Best radeon 9700 driver revision?

[TheFrnchTickler]

Well well well, looks like I got my hands on a radeon 9700 (not pro)

Which driver revision are all you ATidiots getting the best stability and compatibility with?

I'll be sure to give my opinions of the card once I install it (after I get a guage of the best drivers to download for it)

[PreservedSwine]

What OS?

[Raptorman]

Well, I'm not a fanATic but I prefer the 6193 (WinXP) version of the drivers.

As they fixed some EA titles, such as Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2

[saturnotaku]

6193's are the best. In another thread in this forum I posted a link to where you can pull them off ATI's site.

/me is too lazy to look for it. :D

[TheFrnchTickler]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
6193's are the best. In another thread in this forum I posted a link to where you can pull them off ATI's site.

/me is too lazy to look for it. :D

Hm.

I downloaded them, installed them, quake runs, but antialiasing appears to not be working at all.

Is this something I might be doing wrong, or have I already encountered my first driver bug?

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by TheFrnchTickler
Well well well, looks like I got my hands on a radeon 9700 (not pro)

Which driver revision are all you ATidiots getting the best stability and compatibility with?

I'll be sure to give my opinions of the card once I install it (after I get a guage of the best drivers to download for it)


Prove that you have a non-pro version of the 9700. Seeing as how they're not even in the retail channel yet I find it doubtful that you'd have one. Post a picture of it or something.

[TheFrnchTickler]

First off, why do I need to prove it?

Second off, I have neither a digital camera, nor the webspace to post a picture.

I will say this, though...

I downloaded the 7.70 drivers (think that's what they were) from guru3d, and the FSAA worked in quake, and I must say, the quality is simply AMAZING 0_0

THIS IS THE BEST ANTIALIASING SINCE THE VOODOO5!

Man, if this card handles the rest of my games like it does quake2 (just finished some rocket arena) then I'll definitely be leaving the geforce4 Ti4600 behind!

This isn't a retail card, either, this is an oem one, from what I can tell.

Btw, what's a good overclocking utility for the 9700 series?

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by TheFrnchTickler
First off, why do I need to prove it?

Second off, I have neither a digital camera, nor the webspace to post a picture.

I will say this, though...

I downloaded the 7.70 drivers (think that's what they were) from guru3d, and the FSAA worked in quake, and I must say, the quality is simply AMAZING 0_0

THIS IS THE BEST ANTIALIASING SINCE THE VOODOO5!

Man, if this card handles the rest of my games like it does quake2 (just finished some rocket arena) then I'll definitely be leaving the geforce4 Ti4600 behind!

This isn't a retail card, either, this is an oem one, from what I can tell.

Btw, what's a good overclocking utility for the 9700 series?

Ok..where did you get it from? I don't think any 3rd party manufacturer has a 9700 available yet nor does ATi themselves. I'd be really curious to see how you managed to get one.

[TheFrnchTickler]

Sorry joker, I don't feel like playing that kind of game. Quite frankly, where I got it isn't your business. Maybe I'm wrong and it is just a 9700 PRO oem, but the sticker on the card says 9700 128 meg. It doesn't say PRO on it. Guess I must just be a very special person to have one.

Edit- Oh yeah, could you point out a good 'clocking tool also? I'll check the clockspeeds.

(BTW, if my none of your business thing sounds rude, I'm really not trying to be, sorry, I just don't reveal those things)

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by TheFrnchTickler
Sorry joker, I don't feel like playing that kind of game. Quite frankly, where I got it isn't your business. Maybe I'm wrong and it is just a 9700 PRO oem, but the sticker on the card says 9700 128 meg. It doesn't say PRO on it. Guess I must just be a very special person to have one.

Edit- Oh yeah, could you point out a good 'clocking tool also? I'll check the clockspeeds.

(BTW, if my none of your business thing sounds rude, I'm really not trying to be, sorry, I just don't reveal those things)

So in another words, you bought a 9700 pro and thought it was a regular 9700. :confused: A good overclocking tool is rage3d tweak that can be found at www.rage3d.com

[TheFrnchTickler]

Originally posted by 5150 Joker
So in another words, you bought a 9700 pro and thought it was a regular 9700. :confused: A good overclocking tool is rage3d tweak that can be found at www.rage3d.com

Well, must be a pro, because the default clocks are 325core and 310 memory :D

Anyway, it's not labeled as a pro, and I really never said anything about BUYING it...

However, it IS a pleasant surprise.

