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If ATI's drivers "suck" how come my old Radeon 64 VIVO

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FS2002 at 1880 x 1440 x 32 usually locked at 21-22 with ALL hardware features active, and most sliders to max, and never ever ever ever locks up, even o'clocked to 110%? The same is true for Soldier of Fortune II, RTCW, Links2001, and all the rest, including flawless full screen DVD playback?The driver issue is such a rediculous issue at this point. They have had excellent, THAT'S EXCELLENT, drivers for the last year.Last time I had an nVidia card (ok it was a while ago) lock ups were the rule and 2D image quality was pathetic at higher resolutions. There have been so many posts of GeForce cards not working right with this driver set or that that one guesses the criterion for "good driver support" = freq driver releases. Just go back and read all the kind recommendations on how to get your GF to work as advertised. Bah!Noel


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Guest Pardue802

Wish I could say the same :-( I haven't been satisfied with ATI's drivers in some time. I have jumpy DVD playback, and what's worse, can't seem to enable Anti-aliasing on any games, especially FS2002. Grant it, I do have an old 32MB ATI All in Wonder (the original). Still, it would be nice. I haven't seen AntiAliasing in FS2002 for many, many driver releases :-(Kenneth

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Guest PaulL01

>FS2002 at 1880 x 1440 x 32 usually locked at 21-22 with ALL >hardware features active, and most sliders to max, and never >ever ever ever locks up, even o'clocked to 110%? The same >is true for Soldier of Fortune II, RTCW, Links2001, and all >the rest, including flawless full screen DVD playback? >>The driver issue is such a rediculous issue at this point. >They have had excellent, THAT'S EXCELLENT, drivers for the >last year. >>Last time I had an nVidia card (ok it was a while ago) lock >ups were the rule and 2D image quality was pathetic at >higher resolutions. >>There have been so many posts of GeForce cards not working >right with this driver set or that that one guesses the >criterion for "good driver support" = freq driver releases. >Just go back and read all the kind recommendations on how to >get your GF to work as advertised. Bah! Noel, You seem to be confusing the issue, the issue has never been about the cards, both ATI and Nvidia make excellent cards the issue was "driver support" and on that ATI has a bad track record but they have made progress.The "S" part has to do with how long it has taken and continues to take ATI to respond to problems with the Radeon and its inability to use its features with a majority of DX and OGL games across all supported operating systems. When the original Radeon came out it took them almost a whole year to sort many of the problems with only a couple of driver versions in between, try to imagine that, you just plunked down your dough and have to wait that long before you can enjoy your favorite sim. :( With the release of the Radeon8500 it has been gradually getting better. It is obvious you are a latecomer to the "game" as any and many a "burned" ATI Radeaon veteran can support me on this. On the other hand Nvidia has consistently delivered driver updates and that

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With all due respect Paul, I have not experienced ANY problems with OGL since the very first driver set. And almost zero problems with DX titles. Performance was excellent, all features worked, and so on. I bought the 64 VIVO DDR and immediately ran FS, Links, Q3A, and every single other title with no artifact, no lockups, etc. FSAA has worked, but was moot since FS runs at exceedingly high resolutions on this 2 year old card and looks excellent as well. In all my visits here, I don't think I've seen one reference to a GF card running at these high resolutions, though I'm assuming that's because of monitors that won't support it.I will grant everyone one thing: the first several driver releases were a nightmare to deinstall/install until you got on to the obscure methods involved. Needing to install video capture, rage theatre, etc to get DVD and other features to work sometimes was a challenge. I'm afraid what appears obvious to you is simply not accurate. I have not been a newcomer. I have read of the woes of some Radeon users. However, again driver installation was obscure, but always worked if you understood the cryptic pathways to get it right. I bought my card in August of 2000, almost 2 years ago, and the drivers the card came with worked! Plug n play!I will maintain again, for the last year driver sets have been easier to install, work fine in all areas with the occasional exception, and this was almost always due to installation issues versus driver performance. And again, the number of posts on "how to get my GeForce4 Ti4600 to work in FS" is highly conspicuous to me. Yes, I know there are undoubtedly more GFs installed, but if their install routines and driver function was as flowery as the nVidia proponents imply then I don't understand why all the queries.Perhaps different mainboards had real issues with Radeon that I had the fortune of not experiencing. My guess is 90% of all problems with Radeon has been problems with driver installation.I built 3 machines 2 years ago, each with Radeon 64, two with this BX6r2, one with a BH6 if I recall. All have worked flawlessly. I think the one prominent feature for me with Radeon has been the complete, and i mean complete, lack of screen freezes. I have read many a post of screen lock ups with GF cards.If you wish, I'll send you an uncompressed 1880 x 1440 x 32 bit screen shot from the lovely Pacific Northwest sometime, and you can enjoy the pristine graphics, complete with FPS counter. Truth be told: we don't run at 1880 x 1440 x 32 unless we're away from the big terminals of course as the Radeon is not that potent by today's standards, but it's never below 1600x32, and is usually at 1792x32.I bought the card for $159 2 years ago. The lowest price today is $140. It still goes strong today! So it's easy to see why I've been a happy camper with this choice. And, my next machine, which will be redicuously powered vs my current rig, will sport either a GeForce4 Ti4600 of the Gainward variety I believe for its two DVI outs, or perhaps the R300, or perhaps the NV30.And I'll stand by my claim that ATI drivers for this card have been very very solid for the last year. Cheers,Noel


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Guest Pardue802

Glad to hear of all of you guys' success with the Radeon. I'd like to see that screenshot myself, actually. kenneth@taylormadecom.com (no attachment size limitations). You seem to have a great deal of success with later Radeons, should I put my money into purchasing an 8500DV (whatever I get it must be All-in-Wonder... love how this card doubles as my entertainment system :-)). Or perhaps one of the new 9000 series? Would the 9000 be as good as the 9700 for my needs? I'm a casual game user except for FS, but I need the television and digital video capabilities.Heck, I don't care, I just want to see Anti-Aliasing in FS again :-( I'm tired of jaggies everywhere.1.33 GHz Athlon, 256MB RAMGigabyte GA7DXATI Radeon 32MB DDR AIW

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Guest PaulL01

"I'm afraid what appears obvious to you is simply not accurate"Again the main stick in the mud was the original Radeon, and then in the the newer first shipping version of the R8500 the AA was broken and folks had to wait for drivers that worked. This is not my opinion Noel, it is simply history that is documented all over the web, even in reviews of todays R8500, ATI's driver support is still a concern.Glad you enjoy your card, R8500 is an excellent card.Later,

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Alex yes I've seen the references. Now go do a search for GF install problems, driver problems, etc. They pop up regularly enough for me to call ATI vs nVidia a virtual wash. I never said no one has had driver install or function problems with Radeons.Everything I stated in my experiences with the 3 Radeon 64s was entirely true. AA works on this old card, but as I stated at 1792 x 1330 x 32 there is not much point. I made the original comment mainly from reading the many posts regarding how to get your GF working properly, and how the reputation persists that Radeon driver support is poor is simply not much of an issue any longer.Cheers,Noel


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Guest Sabadin

I fail to see what the point of bringing up that thread is. So there's a bug invloving FSAA and the 2d guages in FS2k2. Not as if this never happened on any GF cards before. I know I had that for a while with my GF3, but that smeared the whole panel not just gauges. It doesn't mean that Nvidia sucks at drivers does it? The past is the past.( that and a simple click of the mouse clears up the whole thing with the radeon so its not like is makes the sim unplayable)

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Guest flightpro08

Well, first of all Noel, I find your title a bit offensive for a public forum. There is no need to use the word "suck" on these boards, as I'm sure there are many youngers surfing through them. As for the 'true' meaning of your original post...I had a ATI Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO card for about a year. At first, the card was a nice upgrade from my Voodoo3 32MB card, but I was never truely satasfied with it. In regards to it's performance with FS2k2, it was flat out terrible. Blurry textures were a normal occurance and the image quality was very sub-par.Finally, after a year with the card, I saved up enough money to get myself a GeForce4 128MB Ti4600. Getting a nVidia card was like getting a new computer for me. The blurries are virtually gone and the image quaility is outstanding. And you know the best thing about the card? With ever new det driver that comes out, my FPS and image quaility just get better and better. With my ATI card, I knew everytime I would upgrade a driver to eliminate a problem that I would only come to find another, new problem.There isn't enough money in this world to make me go back to an ATI card. nVidia with their det drivers are just flat out the best IMHO. Now, you're 100% intitled to your opinion, that's what makes these boards so great, but I do have to strongly disagree with you and say that ATI and their driver support is terrible.

*NONE OF THIS POST WAS IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM MEANT TO START ANY KIND OF ATI VS. NVIDIA FLAME WAR. IT WAS JUST MEANT TO SHOW THE OTHER SIDE OF AN ONGOING DRIVER DISCUSSION* :-)

Ryan-Flightpro08 :-coolTaxiwaysigns.com

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Guest PaulL01

Funny, I was just reading Anandtech review of ATI's new R9700 and here is a quote:"keep in mind that it wasn

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Guest Sabadin

you have to remember the GOOD drivers for the 8500 are barely a month old and prolly didnt exist when carmack made his comment. And if youre gonna bring that up you might want to mention that the Radeon 9700 proto is what has been running the DOOM3 tech demos and Carmack is in full support of it.

