My Experience with Radeon (32MB DDR) - PLEASE READ!
I foolishly returned a Hercules GeForce 2 MX thinking I would do much better with a Radeon after reading all the excellent reviews touting the bandwidth-friendly Hyper-Z technology and vibrant colors of the Radeon. What a mistake! What a nightmare trying to get the new drivers to work: Windows Protection errors, Windows acting like the Radeon had 1MB or less of video memory, apps crashing.
Well I finally got the new drivers working. The end result: only about a third of my Direct3D games actually work. Some crash to the desktop, others lock up, some have unplayable frame rates and some have visual anomalies. OpenGL performance sucks. The OpenGL performance of the GeForce MX blew this thing away. I was using the latest version of the VIA AGP miniport driver as well as the latest DirectX (came on CD-appeared to be newer than 7.0a). All Radeon diagnostic tests worked correctly. I'm using an Epox EP-MVP3G2 mobo and a K6III-450 with a Diamond MX300 sound card. You might say that the Radeon is incompatible with the MVP3 chipset - you might be right, you might be wrong. You might say that ATI drivers suck and should not market a card with so many problems - you might be right...or wrong. All I know is that this POS is going back!
Enough with the drama, already! There is a reason why Radeon owners are a very contented lot these days: the Radeon is a kickass card. I'm sorry to hear that you had a crappy experience with your card, but lay off of the vitriol! If you want help, then check out a friendly board -- such as rage3d.com and start posting questions. Many of us ditched our NV GeForce 1/2 cards and have never even thought to look back. With a little patience and insight, you might find yourself thinking this way too.
Lay off the vitriol??? In what other industry do you have to scour the web looking for fixes for brand new software and hardware products for which you've spent good money (i.e. over $200)? Add up all the time you, I, and everyone else on boards like these search for fixes for products that should work but don't. Don't get me wrong, building PCs is a blast - I do it for a second source of income. But what other industry can you buy a product with no guarantee that it will work? This is my first foray into the non-Voodoo world and overrall I'm not impressed even though my experience is very limited - the Radeon and the GeForce 2 MX. But, even the MX was flakier than my Voodoo3. Everyone knocks the V5 because of its "lackluster" performance and excessive pricetag. One thing you have to give 3dfx and that is rock solid stability and incredible (in my mind) compatability with hardware and software. For the past couple of years I have read in amazement the problems people have had running their non-Voodoo cards. I suppose as the world of Glide fades into the past and the industry hopefully standardizes on one or two graphical APIs we can expect the solid stability and compatibility that 3dfx has excelled in from non-Voodoo vendors.
Given the fact that the Radeon ran some of my D3D games perfectly while other games crashed and others ran incredibly sick, my best assumption is that ATI didn't do enough quality control before they released their product. Vitriol? Can you imagine my review if I had forked up $320 for a 64MB Radeon???
Your problem is your slow *** system. At least that is why the MX outperforms the Radeon. As for lockups and games not running that is probably incompatabilities of some kind. I don't know.
Great article, thanks! I guess what you're saying is that the Radeon doesn't scale very well. I noticed that throughout every processor range test the MX and the Radeon are neck and neck with the Radeon only taking the lead at 1280 or at Highest Quality settings. Sounds like the MX is a pretty decent card for costing $200 less than an ATI Radeon (64MB).
No man I've been getting the same thing more or less. I HAD a Creative Anihilator Pro 32MB card and I ran "F1-2000" in 800x600 MAXIMUM detail on everything. It ran like water. I thought the nVidia chipset was crashing PS so I opted for the Radeon DDR 32MB; wadda ****in mistake! I ran the game exactly the same settings; it was so unplayable I was getting maybe 12 fps tops.
I just finished playing NFS4 in 640x480x16 with everything enabled and I wasn't everb breaking 30 fps, maybe 25-28 fps. This card is horrible. I spent $350 Cn on this POS while for 40 bucks more I coulda stuck with the GTS2. ****! I gotta get that card back.
And you can't blame it on my system;
P3-450 with ALPHA
ASUS P3VX4
512MB RAM (125MHz)
Maxtor 10.1GB 7200
Creative 5x DVD-ROM
SB Live
300watt Power supply
[This message has been edited by Tuxy (edited 10-05-2000).]
Keep in mind that the Radeon is a self-admitted loser in 16-bit color. It only really excels in 32-bit. Sorry to hear of your loss (Creative Annihilator Pro).
You know, I've seen some damn long descriptions of where people live, and I was just wondering how freakin' long of a location they actually allow you to write in here. Looks like it's quite a bit. Oh well, if the space is here I'll use it!!! :)
Posts
2,330
All I can say is if your performance dropped like that after installing a Radeon, it's your fault, or the rest of your system's fault. There's a driver problem, hardware conflict, or some other snafu causing the bad performance. Hundreds of testimony and benchmarks show that even in 16 bit the Radeon is a fast card (though it is 32 bit where it excels). I suggest you keep trying until you fix your problem.
------------------ Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact finders. - Daniel C. Dennett
IMO, Mr. Derek Smart is a hypocrite: Only someone who is either (a) lying (b) ashamed of their products (c) just plain ashamed, would hestitate to give out some simple and straight forward information. - Derek Smart, Ph.D.
You said that I can't say that it is your system but you are wrong. Your P3 450 is no better than Chiles4's K63 450 so you should expect the bad result. By saying that the Radeon is meant for the P3 or T-bird I meant over 700Mhz!! A 450 ain't shi*t!! And 512Megs of ram is no better than 128 as far as most games go. It just doesn't help.
Read the article that I posted earlier. It will prove it to you. Your system is close t the Celeron 450s performance, not very good with a radeon.
Hey Outside:
I like MX-6's answer better. His article seemed to show that the Radeon (for the money) kinda blows on "low-end" systems. And the reviews I've read on the Radeon at 16-bit color are pretty painful compared to GeForce 2. From what I saw when I had the Radeon my performance sounds like it was similar to Tuxy's. And if it was a driver problem what are we to do about it? - I don't know about Tuxy but I was using the latest and greatest.
You know, I've seen some damn long descriptions of where people live, and I was just wondering how freakin' long of a location they actually allow you to write in here. Looks like it's quite a bit. Oh well, if the space is here I'll use it!!! :)
Posts
2,330
then obviously you shouldn't use the 'latest and greatest' on your system. I love it when people don't do research before buying new hardware, and then blame it on the hardware when it doesn't perform like expected.
------------------ Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact finders. - Daniel C. Dennett
IMO, Mr. Derek Smart is a hypocrite: Only someone who is either (a) lying (b) ashamed of their products (c) just plain ashamed, would hestitate to give out some simple and straight forward information. - Derek Smart, Ph.D.
Hey I just expected the card to giev the same performance as the Geforce and it didn't. I don't have time to read every single aricle available to me. Bottom line is the Geforce 2 was a **** load faster then the Radeon even with my "low end" system.
And what research, Outside, aside from reading about every review on the Radeon as well as the FAQs and tech support documents at ATI would have led me to believe that I would have a problem with the Radeon??
I foolishly returned a Hercules GeForce 2 MX thinking I would do much better with a Radeon after reading all the excellent reviews touting the bandwidth-friendly Hyper-Z technology and vibrant colors of the Radeon. What a mistake! What a nightmare trying to get the new drivers to work: Windows Protection errors, Windows acting like the Radeon had 1MB or less of video memory, apps crashing.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks