Is it that all reviewers suck because of the high levels of endorsement they are giving the Radeon 9700 pro? Or is it because they are clueless? In general most reviewers do take their time to review a card. Now this isn't to say that all reviewers know WTF they are doing by any means. I guess I would take the middle road here and say some know what they are doing ..... a lot some don't know a damned thing and most are somewhere in the middle. The fact that they are doing reviews of video cards shows that they already know more then 99% of the population. derek is attacking reviewers because they don't agree with his conclusions there is nothing terribly amuck with reviewers in general at all.
ATi responses challenge of NV30 with R350
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Sebastian, being pro-reviewers now puts people on sticky ground. How many people here slagged off reviewers for not knowing what they were doing when the V5 got bad reviews or when the 8500 wasnt tested with AF on or the 8500 4xAA was tested against Gf3 4xAA with no mention of the extra hit SS has over MS and the added benefit of texture sampling and alpha texture AA?
Derek Smart [3000AD said:
You display a phenomenol dishonesty when the exact same forums you selectively quote demonstrate that this supposition is quite definitely wrong. Do I have to tell you what terms to use to search to prove this to yourself, or are you willing to use the same search abilities you've used to defend your stance ...or, heaven forbid, admit that you could be wrong? My guess is you'll ignore this point, ignore that being incorrect in each detail invalidates the structure of your argument, and practice name calling at me instead, and it would actually be nice to be proved wrong in this expectation.
This is a pretty good point, actually...maybe if your attacks focused on that, this comment could be heard through all the other "constructive"
noises you make. It strikes me that you've implied that this has to do with driver quality and bugs, when there is no logical basis for this. Or did detonator's "suck" when detonator destroyer was necessary (again, I take your word that it is not anymore)? If not, isn't it a bit dishonest to harp on it as if it supports your stance?Hmm...and I've never had problem installing and uninstalling official drivers for any of my ATi cards. Did have a problem with one beta set out of the many I've tried. And, I also set up a clean install when I switched cards (so I didn't have multiple display entries, to avoid future problems). I also found uninstalling and then installing catalysts to be pretty easy when I did that. Are you saying all nVidia users have had no problems with driver updates?
Strange, that looks pretty identical to this which was written about a year ago for nVidia drivers. You aren't by any chance grasping at anything to throw at this argument even without any clear rational connection to your point, are you? I keep wondering if your posts will suddenly disappear when you get distant enough from your emotions to realize how foolish some of the behavior in them appears (IMO), or if you'll be honest enough to leave them.
Wait, are you trying to say that people who buy the 9700 don't overclock? Am I understanding your sentiment correctly?
In my experience on those boards, it strikes me I've seen several cases where problems have been addressed to being related to overclocking of the card or system. Perhaps we should count how many actually specify brand and rating of the PSU and that their system isn't overclocked...you imply that you have, could you give me a ratio?
This has been addressed a few times already. I take it you've admitted to being wrong about this part of your support for your statement? Doesn't including it as an integral part of your argument and then having it being shown to be flawed indicate that you need to try again, perhaps sticking to things a bit more based on fact and not statements that you'd like to be true to support you?
Aren't you embarassed by this now? It appears you never even checked before you made this statement...do you admit the possibility that your own actions may be the cause of people criticizing you, and not membership to some "fanATIc fanboi" collective out to get you?
Ok, and you're posting factual data? I seem to remember repeated request for facts, and this post is what we've gotten instead. Maybe there is some conversation I'm not privy to where you explained why you didn't provide facts when asked, but from where I stand it just looks like you either consider facts as only being required by others, or consider your own suppositions as fact without any support. Since you don't know me, let me just clarify that this is the rather huge problem I personally have with you. Here is a golden opportunity...make a thread, post the facts for us all to see, instead of all this unsubtantiated, loud, and frankly, forgive me for not taking the importance of your statements for granted, annoying rants that get us absolutely nowhere. That is all you really have to do, you can even be as brash as you want when doing it if the facts are really there...why can you spend the time to make a post like this, and not a post like that?
About your quote of GI Killer...ok, that person has 3 posts on Rage3D.
One post lists these problems:
"Problems:
1-When atl tab-ing out of any game and return to that game, gamma is darker than previous set at? This is fixed by entering game gamma settings and just moving slider up and down and back to original setting. Just a pain....
2-In OFP/OFPR at main menu, text in front causes clipping and shadow problems on vehicles."
One post it the one you quoted, and the last is a list of specs.
