ATI Interview coming up: ask Terry Makedon your questions !

Zardon · Apr 28, 2003, 08:31 PM

We all know how much ATI support has improved over the last 6 months or more, and Terry Makedon in ATI is willing to answer a selection of your questions again, so id like all our members to post their responses in this forum thread on the site, and ill take a selection to ask him.

Have you a question about your ATI drivers? a question about support, future support or something related to Catalyst on any level? Then drop by our forum and make sure you get your voice heard. Click the view article comments

Ill be leaving this forum thread open for a week or so.

Apr 28, 2003, 08:43 PM

Is it strictly about ATI drivers only?

Zardon · Apr 28, 2003, 08:45 PM

Terry is in charge of Catalyst, so anything like hydravision, the software, drivers, game issues, support etc.

~~Crash Override~~ · Apr 28, 2003, 08:47 PM

One question I have for Terry is regarding the R300 series of cards.

They support both Super Sampling and Multi Sampling anti-aliasing in hardware, so far there has not been an option to use the SSAA version in any drivers thus far.

Is there any plans for it to be enabled for those of us who much prefer it to MSAA?

~~Hundredswords~~ · Apr 28, 2003, 09:02 PM

First question for Terry is that could ATI release new Catalyst driver per month? (12 in a year) It is only 2 more releases than what we have now.

Second question is I hear that Divx Fullstream acceleration does not support Radeon 9000 and 9200 series? Is that true?

Thanks!

Erroneus · Apr 28, 2003, 09:34 PM

1. Will it be possible to read the temp at the GPU through the drivers, that would be a nice feature, which many other cards holds.

2. I would like to hear what Terry Makedon thinks about creating games for specific hardware, eg. there has been some rumors about halflife 2 will be produced for nvidia cards and if so, what can ATI do about it?

3. The geforce FX are using the flowFX system to keep'm cool and has a smart feature, when in 2d mode the cooler runs slower, has ATI though off doing the same, so when idling ATI cards will become very silent.

4. And last what about bios updates, this has been a very requested feature for many years. When a motherboard at 100$ has bios updates, a gfx card at 400$ defiently should also have it! Will we see it soon?

Oh yeah thanks for some great drivers and software.

MidnightWatcher · Apr 28, 2003, 09:44 PM

When will ATI implement support for 3D stereo glasses in their Catalyst drivers? Or will this be a separate download package?

Uriel_is_UndaC · Apr 28, 2003, 09:49 PM

When will the promised Open GL refresh rate fix get included. It's been half a year or something since you promised this. :/

Any update on your views of Super Sampling on the R3X0 series?

Will there be a boost of TRUFORM performance in Open GL for the R3X0 series? (As in more than just general performance boosts, ie do you have specific optimizations for OGL TRUFORM on the way?)

"Back in the days" you used to released game specific fixes for your drivers. (SOF2 fog bug for an example.) Is this a thing of the past. The CS issue sure could use such a fix, especially since Cat 3.3 is delayed.

Any chance of granting users control over game specific settings? As in profiles. It's pretty annoying if you play a handfull of games to change the settings over and over again between each game.

Any chance of including control over Side Band Addressing in SMARTGART?

When using TV-out even as a secondary output Vsync will still sync to the second output instead of the frist (ie the monitor). Pretty annoying sice you have to turn off TV-out any time you'll want to use Vsync in a game on your monitor.

[crappy Arnold impression]
I'll be back
[/crappy Arnold impression]

boby · Apr 28, 2003, 09:56 PM

1.QUESTION:i recently bought 9500pro from connect3d.And because the card is very similar to BBA 9500pro i began searching if my card is powerd by ati or BBA.So went to this site and enter the BIOS part number and this came out:
Product Description----------------------------BIOS Part Number---102 Part Number
RADEON 9500 128MB VGA DVI-I TVOUT---113A05602102--------102A0560202

102 Part Number is the same on my 9500pro.
So my question is :can i declare it as BBA product or not.
My card has the same heatsink and fan as the BBA 9500pro and also has 3.0ns rams.
Can someone post his BBA 9500pro picture.

2.QUESTION:after 9600pro is out,is ATI gonna stop producing 9500pro?

x0ph3r · Apr 28, 2003, 10:07 PM

Could it be possible to "rip" that "no-tabs-system" that N*IDIA has ? It's a lot faster and clearer, and I really hate Tabs

Well

hf

irasnyd · Apr 28, 2003, 10:14 PM

Does ATi have any plans to start working on improving linux drivers? Right now ATi's drivers don't support XFree86 4.3.0. I'd really like to see some sort of program similar to Catalyst for linux.

