ATI Catalyst 3.4 Radeon Drivers released

[Julio Franco]

ATI has released the long awaited Catalyst 3.4 drivers for both Win98/ME and Win2000/XP systems, we have already put them up in our drivers section for download.

Overall 3d performance improvement is expected from this release, as well as DivX enhancements and game bug fixes.

 

[acidosmosis]

Has anyone used the 3.4's? I'm going to take the "you first" approach on this one . When at least a few people from TS have tried these drivers and not had any major problems I'll take it as a go ahead on installing them.

 

[olefarte]

Well, I can give my first impressions. I picked up 300 points in 3D Mark 03, but the game I'm playing stutters real bad with the settings I have been using. With 3.2's I had everything maxed out and AAx6, and AFx8, v-sync on, and everything was smooth. Now I've cut back to 2 and 4 and still herky jerky. I've not ready to go back to 3.2s yet, but if I can't do any better than this, I will. That 300 points in the test don't mean jack to me.

 

[olefarte]

Okay, I've went back to 3.2s. I'm not saying it will be this way with everybody, but 3.4s don't work for me. Games didn't run well even with lower settings. Even 2D seemed worse. Maybe I got a bad install, but for now I'm staying with 3.2s.

 

[acidosmosis]

ah, that's enough to make me stay away from them. anyone else tried them yet?

 

[olefarte]

Saw a few people at Driver Heaven forums that were not to happy either.

Edit: I'm going to try them again. I see a lot of people at other forums going both ways. So I'm going to give it another shot.

 

[olefarte]

I've loaded 3.4s three times now. The last time I just installed over the old ones and they seem to work better, but I still don't think as good as the 3.2s. I'm going to try them for a day or two, but still think I'm going back to the 3.2s. Even scrolling in IE is very rough. In Medal of Honor, the opening credits are all at the very top of the screen, can hardly see them, but really doesn't make any difference, it's just not the way it's supposed to be. After I get to the menu, it's okay.

Even with lower settings, I don't think games run as well.

 

[JSteff]

Best drivers I"ve used by far...smoke the 3.2's and even better than the 3.1's on my machine... 500 point increase over 3.2's in 3dmark2k1.. about the same spread in 3dmark2k3.. awesome drivers..ty ATI

 

[iss]

I loaded the 3.4 cats. my 3dmark 2001 score dropped 200 points and the 3dmark 2003 went up 100 points. havent noticed any problems in games.

 

[DigitAlex]

Originally posted by acidosmosis
ah, that's enough to make me stay away from them. anyone else tried them yet?

Didn't you write here that

Originally posted by acidosmosis
just trying to get the point across to everyone to consider the saying "dont judge a book by its cover" [/B]

True that olefarte tried them, but still said it might be just because of a not-so-clean install or something ...

I'm always trying all the drivers myself, it's not like an OS, you can always go back to the old ones ... And who knows, you'll maybe be pleased by the results. The old times when ATI drivers were VERY bad are (almost hehee) gone

j/k

 

[Krugger]

i installed them last night, they work great for me. no issues at all. the majority of users seem to be enjoying improved scores/fps/speeds/quality across the board. granted some users seem to have issues, but that happens every release. totally removing all aspects of the old drivers before installing the new ones is what always works best for me.
-Krugger

 

[acidosmosis]

I tried the 3.4's and didn't gain any performance in Battlefield 1942. I was still getting between 30-70FPS (depending on the amount of players in the game and what I was doing). This is with graphics on high quality all settings @ 1024x768. I didn't experience any problems with the 3.4's but I just switched back to 3.2's since I didnt gain any performance and have had success with 3.2's for a while now.

DigitAlex: Were talking about drivers here. Hence, dont fix it if it aint broke. Upgrading drivers can really wreak havoc on your system so I was taking the precatious approach. Games are a bit different. I wanted more opinions and wanted to wait a while before I tried them since people were having problems. I don't have any problems with my 3.2's so there wasnt a point in my trying 3.4's anyway. I waited a while and tried them out of curiosity though.