Randell said:
TBH my view is that a lot of the 'hardware' problems are caused by;
- installing new drivers without clearing out old ones - especially going from 1 IHV to another.
- overclocked unstable systems - especailly overclocked via based mobo's.
- inadequate PSU's, especially on overclocked systems.
I would agree with point #1, but point #2 and #3 are out of place. Here's why.
- I doubt that any person these days, would even dream of installing new drivers without first uninstalling older drivers. The problem is that ATI never seem to have got their uninstaller working right. There is NO plausible reason why, after uninstalling from Control Panel, that you should have ANY trace of driver settings in the registry, let alone have driver files on the HDD. IMO They're just lazy in testing their uninstaller as they are at carefully researching bugs in drivers.
nVidia had this problem too at one time (hence tools like Detonator Destroyer etc), but they seem to have improved in this area.
During my development, I install/install drivers a lot and I have my own script which goes on a SAD op in my registry for telltale entries.
When I installed the UT2003 demo, I was running the 40.41 drivers which had a problem. I uninstalled from CP and installed the 30.82. No problem. When 40.71 came out, I repeated the process and discovered no problems.
With ATI drivers, it is a different story even to this day. I mean, look at this crap. WHY does anyone have to go through that? I mean, seriously.
- Majority of the people with these cards, know enough that overclocking anything, can yield unpredictable results. Even on the Rage3D boards and elsewhere, there are repeated problems which have nothing to do with overclocking. At all.
- There is no reason why a 20A rated 300W PSU which works fine for a GF4 Ti4600 and a Matrox Pahrelia, should not work on a 9xxx card in the same system - the PSU being the constant. Thats just poppycock.
Do you see ANYWHERE on the 9xxx box where they indicate ANYTHING about the PSU requirements for a video card?
If we're going to foolishly include underrated PSUs in this equation, in yet another pitiful attempt at giving ATI a pass, isn't that a bit ludicrous? Why is there NO mention of a rated PSU on the box or in the docs that come in the box?
Most of these people here just post for the hell of it. Unlike yourself and a few others (even that git Democoder) who at least try to post factual data, most of the rhetoric here is based on blinded loyalty and a sordid attempt at getting the rise out of and demean people such as myself (dev or not) who continue to scream out loud that
ATI drivers STILL suck marrow.
Here, go to
this page and read every thread in it. These are mostly power users on Rage3D, not some incompetent ninconpoops who would foolishly install new drivers over old, overclock their machines knowing that their PSU is under rated etc etc. Yet, they are met with the same abusive fervor (sp) from the frigging fan
ATIcs as anywhere else. One guy put it best, and I quote.
Originally posted by GI Killer
Cool Deal, I fixed all the problems that I had after many many hours...I reinstalled my Ti4600 :bleh: I worked with this card all weekend long, search endless sites and tried most of the SUGGESTIONS posted.. By the way, I think we all should put "Dr." before our names as we all are just practicing fixes. Don't get me wrong, I think this card has great potential, but all this crap is crap, I shouldn't have to waste all this time trying to get it right. I'll let the experts at ATI do the research for these fixes. I will reinstall the card with every newly released certified driver, til then I'll be spending my time playing my games..Granted, this card gave me some awesome 3DMark2001 SE benchmarks (12281 up from MSI's Ti, 10454) and my PCMark2002 even went up quite a bit and I even got all my games to play with the 6178 drivers, but the games didn't play as good and as stable as the Ti4600 and thats what counts to me(those are the benchmark tools that mean anything to most of us anyway). For those few of you who say you have no problems, I say, "thank your lucky stars" or you work for ATI.
I am not trying to flame anyone here as this is the conclusion that I have come to for myself. It just boils me that after all the positive reviews from so many places, that the majority of us are have problems and yet in under 15 minutes I can reinstall another card and have no problems....grrr
You know what? He's right. And this is the general theme. I mean, I've seen people post about not having problems with a specific game - while there are literally dozens of others posting about problems with the same game. Then ATI goes out and releases a patch to fix problems with said game(s). And naturally, everyone forgets.
If someone isn't having problems with any game (as some here would like to foolishly think that we're buying that crap), then you should
NEVER have to download new drivers. Ever. You should install the card from the box, use the driver from the CD and never, ever have to download anything. The fact that you download a driver update, in itself, indicates a problem. Whether you are experiencing it or not, is irrelevent. Period.
Here, look at
this guy's post. Does this look like a novice to you? I have seen literally dozens of similar and I keep having emails sent to me directly from people all over the world who have seen my posts and know that I'm practically the
only dev on the planet who is out there briinging this fight directly to ATI in the hopes that they listen and get their act in gear. And if some of you think I'm the only dev in this (they're not indies like I am), you should be on ICQ, IRC or my email inbox on a weekly basis and see what goes back and forth. This ATI fiasco is at
epidemic levels and even they know this and
are trying to curb and resolve it. But the fanatics are just compounding the problem and making ATI look worse off, with this ludicrous rhetoric, wanton acts of abuse and the like. YOU [fan
ATIcs] are ATI's
worst nightmare, not the people having problems - since most just want their f*cking card to work and have nothing to gain with vendettas or political grandstanding.
