Survey: ATI Radeon 9700

Have you had problems with Radeon 9700?

  • Had major problems that were never resolved

    Votes: 3 14.3%
  • Had major problems that were eventually resolved

    Votes: 2 9.5%
  • Had some minor problems but nothing serious

    Votes: 3 14.3%
  • Had no problems whatsoever

    Votes: 13 61.9%

  • Total voters
    21
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Xtr,

Sorry to scare you away, but if your a hardcore WC3 fan, I seriously wouldnt get the 9700. I have another computer with a Geforce4, and another with a GF2 MX400, and they both run smoother then my PC with the 9700 PRO. My card is the top one you have, with the non-stock, back pcb.
 
Originally posted by ---agissi---
Xtr,

Sorry to scare you away, but if your a hardcore WC3 fan, I seriously wouldnt get the 9700. I have another computer with a Geforce4, and another with a GF2 MX400, and they both run smoother then my PC with the 9700 PRO. My card is the top one you have, with the non-stock, back pcb.

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=3x5900u&page=11

Sorry, but something is seriously wacked w/ your rig if a geforce4 and GF2MX400 are running warcraft3 better than your rig w/ the R9700....

The Radeons shine in WarcraftIII
 
I noticed that those Warcraft 3 benchmarks are for DirectX. Warcraft 3 also operates in OpenGL, which is probably what --agissi-- is using. The tables might then be reversed.
 
Originally posted by Nic
nVidia cards tend to be best in OpenGL (they bought 3dfx),

Hmm? I didn't know that 3dfx had a full-blown OpenGL ICD. As far as I know, all they've ever had was that MiniGL nonsense.

The thing to remember is that Ati isn't the only manufacturer of the Radeon brand of video cards. Ati does make its own but it also outsources chips to other companies much like Nvidia does. Its certainly possible that another manufacturer is to blame and not Ati.
 
Well if you ask me.. ATi use them, and ATi stamp they're name on the boxes, so I think Imma blame ATi ;)
 
Originally posted by DaveSylvia
Hmm? I didn't know that 3dfx had a full-blown OpenGL ICD. As far as I know, all they've ever had was that MiniGL nonsense.
Glide is what it was called, and it was a tweaked, lean, and mean, version of OpenGL. Built for speed.
 
Originally posted by ---agissi---
Xtr,

Sorry to scare you away, but if your a hardcore WC3 fan, I seriously wouldnt get the 9700. I have another computer with a Geforce4, and another with a GF2 MX400, and they both run smoother then my PC with the 9700 PRO. My card is the top one you have, with the non-stock, back pcb.


Sorry for the language,

****! It's too %&$#ing late!
 
note: considering you a wc3 dude, im sure you'll know what Tower Defence is. Thats mainly what I play, in custom games. Its laggy in those, im not totally sure about regular. Tower Defence games have alot more units in them, as I figure you'd know.
 
Nic> A couple of things..

1. If WC3 works in both D3D and OGL, but it's only problematic in OGL, why not just use D3D?
I can see that it's not good that the card won't work as it should in OGL, but when it works as it should in D3D, why all this hassle?

2. 1/3 having problems... Well, take a look at the results again... 6 ppl having no problems, 2 ppl having some minor non serious problems, and only 1 has a big problem that has never been resolved...
To me that means it's 1/9th of a chance that it might now work, which when you think about it isn't really that bad odds...

As for compability testing...
ATI has said that the Radeon 9x00(p) should work with any motherboard following the agp specs... These specs are closely defined, so it won't be any problems unless the motheboard maker chooses not to follow them exactly...
So where would you put the blame?
On ATI for not testing every motherboard that's out there (including the ones that had not yet been produced when they released the R9x00(p)), or the motherboard makers for not following the specs?

This isn't just a problem for ATI, but Nvidia too.
I.e. One motherboard maker (I think it was MSI) had put some capacitators right after the AGP slot, that was way higher than the specs allowed, and thus the cards wouldn't fit... Now, this was only a problem for Nvidia for they had created cards that were quite long, but ATI had kept theirs smaller...

