Reply With QuoteThe 3.9 just came out. Like what? Maybe 5 minutes ago? I'd wait. I did try the 3.8 drivers. I was trying to play Morrowind and the whole thing was just fucked up. Backed down to 3.7 and all was happy again.
I grabbed the Catalyst 3.9s (never did install the 3.8s) but haven't installed them--I'm wondering whether I should just hold on to 3.7 for a while, because 3.8 seemed to be a very iffy thing? Any info?
The 3.9 just came out. Like what? Maybe 5 minutes ago? I'd wait. I did try the 3.8 drivers. I was trying to play Morrowind and the whole thing was just fucked up. Backed down to 3.7 and all was happy again.
Oh, I'm waiting. I just download them and archive 'em until someone says they're ok :) The release notes say something about fixing Morrowind problems but probably good to wait for another vict...er guinea pig to find out.
Was anything useful actually fixed in the last few driver releases? I rad the readme and wasn't impressed.
If you want to play call of duty, dont use 3.8
So here I am, thinking about replacing my Ti4400 and then I see this topic. With all the ATI gushing that's been spurting all over the Internet, I've been thinking about getting a high-end ATI.
But then I see these posts about Catalyst. So what's a fool like me to do? I don't use AA much, because of the performance hit -- but then again, I'm using nVidia. But here, for the first time, I'm seeing some ATI detraction.
Is anyone else having problems with ATI cards? I was also thinking about picking up Call of Duty and I play Morrowind frequently... but I now see ATI has problems with these.
So, now I'm thinking of going with the industry-standard slug of nVidia rather than the emerging butterfly that is ATI.
I'm so confused.
On the whole, the Catalyst series of drivers have been pretty good. At least for me, I haven't had many problems. The only exception is 3.8 which is the pits.
Stability wise, I can't really complain about my Radeon 9500 Pro. Performance wise I've been less than happy. My old Geforce 4200 128MB often outperformed or at least held its own with my current 9500 Pro. I don't use AA either and while ATI seems to be promising for future titles, I'd rather have my Geforce back. People say the image quality is better with ATI cards and maybe it is, but I never noticed in 3d or 2d. I just notice how choppy some games are.
I went from a Ti4200 to a 9800 Pro, and have been very happy. Faster and better looking by far. The 3.7 Catalyst drivers are fine, I've only heard bad things about the 3.8s which I never installed. I haven't heard that much good about the FX cards from NVIDIA which is why I switched after many years of that brand.
When I was hunting around for mid-range videocards recently, I found these charts over at Tom's Hardware that compare a lot of recent video chips:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic..._guide-12.html
They show the 9500 Pro to be slightly faster than a 4200, but they are very close. The 9800 is in a whole different league, at least 70% faster than either the 4200 or the 9500 Pro.
I've been high on ATI since i got my 9800 a while back, and have had *zero* problems with it... that is until the 3.8's. They were a nightmare for me. They literally caused my card to shut down, and i'd lose signal to my monitor. I thought the card itself was bad, and even went so far as to return it to Circuit City for a new one. I was stunned when the new one did the same thing, and then found a thread somewheres where people were describing the same type of 'blackout problem' as i was having. For me the problem only occurred after installing the 3.8's, occurred frequently, and since rolling back to 3.7, it hasn't happened again. That coupled with reports of others saying the same thing, leads me to conclude it was definitely the 3.8's that did it. ATI's insistence that there was nothing wrong with the 3.8's, and blaming the reports on mass hysteria and bandwagon jumping was nauseating to read.
Add me to the group of those with the 3.9's who are sitting here waiting to hear they aren't going to blow up my computer.
The chief advantage for me is that the Radeons put out much less heat; I can turn off the fan with no problem.
The ATI PR flacks aren't Jedi so "These aren't the droids you are looking for." routine just doesn't fly.Originally Posted by jeffjones
Does anyone know how to actually force AA to disabled? "Application preference" now gives me 2x AA in Diablo 2, which looks fucking awful. It tried a couple of the Radeon tweak utilities, but they're all written by morons who assume you're Administrator on the machine.
Select custom and move the AA slider all the way to the left- that should disable (I know I did it for the Halo demo).Does anyone know how to actually force AA to disabled? "Application preference" now gives me 2x AA in Diablo 2, which looks fucking awful. It tried a couple of the Radeon tweak utilities, but they're all written by morons who assume you're Administrator on the machine.
Turn on AA/AF and that 9500 Pro will be more than twice as fast as the 4200.
That's what I'm doing; it doesn't work. Pah!
Where are you seeing that you have 2x AA on in Diablo 2? That doesn't make any sense. as D2 has no AA setting. Application Preference means that AA and AF are OFF, unless the app/game turns it on itself, and if it does, it uses the game's setting. Since D2 has no AA control in it's options, AA should be completely off if you have yours set to App Preference.
There's a known bug in the ATI control panel that causes new settings to not take effect until a reboot (and sometimes not even then).
I love my 9700 Pro but I had to stop overclocking my CPU because of the additional heat it was generating in my case. They run pretty hot to say the least.
-- Xaroc
Edit: Oh and the 3.8s have been rock solid and look great for me. I will have to check the 3.9s though.
The 3.8s caused graphics corruption in Halo and BF1942 for me. I went back to 3.7. They work, so I'm not going to go to 3.9 until something else doesn't work.
I've had gigantic fonts with Freelancer with the last two Catalyst drivers (.8 and .9). Not sure why or if I did something.
Never answer "Yes" when the installation program asks if you want to Supersize something. ;)
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