As for the reviewers, most are full of shit. Period. Sure, there are reviewers who do a damn good job of reviewing the card as they stand and on benchmarks. Most do
NOT play games, let alone play them long enough to uncover problems. And just because 3DMark ran perfectly, doesn't mean squat. I mean, back when everyone and their one-legged mother in law were posting benchmarks, saying the drivers were fine (the 775 drivers no less!!!!!), games like The Thing, Mafia, GTA3, Morrowind, DaOC, EQ etc etc were having major and immediate problems. Heck, even hardware TnL was busted!!!
Did 3DMark or
any benchmark program detect any of these problems? Nope. Does this even come close to saying that the card works fine? Nope. The HW working (when it does) is
USELESS if the drivers which form the layer between the HW and the SW, are piss-poor and bug ridden.
Reviewers get freebies from most HW vendors. Heck, I can't remember the last time I forked out a
dime for hardware (even monitors). I need something, I pick up the phone or send email. A few days later, it shows up. As such, contrary to those who want to brand me as an nVidiot (maybe I should be proud of this, dunno), I am completely neutral and not biased in any fashion because I have nothing at stake - except that I want the games that I develop and those that I buy to play, work as they should with minimum or no fuss.
I mean, look at these
50 recent shots. All the space scenes were taken on a 9700Pro board and the planetary scenes on a GF4 Ti4600. No AF. No FSAA. Nothing. Just pure. To the casual onlooker, they [space shots] look fine. Great even. But from where I'm sitting, I can see the tearing and artifacts as a result of driver problems, Z buffer precision loss (they removed the W buffer from the 9xxx) etc I have spent the better part of six months developing this kernel, only to have it look and run less than perfectly on a next-gen card - when in fact, it works just fine on other cards, including the 8500 series. And thats just space. As of this writing, I am stilling researching methods of fixing the problem with the planetary terrain which works
fine on ALL previous boards, including the 8500. I've tried almost four suggestions from the ATI driver team - NONE of which have worked and am in the process of trying one more option. Again, exclusively for the 9xxx series. My time could be better spent in other pressing dev issues, instead of chasing the same problem for almost
a month now and with no solution in sight!.
Using Rage3d as a litmus test is just plain wrong as its 'the site' for ATI issues. Almost every other game forum, multiplayer GSP forum, tech site as well as NVnews/3dGPu is used by nVidia card owners. Look at the UT2003 forum - lots of issues with all cards, the same issues that are posted at Rage3d and the nVdia/ATI drivers are hardly ever to blame - eitehr its SecureROM causing a problem or netmeeting or bad DX8 installs etc
I disagree. Rage3D should be the litmus test because it is the first stop - and most recognized one for ATI boards. I do visit other forums and yes, like the Infogrammes UT boards, they have posts about problems with other drivers. But the fact remains, you can't compare visual artifacts on 40.71 drivers (which were NOT official drivers to begin with!!) to solid lockups, no ops etc on the 9700Pro. Even the official 40.71 drivers, fixed what visual artifacts there were - and which were not present on the aged 30.82 drivers. In the case of ATI, a problem in the 777 drivers - STILL - exists on the 776 and 775 drivers, with the exception of a few game-specific issues which were fixed. The problem postings on the ATI boards totally
eclipse those of other boards, in fact, including the 8500 series. Nobody is advocating that drivers are perfect. The issue is that traditionally ATI drivers have been the
worse of the bunch and despite the fact that they have made some progress in this area, they
still have a long way to go and don't seem to be in a hurry to get there.
I have friends who had to roll back to earlier drivers from tne 30.82's, let alone the 40.xx's to get the UT2003 demo to work on their Gf3.
Right. Are your friends in the
I'm a stupid dork category who would (a) use leaked drivers (b) install new drivers on top of older drivers (c) pee in the neighbor's lawn (d) think Lara Croft is hot ?
The 40.41 drivers were leaked and were interim drivers designed to fix a specific list of items for developers (I should know, I'm in the dev program). The 40.71 drivers had none of those problems. Which is why they were officially releeased.
From my own experience, its not the quality of ATI drivers that would make me consider an NV30 over an R300. It would be AA implementation, overall perfromance, price etc.
Exactly. And isn't this what its about? What works for you? Thats the thing. If it works for you, thats fine. But that should not take away the fact that it may
NOT work for someone else. And just because it doesn't work for that group of people, doesn't mean that they are entitled to abuse, derogatory remarks and the like.