Thanks!

C}{$ · Apr 28, 2003, 10:20 PM

I'm sorry if this is a repeated question, but it really bugs me.

On the issue of only releasing WHQL "certified" drivers. As far as I see it, because no one has given me a reason to think WHQL is worth it, but there are only disadvantages in WHQL'ing drivers and having a closed beta program.

It costs to WHQL (Correct me if I am wrong).
Even if they do get certified, they will still have bugs in, so what's the point?
You have to sign a legal contract to enter the closed beta program, this must cost money to administrate etc.
Users must wait 1 or 2 weeks extra for their game bug fixes, on top of youe 6-8 week release cycle, when a small change would have done and then been released as a BETA. You potentially have the best user testing base EVER, and we don't cost anything, in fact, we are paying for your cards

The list could go on, but my hands are tired.

My question is, What are the advantages of WHQL'ing drivers before releasing them?! And, have you been considering an open BETA program?!

Thanks

demalion · Apr 28, 2003, 10:23 PM

Hmm...another set of interview questions? Coolness.

Any plans for revamped color controls? I.e., in game gamma controls explained and working, new and easier to understand standard gamma adjustments with mouseover or "What's This?" explanations on how they are best used, maybe some preset sliders or functions like "Boost saturation", "Smooth Bright Gradients", "Smooth Dark Gradients" that users could use more intuitively. (This suggestion has been proposed before in several forms by me, including through Catalyst feedback).
I think it would be feasible to place a "positive spin" on beta driver release. I came up with an example approach of a special emphasis in a web page and the install readme on "bleeding edge, fresh from the labs and untested" description for them, adding something with positive tone but clearly reinforcing the idea that problems might be introduced (like "Trailblazer BETA drivers"), and concentration on facilitating ease of installation/uninstallation for users who have problems. Namely, an avenue for handling emergent issues.
My question is: how likely is something like this to be implemented? Or, perhaps, is something already in place but just not enacted recently for whatever reason?
Hey, with the "mod" craze going around, ever consider facilitating the ability of people to make custom control panels by documenting and maintaining registry key behavior? Only real requirement is documenting changes to registry key behavior already exposed by your own control panel and maybe some documentation on the best way to prevent causing conflict with the ATI control panel so that "guaranteed" functionality can always easily be restored. Of course, as much beyond that as possible would be helpful as well.
This is already possible, it is just a matter of facilitating opportunities to reinforce and channel enthusiasm (something that seems to make sense with being the current performance leader). Also might allow someone to address my first point , heh, as well as other issues people have

That's all that occurs to me for now.

crxess · Apr 28, 2003, 10:33 PM

I would like to know if you relate the weak performance of the 9000 series cards in Nascar 2003 to the Game, Drivers or Available power of corrent generation home pc's. While most games see a great improvement, this one seems to suck the power to perform well right of the 9700 card I use, even without the graphice maxed. What steps would you recommend fo better(graphic) game play?

bhw752k · Apr 28, 2003, 10:33 PM

Well, I'd like to start by thanking Terry and the rest of ATI for their continued work on the ATI driver set. I've owned a Rage IIc, a Radeon 64MB, and now a Radeon 9700. The drivers have improved tremendously. Keep up the great work!

QUESTION ONE
ATI, with their Catalyst program, have redefined their commitment (not to mention reputation) regarding VGA drivers. However, this does not apply to their TV-Wonder series. TV-Wonder users continue to be plagued with problems, relating to the WDM driver, the MMC Applications, and in particular problems with Windows XP (which is supposedly supported). These problems are well documented at the Rage3D forums. When (if at all) will ATI's driver reforms reach the PCI TV Tuner products? Will the upcoming TV Wonder Pro rectify these problems, and will the TV Wonder Pro ship with software which allows it the full capability of an AIW 9800?

