Catalyst 7.10 Driver

[onlyCOpunk]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk
Now lets just hope that ATI will take care of the rest of their card lines and finally add some flippin AGP support in their new drivers as well.

Why? AGP is dead and should remain in the grave.

Wow you really came through with this comment.

Anyways, has anyone found out if AGP support has been tended to with this driver release?

UPDATE: Installed 7.10 with AGP x1950gt and none of my DirectX games work. DAMN YOU ATI! Back to 7.7 for me.

Weird, they worked fine with my X1950XT AGP card, the 7.8 and 7.9 had issues with X1950 AGP based cards, setting the AGP Aperture Size to 256MB fixed that. And for the troll that said that AGP is dead, he seems to forgot that powerful AGP cards exists, X1950PRO/GT/XT, and now new HD cards like Radeon HD 2600PRO/XT etc. ATi is not like nVidia, ATi cards tends to age better and last longer, ATi simply like to support their customer no matter if it's AGP or PCIe, and both drivers are the same driver, the only thing that changes are some comunication protocols within the driver and the infamous SmartGart. ¬¬

The X1950s are decent cards, but hardly considered powerful. AGP cards today typically come out several months after their PCIe counterparts, at a higher price point and with lower performance their than PCIe counterparts. Very soon, the X1950s will be three generations behind. The 2600s aren't even worth a mention because they're too slow even now.

Calling AGP dead isn't being a troll, its facing a cold reality.

Why people like to cling to obsolete hardware for so long is beyond me. If you can't afford to upgrade, then just come out and say you can't afford it. Don't make up all manner of excuses why the antique is better and that the companies should support them until doomsday.

I'm not really clinging to obsolete hardware, and I can certainly afford a new computer. You want my excuse? I'm moving out of the country in T minus 3 months and buying a new laptop when I move. Thus I have 3 months left with my current build and my GF 6800 wasn't hacking it, so I bought an AGP x1950gt for $120 to last me the remaining time I have, and I have been very pleased with it. There was no point to building a new computer to use for 3 or 4 months.

And AGP is still very much alive, more people than you think still use AGP, and are happy with their PC's as I am. When I built this computer PCI-e was barely new, and the hardware that supported it was top tier and more money then I wanted to spend so I chose not to go with PCI-e.


Anyways, referring to the AGP arpeture size, I thought that it was supposed to be to 2x the size of the onboard memory of your GPU. So my card has 256 and I have it set to 512, should I lower it? Will it hinder performance? If it wont affect performance and let me play me use the latest drivers I will give it a shot.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk
Now lets just hope that ATI will take care of the rest of their card lines and finally add some flippin AGP support in their new drivers as well.

Why? AGP is dead and should remain in the grave.

Wow you really came through with this comment.

Anyways, has anyone found out if AGP support has been tended to with this driver release?

UPDATE: Installed 7.10 with AGP x1950gt and none of my DirectX games work. DAMN YOU ATI! Back to 7.7 for me.

Weird, they worked fine with my X1950XT AGP card, the 7.8 and 7.9 had issues with X1950 AGP based cards, setting the AGP Aperture Size to 256MB fixed that. And for the troll that said that AGP is dead, he seems to forgot that powerful AGP cards exists, X1950PRO/GT/XT, and now new HD cards like Radeon HD 2600PRO/XT etc. ATi is not like nVidia, ATi cards tends to age better and last longer, ATi simply like to support their customer no matter if it's AGP or PCIe, and both drivers are the same driver, the only thing that changes are some comunication protocols within the driver and the infamous SmartGart. ¬¬

The X1950s are decent cards, but hardly considered powerful. AGP cards today typically come out several months after their PCIe counterparts, at a higher price point and with lower performance their than PCIe counterparts. Very soon, the X1950s will be three generations behind. The 2600s aren't even worth a mention because they're too slow even now.

Calling AGP dead isn't being a troll, its facing a cold reality.

Why people like to cling to obsolete hardware for so long is beyond me. If you can't afford to upgrade, then just come out and say you can't afford it. Don't make up all manner of excuses why the antique is better and that the companies should support them until doomsday.

I'm not really clinging to obsolete hardware, and I can certainly afford a new computer. You want my excuse? I'm moving out of the country in T minus 3 months and buying a new laptop when I move. Thus I have 3 months left with my current build and my GF 6800 wasn't hacking it, so I bought an AGP x1950gt for $120 to last me the remaining time I have, and I have been very pleased with it. There was no point to building a new computer to use for 3 or 4 months.

