Radeon 8500, so far, so good...
Welp, it's probably been easy to tell I haven't been exactly pleased with ATI in the past. Their major achilles heel, drivers, seems to be remedied for the 8500's very latest, not-yet-offically-certified, drivers for XP run smooth so far.
Welp, it's probably been easy to tell I haven't been exactly pleased with ATI in the past. Their major achilles heel, drivers, seems to be remedied for the 8500's very latest, not-yet-offically-certified, drivers for XP run smooth so far. I think that you guys will be very pleased with this card now that ATI has whipped the driver development team to at least put out drivers that don't suck A$$ everytime. The drivers dated Nov. 13 are good so far. 5800 3dmark 2001 default settings with an 800MHz CPU. w00t!
Participate on our website and join the conversation
This topic is archived. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast.
Responses to this topic
I will upgrade, eventually when I can get a pair of 1GHz CPU's, but this is in 32-bit, and the GF2Ti I had in their before can't touch the 8500 in 32-bit, and just barely in 16-bit.
I have hated ATI for sure in the past, but the 8500 seems to be pretty good this time around. ATI has done a 180 on the driver development here, and they've just got some minor details to work out.
I don't know what happenened up in Canada, but ATI has gotten their act together in the past month and now can do what I thought was impossible: Make good drivers.
If they continue like this, they can totally dominate the GF3Ti500, which the card can, IMO, but it's just a matter of, you guessed it, DRIVERS!
I have been noticing Nvidia's drivers as a bit of a pain in the *** lately, especially under XP. Another thing I really don't like is the drivers that are only in an executable format, not zipped up. Half the time (actually, most of it) the drivers fail to install--which truly sucks.
I have hated ATI for sure in the past, but the 8500 seems to be pretty good this time around. ATI has done a 180 on the driver development here, and they've just got some minor details to work out.
I don't know what happenened up in Canada, but ATI has gotten their act together in the past month and now can do what I thought was impossible: Make good drivers.
If they continue like this, they can totally dominate the GF3Ti500, which the card can, IMO, but it's just a matter of, you guessed it, DRIVERS!
I have been noticing Nvidia's drivers as a bit of a pain in the *** lately, especially under XP. Another thing I really don't like is the drivers that are only in an executable format, not zipped up. Half the time (actually, most of it) the drivers fail to install--which truly sucks.
Well with my system I hit 8151, but I think it can do better. ATi:D has taken care of me and I am happy. My biggest kudos to ATI would be Visual Quality.
Ned
Ned
From Tom's Hardware ........
Conclusion
The Radeon's new drivers are a step forward in every respect. The performance has improved, and the very controversial 'Quake3 optimization' has been removed from the driver. A very impressive aspect is the Radeon's performance when using anisotropic filtering. The R8500 simply leaves the competition by Nvidia in the dust.
Ned
Conclusion
The Radeon's new drivers are a step forward in every respect. The performance has improved, and the very controversial 'Quake3 optimization' has been removed from the driver. A very impressive aspect is the Radeon's performance when using anisotropic filtering. The R8500 simply leaves the competition by Nvidia in the dust.
Ned
Quote:
Tom's not GOD, but he is a source, & one I use... I generally like his reviews.
(I bet this makes Brian feel a bit better about his purchase, I know it would me knowing that benchmark driver optimization mudslinging ATI's competition or testers did is not affecting a thing, the board is still doing well in tests WITHOUT them!)
*
APK
Tom is also desperate for some competition against nVidia, and has always been a fan of the DVD and general MPEG playback ability of ATI's products. They might have one set that works now, but let's see if they can keep up[censored] their drivers over the next 6 months, and see what they do when they update the product and/or release a new one.
Tom's not GOD, but he is a source, & one I use... I generally like his reviews.
(I bet this makes Brian feel a bit better about his purchase, I know it would me knowing that benchmark driver optimization mudslinging ATI's competition or testers did is not affecting a thing, the board is still doing well in tests WITHOUT them!)
*
APK
Tom is also desperate for some competition against nVidia, and has always been a fan of the DVD and general MPEG playback ability of ATI's products. They might have one set that works now, but let's see if they can keep up[censored] their drivers over the next 6 months, and see what they do when they update the product and/or release a new one.