QUESTION TWO
There has been a recent trend in which #1 graphics chip producer nVidia releases driver updates which dramatically increase performance in both games and benchmarks. ATI's driver releases also increase speed, but they tend to be less drastic. Examples include the Detonator 3 (for GeForce 2 series), Detonator 4 (for GF3) and the recent updates which have helped the struggling GeForce FX. There may seem to be a simple explanation: ATI ships products with a high quality driver right from launch, and that users are expected to enjoy great performance immediately when the product is purchased. However, this puts pressure on ATI's hardware designers, to ensure that their product will hold a performance lead, even after nVidia releases improved drivers. This was demonstrated when the original Radeon (which impressively matched the GeForce 2 and added unique features) was trounced with the release of Detonator 3. nVidia products seem to "improve" throughout their life cycle more than ATI products do. To regain market leadership, does ATI need to ship tremendously fast hardware (to offset Detonator speedups), or does it need to find ways to produce driver speedups of its own?

skilled2k1 · Apr 28, 2003, 10:39 PM

My Uqestion is what cards will eb supported in the Cat. 3.3 release for fullstream support in DIVX. Mainly Iask with the intent on finding out wether or not the 9100 will be included aglon with the 9200, 9500,9700, etc. As up until this point they have seemed to leave the 9100 out

*CATALYST maker* · Apr 28, 2003, 10:41 PM

1) How did you get so handsome and fun to be with?
2) ATI should give you a big raise, do you want us all to start a "give Terry a raise" petition?

*sireric* · Apr 28, 2003, 10:43 PM

More questions for Terry:

1) You're my idol. How can I become more like you?
2) So many talents. Do you sing well too?

patje · Apr 28, 2003, 10:48 PM

Hey Zardon,

First of all, I've just been shocked with your new avatar. I hope you look better in real life, still nice tough

Q's for Terry:
- Ask Terry what he thinks of your avatar

-Why did I not make it in the Beta Program ?

and now serious:
- Ask him what he thinks of my program? I'm curious (or any driver-tweaking related apps and sets)
Maybe its a question Chris Hook would give a better answer to if you would interview him once.

I'm looking forward to the interview!

Patje

threedaysdwn · Apr 28, 2003, 10:50 PM

I have one question, that I ask a lot, and never get an answer to...

Have you looked at the problems in Asheron's Call 2 caused by your drivers?
The first issue affects pixel shader-enabled Radeon cards, and when Pixel Shaders are enabled in the game, causes graphical degradation over time.
Secondly, there are general performance problems, some probably caused by the game code, but perhaps there's some improvement in the drivers that can be made?
Finally, enabling shadows of any kind has a drastic effect on performance... this does not happen on Nvidia cards, and so I'm forced to conclude that it is again a driver issue.

I'd also like to say that I second the above proposal that non-WHQL drivers be released as a "public beta." Much like what happens with Nvidias drivers. Every now and then they have an "official" build that is WHQL certified and slapped up on their homepage.

But it seems like every week they have a new beta drivers, often with performance improvements and bug fixes. Nvidia's team is obviously a driver-writing machine!

Any chance you guys will adopt a system like theirs?

Thanks and keep up the good work.

Angelus84 · Apr 28, 2003, 10:59 PM

Will the 42k Capture Bug on the AIW Radeons (7200) be fixed or have ATi looked into it and not been able to recreate the bug or fix it? Thanks for the huge increase in driver stability over the last year or so.

Vampyromaniac · Apr 28, 2003, 11:58 PM

A question regarding the newest AIW cards' new picture-in-picture ability:
Can you add the ability to use picture-in-picture without buying a second TV card?
(to use 2 of the 3 inputs present on just a single AIW: CATV and/or S-video and/or Composite)

digitalwanderer · Apr 29, 2003, 12:05 AM

Does Zardon's new avatar scare the living crap out of you too? And are all the rumors about your enormous penis size true?

megatron · Apr 29, 2003, 12:41 AM

The beta driver releases/leaks have been drying up lately.

I agree WHQL sucks, its the reason these drivers have been delayed. M$ is a puttz.

megatron · Apr 29, 2003, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Uriel_is_UndaC
Any chance of granting users control over game specific settings? As in profiles. It's pretty annoying if you play a handfull of games to change the settings over and over again between each game.

Yes, I have trouble getting in game settings to work. Things like enabling AA or AF in the game ini. Obviously all games don't have the same framerate so its no good having d3d and openGL settings for all games.

Quote:

Originally posted by Uriel_is_UndaC
Any chance of including control over Side Band Addressing in SMARTGART?

Yes, this is not enabled by smart gart but is supported by my hardware.

Quote:

Originally posted by Erroneus
what about bios updates, this has been a very requested feature for many years. When a motherboard at 100$ has bios updates, a gfx card at 400$ defiently should also have it! Will we see it soon?

I agree. I recently read a guide to help flash back from a bad flash whilst running blind, using the autoexec.bat which is a hidden file on a boot-up disk produced by "creating a boot up floppy" in winXP.

