Radeon VE ???

[MangoX]

Hi! I'm looking for a new low-end video card for a space computer.
I'm thinking the Radeon VE because I read on a anandtech article than u can unlock the Hyper-Z capability by changing registry keys and then u can get full performance of the Radeon DDR at 1/2 price. But I can't find that card anymore. The cloest one I found in my area is the POWERCOLOR RADEON VE 7000 64M DDR. Is this card any good?? Any is it faster than a Geforce 2 MX400 ?? or slower?? cause i can get it for around $100CDN and I think it is a good price. I want to know the performance of it. thnx

 

[Brian48]

I personally think the Radeon VE is a piece of crap. It uses a crippled version of the regular Radeon card (w/o the Charisma engine) and is barely faster than an old TNT2u. Unless you need the dual monitor support, I'd recommend you pass on it, especially since cards like the GTS-V are so cheap now ($45 and below).

 

[Brian48]

Note: If you can the Radeon LE, that would be a better choice also.

 

[Rand]

I believe your looking for the Radeon LE, not the Radeon VE. The VE is a cut down Radeon core offering offering Dual Monitor support, the LE is the model that can be hacked into a full Radeon DDR.

PriceWatch Radeon LE.

 

[Peter]

Radeon VE aka 7000 is neat if you want dual monitors and don't care much about 3D performance. Apparently the latest ATi drivers unlock Hyper-Z _and_ T&L on those cards, so it actually the hardware itself isn't quite as crippled as we thought ...

If you can spend $20 more, you'd rather get a 7500LE card (like Powercolor RV2L or RV2LE). These use the 7500LE chip (a low clocked but full featured 7500) along with 128-bit SDRAM (L) or 64-bit DDR RAM (LE), on a fanless design, and have CRT+TV+DVI outputs (two-CRT mode through a DVI-VGA adapter).

This gives you multihead support, quiet operation and at least mentionable 3D performance.

regards, Peter

 

[dbal]

I ve been using the retail "built by ATi" 32MB DDR version for 6 months (ditched it 1 week ago ) and I can tell you these:
a. It has two major drawbacks: Only 64bit memory bus width and its highly crippled (only 1 rendering pipeline!) core. The core has been greatly helped though by the last set of drivers (6071-amazing performance) which enabled the hidden(?) T&L capabilities of it, but it still hurts the card.....
b. It will let u do casual gaming at 1024x768x32 over 30fps in most games now, if u tweak the detail settings a bit at the level of 16bit z-buffer and bilinear texture filtering
c. Of course, it's performance rating is worse than a nicely engineered GF2MX400 but not that far.... (around 15% from the benchmarks I ran on mine i.e. QuakeIII, RTCW, Max Payne etc.)
d. Great 3D feature set support (all bump mapping techiniques, aniso filtering, FSAA, pure 32bit zbuffer) and drivers (the 6071 I mentioned). Of course most of them will remain unusable due to the excess performance hit it will suffer....
e. BEST DVD playback support by far in its range and not only (IMHO only the GF4MX has a richer feature bundle for DVD)
f. Great multimonitor support and management - the ATi version has a full pack of cables, connectors etc in the box
Summarizing I could say it's the ideal card for an office computer (excellent 2D as well) that can afford casual only gaming without special demands-choice is yours..!

 

[BFG10K]

Apparently the latest ATi drivers unlock Hyper-Z _and_ T&L on those cards, so it actually the hardware itself isn't quite as crippled as we thought

Very interesting. I might have to install mine again and test it with the new drivers. The last driver set I tried were the 6043s.

 

[dbal]

You 'd better do it BFG! We are talking for a definitely amazing version (performance, features etc.) that ends the hype of bad ATi drivers forever.

 

[BFG10K]

I'm still having difficulty in believing that T&L is actually on the board but has simply been disabled through software means. If ATi did that they'd have nothing that translates into such a large cost saving. It's more likely that the driver reports hardware T&L and they've accelerated the functions with SIMD like 3dfx did.

 

[DaLeroy]

On the Radeon LE, what's the TV-Out cability like? Will it be good enough to read text from an mp3 player? (thinking of hooking one up to my TV and stereo)

Would this be the best card for the job?

Thanks

 

[Regalk]

Da Leroy
Didn't know that the Radeon LE had TV out capabilites. Anyway I am starting a new thread on the same questions you asked.

 

[MangoX]

Dbal: is tht the first Radeon DDR 64mb???
i thought that it always had hardware T&L

 

[dbal]

Originally posted by: AznBoi36
Dbal: is tht the first Radeon DDR 64mb???

Sorry, didn't understand your question....

Originally posted by: AznBoi36
i thought that it always had hardware T&L

The Radeon VE core implemented in the Radeon 7000 series and the Radeon VE never supported hardware T&L at the official ATi specs....All games and benchmarks report its existence on the other hand after installing the 6071 driver set that ATi released few days ago....I agree with BFG that it doesn't make sense for ATi to have the T&L engine hidden for such a long time...In addition this fact would take away the basic principle that this core was cut down when compared to the original Radeon in order to be more cost-effective in production and thus in the cards' sale price....

 

[Peter]

The official blurb back then was that (from Radeon-256 to Radeon-VE) they removed one RENDERING pipeline to make room for another OUTPUT pipeline for dual head support - plus the cards are equipped with less and slower RAM typically. Hyper-Z was present but software-disabled, this has been known for long (including registry hacks to get it back), but now T&L has magically appeared as well. No big surprise actually ...

regards, Peter

 

[Goi]

I'm currently running an original Radeon VE(before they came up with the 7x00/8x00 naming system) on Win2K Pro SP2 on my HTPC, and do you mean to tell me that with the latest Radeon VE drivers I can expect to see a healthy performance improvement in 3D games such as Q3A? That would be a welcome improvement, even if I'm only doing extremely casual gaming on that system(doing DVD watching/music listening on that system most of the time). Is this improvement via the hardware occlusion/T&L automatic or do I have to enable it somewhere?

 

[dbal]

Absolutely automatic-just a proper install of the ATi 6071 drivers and off you go! The hardware T&L will be recognized everywhere....... (games, benchmarks etc.)

 

[Rottie]

6071 driver does not give you much performance at all. I checked with 3DMark 1107 using 3201 driver down to 1078 with 6071 driver.

 

[dbal]

You are just a case. My ex-VE flew from 2100 3DMarks to 2555! (with the same system config of course)
I 'll post the link to the project ASAP

 

[dbal]

Here is the proof
Also note the support of enviromental bump mapping and pure 32bit z-buffer that even my new GF2Ti can't supply ATi quality as always....

 

[Goi]

Alright then, I'll try that...does it have anything other than 3D improvements?

 

[clamrade]

Dual monitor capability also improves. I could refresh at only 60Hz when both monitors were driven at 1024, but I can now do dual monitors at 1280, at 75Hz.

Still slow as hell when using two monitors.

 

[uncouth]

here's a direct link for the lazy...

 

[ProviaFan]

Wow, thanks guys for the info on the new drivers. I'm downloading them now.

(a currently-not-satisfied-with-the-performance-of-his-radeon-ve-but-hopefully-soon-to-be-relieved ATI Radeon VE owner)