Given that, as opposed to the implication you give that he has listed show stopping bugs (are those bugs show-stopping?), that he has clarified his power supply (he didn't list it anywhere), that he didn't specify that he even uninstalled the nVidia drivers (one can assume either way, but you speak as if you have assurance of this one way or the other), and that this proves your point in anyway (as opposed to being just a user who had problems with the 9700 and not the GF4 Ti 4600), can you understand why some might accuse you have providing poor support for your arguments?
Your entire support here is filled with gaping holes and even comments that appear to be flat out wrong, and you think that has nothing to do with the criticism you receive?
About what? He is right about the issues he had, I'm sure, but what does that mean?
You mean ATi has admitted to problems that not everone has experienced? I'm missing the gap from this to your conclusions...you did present this as a post providing proof, right?
Umm.... this paragraph is so nonsencial, contradictory to common sense, and conflictingly ignores that nVidia, for example, also releases constant driver updates, that I can only presume you got caught up in trying to throw enough words for us to think what you've provided so far are "facts". Either that, or you are demonstrating a severe deficiency in your ability to present a coherent argument. Is there another interpretation, or are you really going to maintain that that paragraph makes sense, shows common sense, and take into account the fact that nVidia releases constant drivers? The possibility of you admitting to either of my possibilities instead I count at zero, but feel free to prove me wrong.
Nope, quite definitely not. It is a bit shocking you equate this person's efforts with the previous person you quote, however.
Let's see how it stands now:
Hmm, either a bad 9700 card (at best) or a demonstration that in a system such as his (2 15k RPM SCSI drives?:
) overheating is a problem for the 9700 Pro (at worst, atleast for users in general). This is an interesting issue, and one that deserves attention. What does this have to do with your constant "drivers are crap" rants though? Did you just not bother to think it through, or are you changing your position to say the hardware is what has problems because it is more convenient to say that right now? I'm sure no one else has ever had overheating problems with other vendors who "don't suck" like ATi does...It isn't that I don't discount your statement of "dozens" of people sending you complaints, it is that I don't credit you with having demonstrated an ability to evaluate what constitutes logical support for your stance. See above for exactly why. I hope you can understand where I'm coming from.
Again, something we have no means to verify ourselves...we have only our impression of you and your logic in evaluating how much to credit this at this time. What bothers me is you don't seem to accept that an impression of you and your logic may be because of your demonstrated behavior and not because of being part of some "collective" of fanbois...atleast, if the viewpoint of you is negative.
Hmm...OK. To me you sound like you are ranting incoherently and saying anything to make yourself sound right in your own mind, but I recognziet that it is possible you may be dead right in every detail about this "ATi epidemic". However, I hope you'll understand my reasons for currently believing the former.
I'll leave your reviewer comments, this post is long enough, and I've said pretty much everything I think it is important for you to "hear". I really expect a rather nasty response, to which there would be no point in replying because the problems with your logic seem to be consistently pretty readily apparent.
If this occurs to the extent I expect, have fun, I intend to let you have the last word on the matter. Your posts are here for anyone to form their own opinion.
If, by some chance you reply with some sort of extensive personal attack that doesn't have to do with the points I've raised, I'll address it in the general forum to avoid polluting this thread further.
If you pleasantly surprise me by actually recognizing the flaws in the post I've quoted, or answer my calls to provide a better case of coherent support for your argument (doesn't even have to be both), I might actually look forward to your continued presence here....a statement, not an implication that you care at all whether that is the case.
There are many things to comprehend when it comes to reviewers. Page hits and "time-to-market" for one. I do find a distinct lack of information in many reviews however, so I understand what you mean.
It all depends on a website. VoodooExtreme's policy, however, is that all hardware requested (and only those specifically requested) will be returned regardless of whether a hardware company said to return them or not. It's a "protection" policy based experience (don't really want to explain what I mean here since it's a bit long-winded).[/quote]
I don't think Type's opinion means much to me considering that horrid article on AA -- when he compared ATI's super-sampled AA vs. multi-sampled AA and ignored the texture aliasing benefits of ATI's super-sampled AA and the ability of offering AA for Alphas. Yeah, he claims it was suppose to be about edges but yet spends an entire page talking about a blurred Menu.
Talks how Alphas are in older titles.... and anyone that plays games know they're in a lot of newer titles -- heck anyone play Dungeon Siege?
Offers negative views based not on the actual 9700 product and a first-hand view; but instead it seems his negative views based on wind is correct in his mind and the sites are all wrong and suck ass now. Many 9700 owners here seem to be very pleased with the product over-all and share their views, well, I guess, they must be just talking out their collective ass.
On Reviews:
All imho, I don't question stability and performance numbers from web-sites and I, too, think at times they suck ass on subjective features.
Why?