And AGP is still very much alive, more people than you think still use AGP, and are happy with their PC's as I am. When I built this computer PCI-e was barely new, and the hardware that supported it was top tier and more money then I wanted to spend so I chose not to go with PCI-e.


Anyways, referring to the AGP arpeture size, I thought that it was supposed to be to 2x the size of the onboard memory of your GPU. So my card has 256 and I have it set to 512, should I lower it? Will it hinder performance? If it wont affect performance and let me play me use the latest drivers I will give it a shot.

I doubt AGP aperture size of 256 vs. 512 will have a significant performance impact.

AGP brings back bad memories because of the buggy AGP implementations on non-Intel chipsets. I never quite got mine working correctly; there would always be periodic lock-ups on my old VIA or ALi boards even when I did clean installations of the operating systems and loaded the latest drivers. AGP was a mess for many people. The fact that you still have to go into the BIOS and change options to get video drivers running is just another example of the problems.

 

[taltamir]

Yes... SLI and crossfire of the latest cards can still not get playable frame rate on maxed out newest games...

But those with no SLI or Xfire have even LOWER frame rates on these... or in other words... we have to lower our settings even more then you to make it playable, so you get better visuals...

Paying more for a video does not guarantee you max settings and max FPS, it just means you get BETTER FPS for max settings...

I dont even bother with duel video cards though... too expensive, too much power needed, too much driver issues...
I much rather just have a single card and upgrade as new ones come out... currently I have an OCed GF 7900... when the 8800GT finally arrives I will get it..

 

[Duwelon]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Duwelon

Wow you must be some kind of 'elite' if you consider a video card that renders Oblivion at 1776 x 1000 (HDTV) with all ingame settings maxed, 4x AA, HDR and a very high res texture pack that weighed 1.67GB total, "hardly powerful".

The X1950 Pro is firmly a midrange card.

720p HDTV resolution is 1366x720, 1080p is 1920x1080. Not quite sure where 1776x1000 comes from, but either way, the X1950 can't render Oblivion at those high resolutions with those settings. I had a X1900XT which was actually faster than a PCIe 1950 Pro which was slightly faster than an AGP 1950pro. It only boasted around 25 to 35 FPS in outdoor enviroments in Oblivion at 1680x1050 with 4x AA, HDR, and full detail settings. Barely playable.

My current HD 2900XT performed higher, allowing me to up the resolution and detail settings some more. Getting playable FPS at 1920x1200 with 12x AA and HDR. Luckily Oblivion doesn't require super fast frames.

I have a 1080p Sony TV, at 1080p though there is a lot of overscan in windows and games so i run everything at 1776 x 1000 which leaves just about a 3/4" border of unused screen when it's centered on the TV. I could maybe do better with some custom resolutions but this official resolution is so close to perfect i haven't bothered much.

 

[SniperDaws]

id just like to thank ATI for my extra 1 fps ......... and usless 12month old TV software.....Thank you.

Edited for taste

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: munky

Catalyst? 7.10 introduces the following new features:
* Adaptive Anti-Aliasing support for the ATI Radeon? X1000 Series of products

Did I miss something? I've been using Adaptive AA on my 1900xt since March 2006, how is this a new feature in these drivers?

It's a bit different, now you're able to select Adaptive Multi Sampling with Smooth or Sharp options, or Adaptive Super Sampling with typical Performance or Quality settings, my girlfriend's X800XT PE also got the Multi Sampling thing even though isn't mentioned on the release notes. The Adaptive Multi Sampling thing looks identical to the ASTT hack that appeared some time ago, even in some places in HL2: EP2 some dots appears on the tree, like it happened in ASTT, the way to fix it is just selecting the smooth thing on the control panel, in F.E.A.R., the fences and those security doors looks like Super Sampling, but without it's impact on performance!! Thanks ATi!!

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk
Now lets just hope that ATI will take care of the rest of their card lines and finally add some flippin AGP support in their new drivers as well.

Why? AGP is dead and should remain in the grave.

Wow you really came through with this comment.

Anyways, has anyone found out if AGP support has been tended to with this driver release?

UPDATE: Installed 7.10 with AGP x1950gt and none of my DirectX games work. DAMN YOU ATI! Back to 7.7 for me.