~~tenndevil~~ · Apr 29, 2003, 12:58 AM

I have 1 single question
1: Raven Shield has optomised for ATI all over their website and in the game itself, why then is the ATI 9000 series the worse card to use for this game? All you have to do is read their (UBI's) forums and you will see this is the worst performing line of cards.

capjpuk · Apr 29, 2003, 01:24 AM

Im really fond of ATI.....but I have many serious problems with catalyst.
I always look for the newest driver but in the case of catalyst 3.2 sometimes I wish it never came out so I could stick with 3.1

I have All in Wonder radeon 8500DV on an AMD Thunderbird 1400 with 512 crucial SDRAM and I cant make it stop hanging!!!. I read every info about it and I have checked for Windows XP patches and fixes and all sorts of issues. I have formated MANY times...clean installs etc. It seems to me that these drivers are just not ENOUGH. Issues with Open GL games are the most common. Multimedia Center 8.1 though is a lot more reliable than the previous version.

I don't really understand all that technical stuff but I would like to see FIXES...or NEW DRIVERS that fix Open GL issues for at least chipsets like 8500 which is pretty old. I hope with Catalyst 3.3 we could at least play Counter Strike......

night · Apr 29, 2003, 01:25 AM

didnt read the others, but just to make sure it gets brought up...

there are MANY people that STILL want 3D glasses/stereo driver support

Rayder · Apr 29, 2003, 01:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Uriel_is_UndaC

Any chance of granting users control over game specific settings? As in profiles. It's pretty annoying if you play a handfull of games to change the settings over and over again between each game.

This is a good question I think. I came into this thread intending to ask (basically) the same question.

rhinochan321 · Apr 29, 2003, 03:31 AM

A small bug was introduced with cat 3.1 / 3.2
in counter-strike (half life) if I hit escape while playing a game online I get a black screen and it hardlocks my computer.
FiringSquad did a small article about this problem too. Will this be fixed with the upcomming driver release ?? Please tell me yes because right now I'm still using cat 3.0 and the drivers are slow for many other games
Thanks Terry for your committment.
-sheng

Apr 28, 2003, 09:34 PM	#6
Erroneus Get off my lawn! Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 13,419 Rep Power: 119 System Specs	Temp readings, halflife 2 and more 1. Will it be possible to read the temp at the GPU through the drivers, that would be a nice feature, which many other cards holds. 2. I would like to hear what Terry Makedon thinks about creating games for specific hardware, eg. there has been some rumors about halflife 2 will be produced for nvidia cards and if so, what can ATI do about it? 3. The geforce FX are using the flowFX system to keep'm cool and has a smart feature, when in 2d mode the cooler runs slower, has ATI though off doing the same, so when idling ATI cards will become very silent. 4. And last what about bios updates, this has been a very requested feature for many years. When a motherboard at 100$ has bios updates, a gfx card at 400$ defiently should also have it! Will we see it soon? Oh yeah thanks for some great drivers and software. __________________ Last edited by Erroneus; Apr 28, 2003 at 09:40 PM.

Apr 28, 2003, 09:44 PM	#7
MidnightWatcher DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: The Great White North Posts: 164 Rep Power: 0	3D Stereo Glasses When will ATI implement support for 3D stereo glasses in their Catalyst drivers? Or will this be a separate download package?

Apr 28, 2003, 09:49 PM	#8
Uriel_is_UndaC DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Sweden, Lund Posts: 35 Rep Power: 0	Open GL refreshrate When will the promised Open GL refresh rate fix get included. It's been half a year or something since you promised this. :/ Any update on your views of Super Sampling on the R3X0 series? Will there be a boost of TRUFORM performance in Open GL for the R3X0 series? (As in more than just general performance boosts, ie do you have specific optimizations for OGL TRUFORM on the way?) "Back in the days" you used to released game specific fixes for your drivers. (SOF2 fog bug for an example.) Is this a thing of the past. The CS issue sure could use such a fix, especially since Cat 3.3 is delayed. Any chance of granting users control over game specific settings? As in profiles. It's pretty annoying if you play a handfull of games to change the settings over and over again between each game. Any chance of including control over Side Band Addressing in SMARTGART? When using TV-out even as a secondary output Vsync will still sync to the second output instead of the frist (ie the monitor). Pretty annoying sice you have to turn off TV-out any time you'll want to use Vsync in a game on your monitor. [crappy Arnold impression] I'll be back [/crappy Arnold impression]