Because it takes playing a multitude of titles from different genres to form some objective basis on a particular feature. Some features do have limitations and may shine in one area and not in another -- so you can't jump to conclusions on a feature based on a handful of titles and offer sweeping blanket views based on a few. A reviewer's taste doesn't translate into everyone else's tastes, too.
Another thing I don't like in many reviews today is the PR speak in them. PR plays too much of a hand in too many sites and their views. It seems like they need their hand held to write a review or article. Perfect example is the Extreme Tech article on Anisotrophy.... he was basing his subjective view on anisotrophy based on a wrong setting in a title and didn't even know the setting was wrong by looking at the screen. That is a huge flag that author is not a gamer.
Talks how Alphas are in older titles.... and anyone that plays games know they're in a lot of newer titles -- heck anyone play Dungeon Siege?
Offers negative views based not on the actual 9700 product and a first-hand view; but instead it seems his negative views based on wind is correct in his mind and the sites are all wrong and suck ass now. Many 9700 owners here seem to be very pleased with the product over-all and share their views, well, I guess, they must be just talking out their collective ass.
On Reviews:
All imho, I don't question stability and performance numbers from web-sites and I, too, think at times they suck ass on subjective features.
Why?
Because it takes playing a multitude of titles from different genres to form some objective basis on a particular feature. Some features do have limitations and may shine in one area and not in another -- so you can't jump to conclusions on a feature based on a handful of titles and offer sweeping blanket views based on a few. A reviewer's taste doesn't translate into everyone else's tastes, too.
Another thing I don't like in many reviews today is the PR speak in them. PR plays too much of a hand in too many sites and their views. It seems like they need their hand held to write a review or article. Perfect example is the Extreme Tech article on Anisotrophy.... he was basing his subjective view on anisotrophy based on a wrong setting in a title and didn't even know the setting was wrong by looking at the screen. That is a huge flag that author is not a gamer.
Doomtrooper
Veteran
Don't forget he was running Anisotropic filtering on the Geforce 3 vs. non filtered 8500 shots to get IQ comparable and thought that was ok..sure.
Derek Smart [3000AD]
Regular
DaveBaumann said:
I agree 100%. You're getting better at this Dave
Sabastian said:
Look, I know you've made it your mission in life to be the forum fool, especially since you can never post anything that you haven't distorted, twisted, maimed or tortured beyond recognition.
However, I would urge that if you're going post, at thevery least make sure you understand what it is you are reading and then extract your head from wherever it is you have at the time, and post something that is relevant to the excerpt and indeed with respect to the original form.
That said, here again is EXACTLY what I said.
If English is not your first language, take up Origami and quit posting. I am quite sick and tired of watching you take my posts out of context and deliberately assassinate my verse. I know that this is the normal tactic around here, but if you don't quit f*cking around with my posts, I'm going to make it my next mission to take apart every damn thing you post, twist it and bury you in froth. Trust me, you'll be one miserable SOB by the time I'm done. And you'll get all the blame (from your friends) for encouraging me to detract from the general spirit of the forum.
This is your last warning and indeed your last chance. Consider yourself warned.
That is all. As you were.
Bigus Dickus
Regular
Derek Smart [3000AD said:]
I agree 100%. You're getting better at this Dave
You know, I thought this forum's purpose was to share and spread information. How misinformed I was... in reality it's just a place for rhetorical maneuvering, a game to see who can out BS the other, a farce solely for the purpose of further inflating one's ego veiled with an illusion of intelligence?
Need I even point out the irony?
What other developers are you talking about here? Who are they? As far as reviewers go I am scratching my head here wondering just what the heck you are talking about?
http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/hardware/reviews/radeon9700pro
Conclusion
"ATI has done it. They have not only surpassed NVIDIA fastest product, the GeForce4 Ti4600, but also stomped it into the ground. The video card market needs competition and ATI has proven that they are in the game not just to compete, but to win outright.
Big, Big Kudos to the ATI development, engineering and driver teams. You guys have turned the video card market upside down with Radeon 9700 PRO and proven that the driver Myth no longer exists."
"Today belongs to ATI. They are on top of the graphics world and for the moment, there is no question or doubt who has the fastest product with the best image quality. It’s a Radeon."
A comment from a Microsoft rep from that same review:
"ATI has made tremendous improvements in the driver department. They have become a very long way in driver development in a short time. Currently, I would put ATI’s Catalyst drivers on at least a level playing field with NVIDIA’s Detonators based on Windows stability."
