[deep_eyes]

(if you havent already gotten the new catalyst drivers)....

New ATI Drivers Comment! (4/7/04)

ATI has released their latest Catalyst drivers, which is version 4.4. If you have an ATI card, check out the changes/fixes below:
Connecting a secondary CRT and enabling VPU Recover no longer results in the operating system failing to restore itself
The new rotation implementation no longer fails to update the desktop when doing a mode set on exit
Setting the display resolution to 1024x768 32bpp and switching the DVI connector for HDTV to 480i no longer results in the HDTV device not working within the ATI Control Panel
Setting the display resolution to 1152x864 32bpp under Windows XP and playing an MPEG or AVI file using the Windows Media Player no longer results in display corruption on the TV output
Setting the display resolution to 1920x1080 on an ATI RADEON 9700 PRO when connected to a specific monitor no longer results in the image not being display
The file version and the product version information is now correct
Worms 3D no longer fails to properly play. Launching in game movies no longer results in only the sound being heard with the display being corrupted or black
Intermittent texture corruption and flashing is no longer seen when playing the game Battlefield 1942
The shadow of the characters in the game Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow are now being displayed properly
Display corruption is no longer noticed when switching between 2D and 3D modes in the game Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004
The performance of the game Tomb Raider AOD is no longer compromised when running the game at the display resolution of 1600x1200
The brightness option found in certain games is now working properly when extended desktop is enabled and both monitors are set to 1280x1024 32bpp
Configuring the game RACER version 0.50 to run at full screen, 1600x1200 32bpp, no longer results in the game failing to respond
Setting the display resolution to 1600x1200 and running the game Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy no longer results in display corruption being noticed at a specific point in the game
Display corruption is no longer seen when playing the demo version of the game Far Cry

http://www.ati.com

[RandomTiger]

This is what puts me off ATI cards.
(runs for the hills)

[Bobboau]

/*nukes hills*/
no peace for the blasfeamer

[Flipside]

I always want to write to both ATI & Creative and tell them that, had they done a decent job in the first place, they wouldn't need to update drivers every 3 months

[ChronoReverse]

Well, to be fair, it's still a lot better than pre-catalyst drivers...

[Johnmike]

Better than nVidia.

[Flipside]

This is certainly true, but for all these companies it seems to me that most drivers are merely to fix the bugs/dodgy optimising the last drivers caused

[Turambar]

NVidia Makes better drivers!!! (or at least they make more!)
I'm using the 60.72 drivers, and they didn't even come with a readme!  They work perfectly!

[ChronoReverse]

Well, historically nvidia has made better drivers in terms of less bugs.

Unfortunately, in the recent times (because of the GFFX) nvidia's driver have had a lot of cheats in them to make the GFFX look faster.

The absolute latest drivers do fix most of these cheats but the stigma of having cheated and not admitting it still falls on them.

It also doesn't help that you still can't choose true trilinear filtering.

[SadisticSid]

I had nothing but grief with my old Ti4200 - frequent lockups and graphical corruption. But my 9800PRO seems to work perfectly apart from in Deus Ex 2. I wonder if they've fixed that yet....

[ChronoReverse]

Eh, I'm running a ti4200 and have had zero problems with it.  The GF4 harks back to the days when nvidia had good drivers.

They've probably fixed the Deus Ex 2 bug in some Catalyst driver set, you just have to find the right one -.-

[Kamikaze]

I don't see a problem with ATI's drivers other than the fact that support for older chips absolutely blows. *wonders when new Linux drivers come out*

[Fractux]

An interesting little tidbit. (Not to say that one makes drivers better than the other, but just an example).

Just scroll down a bit and look at the comparison pics:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjA0LDM=

Cheers!

[deep_eyes]

thats nothing u should see my rig...

400 Celeron w/512SDRAM
Raedon 7500 64DDR-RAM

and i run freelancer, freespace 2 SCP, c&c generals, etc. with little or nolag.

[Liberator]

You're doing real well then.

Are 8X AGP cards backward compatible to 4x?

[ChronoReverse]

Yes.  But not all 8x cards are compatible with 2x slots though.

[Liberator]

How can I tell?  That article's got me looking hard at the FX5900

[J3Vr6]

Interesting article... Still leaves me undecided on what future card to get, though.

[Kazan]

RandomTiger: some of those "bugs" are duplicates of each other, all software has bugs, period - even drivers.

If you think nVidia's drivers don't have bugs i'm going to laugh at you - they have MORE bugs they just don't admit they're there

[J3Vr6]

Couldn't that be said about any company, though?