[-=DVS=-]

ill go with 6193 for winxp ;)


Ohhh and AntiAliasing/AA works only in 32bit mode !!!!!! :(

Lazy ATI @&#%*$ can't make better drivers :o

[TheFrnchTickler]

Well, after playing with this card for a few hours (last night and this morning) all I can say is excellent hardware engineering.

The drivers, though, still don't leave me feeling as confident as I should.

The performance of the card in quake2, 3, and serious sam is excellent. Also the FSAA quality is possibly the best I've ever seen. It's at the very least, on par with the Voodoo5 5500's 4x, if not a little better.

The only problems I've had, so far, using the 7.79 drivers (downloaded from guru3d) are that NFS:HP2 seems quite a bit sluggish, and Tribes 2's menus are a flashing mess. However, the in-game performance and picture quality for Tribes2 are both very good.

This card definitely merits further testing.

I'll be sure to post back any major issues or kudos.

[John Reynolds]

Originally posted by TheFrnchTickler
Hm.

I downloaded them, installed them, quake runs, but antialiasing appears to not be working at all.

Is this something I might be doing wrong, or have I already encountered my first driver bug?

I had the exact same problem, couldn't get AA to work at all once I d/l that driver version.

[TheFrnchTickler]

Originally posted by John Reynolds
I had the exact same problem, couldn't get AA to work at all once I d/l that driver version.

The 7.79 version works competently enough. I'll be sure to go through some other games like AvP2 and NOLF later.

[gravioli]

Originally posted by TheFrnchTickler
The 7.79 version works competently enough. I'll be sure to go through some other games like AvP2 and NOLF later.

Congratulations on your 9700 acquisition. :) It is truly a great card.

If you by chance play AvP2 MP, could you check to see if you get major slowdown when bringing up the MP score overlay (i.e. press the TAB key) in game? This is the only unexplainable performance problem I have with the 9700 Pro.

The slowdown on my system seems to be directly related to the level of AA that I use. With 4xAA my framerates drop to about 10. :confused: My old Geforce 3 did not have this problem.

Thanks.

[TheFrnchTickler]

Hm. It seems that the 9700 has some issues with NOLF.

First off, there's menu corruption (not a big problem). Secondly, though, is the FSAA problem... FSAA is disabled starting the game, until you restart the renderer, then it comes on, but goes off again when the map changes. Irritating to say the least.

Sorry, haven't checked out AvP2 yet.

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by TheFrnchTickler
Hm. It seems that the 9700 has some issues with NOLF.

First off, there's menu corruption (not a big problem). Secondly, though, is the FSAA problem... FSAA is disabled starting the game, until you restart the renderer, then it comes on, but goes off again when the map changes. Irritating to say the least.

Sorry, haven't checked out AvP2 yet.

You should send in your report to the ATi Catalyst driver team incase they aren't aware of this. The form is here: http://apps.ati.com/driverfeedback/

[TheFrnchTickler]

Originally posted by 5150 Joker
You should send in your report to the ATi Catalyst driver team incase they aren't aware of this. The form is here: http://apps.ati.com/driverfeedback/

That'd be a great idea, Joker, except their form doesn't seem to have the option to report problems with these leaked drivers...

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by TheFrnchTickler
That'd be a great idea, Joker, except their form doesn't seem to have the option to report problems with these leaked drivers...

Oops didn't realize you were trying the 7.79 drivers. Give the 6193 drivers a shot and see if they work better for you. People have had more instability issues with 7.79 drivers than 6193. Alternatively, you could try the last officially released driver and if you still have the same problems then you can use that form to report it.

[TheFrnchTickler]

Originally posted by 5150 Joker
Oops didn't realize you were trying the 7.79 drivers. Give the 6193 drivers a shot and see if they work better for you. People have had more instability issues with 7.79 drivers than 6193. Alternatively, you could try the last officially released driver and if you still have the same problems then you can use that form to report it.

I'm not really worried about those problems for now, NOLF is a fairly old game, and I only tested it for posterity's sake.

I tried the 6193's when I first got the card, and couldn't get FSAA working in my quake games, so I switched up. Quake and serious sam are the games I play most often, and these drivers are doing ok in those two, so I'll just stick with them for the moment until something better comes along.

Like I said, admirable sentiment, and if they'd TAKE my reports, I'd be glad to give them, but I doubt they'd even be interested. :cool:

[gravioli]

By Menu corruption in NOLF, do you mean the text is messed up? If so, this is due to Anisotropy. This happened with my Geforce3 as well. Disable it and the text will look fine.

Also, I assume you are running everything in 32-bit right? AA does not work with the 9700 if you are using 16-bit.