[Liberator]

I'm finally upgrading from my aging, but much beloved, Vision Geforce 4 MX 420 to, and I can believe I'm saying this, a Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600.  I was going to get a nice Factory-OCed GF 6600 from Gigabyte.  But the price is so right on the Radeon I can't ignore it.

Besides a much improved framrate, what type of behaviors should I look forward too?

[Bobboau]

the warp effect working in FSO

[DragonClaw]

Originally posted by Liberator
what type of behaviors should I look forward too?

Computer addiction of the highest degree. Good luck on your grades.

[Taristin]

Is it the 9600 XT? If it is, I have that card. ^^

I wanna get this one, though:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130234

[Admiral LSD]

(US)$599.00

They can shove that up their arse sideways. No way in hell I'd pay that much for a video card. One thing to look forward to though is that it may bring the 6 series down to something even vaguely representing value for money. I've been running various upgrade plans through my head recently myself and because I'm thinking about going Athlon 64 on nForce4, I'd need a new PCI Express card. The ATI X700 is sitting at the top of these 'virtual' plans atm. It's slightly faster in Direct3D and offers better value for money (you can get a 256Mb X700 cheaper than a 128Mb 6600GT) than the 6600GT but enough dreaming.

Sapphire make good cards, ATi themselves employ Sapphire to make cards for them. My 9500 Pro (a generation "sideways" to the 9600. It's architecturally superior, inheriting more from its parent the 9700 then the 9600 does from the 9800 but the faster clock speeds of the 9600 make up for that somewhat) is built by them and I haven't got a bad thing to say about it.

[Trivial Psychic]

Originally posted by Liberator
Besides a much improved framrate, what type of behaviors should I look forward too?

If you're playing FSO, one of the following:

A - Not caring about shinemaps
B - An affinety to OGL and Cat drivers 5.1+
C - An affinety to D3D and Cat drivers 4.4

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Trivial Psychic

If you're playing FSO, one of the following:

A - Not caring about shinemaps
B - An affinety to OGL and Cat drivers 5.1+
C - An affinety to D3D and Cat drivers 4.4

There's not much point in upgrading from 4.4, though. Unless you have serious issues. Card manufactuers advise against it.


BTW; My Sapphire 9600xt does have an annoying little problem, the output sometimesis either tinted blue, or red. If I tap the cable (that goes to my monitor) with my foot, it fixes it, temporarily. It's annoying.

[phatosealpha]

Originally posted by Admiral LSD


They can shove that up their arse sideways. No way in hell I'd pay that much for a video card. One thing to look forward to though is that it may bring the 6 series down to something even vaguely representing value for money. I've been running various upgrade plans through my head recently myself and because I'm thinking about going Athlon 64 on nForce4, I'd need a new PCI Express card. The ATI X700 is sitting at the top of these 'virtual' plans atm. It's slightly faster in Direct3D and offers better value for money (you can get a 256Mb X700 cheaper than a 128Mb 6600GT) than the 6600GT but enough dreaming.

Sapphire make good cards, ATi themselves employ Sapphire to make cards for them. My 9500 Pro (a generation "sideways" to the 9600. It's architecturally superior, inheriting more from its parent the 9700 then the 9600 does from the 9800 but the faster clock speeds of the 9600 make up for that somewhat) is built by them and I haven't got a bad thing to say about it.

You mean the X700 pro, not the x700 right?  The benchmarks I've seen give the 6600gt a bit of an advantage over the x700pro, only ut2k4 came out ahead on the x700pro in anandtechs reviews.  The x700 non-pro....well, it's not really a competition.

[Singh]

If my father sent what I think he sent with my aunt today.....i will be having a P4 3.2 Ghz (with hyperthreading) and an X800 (or 700, not sure which) computer replacing my current one tomorrow

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by Raa
There's not much point in upgrading from 4.4, though. Unless you have serious issues. Card manufactuers advise against it.

Catalyst 5.6 here, can't say it's given me any major grief. Nor any of the previous Catalyst kits. In fact, over the last two years I've had a better run out of the Catalysts than I ever did with the nVidia drivers.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Raa
Is it the 9600 XT? If it is, I have that card. ^^

I wanna get this one, though:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130234

I love the quote in the user reviews;

"Just Ordered This Card. Better be better than my current eVGA 6800GT 8X AGP Card"

Rich ****er needs to get out more often and spend his money on something useful.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by Raa
Is it the 9600 XT? If it is, I have that card. ^^

I wanna get this one, though:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130234

What!  New egg!

[Liberator]

Which Catalysts do you blokes recommend me downloading?  

I'm going to benchmark the improvement with 3dmark2001 and a few subjective numbers using fraps and a couple of the games I play, so I'll check this thread in about an hours...

