ATI Interview: You ask the questions

[Anand Lal Shimpi]

Hey guys,

I will be doing an interview with ATI's President & COO, Dave Orton in the near future
and I thought I'd get some input from you all as to questions you would like
to see him answer. Just reply to this thread with the question that you
would like answered and I'll do my best to try to get it answered. Please,
no duplicate questions and let's be civil about what we ask him
I can't guarantee that he will answer all of the questions but we'll try to
get as many answered as possible.

Take care,
Anand

 

[ChrisOh]

When the heck will ATI release updated FULL (not beta) and unified drivers for the Radeon?

 

[AdamK47]

When will Ati improve their horrible FSAA implementation and make it so FSAA remains enabled even during high graphics usage. The current drivers have poor FSAA and disable it when there is a lot of graphics on screen. If Nvidia can get supersampled FSAA implemented right why can't Ati?

 

[snow patrol]

Are ATi committed to providing full and extensive driver support offering fixes and performance gains for the Radeon and future graphics boards?

 

[Dark4ng3l]

When will they suport an overclocking tab in the drivers like 3fx and nvidia do.
Why do they clock oem versions of the Radeon slower than retail.

 

[Aquaman]

Maybe touch on the recently released agreement with Intel & the possible integrated chipset (ie. are they making a chipset for Intel or are they making a video solution for an intel chipset).

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[toph99]

Maybe an interesting question would be, what are they going to do to remove the memory bandwidth bottleneck? Do something like 3dfx did with the Voodoo5 5500 and add dual GPU's?
/me drools at the thought of dual Radeon's

 

[zippy]

Why the shoddy Windows2000 drivers? When can we expect better ones?

Why not call the unofficial/unsupported drivers for the AIW Radeon official? They are the only ones that work in WinME and Win98se- the ones that come with the AIW Radeon don't really work. Well, they work okay at best, but don't try the TV feature. The unofficial/unsupported drivers are the only ones that work flawlessly in Win98SE and WinME for the AIW Radeon. What's the deal with that?

What will the next MAXX product be?

When can we expect to see the Radeon VE? What about the one with dual monitor support?

Thanks Anand.

 

[Remedy]

Why couldn't they aquire 3DFX or GP before Nvidia did?

 

[Pyro]

I think these questions will interest many people:

1) Why is win2k perfomance so low and are they going to do anything about it?
2) Do they have plans to make their own Linux driver (for radeons)? I heard they hired CodeSorcery to write it.
3) Do they plan on releasing anything resembling the Geforce Pro/Ultra, ie, a higher clocked version of the current radeons?
4) Do they plan on making a 64mb version of the AIW Radeon?
5) When do they plan on releasing the R-200 (Radeon2)?
6) Will the R-200 be available in dual or quad chip configurations.
7) What is the proposed feature set of the R-200?
8) Now that nVidia owns 3dfx and its technology, including Tile Based Rendering, are ATi developing their own TBR technology?
9) Do they plan on releasing drivers for their multimedia products for linux (ie, ATi TV-Wonder)
10)Have they abandoned their MAXX technology? What are they doing with it now?


Wow, I am quite inquisitive, but I guess that's enough for now.


PS, this is my 201-st post. I will be a senior now yay!

 

[odog]

can they compete with the now juggernaut of IP that nVIDIA has?

what do they see as the "sweet spot" price for high end gaming cards?

whats the next big thing in PC 3D?

when are they gonna sue nVIDIA?(if they already haven't)

when is RAMBUS gonna sue them?(see above)

 

[jonnyGURU]

Adding to Pyro's #10. Why are there so many MAXX issues and none of them addressed, even on ATI's website. I've yet to get one to work properly on a VIA chipset.

On that note; why so many driver issues? On the MSI K7TPro and Biostar M7VKB and Asus A7V, I can get the Rage Magnum and Xpert 2000 to work in ME, but not in 98 (locks in MSI and BMA and won't alway come out of suspend on A7V) even while using the newest BIOS, newest 4 in 1 and newest ATI drivers. The fact it works in ME tells me that the issue is driver related. Again, not adressed on ATI website.

I like their video cards, but online support leaves A LOT to be desired.

 

[Spoooon]

I second Snow Patrol's question. Ask about their commitment to new drivers.

 

[AdamK47]

I have another question...

I heard a while back that Ati was building a set of drivers from the ground up with the Radeon. The current set of drivers (as sad as it may sound) are based on the Rage 128 set of drivers. Is Ati currently working on drivers built from the ground up for the Radeon while still working with the current Rage 128 based driver set for compatibility, or is this just a rumor?