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Guest PaulL01

>you have to remember the GOOD drivers for the 8500 are >barely a month old and prolly didnt exist when carmack made >his comment. Thanks for making my point, the Radeon8500 has been out for how long? and the "good" drivers have been out how long? :-roll And if youre gonna bring that up you might want >to mention that the Radeon 9700 proto is what has been >running the DOOM3 tech demos and Carmack is in full support >of it. I think I referred to that when I said "That is a quote from someone that ATI is happy to have endorse their new card"Look, ATI, Matrox, NV who cares? The point is if its good, its good and if its bad its bad! and as Carmack said the ATI drivers are "bad" and they have been bad! And there are plenty of NV problems as well, Take for instance the problem with the GF4MX card not supporting FS2k2's reflections properly, thats bad, I said so, I also made contact with some folks inside Nvidia who care and are at work on the problem, and untill the problem is resolved you will still hear folks including myself that hapen to use Nvidia based boards telling other folks to stay away from the GF4mx as "they are bad cards". It would be stupid to try and defend the card saying they are great and have no problem even if you are one of the very few who got the reflections to work...........Kapeesh?Just let it go...............Just let it go.....................jus....le.......it.........g.......

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All my commentary was directed at the Radeon 64 VIVO card which I have. Someone here moved the argument over to 8500 which was their doing. I stand fully behind everything I said as the unabashed truth!Cheers,NoelHopefully I can wait for NV30 to debut and see how it looks. I am REALLY looking forward to my next machine which should be a total racehorse I can't wait!1. P4 Northwood, retail box, at whatever stock clockspeed it takes to allow for overclocking to 3.0GHz with stock retail HSF. (2.53 to 2.8 I would guess)2. 1GB of PC1066 Samsung RDRAM on an i850e mainboard from ASUS or Gigabyte most likely. This ram and this CPU are a perfect match as far as max bandwidth goes.3. Duel Seagate Cheetah X15 drives on a single channel Adaptec SCSI160 controller, housed externally, situated in the crawlspace under my PC room's floor, where it's cool to cold all the time, and where it will remain quiet.4. Lian Li PC-68 aluminum case with some key modifications to allow for intake air and exhaust air to be powered by fans located AT THE END of 3-4" ducting drawing cool to cold crawlspace air into the case, and blowing the warmed air out of the house. By locating the fans at the end of the ducts we can reduce fan noise within the case, and give our P4 a good fighting chance at super cool and super quiet overclocking.5. Vid card TBD. Geforce4 Ti4600 vs Radeon 9700 vs NV30.6. Probably go with EIDE CDRW and DVD.7. Leaning towards Win2000 today. I DO NOT like the whole activation technology factor. I just don't liek the idea of having to make a connection to MS to make it work under certain circumstances.I would LOVE to test drive this sys with FS2002. I predict it will truly handle anything current addons can throw at it and give it a fighting chance at running FS2004 well.I am going to order the case this weekend to start with some simple case modifications aimed at having the capability of doing standard internal cooling with its speed-controllable fan system, or doing the subfloor remote fans ducting gig, and wait a bit longer on the rest of the parts. It's going to cost way too much, but it should be an excellent and durable performer.


Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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Guest

Noel, With you all the way on this one...I've stuck a RadeonLE (32MB) & a Radeon 8500 (64) in three different systems multiple times, jumping back and forth from whatever NVidia cards are lying around, plus a Voodoo5 and not once do I recall having any type of driver related problems...oh wait, the shipping drivers on the old LE were bogus.Beyond all that, I am no more impressed with the GF4 4200 than the Radeon 8500, in fact, the ATI card can Anti-Alias far better than the highly touted GF4. I would actually rate the Radeon's drivers superior to NVidia's at this stage. Driver issues? A thing of the past boys and girls, unless the pilot is having a bad day, I suppose, or the OS is trashed. We are all tired of the silly vid card war, but the blokes that judge, flame, and criticize one company or another perhaps are neglecting to take a bit of responsibility. I would not be so quick to doubt the upcoming Radeon 9700, as I have seen some do here. After looking carefully at the specs and the previews, and knowing for myself what the 8500 can do, it would seem NVidia has a mammoth task on their hands...but who knows? Maybe they have been waiting for ATI to announce first before striking with their own weapon...and I can't beleive I am still talking.I'll shut up now,Cheers simmers! :-beerchugGreg

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