Who's to blame in that situation? Nvidia, for creating a long GPU, or the motherboard maker for not following specs?

.02$
 
Originally posted by MrGaribaldi
As for compability testing...
ATI has said that the Radeon 9x00(p) should work with any motherboard following the agp specs... These specs are closely defined, so it won't be any problems unless the motheboard maker chooses not to follow them exactly...
So where would you put the blame?
On ATI for not testing every motherboard that's out there (including the ones that had not yet been produced when they released the R9x00(p)), or the motherboard makers for not following the specs?

This isn't just a problem for ATI, but Nvidia too.
I.e. One motherboard maker (I think it was MSI) had put some capacitators right after the AGP slot, that was way higher than the specs allowed, and thus the cards wouldn't fit... Now, this was only a problem for Nvidia for they had created cards that were quite long, but ATI had kept theirs smaller...

Who's to blame in that situation? Nvidia, for creating a long GPU, or the motherboard maker for not following specs?
.02$
A couple of things ...

Who said that all issues with ATI Radeon 9700 are AGP related? We don't know what the cause is, and likewise we cannot say for certain that all of ATI's cards that are sold are operating within the AGP specs. All we can say is that ATI has designed them to comply with the AGP specs (as have mobo makers). Likewise, we cannot at this time jump to conclusions and blame the mobo manufacturer for AGP issues as we don't know if their products are within spec. As other AGP 8x cards (nvidia) work fine with most mobos, then it seems that ATI is the odd one out, though not necessarily to blame (but testing should have highlighted problems).

As regards MSI/nvidia card length issue, then I would be inclined to put the blame with MSI (but only if there mobo was released after the nvidia product that had issues) as they appear to be to odd one out. However, I wouldn't say that physical size issues should be counted as genuine problems here, as we are really only talking about 'operational' issues, not physical, though this is obviously of concern to users.
 
I think that what this survey does indicate thus far, is that non-technical users are best to avoid this card (unless of course they know someone that is able to assist them with fixing any problems that may occur), or unless it comes equiped with their computer at time of purchase.
 
Originally posted by Nic
Glide is what it was called, and it was a tweaked, lean, and mean, version of OpenGL. Built for speed.

Glide has nothing to do with OpenGL. It was completely created and controlled by 3dfx. 3dfx created it to make it easier for developers to program games to take advantage of their hardware. However, Glide is old/dead and even 3 years ago was considered quite ugly with poor support for any high end features. OpenGL was the standard for high end 3D graphics and should have been the standard for games as well. 3dfx didn't fully support OpenGL and only released the MiniGL to hold over gamers. 3dfx has yet to released a full OpenGL ICD (Installable Client Driver).
 
Thanks for correcting me DaveSylvia. You're quite correct in that Glide was indead a proprietory API created by 3dfx. Here's some info I dug up, just for curiosity ...

Old Story (Nov 1999):
3Dfx is now shipping a 'real' OpenGL ICD with their later Voodoo products. I don't know if I'll ever get around to getting one and testing it, but still 16-bit color, 256X256 texture size limit... I'm not too impressed. Again, I'm not running a review board for gamers here... If your reading my books and articles and you want to write cool programs, get something else... if you want to do nothing other than play GLIDE based games, you probably don't care what I think anyway...

I'm very disappointed in 3Dfx as a whole. Early on, they seemed to be taking a lead in supporting OpenGL on mainstream boards. For quite a while, they lead the performance/image quality race - far ahead of anyone else.

Over time however, they never have managed to release an OpenGL driver for any of their hardware. Oh, sure they had a mini-driver for Quake based games, but that's not good enough for serious OpenGL development. A half hearted attempt at a full implementation is still in beta as of this writing. Who cares now that they are no longer the performance or image quality leader. Still insisting that 16-bit color and depth buffers are
"good enough", somebody forgot to tell their top management in kindergarten that "The customer is always right".

