LXi, they are improving,
Many of the posts here seem based on reaction to ATI driver support in the past,
and not on objectively looking at the current state of customer support from the
company. Some comments look like many people aren't even aware of what products
ATI has or what their capabilities are.
ATI over the time that the Radeon has been released has been making
attempts to recognize, if not improve, the flaws in their support structure.
If Rage3d were up I could point to posts in the forums there that show actual
timely responses from ATI support, and indicate that they are aware of the
Nvidia model of allowing leaked beta to fall into the mainstream.
The support is still bad, but hammering this guy with negative feedback will
only delay any other plans they might have to get better. By actually asking
what those plans are, and pointing out specific ways they could improve, we
have an opportunity to keep the idea of customer support in the forefront of
their minds going forward.
TGSC: Perhaps a separate poll for those stats would be better. That would
better identify specific areas/priorities that posters think should be
addressed by the company.
GregM: What exactly means "real drivers" to you? Asking when we can expect
to see the supposed drivers based on the code rewrite is one thing. Claiming
that the drivers they have already released aren't "real" makes the question
sound like we're smoking crack over here.
Emphasize that the Gaming community, and by extension their OEM partners
that cater to that community, are very interested in having a more concrete
idea of what ATI thinks a standard release schedue for driver updates should
be, and in what time frame the expect to make their newer driver revisions
available.