Radeon Rocks

[apoppin]

The only reason I can think of dropping from 32 bit to 16 bit is for higher frame rate. Maybe you still like playing Ms Pac Man in 256 color - in that case, use the standard VGA driver.

EDIT: The real purpose of the new Radeon is to support DirectX8 and NEW games that are not even released (developed?) yet. And your old games should be fine.

 

[HannibalX]

RayEarth: Hey man, like I said the GTS looks like the card for you

You'll get no argument from me, I even said the 16 bit was messed. So if you don't want a Radeon, don't get one - thats whats nice about having two big players, options, options, options!

 

[RayEarth]

I don't know if starcraft is using 32bit colors, looks 16bit to me, & return to krondor is only 16bit, & my neorage games all work at 16bit max, still a lot of good games that have 16bit colors as max. also after looking at this chart again:
http://reactorcritical.com/chips/summary.shtml
I hope the G800 runs just as fast as the Geforce2 when it comes out or else it's in trouble. I would like to use a matrox product for once.

 

[alanschu]

RayEarth, the 16-bit quality issue is for 3D hardware acceleration. Starcraft won't utilize anything from your video card aside from memory.

 

[atom]

Sure, a lot of good games might only use 16-bit colors, but those games are older ones, and therefore less likely to stress a system. I mean, who cares if Quake 1 runs at 300FPS on a Radeon compared to 350FPS on a GTS at 16bpp?

 

[Sunner]

This looks familiar.
ATi comes out with a card that does great in 32 bit color and so-so in 16 bit.
Lets just hope thats the only similarity with the Rage128 release.
If the Radeon turns out great with good drivers/support etc, I might just considder ATi's next gen product, the Radeon is their chance to prove themselves to me

 

[nickdakick]

The Rage Fury left a bad taste in my mouth

This stuff is NO food !!!! Don't you eat your video cards, kid !!!
Pretty expensive BTW.

 

[Sohcan]

I'm really impressed by the video abilities. Progressive-scan DVD decoding, 720p or 1080i HDTV decoding...this is something only a $5000+ HDTV and progressive-scan DVD player will do. I really wish NVidia and 3dfx would get on the ball and start including an iDCT unit in their cards like ATI does...

 

[jpprod]

What about professional OpenGL apps, does Radeon have solid enough drivers to run them without a glitch? Video in/out capabilities (especially hardware video capture) and it's wide range of 3D features makes Radeon a very appealing card, but I doubt it does well in professional OpenGL.

Did any site post SpecViewPerf scores?

 

[BenSkywalker]

Like jpprod, I can't wait to see some ViewPerf scores, along with Indy and GLPerf if anyone reading happens to have one handy, but overall the Radeon is a disappointment from my point of view from what has been posted so far.

I have mentioned several times that if ATi launched the Radeon with solid drivers it would likely be my next card, I have changed my mind. The performance numbers we are seeing put it very close to the GF2 w/6ns memory, a card that I also wouldn't upgrade to. I was expecting something that would place them half a generation ahead of nVidia while they instead have reached ~parity, perhaps I expected too much.

OTOH- This is a major piece of hardware for ATi, they are now a serious player in the performance market, and with the majority of a product cycle left to go they will remain there for four or five months at least(Radeon Maxx v NV20 v G800 this fall ). The Radeon looks like a very solid product that will compete solidly with nVida for the performance title and has taken the lead in feature support. If I was buying a card now, and the OpenGL tests come through looking decent(fingers crossed, but not holding my breath), I would buy the Radeon, it just isn't fast enough to fork over $300-$400 for.

For the Radeon Maxx- they have burned a lot of bridges with the accident that was the Maxx, no Win2K support.... ever??? I hope they think long and hard about launching a board into the market that can't run what is quickly becoming the OS of choice for people who spend $400+ on a video card.

 

[KarsinTheHutt]

I'm just watiting for an "All in Wonder" with this Radeon thing in it.

 

[SSP]

This card looks pretty cool. The 32bit performance surprised me a bit.

I could care less if it didn?t have OGL drivers, since I'm not into professional OGL apps. But it?s a good alternative to have next to DX.

 

[Bagheera]

Wouldn't buying both be kind of a waste of money?

Anyways, I kind of expected a little more from ATI regarding the driver problems... But oh well, Radeon performed very well indeed...

 

[randomlinh]

waiting for the all in wonder version too. I'm not too much of a gamer, not anymore anyway.. it's costed me too much AIW is nice cause of the TV and hardware DVD Too bad the rage version couldn't play q3 very well.

 

[Fenix793]

Damn just got my Herc Prophet II 64mb for $400 and now Radeon is out. Too bad it doesnt kill the GTS consiering this is pretty much their next gen product. Sure they can make a Maxx version but when nv20, rampage, and the g800 are released the radeon is gonna get 3 swift kicks right up the a$$. Not to mention 3dfx will prob make a multichip solution that will be very fast. My gts will do for now but come christmas time ill get a real next gen product.

 

[Toxin]

hey Trinitron..

i wonder where are all those people that said that ATi will go out of business etc.. and how it sucks... i bet they are praising this card now ... LOL

so guys.. where are you???

 

[Rectalfier]

Anyone play with 16bit color on there Geforce2 GTS or Voodoo5 5500?

 

[OS]

As someone already mentioned, this looks vaguely like the rage 128 situation of over a year ago. It had killer 32 bit performance compared to the TNT 1, and everyone was excited about it. But when the product was delivered, it was buggy, late, and the next product cycle was a mere weeks away. I still remember how I had a floormate who was excited about the Rage 128 when it was announced and a few weeks after he bought one, he asked me if I was interested in buying it from him. I asked him why he was selling it and he said that the drivers were buggy and it wasn't worth the money. I think he eventually went back to his TNT1. Every new high end card or technology that ATI has announced, has always done poorly compared to it's competitors. And it was never the technology that caused ATI's medicority, it was the execution and the drivers. So I'll wait until ATI can actually deliver a solid product, on time, with solid drivers. If that were the case, I'd definitely consider buying one, but somehow, I don't see that happening. I'm somewhat tempted to say in a few weeks that I'll be able to say "I told you so", but I get my kicks from elsewhere and by then it'll probably be the case that the Radeon was forgotten, and nobody will care anymore, just like the Rage 128 and the Rage MAXX.

 

[Skaven]

Anybody else itching to purchase some ATI stock?!

Sweet card.. gotta wait for the price to go down..

-Skaven

 

[snow patrol]

Hhehe, well I posted the following in a different thread, but I realise in retrospect that I should have actually posted it in this one (oops)

Take a look here:
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/guides/ati_radeon_64mb_ddr/5.shtml
MDK2, on an Athlon 800 in 32 bit colour (the colour depth gamers demand!):
1024X768x32 - GTS: 51.36fps || Radeon: 79.40fps!
1600x1200x32 - GTS: 21.90fps || Radeon: 45.30fps! (over 100% faster!).

And just to rub salt in Nvidia's wounds, the Radeon beats the GTS in all the high quality modes at all resolutions in Quake 3 (by around 40% at 1600x1200)...

As for Unreal tournament: (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1281&p=25)
1280X1024x32: Radeon outperforms GTS by over 50% and delivers very playable frame rates.

Quite simply, as far as I can tell, the Radeon is the fastest, most feature packed card a gamer can buy. The 2d quality is reputably excellent, unlike the 64meg GTS, from what has been said. The only gamers that this card might not appeal to would perhaps be extremely hardcore ones who like to play at low detail settings (16bit) and get 150FPS...

Let me say this - I am almost certainly not going to get a Radeon, as I've decided to hold on to my Voodoo 3 for a few more months, and get something from the next generation.

However, if I were to purchase a new video card tomorrow, with money no object - I would definitely choose the Radeon over the GTS. It's just way faster....simple as that

 

[OS]

Radeon outperforms GTS by over 50%

uh, no it doesn't. Quit being sloppy and go back and look at the numbers again. You are comparing a 32 meg GTS vs the 64 meg radeon. Doesn't that strike you as being vaguely unfair? In fact, the 64 meg GTS hangs just fine with the radeon, 46.1 vs 48.3

 

[Pete]

Since when has ATi 2D quality been considered excellent? I'd say it's average, and I currently own a PC with integrated Rage and an Xpert 128 which starts to get fuzzy at 1152x864x32. Still, I keep it because of the excellent DVD quality on my Celeron 266@400, and the Radeon's VIVO quality is a BIG plus over the GeForce. Though the drivers haven't given me too much trouble, I'm not confident in their ability to produce mature, fully-functioning ones--a big plus for nVidia.

And my god, $300-400 for a video card to play games on your PC, which will only give one to two years of acceptable performance? That's ridiculous. I'm only considering $300 for the PS2 because it gives me a DVD player as well, and because it'll crank out playable games for at least five years. Definitely more cost-effective than a PC. But then, for the money I've sunk into my PC, I can't really complain too loudly...

 

[HannibalX]

I'm not sure Toxin

 

[borealiss]

the card definitely kicks some major ass in the 32bit department, but i'm interested in how ati will fix the 16 bit issue. like the anandtech review said, if there is a game that is too much for the card to handle at 32 bit, it would be nice to fall back on excellent 16 bit performance. to make this chip as futureproof as possible for those of us that can't shell out 300 clams every 6 months, i would like to see this problem fixed. ever since the rage128, this has been a problem for ati. and the fact that ati's drivers for the radeon are based on the rage128 tells me they haven't learned their lesson yet. impressive card nonetheless.

borealiss0

 

[snow patrol]

Outersquare - sorry, in the other thread I posted that (I copied it over), someone was basically claiming that the normal GTS was superior to the Radeon, so I was trying to come up with good examples