The reason for their lack luster OpenGL support I think is pretty obvious. OpenGL threatened Glide (3dfx's proprietary 3D API) and thus an important market advantage. A game written with GLIDE will only run on a 3Dfx board. A game written in OpenGL will run on any OpenGL board. Thus if someone comes out with a better board down the road, then all those 3Dfx based games may look better on someone else's hardware. I'll give them credit for being one of the few hardware companies who truly understands the simple premise that guides the entire computer industry - SOFTWARE SELLS HARDWARE. It's not the other way around. Unfortunately, their strategy was short sighted. Come on guys, the days of proprietary API's is over. If you want to differentiate, innovate on your hardware, and provide us with some cool OpenGL extensions!
 
Originally posted by ---agissi---
note: considering you a wc3 dude, im sure you'll know what Tower Defence is. Thats mainly what I play, in custom games. Its laggy in those, im not totally sure about regular. Tower Defence games have alot more units in them, as I figure you'd know.

That may be the explanation. See what happens is that alot of units are mass created by triggers, thus creating some lag.

Try playing a normal game. You know, click the Play Game button, and then search.
 
I had MAJOR headaches. Had to do a complete reinstall of XP PRo from scratch to get the dang video card to work.

I was also getting the notorious "delayed write failure" errors.

So far, it took me 2 weeks and around 70 hours to get the video card to work properly. Absolutely ridiculas IMHO. But then again, now that it's working, the card just smokes.
 
That's great to here that you got things working, eventually.

I'm still waiting for my 9800 Pro to turn up as the company I ordered from sent a 9600 Pro by mistake. So far they haven't arranged collection of the wrong item, and delivery of correct item, as they promised. Customer service in the computer retail industry is shockingly poor. Between that, and problems with hardware, its enough to drive anyone nuts.
 
What I hate about Windows XP is that the same company who produces a NIC, for instance, has a different card with different drivers and a different name. Windows thinks its soo cool and has all the drivers. It never wants to update. I had to reformat for that.

Nothing special, it was a D-Link NIC. The newer one was manufactured in 2002, the older one was in 1999.

Yes, I've looked into possible solutions, none worked.
 
Originally posted by XtR-X
That may be the explanation. See what happens is that alot of units are mass created by triggers, thus creating some lag.

Try playing a normal game. You know, click the Play Game button, and then search.

I know it lags with lots of units for those reasons, but it lags when it shouldnt. My other slower PCs dont lag (on the same settings) at the same time (LAN game). I cant try playing a normal game now, because the PC is no longer in my posetion.
 
You have enough RAM right? Do you run memturbo or a memory defrag program? That has proven to be the cause of lag for me.
 
In the BIOS did you set the correct aperature size (32MB, 64, 128, 256)? How about AGP 1/2/4/8x? Running in DC mode?

Also, I'm not exactly positive but there are some settings in the BIOS that toy with your vid card, in addition to those above.
 
This is an update to the problems that myself, and others here, have experience regarding Radeon AIW 9700 Pro.

I just received my brand new Radeon 9800 Pro today, and it worked perfectly, without a hitch, first time.

This leads me to suspect that there are a lot of Radeon cards being sold without having been tested properly during manufacture. This is probably due to cost cutting, and to expected failure rates being low.

If you receive a card that simply doesn't work, and kills your PSU, then you most likely have a faulty card. My Radeon 9800 Pro works perfectly, and I am really going to enjoy using this card, as its very fast.
 
Originally posted by Nic

I just received my brand new Radeon 9800 Pro today, and it worked perfectly, without a hitch, first time.

This leads me to suspect that there are a lot of Radeon cards being sold without having been tested properly during manufacture. This is probably due to cost cutting, and to expected failure rates being low.


Nic, doesn't that seem just a *little* presumptuous? Everything I've heard from those who have been to and visited ATI is in direct contrast to your theory. Have you spoken to anyone who has been there? :confused:
 
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