 

[BFG10K]

Will ATi add separate gamma controls for OpenGL and Direct 3D into their driver control panel, just like 3dfx had?

What's causing the poor 16 bit image quality issue, drivers or hardware? Will it ever be fixed?

How committed are ATi to driver support/updates?

 

[Fumiup]

ATI recently made a deal for a broad cross-licensing agreement with Intel. What does this mean? What kind of technologies is ATI going to be using from Intel and vica versa?

 

[GTaudiophile]

When will the Radeon support all forms of fog in hardware??? I can't enable fog in games like Need For Speed: High Stakes.

 

[randomlinh]

i'll reiterate the AIW questions... drivers, performance issues in win2k, and will there be a 64MB.. and one more.. can we get expect and cut in price

 

[1GhzUser]

these are awesome questions. I can't wait to hear the answers from the main guy him self.

 

[Dufusyte]

I'd like to second the question about the 3dfx acquisition: were they in the bidding? It seems like nVidia picked up 3dfx for a song; why didn't ATi out bid them?

 

[iamthebear]

Drivers, drivers, drivers

Also I would love to know:
1)Why there are limitations with their capturing software. i.e. - try to create a setting for VCD's - its next to impossible with their TV application.
2)Why is it that I can use Virtual Dub and record avi's with no dropped frames, but ATI's app drops about 5-10%?
3)How do they develop drivers? It seems that they fix one problem and something else becomes unusable, is there no QC at ATI? (I know there is) i.e. with one driver set I can play all my games, buy DVD is wacked. Next set of drivers, DVD works great, but some games don't.


Anand, help us all - keep him locked up till we get real drivers, we'll call it the Anand ransom

 

[Sunny129]

Now that nVidia owns 3dfx, they have access to 3dfx's FSAA and HSR technology. we all know that 3dfx's FSAA was the best in the video card industry and that all card and chip makers were working on FSAA solutions even b4 3dfx was bought by nVidia. Does ATI have something in store to compete with nVidia's newly acquired technology? Are they working on Hidden Surface Removal now that it has become a popular issue due to the drivers realeased by 3dfx just b4 it sold out?

 

[Noriaki]

I owned a 64MB Radeon Vivo, please extend my regards on and excellently made board and chip. The 2D quality and balance of 3D quality and speed were excellent. I love having a near DVD decoder board built into my video card as well. Their hardware is top notch!

My biggest two are as usual when are they going to shape up their driver group? And what do they think is the next big thing in PC 3D graphics?

 

[pidge]

1)When are they going to focus on better customer support? I have emailed them several times and only once gotten a response, 3 weeks later. They have by far the worst customer support in place for 3D video cards that I have worked with. Their phone support places you on hold for a ridiculous amount of time when it isn't even a toll free number.

2)Why do they keep having so many driver issues? Are the every going to go to a unified driver format? Why won't the add/remove programs ever completely remove ATI's drivers completely from the registry and the computer itself? Once the Radeon 2 comes out, will they stop developing drivers for the Radeon or be really slow releasing drivers for the Radeon like they are known for doing so in the past, not providing updated drivers for their older products.

3)How scalable is the Radeon chip? When I overclock the Radeon from 166 to 183, there is a significant performance boost. As you approach 200Mhz, it kind of levels off as if it runs out of gas. Is the Radeon chip at its peak around 190MHz (right where it starts leveling off, where you don't notive much of a framerate increase.

4)Why did they lose their exclusive design wins with Apple? Are they hurting since pretty much all of the design wins mentioned on ATI's webpage are optional and not part of the system?

5)(this may be something somebody else can answer)Did they ever fix the issue with HyperZ? It is disabled in the registry by default for D3D applications. When I enabled it, it screws up alot of D3D games. I sold my ATI AIW Radeon because I was so disappointed with ATI's support and their drivers but I still have another one in my mom's system but I haven't tried the newer drivers yet.

6)Are they using any cheating methods in their drivers like they did in the past with their Turbo drivers?

7)Why can't they ever get 16-bit working right? Why don't they just start out with a new core for the Radeon 2 which they can perfect 16-bit with instead of lagging in that area or do they feel 16-bit is no longer important?

8)Do Canadians prefer calling ham by its real name, ham or do they call it canadian bacon? Does he think Vince Carter is leaving the Toronto Raptors and heading to a US team? Since ATI and Matrox are both Canadian companies, do they ever play hockey or baseball together? If they do play together, who usually wins?

 

[Mr. Burns]

I'd like to reiterate the need for improved driver support for win2k, now and in the future. Is ATI willing to make a commitment to continue to support the radeon family beyond their next product release?