Back when the Rage Pro and Rage 128 line were around, ATI's support was really poor, driver releases were like 6 months or even longer apart, they didn't consider the gaming/enthusiast market one to support, ATI was huge in the OEM market and it still is and in Canada, ATI boards are everywhere. It was with the Radeon they changed and focused on gaming/enthusiast markets due to Nvidia biting into their market share. But I've had nothing but trouble with them so I am reluctant to try them again.......for now anyways.
 
I remember this one guy who posted something like this, ATI drivers suck because they create a whole new card all the time, for example the Rage 128 is completely different from the Rage Pro, and the Radeon is different from Rage 128, thus new drivers need to be created everytime. Meanwhile Nvidia just bolts new features on to the existing design TNT2 was a souped up TNT, GeForce4 = overclocked GeForce 3 with a couple of things, GeForce4 MX is like a GeForce2 MX on steroids and thus creating new drivers from scratch is not necessary. Interesting thought process there.

Pmistry - I can see where you're coming from dude - there's a couple of companies that I will avoid in the future, ALi [mobos with their chipsets] & Videologic [soundcards]. I've had 2 of each & had grief from all.
 
On the subject of Radeon drivers - I can't comment on those for the 8500 range cos I only have a 64MB DDR ViVo, but the drivers for that are definitely getting better.
 
Another point is that you know how when you have 1 of those really annoying probs for which the cause/culprit is hard to pin down, but then you think you've figured out what the prob is, only to realise it's actually something else? Well I think this has been the case for me - I was blaming my Radeon, or more specfically the drivers, for a prob I was having, but now it seems more likely that my soundcard [Videologic Sonic Vortex 2] is to blame. I had a Videologic Sonic Storm Pro before the SV2 & that was even more hassle.

an ATI 8500 is going for around $299 from what i see in my area. Why on earth would you buy that card ,at that price, ATI has had sooooooo many driver issues it aint funny.It probably is a good card ,but ATI cant write drivers,so whats the use? at $299 Y bother with the headaches? Buy a high-end Nvidia card,and save the money u would have spent on Tylenol. =)
 
Hammer

Have you just read that they cant write drivers or have you actually had an 8500 and used the drivers ?

Quote:

Another point is that you know how when you have 1 of those really annoying probs for which the cause/culprit is hard to pin down, but then you think you've figured out what the prob is, only to realise it's actually something else?

Just recently I blamed Windows XP and my mouse for laggy input in OpenGL games, turns out the problem was my VIA chipset which required the PCI Latency Patch to correct it, an unofficial patch nontheless.

I find $299 to be cheap but I know you are referring to US dollars, Hammer91. Man a GeForce 4 Ti4600 here in Canada is $600+ dollars, yikes! I went to EB the other day and saw a Visiontek Xtasy Ti4600 and it was something like $629. A Radeon 8500 goes for about $450-500 range while the All In Wonder version is a nice $599.99

If money was no object whatosever then I'd go with the GF4 Ti4600 but since it isn't I'd have to go with the GF3 Ti500 or the Radeon 8500. Why? Because these cards strike the right balance between price and performance in the long term. The GF4 Ti's have no short term benefits over the GF3s and cost 3 times as much. There is no way in hell that I'm payin AUD$800-$1000 for a video card that isn't going to see its day for at least a year.

I picked the 4400....because that's what I've got in my cube.
 
(GF3 TI-200 in my lan box)
 
 
Why the 4400 instead of 4600?
 
it's not worth the extra hundred bucks for an overclock my 4400 can probably do(if it lives up to the Gainward Tradition)