Weird, they worked fine with my X1950XT AGP card, the 7.8 and 7.9 had issues with X1950 AGP based cards, setting the AGP Aperture Size to 256MB fixed that. And for the troll that said that AGP is dead, he seems to forgot that powerful AGP cards exists, X1950PRO/GT/XT, and now new HD cards like Radeon HD 2600PRO/XT etc. ATi is not like nVidia, ATi cards tends to age better and last longer, ATi simply like to support their customer no matter if it's AGP or PCIe, and both drivers are the same driver, the only thing that changes are some comunication protocols within the driver and the infamous SmartGart. ¬¬

The X1950s are decent cards, but hardly considered powerful. AGP cards today typically come out several months after their PCIe counterparts, at a higher price point and with lower performance their than PCIe counterparts. Very soon, the X1950s will be three generations behind. The 2600s aren't even worth a mention because they're too slow even now.

Calling AGP dead isn't being a troll, its facing a cold reality.

Why people like to cling to obsolete hardware for so long is beyond me. If you can't afford to upgrade, then just come out and say you can't afford it. Don't make up all manner of excuses why the antique is better and that the companies should support them until doomsday.

Tell me which games are not playable with the X1900 series of cards? The Radeon HD 2900XT sure is faster, but this is not the type of jump that we saw like going from the 9800PRO to X800XT in which was twice and sometimes 3 times faster in all scenarios. In some scenarios, the Radeon HD 2900XT is 30% faster, sometimes even slower than the X1900, but usually the card is faster, sometimes twice as fast, and in rare cases, 3 times faster.

The main problem with AGP is that it's true, it's fading slowly, cause there's no new technology coming for it, just a couple of motherboards with Socket 775 with AGP/PCIe combo which are very cheap with mediocre chipsets. But people with an Athlon X2 4800 overclocked for example, can see benefits in gaming by just upgrading their cards. Remember that the market today just want to suck the money out of our pockets as many times as possible. AGP Hating is just a waste of time. The only card that can saturate the AGP bus is the 8800GTX, it was proved on some reviews simulating it with a PCIe at 4x which has pretty much the same amount of bandwidth as an AGP port (At least in reading)

 

[SniperDaws]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk
Now lets just hope that ATI will take care of the rest of their card lines and finally add some flippin AGP support in their new drivers as well.

Why? AGP is dead and should remain in the grave.

Wow you really came through with this comment.

Anyways, has anyone found out if AGP support has been tended to with this driver release?

UPDATE: Installed 7.10 with AGP x1950gt and none of my DirectX games work. DAMN YOU ATI! Back to 7.7 for me.

Weird, they worked fine with my X1950XT AGP card, the 7.8 and 7.9 had issues with X1950 AGP based cards, setting the AGP Aperture Size to 256MB fixed that. And for the troll that said that AGP is dead, he seems to forgot that powerful AGP cards exists, X1950PRO/GT/XT, and now new HD cards like Radeon HD 2600PRO/XT etc. ATi is not like nVidia, ATi cards tends to age better and last longer, ATi simply like to support their customer no matter if it's AGP or PCIe, and both drivers are the same driver, the only thing that changes are some comunication protocols within the driver and the infamous SmartGart. ¬¬

The X1950s are decent cards, but hardly considered powerful. AGP cards today typically come out several months after their PCIe counterparts, at a higher price point and with lower performance their than PCIe counterparts. Very soon, the X1950s will be three generations behind. The 2600s aren't even worth a mention because they're too slow even now.

Calling AGP dead isn't being a troll, its facing a cold reality.

Why people like to cling to obsolete hardware for so long is beyond me. If you can't afford to upgrade, then just come out and say you can't afford it. Don't make up all manner of excuses why the antique is better and that the companies should support them until doomsday.

Tell me which games are not playable with the X1900 series of cards? The Radeon HD 2900XT sure is faster, but this is not the type of jump that we saw like going from the 9800PRO to X800XT in which was twice and sometimes 3 times faster in all scenarios. In some scenarios, the Radeon HD 2900XT is 30% faster, sometimes even slower than the X1900, but usually the card is faster, sometimes twice as fast, and in rare cases, 3 times faster.

The main problem with AGP is that it's true, it's fading slowly, cause there's no new technology coming for it, just a couple of motherboards with Socket 775 with AGP/PCIe combo which are very cheap with mediocre chipsets. But people with an Athlon X2 4800 overclocked for example, can see benefits in gaming by just upgrading their cards. Remember that the market today just want to suck the money out of our pockets as many times as possible. AGP Hating is just a waste of time. The only card that can saturate the AGP bus is the 8800GTX, it was proved on some reviews simulating it with a PCIe at 4x which has pretty much the same amount of bandwidth as an AGP port (At least in reading)

Id keep your 1900 card and leave the 2900XT alone because its rubbish, maybe the 2950XT will be what the 2900XT should of been.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
id just like to thank ATI for my extra 1 fps ......... and usless 12month old TV software.....Thanks you twats and i hope you shit out of the graphics card race because its quite clear you can't cut it anymore.

wow, it sounds like nvidia would love to have you in their camp so you could trash them with driver/support issues...

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws

Id keep your 1900 card and leave the 2900XT alone because its rubbish, maybe the 2950XT will be what the 2900XT should of been.

What then should he get? ... by your reasoning the 8800 series is also rubbish and maybe G92 will be what G80 should have been

Just wait ... and wait ... and wait?
-and maybe wait some more?


for *me* i am VERY glad i upgraded from x1950p >2900xt ... it made all my new games playable at 16x10 with everything completely maxed out plus 4xAA/16xAF ... just like a 8800GTS ... far superior to x1950 series

It was pretty cool for me to play [since this June:] SpellForce2, DreamFall:tLJ, STALKER, OverLord, BioShock, 2 Worlds, Ep2, Portal, TF2, LP, CoJ ... without having to sacrifice anything that is DX9c ... that is $400 [plus] worth of games that i max out because of a $200 net GPU upgrade [which included Orange Box's 3 games ].
--DX10 is unattainable by ANYone ... so i think i did well with the upgrade ... future games are the future ... i have been gaming happily since early-June - and not bitter as some posters.

 

[SniperDaws]

No you misunderstand, i said the 2900XT is rubbish and i didnt mention the 8800, i did imply that the 2950XT might be a good card so its not all bad.

I for one dont buy my graphics cards based on the game bundle that comes with it, i get what is fastest for my money, but it looks like everytime somone says anything negative about the 2900XT there you are Apoppin to defend your purchase and to be honest i dont care how great you think YOUR card is as the proof is in the pudding that the 2900XT is an awful card and isnt worth the money regardless of how many games and shiny things you get with it.

At the moment the 8800 is king and everyone knows this, BUT this might all change with the 2950XT, but at the end of the day im not bothered as im not a fanboy and i will buy what ever is fastest be it a 2950XT or the 8800GT.

i originally held out from buying the 8800 because i was going to get the 8600GT and wait it out until the R600 or 8900GTS but because the 2900XT was so poor im now still waiting, if both the 2950XT and the 8800GT turn out to be poor ill carry on waiting for the next decent one to pop up and then ill buy, this is why i have 2 machines with shite cards in them 1800XL AIW and 7600GT instead of 1 with an 8600GT and my main pc with a 2900XT as to own those 2 cards was my original plan.

EDIT: ok this is just getting stupid im not bothering anymore its pointless, and at the end of the day everyone is entitled to there opinion so if you are offended then im sorry its not personal ok.

 

[SniperDaws]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
id just like to thank ATI for my extra 1 fps ......... and usless 12month old TV software.....Thanks you twats and i hope you shit out of the graphics card race because its quite clear you can't cut it anymore.

wow, it sounds like nvidia would love to have you in their camp so you could trash them with driver/support issues...

lmao i was having a bad day

ive edited it now

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
No you misunderstand, i said the 2900XT is rubbish and i didnt mention the 8800, i did imply that the 2950XT might be a good card so its not all bad.

I for one dont buy my graphics cards based on the game bundle that comes with it, i get what is fastest for my money, but it looks like everytime somone says anything negative about the 2900XT there you are Apoppin to defend your purchase and to be honest i dont care how great you think YOUR card is as the proof is in the pudding that the 2900XT is an awful card and isnt worth the money regardless of how many games and shiny things you get with it.

At the moment the 8800 is king and everyone knows this, BUT this might all change with the 2950XT, but at the end of the day im not bothered as im not a fanboy and i will buy what ever is fastest be it a 2950XT or the 8800GT.

i originally held out from buying the 8800 because i was going to get the 8600GT and wait it out until the R600 or 8900GTS but because the 2900XT was so poor im now still waiting, if both the 2950XT and the 8800GT turn out to be poor ill carry on waiting for the next decent one to pop up and then ill buy, this is why i have 2 machines with shite cards in them 1800XL AIW and 7600GT instead of 1 with an 8600GT and my main pc with a 2900XT as to own those 2 cards was my original plan.

