ATI Video Cards....

[Guest Bob I]

Morning,I have been an Nvidia card owner for some time, and am thinking of trying an ATI, and have a couple of questions. What is Smartguart, and what is it used for. Also, is there a program like Detenator Destroyer for ATI drivers, or is one even necessary for ATI cards. Looks like this fellow at Omega is doing for the card drivers what ATI's own engineering should be doing. Oh, what is this media package that is installed with the ATI drivers. Is this an install option, or do you get it wheather you want it or not? Thanks...Bob I.... in sunny FloridaAlias=Layabout

[Guest SoarPics]

"What is Smartguart, and what is it used for."SMARTGART sets the AGP level and gives you the choice to enable/disable Fastwrites."Also, is there a program like Detenator Destroyer for ATI drivers, or is one even necessary for ATI cards."I use Driver Cleaner, though I've not had a problem with driver corruption when trying different drivers with my 9700 Pro. Just do the Windows Add/Remove routine, and then install my new drivers."Looks like this fellow at Omega is doing for the card drivers what ATI's own engineering should be doing."Omega doesn't do anything that you and I can't do with a good tweaking program. He does add some features to his ATI driver package... an over-clocking module, artifact tester (to check your over-clock), and some other stuff I don't find that useful. Still, it's nice that he's doing all the "quality" tweaking for folks."Oh, what is this media package that is installed with the ATI drivers. Is this an install option, or do you get it wheather you want it or not?"Don't know about that...?My only complaint about my ATI card (and it's not their fault) is that I can't get Rivatuner to work with it. RT is supposed to work with the latest gen of ATI's, but all I get is an error message inside RT that says it doesn't support my drivers. No matter which CAT's I have installed."Thanks..."You're welcome, :-)

[Guest dfoulk]

Have you tried Rage3D as your tweeker? It workwith 9xxx series ATI's.Can email it to you if you [email protected] Den

[Guest SoarPics]

Thanks, Den, but I have tried it. Just can't get "into" it. Certainly nothing wrong with it... just can't seem to get happy with it. I always liked RivaTuner when I used nVidia cards, I can do alot with it. Was just looking forward to tweaking the ATI card with it.Funny thing is, the preview of RivaTuner at Guru3D says it will work on the CAT's. No way can I get it to even see the drivers for my ATI though.Thanks again,

[Guest SoarPics]

I did some more research on this ATI/RivaTuner matter. Simply put, making RT work with ATI cards isn't easy.Thus far I've gleaned that the ATI drivers must first be patched... simple enough except that the patch must be applied BEFORE installing the drivers. Also, Low Level overclocking won't work on ATI cards using RivaTuner... the only option is driver overclocking. I'm still trying to find more info about how the ATI/RT combo work with each other.So, while the maker of RivaTuner claims it works with ATI cards/drivers, the reality is that RivaTuner was created to tweak nVidia drivers, and that it does very well. Getting it to work with ATI drivers is a bit more difficult.The last couple of weeks I've been using the latest Omega's with my 9700 Pro. Don't see any miracle performance or quality enhancements with them, but their are some nice and easy to use tweaking tools that are packaged with them.

[gosta]

Hi Bob,>Oh, what is this media package that is installed with the ATI drivers. Is this an install option, or do you get it wheather you want it or not?http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg