Probably an question going on inside many old nvidia users theese days...

Should I:
a) Grab an GeForce FX, only to be a clown when ATI's next chip comes
b) Grab an ATI 9700 (or next rev), only to fully experience why ATI's drivers have bad rumours.

So my great question to you as a Radeon 9700 user:
Honestly, how good is the latest ATI drivers. How easy are they to install, how secure are they, have you had any problems with later popular games that you had to patch becouse of an ATI issue? Are there games still not running perfect becouse of the fact that you use an ATI card? Honestly... please.

Best Regards
JemyM

5 minutes have passed, and already someone replied "Just great, no problems at all" and someone replied "Total disaster, i hate the driver team"...



Best Regards
JemyM

In pure honesty , since about 4-5 months , we can now say the ati drivers rules for the large majority of users . Nothing to do with the past , where drivers really sucked , that's true .

Since catalyst team deployment , drivers are now a strong hand of ati and this team is very aware of customers , they even have 2 guys from ati (one is from catalyst team) writing in the rage3d forums . The only lasting issue was stuttering in games and it disappeared with latest 3.0 catalyst release .

My test configuration : 9700 pro , A7V333 , 1900+ , 512 DDR400

Ok for concretes facts i've got not any problem with these tested games :

C&C generals , BF 1942 , Rallysport Challenge , American Conquest , Age of Mythology , Morrowind , SplinterCell Demo , Counterstrike etc ...

No problem with 3dmark 03 , for information purpose .

Hope it helps ...

You now know who voted "Just great, no problems at all" :wink:

I've been using NVidia for years and just changed to ATi (r9000 pro), Their latest 3.1 drivers are at least equal to anything I saw from NVidia, feature and performance wise. I haven't encountered many bugs at all, and none are major.

A short question from a dummy then... Is Catalyst a set of unified drivers, just like NVidia Detonators? One driver for all cards?
Or is there separate drivers for all ATI's chipsets?

Best Regards
JemyM

they are unified...


i wonder who voted that the drivers are horrible, because i dont think he's ever been near anything but nvidia drivers

unfortunately the rep of the old drivers is still haunting the catalysts, its the last defense of the nvidiots...
fortunately review sites is starting to comment on the driver quality, and the rep is improving.

If anything, it isnt the drivers that should stop you from buying a radeon.

I've been with the radeon line since the first Radeon (Radeon 64 vivo) and i can say the drivers have matured tremendously, almost to the point of flawlessness (almost being the key word ), the drivers of the first radeon was pretty buggy, but that is all in the past.

<----- I voted that!!!
I used to have an ATI card, jeebus drivers

NIKEMARINE
---------------
Was that a Radeon 9700 ?
And how long since was it?

Best Regards
JemyM

OK get a 9500 Pro SAVE 150+ and then , Use a NEW BIOS that came out 2 days ago too make it too 9700 speeds

heres a link for 9500 Pro w/ Infinion Ram:

http://tric.topcities.com/

Hynex mem people get this instead. :

http://www.3dchipset.com/files/bios/ati/95p128.zip

ATi Flash Util here:

http://www.3dchipset.com/files/bios/ati/...iflash.zip

I will probably wait for the next generation. Both 9500 and 9700 have been out far to long for me. I cannot update to often, so I gotta go on products that I know isnt outdated to quickly.

Best Regards
JemyM

could have been a Rage card for all we know

Just great, no problems at all - 57% [ 4 ]
Total disaster, i hate the driver team - 42% [ 3 ]

Nothing in between... You could be right, perhaps there are Rage owners that vote in the poll... Or there are some games that are a total disaster that some people havnt yet tried.

Best Regards
JemyM

For my work , i have to use all the market cards , so if i consider that nvidia drivers are great , i have also to admit that now ati drivers are great too .

Indeed , there's still some speed optimisation left on the ati side , especially for OPENGL .

Relations with ATI developpement has never been so clear since the catalyst deployment , they are very reactive folks .

I can relate to what you are saying. As far as remaining optimization goes, perhaps you are right - dunno - but I wholeheartely concur about the driver team being very receptive of feedback and responsive to it, too. They are second to none in this regard.

Get this through your heads folks: ATI drivers are every bit as stable as Nvidia's. The extra fps and better IQ are just gravy!