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzQw
Conclusion
“The ATi Radeon 9700 Pro is the best video card we have ever laid our hands on. ATi is going to be first to market with some very impressive technology and the gamers are sure to take notice. I think the benchmarks at 4XAA/16XAF speak for themselves. The image quality is nothing less than beautiful in both 2D and 3D. Then considering we already know it is going to be a powerhouse card that has the ability to run DOOM]|[ next year and you are almost guaranteed to have a nice long term upgrade for your hard-earned cash. I just don't see how the ATi Radeon 9700 Pro is going to leave you any way but satisfied.â€
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1683&p=1
Conclusion
the Radeon 9700 Pro does live up to every last one of our expectations. The question truly ends up being, does it meet your expectations?
There are three things that the Radeon 9700 Pro can offer at this point:
1) The highest performance in current and future games.
2) The ability to play at 1600x1200 in just about any game currently available or soon to be made available, and
3) The ability to play virtually any game at 1024x768 with 4X AA and 16X anisotropic filtering enabled at smooth frame rates.
http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q3/020819/index.html
Conclusion
The King is dead! Long live the King! How's this for a plot-twist? The challenger Radeon - a real "Performeron" - has actually done it and usurped the throne from the former king! ATi has earned itself not only the performance crown in gaming environments, but also that of the technology leader!
The Radeon 9700 PRO proved to be superior in all possible categories, be it the framerate while the game was in progress, the triangle throughput, FSAA, anisotropic filtering, or pixel and vertex shader performance. NVIDIA's flagship trails the new champion in every discipline.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/r300/default.asp
Conclusion
As you've seen in the benchmarks, RADEON 9700 PRO brings new levels of performance to the desktop performance segment. Even with RADEON 9700's early drivers, GeForce4 Ti 4600 just isn't able to keep up! We were astounded at just how significant some of the margins are, especially in 3DMark 2001SE. And the best part is, as the RADEON 9700 PRO's drivers mature, performance will only go up from here.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,475966,00.asp
Conclusion
This time around, the brass ring clearly belongs to ATI. And while nVidia is never one to be counted out, the high-profile GPU maker finds itself in the uncomfortable position of looking squarely at its primary competitor's tail lights. And its new can of nitrous oxide that will be NV30 is still some months away. Even if NV30 ships before year's end, nVidia will have missed the all-important Q4 holiday buying season with its next flagship GPU. But you can't summarily dismiss GeForce 4 Ti 4600 now that Radeon 9700 has arrived. While the Ti 4600 can't go the full fifteen rounds, our data shows that it keeps frame rates playable in the majority of test cases, and only buckles under the most severe test conditions. Respectable though it may be, there's only one winner in a flat-out performance contest, and Radeon 9700 scores well ahead of GeForce 4 Ti 4600, at times with more than a 2X performance lead.
“Part of what we're seeing is the fruits of ATI's labors under the leadership of CEO David Orton, veteran of SGI and ArtX. And the ArtX-now-ATI west coast design team that built the Flipper chip for Nintendo's GameCube has shown what it's capable of in the Radeon 9700, not only at a hardware level, but also in delivering solid, stable drivers.â€
http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/S&V/radeon9700pro.shtml
Conclusion
“First and foremost, I don't think anyone can refute that ATi is firmly in the "driver's seat" with the release of the Radeon 9700 Pro. The benchmarks, testing and showcase that you have seen here today, clearly show that ATi's new flagship VPU is faster, more powerful and has better features and 3D quality than anything on the market, period. This is a bold statement to make for sure but after spending some quality time with this new graphics card, we can honestly say that it is the most impressive product we have seen in a long time, from any Graphics OEM. NVIDIA certainly has some catching up to do. The NV30 needs to get out the door in a hurry because ATi is going to eat up market share, with the various incarnations of this product, in the weeks and months ahead.â€
“At this point in time, it's safe to say that ATi has captured the performance and quality crown from their long time rival and market leader NVIDIA. The NV30 is rumored to be around the corner, sometime in Q4 this year. We'll have to wait and see what it's made of, to determine which competitor will drive the market for the next 6 months. For now, all the lime light is on ATi. They've earned it by delivering a product that is truly innovative and leading edge. “
http://tech-report.com/reviews/2002q3/radeon-9700pro/index.x?pg=1
Render farm on a stick
"Conclusions
I believe I've said enough about the Radeon 9700 Pro by now. You have seen the results and screenshots for yourself, and you know that it's got more pixel-pushing power, faster pixel shaders, better vertex shaders, more poly throughput, and better real-world performance than any other graphics card you can buy. The image quality is second to none, especially with antialiasing enabled. I've racked my brains and raked this thing over the coals trying to find a significant weakness, and I'll tell you what: I haven't found one."