EDIT: ok this is just getting stupid im not bothering anymore its pointless, and at the end of the day everyone is entitled to there opinion so if you are offended then im sorry its not personal ok.

you said the 2900xt was rubbish ... i agreed IF the 8800 series was also rubbish

the 2900xt is not one whit inferior to the 8800GTS-640M - it is a true competitor in every way ... i have already proved this and it is well-substantiated by every respected tech web site. i DID get the very fastest for my money ... at the time, everyone here agreed that the 2900xt was a much better deal for me then the equivalent 8800GTS 640M-OC. And to date, i have not sacrificed anything over buying that Radeon and returning the 640-OC.

... on the other hand, all we have is your 2nd-hand opinion that 2900xt is "awful" without any reasons whatsoever
i am rarely offended ... certainly not by ignorance ... and we are all entitled to our own opinion

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
No you misunderstand, i said the 2900XT is rubbish and i didnt mention the 8800, i did imply that the 2950XT might be a good card so its not all bad.

I for one dont buy my graphics cards based on the game bundle that comes with it, i get what is fastest for my money, but it looks like everytime somone says anything negative about the 2900XT there you are Apoppin to defend your purchase and to be honest i dont care how great you think YOUR card is as the proof is in the pudding that the 2900XT is an awful card and isnt worth the money regardless of how many games and shiny things you get with it.

At the moment the 8800 is king and everyone knows this, BUT this might all change with the 2950XT, but at the end of the day im not bothered as im not a fanboy and i will buy what ever is fastest be it a 2950XT or the 8800GT.

i originally held out from buying the 8800 because i was going to get the 8600GT and wait it out until the R600 or 8900GTS but because the 2900XT was so poor im now still waiting, if both the 2950XT and the 8800GT turn out to be poor ill carry on waiting for the next decent one to pop up and then ill buy, this is why i have 2 machines with shite cards in them 1800XL AIW and 7600GT instead of 1 with an 8600GT and my main pc with a 2900XT as to own those 2 cards was my original plan.

EDIT: ok this is just getting stupid im not bothering anymore its pointless, and at the end of the day everyone is entitled to there opinion so if you are offended then im sorry its not personal ok.

you said the 2900xt was rubbish ... i agreed IF the 8800 series was also rubbish

the 2900xt is not one whit inferior to the 8800GTS-640M - it is a true competitor in every way ... i have already proved this and it is well-substantiated by every respected tech web site. i DID get the very fastest for my money ... at the time, everyone here agreed that the 2900xt was a much better deal for me then the equivalent 8800GTS 640M-OC. And to date, i have not sacrificed anything over buying that Radeon and returning the 640-OC.

... on the other hand, all we have is your 2nd-hand opinion that 2900xt is "awful" without any reasons whatsoever
i am rarely offended ... certainly not by ignorance ... and we are all entitled to our own opinion

Similar to my situation where the games I play at the resolutions I play either performed better or the same on the HD2900. Either way likely would have been fine for me. The bottom line was price. Get a good deal on one that cannot be matched by the other.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Similar to my situation where the games I play at the resolutions I play either performed better or the same on the HD2900. Either way likely would have been fine for me. The bottom line was price. Get a good deal on one that cannot be matched by the other.

The irritating thing is that when we prove that the cards are so equal performance-wise to toss a coin [or look carefully at other factors like price or at the games you play], we get the FUD attacks that do more then imply we are either stupid or fanboys to chose an "inferior" card.

i never need to "defend" my purchase ... it needs none ... every single credible tech website shows 8800-640GTS and 2900xt to be totally competitive in every way

 

[Rottie]

has anyone installed 7.10 driver with X1950 pro agp successfully? any issues?

 

[onlyCOpunk]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SniperDaws



It was pretty cool for me to play [since this June:] SpellForce2, DreamFall:tLJ, STALKER, OverLord, BioShock, 2 Worlds, Ep2, Portal, TF2, LP, CoJ ... without having to sacrifice anything that is DX9c ... that is $400 [plus] worth of games that i max out because of a $200 net GPU upgrade [which included Orange Box's 3 games ].
--DX10 is unattainable by ANYone ... so i think i did well with the upgrade ... future games are the future ... i have been gaming happily since early-June - and not bitter as some posters.

Meh my x1950gt can play all of the orange box games at 1920x1080 with 16x AF 6x FSAA and more with HDR and whatnot.

 

[Makaveli]

I've ran 7.8 7.9 and now 7.10 on my X1950Pro 512mb AGP, and have had no problems.