garbled even on boot up.

 

[Regs]

Went with the Cat 3.5 and my 3dmark score actually went up 500 points :/ . Maybe the point increase was likely due to the cached data from other 3dmark runs.

 

[CtK]

my friend about a year ago got the 9700 pro and when he went to play NFS: HP2 it wouldnt play
so he went to the forums and they said he needed to get a patch for the game to play it with his vid card
he told me for a couple of other games he had to do the samething?!?!

is this true and this guy worked for aLIEnWARE so i think he knows what he is doing

im looking for a new vid card and was about to get a 9800P but he told me he is having lots of problem at work getting that card to work with every type of setup??
and told me to just get a 5900 or 5900U??

 

[Regs]

Well I do not know about him, but my 9800 is playing every game I've played perfectly without patchs.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: CtK
is this true and this guy worked for aLIEnWARE so i think he knows what he is doing

im looking for a new vid card and was about to get a 9800P but he told me he is having lots of problem at work getting that card to work with every type of setup??
and told me to just get a 5900 or 5900U??

Just cos he works for alienware doesnt mean he knows his stuff. I could work for NASA as a cleaner, but it wouldnt mean i knew how to design, calculate and piolet a space shuttle does it?
The problem is, that when one person has a slight problem with a ATI card, they panic, get rid of it, tell everyone they know not to buy ATI cards, and whine about it on various forums. If it was nVidia, no-one would bat an eye-lid.
Get the 9800pro. Its better than the 5900 and about the same as the 5900ultra, but far cheaper than both, and with better IQ.

 

[FluxCap]

Well I do not know about him, but my 9800 is playing every game I've played perfectly without patchs.

Ditto.

And most of what is being said is true. ATI is still having to prove that it is a viable company to most. A lot of people are catching on to the fact that their cards are quality and the old "driver sucks" comment makes them look stupid. So, why the rest of the gamers figure this out I will be playing the fastest card on the market for a lot less than a slightly slower 5900U. If they were the same price it would be a toss up between the two but since they aren't....

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: FluxCap

Well I do not know about him, but my 9800 is playing every game I've played perfectly without patchs.

Ditto.

Forgot. Ditto as well, but with 9700pro.

 

[CtK]

Originally posted by: BoomAM

Originally posted by: CtK
is this true and this guy worked for aLIEnWARE so i think he knows what he is doing

im looking for a new vid card and was about to get a 9800P but he told me he is having lots of problem at work getting that card to work with every type of setup??
and told me to just get a 5900 or 5900U??

Just cos he works for alienware doesnt mean he knows his stuff. I could work for NASA as a cleaner, but it wouldnt mean i knew how to design, calculate and piolet a space shuttle does it?
The problem is, that when one person has a slight problem with a ATI card, they panic, get rid of it, tell everyone they know not to buy ATI cards, and whine about it on various forums. If it was nVidia, no-one would bat an eye-lid.
Get the 9800pro. Its better than the 5900 and about the same as the 5900ultra, but far cheaper than both, and with better IQ.

ok he was the product manager at aLIEnWARE
he test all the new hardware and benchmarks it and stuff

the 9800 pro 256 and 5900 ultra are in the $500 range
9800P 128 and 5900 are in the $350-400 range
so its pretty evenly priced

so if you guys had a choice 5900U and 9800P 256 at the same price you would get the ATI??

 

[FluxCap]

so if you guys had a choice 5900U and 9800P 256 at the same price you would get the ATI??

Tough call

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: CtK
so if you guys had a choice 5900U and 9800P 256 at the same price you would get the ATI??

I would get the 9800Pro 256mb. Or i might wait till the next big game comes out, then buy then.

 

[KashGarinn]

Actually I did have problems with installing my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, but I found out what was making the booboo happening. This is what I did.

I uninstalled my geforce 3 card, and shut down the computer. I installed the ATI 9800 pro card into my rig.

I turned my rig on. I installed the drivers off of the CD and rebooted. I tried to run 3dmark03, and it gave me errors when starting up. I tried moving the 3dmark03 window, and it was slow and hiccupy.

I used nvidia file remover to remove all nvidia driver files.

I tried the latest ATI driver. Same problem with starting up 3dmark03.

I checked the display properties. Under the troubleshooting tab I found my answer!!!!!!

For some reason the hardware acceleration was not on full, it was on somekind of safe mode.

I turned the sucker up to full.

I could open up 3dmark03 without any problems. I checked the driver info in 3dmark03, and found out the older drivers were installed.

I went to display properties and clicked on "update driver" and chose the latest driver from the list.

I restarted my pc, ran 3dmark 03, and got 5001 3dmarks

I love the card now.

K.

 

[FluxCap]

Cool, glad you enjoy it. As soon as you said this:

I uninstalled my geforce 3 card, and shut down the computer.

I thought that could be part of your problem :evil: