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crosscourt
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« on: February 10, 2003, 04:58:41 PM » |
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You of course can get them from www.aticom but www.rage3d.com has them on the front page with readme. The major fixes are: *Need for Speed Hot pursuit 2 no oonger hangs with mamximum details *Mafia no longer flickers or suffers display corruptions *9500/9700 series now support anti-aliasing with 16 bit applications. There are more comments in the readme and please note these are dx9 drivers. CC |
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crosscourt
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« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2003, 04:58:41 PM » |
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!!!New Ati 3.1 Cat drivers are out with game fixes!!!!
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yngtm27
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« Reply #2 on: February 11, 2003, 12:09:24 AM » |
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These are probably best for ATI's latest and greatest DX9 cards right?
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wdb1966
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« Reply #3 on: February 11, 2003, 01:20:20 AM » |
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I believe these are also for everything in the whole Radeon line.
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crosscourt
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« Reply #4 on: February 11, 2003, 09:39:11 AM » |
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These are unified drivers that can be used with any Ati product but have improvements primarily for the 9000/9500/9700 series cards. They are dx9 drivers so you will need it to run them but in most cases dx8 cards will run fine with dx9/3.1 cats but users should be wary.
If youre in doubt continue using the 2.5 cats as they are fine for most games that still use dx8,CC
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markelo
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« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2003, 10:17:04 AM » |
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<< These are unified drivers that can be used with any Ati product but have improvements primarily for the 9000/9500/9700 series cards. They are dx9 drivers so you will need it to run them but in most cases dx8 cards will run fine with dx9/3.1 cats but users should be wary.
If youre in doubt continue using the 2.5 cats as they are fine for most games that still use dx8,CC >>
ITo be more precise these are for the RADEON line of cards.
Here is what I am using.
Win2K with directx8.1b and now those new catalyst3.1 drivers.
So far the effects in few direct 3d games is that frames per second lowered a bit but on the other hand lights are now quite shiny and crisp. Also fogging effect is better. Need for speed 6 is still stuttering with my card but I have heard that for 8500 line of cards stuttering is gone.
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crosscourt
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« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2003, 08:12:18 PM » |
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2 points very quickly Markelo.
First Atis current product line is nothing but Radeons and because the drivers require dx9 the cards that it will work with is limited and included in the readme for the drivers.All users should check the compatibility of any driver before installing it regardless of the model.
Second I assume you are using dx9 with win2k and the 3.1 cats? Stuttering can be caused by the wrong agp driver,too small a agp aperture,programs running in the backgorund or latency issues with the board.
Ive found the older 2.1s perform best with my 8500 and Ive had no stuttering issues except with Via motherboards. Intel and Sis boards have no such issues and Ive always cracked this up to their reverse engineered agp implementation,CC
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markelo
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« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2003, 06:51:13 AM » |
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<< 2 points very quickly Markelo.
First Atis current product line is nothing but Radeons and because the drivers require dx9 the cards that it will work with is limited and included in the readme for the drivers.All users should check the compatibility of any driver before installing it regardless of the model.
>>
Very true. I just emphasized RADEON line because some people have thought that these drivers would work with rage line also.
<< Second I assume you are using dx9 with win2k and the 3.1 cats? >>
Nope. Directx 8.1b and these newest CAT drivers. Of course I can't use any dx9 application. This setup also leads to other problems when I am installing dx9 later but so far I don't like to install it.
<< Stuttering can be caused by the wrong agp driver,too small a agp aperture,programs running in the backgorund or latency issues with the board.
Ive found the older 2.1s perform best with my 8500 and Ive had no stuttering issues except with Via motherboards. Intel and Sis boards have no such issues and Ive always cracked this up to their reverse engineered agp implementation,CC >>
I don't know what is causing stuttering in my system and currently I am not trying to find it out either as I am going to buy new graphic card later and only game that is stuttering in my system is that need for speed 6. So far I have palyed these games with CAT 3.1 drivers.
Unreal, UT2K3, need for speed 3 and NFS6. Issues I am experiencing are that in UT2K3 in benchmarking tree shadows in botmatch sometimes turn to dark triangles and that NFS6 stuttering issue.
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Arrow
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« Reply #8 on: February 12, 2003, 08:19:15 AM » |
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The Cat 3.1s work great on my system. I've noticed that they've fix the smoke effects in Medal of Honor.
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leeber
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« Reply #9 on: February 12, 2003, 02:24:42 PM » |
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Dumb question but after installing the drivers and rebooting. XP finds new hardware, but where am I supposed to point to for the location of the new drivers?
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crosscourt
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« Reply #10 on: February 12, 2003, 04:44:25 PM » |
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If you know where the drivers were filed, use that ,otherwise just type the letter of your drive like C: and let windows find them for you. If that doesnt work just do a file search for Ati and note where the drivers are like windows/system and point it there,CC
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Xenos
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« Reply #11 on: February 13, 2003, 01:36:03 AM » |
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Do you have to have Direct x 9.0 for these drivers? I have a system setup similar to Arrows.
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wdb1966
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« Reply #12 on: February 13, 2003, 02:21:03 AM » |
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Hehehe...I have these and DX9 on my system with my 8500DV...it sucks so bad I won't even say how low my 3DMark2003 score is...lets just say I couldn't play some of these games if I wanted too...good thing I'm no gamer.  |
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Garry M
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« Reply #13 on: February 13, 2003, 06:56:53 AM » |
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<< Do you have to have Direct x 9.0 for these drivers? >>
Yes.
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markelo
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« Reply #14 on: February 13, 2003, 10:28:40 AM » |
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<<
<< Do you have to have Direct x 9.0 for these drivers? >>
Yes. >>
Why ? I haven't have any problems installing these drivers without directx 9 to win2K pro.
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Garry M
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« Reply #15 on: February 13, 2003, 11:35:15 AM » |
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<< Why ? I haven't have any problems installing these drivers without directx 9 to win2K pro. >>
There are more comments in the readme and please note these are dx9 drivers.
Thats why.
Should I care if these new drivers works w/o DX 9 installed a Windows 2000 platform? No.
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markelo
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« Reply #16 on: February 13, 2003, 02:23:28 PM » |
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<< Should I care if these new drivers works w/o DX 9 installed a Windows 2000 platform? No. >>
You should as these drivers also change older directx implementations. Either framerates increase or picture quality changes with old games. These drivers do support those dx9 capabilites if there is dx9 installed and application uses dx9 features. But otherwise it is not just for dx9.
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crosscourt
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« Reply #17 on: February 13, 2003, 07:11:49 PM » |
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Wdb dont worry if you do want to game as 3dmark2003 doesnt represent what you will see in games in the coming year. Most developers understand that the dx9 cards are not the bulk of the market and design the games in such a way that dx8 card users can play the games successfully. The other good news is not all games use directx and opengl games arent affected by this situation and generally run better on most cards.
gf3,8500,gf4 users will be fine with games well into 2004 but by then the prices will have dropped and we can all upgrade easily.
About the 3.1 drivers,they do not need dx9 to be used with older cards or games but if you do need support for certain dx9 features in games you must install dx9 with the game.
For most dx8 card users youll find the 2.5 cats are the better choice overall for now,CC
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markelo
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« Reply #18 on: February 14, 2003, 03:55:54 PM » |
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Yes!! I get rid of that stuttering in NFS6. I installed latest Rage3D tweak ( 3.18 something ) and disabled TCL hardware and TCL back face culling options. But not so good without something bad. Now UT2K3 framerates have halved.  . . Also that tweaker showed that my card is running at 164 Mhz core and 164 Mhz memory. Others have said that their RADEON VIVOs run around 200 Mhz  Are these cheap BULK cards different in hardware from those retail cards ? |
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Arrow
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« Reply #19 on: February 14, 2003, 04:09:23 PM » |
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If you have an OEM card, then yes, your card probably does have lower clock speed than the retail cards. This lets the companies like Dell and Gateway get away with cheaper PSU and cooling solutions. Other than that, there shouldn't be any difference.
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KSAboy
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« Reply #20 on: February 14, 2003, 05:22:29 PM » |
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hi, and good to see you guys again, cc you are still using the cat 2.1 right?
KSAboy
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crosscourt
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« Reply #21 on: February 14, 2003, 06:59:04 PM » |
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Im using the 2.5 cats Ksaboy and testing them with a variety of games. So far its been fine but most of the issues were with older games that couldnt run on the newer drivers but Ill let you know what happens.
Wont be using the 3.1s unless I can verify how they perform with older games,CC
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wdb1966
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« Reply #22 on: February 16, 2003, 01:17:18 AM » |
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Between DX9 and the new CATS, my multi-media features got hosed beyond repair...had to reinstall XP and I'm staying with the DX8.1 and ATI's stock drivers, no need for DX9 compatability here yet.
My 3Dmark2001SE score with the clean install is just over 4k, so I'm happy...not bad for an 8500DV.
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crosscourt
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« Reply #23 on: February 16, 2003, 06:47:25 PM » |
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I reccomend highly that many of you try the omega drivers that dont have the same issues the Ati drivers do. You can get them over at www.omegacorner.com and they are far more stable in all versions than Atis stock drivers,CC |
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crosscourt
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« Reply #24 on: February 17, 2003, 01:25:09 AM » |
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Wanted to add that the 3.1s have some serious issues with the installer for win98/se/me users so be aware of issues and you might want to stick to the 3.0as that have less problems,CC
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