"But as a 3D graphics chip, the Radeon 9700 is darn near perfect. ATI has taken the time with this chip to increase precision and expand registers and tweak functional units to the point where everything works as advertised."
http://www.sudhian.com/docs.cfm/id/224.sud
Conclusion:
"Looking at the benchmark results, we have only one conclusion to make. The 9700 Pro has dealt a blow to the previous king, the Ti4600 – leaving it wondering what just happened. With performance up to, and over 50% greater than what the Ti4600 offers in some tests, the 9700 Pro is the clear winner. There is no single test that we run in which the Ti4600 can claim a lead overall. In some games, such as Comanche 4 and Jedi Knight II, the drivers allow the Ti4600 only the slightest of leads. However, one must only turn on 4X FSAA and 16X AF in order to see clearly who is on top. The 9700 Pro has delivered not only fast performance, but fast performance in extremely high quality modes."
Performance Without Limits : ATI’s Radeon 9700 Pro
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=r9700pro&page=1
Conclusion.
"ATI has certainly delivered on all accounts with the Radeon 9700 Pro. Not only does it beat the competition in every benchmark thrown at it, but in most tests, it simply rips other cards apart. Performance is phenomenal across the board, but the R9700 Pro really shows its strength when used in high resolution gaming, especially with full-scene anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. Using this card and a fairly fast processor, gaming at 1600 x 1200 is a reality with every current game on the market. Or, if your monitor doesn’t like high resolutions, crank it down to 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1024 and turn on the anti-aliasing and get extremely good performance as well. "
"When it all comes down to it, the Radeon 9700 Pro is a great graphics card. It's fast, and shows very little slowdown, even when at really high resolutions and with lots of rendering effects enabled. If they can keep a good supply of cards on the market and gradually drop prices, no doubt they'll have an extremely successful card. Congrats, ATI. I didn't think you could do it, but you've proved me wrong."
I think that this is more then enough evidence to clearly say that derek smarts conclusions about reviewers is false and unfounded. Again more bull from derek. Surprised? I am not.
EDIT:Last but not least. http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/radeon9700pro/
to paraphrase you - poppycock. Leaving old drivers around is probably the single biggest cause of any persons problems with any new graphics hardware. I see it time and time again on other forums. I DO agree the IHV's need to be better at making this easier for people.
umm the documentation on the 300W PSU has already been mentioned. However this is another problem with modern hardware. Not all motherboards and PSU's are built equally. Take a heavy system load, a power hungry mobo, a 300W PSu with variable output on its 3.3v/5v rails add a power hungry card like the Radeon9700 and you could see problems. It happened before with the Geforce 1 and socket 7 boards. Again Wavey answered it best.
and I quote
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33639536
still havent had time to look at them all yet, been busy trying to get my studio DV software working with WinXP. However I agree that this dropping of w-buffer must be a personal pain in the butt and I can see why that had made you mad. However please do not translate that to a silent majority view.
agreed, just before I got my 8500 I was advised by an Eidos Q&A guy I know to go nowhere near the 8500 XP drivers. I was on 98SE at the time and a sucker for quality SSAA, so gambled, and have only been affected by one showstopping bug - the one where certain games dont work (CMR2, Ground Control, Gothic) on 98 unless 2 monitors or a dongle work around was used. (Sidenote - I actually got it named as the 'Doh-ngle' as a guy called Homer thought it up
)disagree - most other big name developers seem to want to impress upon the consumer that ATI have made great strides in the last year.
I already responded to this, yes they are a bit geeky - arent most of y'all here
but not idiots and definetely not dorks.Agreed, and I hope I never fall into the trap of assuming someone is a troll becasue they have problems or the problems dont exist because I dont have them. I also hope I dont assume 'the majority' are having problems becasue the % of people with PC's who actually know forums on their hardware etc. exist is actually very small.
jeez it hard work keeping up with you, I need to go to bed now.
Derek Smart [3000AD said:
You will, sir, do no such thing. No one will.
Mr Smart, what did you base your Phd on?
Well if this thread is true - then there's little doubt that NV30 will go against R350....
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2674
I still find it insane that it's seems to be the right way of doing things when nVidia keeps to a 6 month product cycle, but god forbid if ATI does the same......
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2674
I still find it insane that it's seems to be the right way of doing things when nVidia keeps to a 6 month product cycle, but god forbid if ATI does the same......
noko said:Is there any factual information about the R350 chip?
Has ATI given out details of the improvements over the R300 chip?
When is this chip going to be used if ever?
How can anyone talk about drivers on a chip that doesn't even appear to exist?
I totally agree.......wish all Floridians would be as reasonable as you, noko.....
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