*edit/addition*
I have the benches ready for those who are still interested...if there are any.

System
Athlon XP 1800+
512mb Elixir PC2700
MSI 745 Ultra
Geforce 4 MX 420(unknown Forceware)

Results with above:
3D Marks - 3280
Homeworld 2(1024x768 low) - 10 fps
Homeworld 2(1024x768 high) - 6 fps
UT2k4 1024x768 Normal - 12-15 fps
UT2k4 1024x768 Maximum - 1-7 fps with lots of stops as more stuff loads and unloads


System
Athlon XP 1800+
512mb Elixir PC2700
MSI 745 Ultra
Sapphire Radeon 9600(driver version 6.14.10.6505)

Results with above:
3D Marks - 6963
Homeworld 2(1024x768 low) - 38 fps
Homeworld 2(1024x768 high) - 20 fps
UT2k4 1024x768 Normal - 20 fps
UT2k4 1024x768 Maximum - unplayable...it froze for some reason

[Nix]

5.6's work great, but if you use Driver Cleaner, it'll work so much better for upgrading.  If you follow it's instructions exactly as they are written, this little program will make upgrading to new drivers so much easier.  

I've been using 5.6's and the only game that's given me grief is GTA San Andreas.  Randomly, it will throw the VPU Recover module on my card, and that worries me, but I think it's a driver issue, as no other game does this.  That's about par for the course with Rockstar and it's iffy console to PC Ports.  

Only downside to using the newest CAT's is in FSO, you dont get the nice glows on the ships unless you revert to driver version 4.4 if I recall, but there's so many optimizations for the new games out there that you should run the 5.6's to get the maximum benefit out of your card.  

I'd reccomend for you to get, well when your warranty expires of course...  to get an ATI Silencer VGA Chipset cooler, made by Arctic Cooling, cause these damn ATI Radeon's run HOT.  My card, clocked at default settings, with a 9800 pro BIOS would idle at 68 degrees C, and top out damn near 80 degrees in anything that made it work hard.  Since putting on the cooler (the thing is MASSIVE!) my card idles at 63 and tops out at 68 degrees Celcius.  Yes, I cant believe it either but that's what ATITool reports and it queries the sensor chip directly... Since then I've made a very simple mod by flashing my card's BIOS from a 9800 Pro to an 9800 XT!  Memory timings are much tighter and the card has given me a boost of 400+ points in Futuremark 05'.

[Admiral LSD]

I consider the lack of glow maps (which make the FS ships look like all those "fully sick" jap ****boxes with the underbody neons) in FSO a "feature", not a bug

I don't know about later cards, but my 9500 Pro hasn't been too bad for cooling over the two years I've owned it and it's still got the simple stock HSF. Then agai, I'm not doing anything crazy with it like overclocking it or reflashing its BIOS

[Liberator]

The thing has a passive cooler on it and I went a step further and put one of those PCI slot fans under it.  The control panel is confusing though, some of this stuff I don't know what it is, and with Nvidia you could right click to get a definition, but you can't do that with the catalysts.


BTW, what version of Catalysts am I using right now?

Also, why does the damn Control Center need to access the internet?

[Trivial Psychic]

Originally posted by Nix
Only downside to using the newest CAT's is in FSO, you dont get the nice glows on the ships unless you revert to driver version 4.4 if I recall, but there's so many optimizations for the new games out there that you should run the 5.6's to get the maximum benefit out of your card.

Incorrect.  Its the shinemaps that won't be shown with any Cat drivers over 4.4, not the glowmaps.  That said, if you're playing under OGL, more recent Cats will display shinemaps.  Add to that Taylor's -rlm addition, and it can be quite a good supplement for D3D shines... no -env yet though.

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by Liberator
The thing has a passive cooler on it and I went a step further and put one of those PCI slot fans under it.  The control panel is confusing though, some of this stuff I don't know what it is, and with Nvidia you could right click to get a definition, but you can't do that with the catalysts.


BTW, what version of Catalysts am I using right now?

Also, why does the damn Control Center need to access the internet?

Assuming you're using the nifty new Catalyst Control Centre then you can press F1 in any of the information screens to be taken to a web page giving a short definition of what each feature does. If you're not using the CCC, get on to ati.com and download a driver kit that contains it (ATi put quick links on the front page and update them about once every month so check regularly) as it's pretty cool. You'll need the .NET Framework to use it but you should already have that, it's part of XP SP2 I think.

[Liberator]

Is there any benefit to using the Omega drivers?

I guess I'm used to the Nvidia drivers and their overall simplicity.

[Taristin]

Omega gave me horrible system instability (and I use a sapphire card too). Dunno if it was my personal setup, or if Omega + Sapph is not so good, but.... we'll wait for the exprets to reply.