Apr 28, 2003, 09:56 PM	#9
boby DriverHeaven Addict Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: slovenia-maribor Posts: 326 Rep Power: 0	1.QUESTION:i recently bought 9500pro from connect3d.And because the card is very similar to BBA 9500pro i began searching if my card is powerd by ati or BBA.So went to this site and enter the BIOS part number and this came out: Product Description----------------------------BIOS Part Number---102 Part Number RADEON 9500 128MB VGA DVI-I TVOUT---113A05602102--------102A0560202 102 Part Number is the same on my 9500pro. So my question is :can i declare it as BBA product or not. My card has the same heatsink and fan as the BBA 9500pro and also has 3.0ns rams. Can someone post his BBA 9500pro picture. 2.QUESTION:after 9600pro is out,is ATI gonna stop producing 9500pro? __________________ NF7-S,AMD 2500+@2300MHz-&SP97+ 92mm vantec tornado on 2800rpm, MSi 5900SP 2X256MB Hyperx PC3200 DM+9 120GB SATA HDD Yamaha cd-rw 20/10/40 WIN XP PRO(SP1)

Apr 28, 2003, 10:07 PM	#10
x0ph3r DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Finland Posts: 47 Rep Power: 0	Could it be possible to "rip" that "no-tabs-system" that N*IDIA has ? It's a lot faster and clearer, and I really hate Tabs Well hf __________________ - x0ph3r

Apr 28, 2003, 08:31 PM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	ATI Interview coming up: ask Terry Makedon your questions ! We all know how much ATI support has improved over the last 6 months or more, and Terry Makedon in ATI is willing to answer a selection of your questions again, so id like all our members to post their responses in this forum thread on the site, and ill take a selection to ask him. Have you a question about your ATI drivers? a question about support, future support or something related to Catalyst on any level? Then drop by our forum and make sure you get your voice heard. Click the view article comments Ill be leaving this forum thread open for a week or so.

Apr 28, 2003, 08:43 PM	#2
T2k Guest Posts: n/a	Is it strictly about ATI drivers only?

Apr 28, 2003, 08:45 PM	Thread Starter #3
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	Terry is in charge of Catalyst, so anything like hydravision, the software, drivers, game issues, support etc.

Apr 28, 2003, 08:47 PM	#4
~~Crash Override~~ Banned Join Date: May 2002 Location: Olympia, WA Posts: 2,448 Rep Power: 0	One question I have for Terry is regarding the R300 series of cards. They support both Super Sampling and Multi Sampling anti-aliasing in hardware, so far there has not been an option to use the SSAA version in any drivers thus far. Is there any plans for it to be enabled for those of us who much prefer it to MSAA?

Apr 28, 2003, 09:02 PM	#5
~~Hundredswords~~ Banned Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 62 Rep Power: 0	First question for Terry is that could ATI release new Catalyst driver per month? (12 in a year) It is only 2 more releases than what we have now. Second question is I hear that Divx Fullstream acceleration does not support Radeon 9000 and 9200 series? Is that true? Thanks!

Apr 28, 2003, 10:14 PM	#11
irasnyd DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Orange County, CA Posts: 10 Rep Power: 0	Does ATi have any plans to start working on improving linux drivers? Right now ATi's drivers don't support XFree86 4.3.0. I'd really like to see some sort of program similar to Catalyst for linux. Thanks! __________________ EPoX 8KHA+ \| AMD AthlonXP 1800+ \| 11.5 x 133 FSB \| Alpha PAL8045 HSF w/ 45.8 CFM YS-Tech Fan @ 36.9 dba \| 256MB Crucial PC2700 CAS2 RAM \| Seagate Barracuda IV 60 GB \| ATi Radeon 9700 \| Hercules Game Theater XP \| Linksys LNE100TX 10/100 NIC \| Lite-On LTR-40125S 40x OC'd to LTR-48125W 48x \| Samsung SD-612 12x DVD-ROM \| WindozeXP Corp + SP1 irasnyd <--- Genoming [H]ard for [H]umanity irasnyd([H]ardOCP) <--- UDing 9/11/01: This will not be forgotten. The victims will live on in our hearts forever, the perpetrators will never be safe from our wrath.

Apr 28, 2003, 10:20 PM	#12
C}{$ DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: monkey land Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	WHQL I'm sorry if this is a repeated question, but it really bugs me. On the issue of only releasing WHQL "certified" drivers. As far as I see it, because no one has given me a reason to think WHQL is worth it, but there are only disadvantages in WHQL'ing drivers and having a closed beta program. It costs to WHQL (Correct me if I am wrong). Even if they do get certified, they will still have bugs in, so what's the point? You have to sign a legal contract to enter the closed beta program, this must cost money to administrate etc. Users must wait 1 or 2 weeks extra for their game bug fixes, on top of youe 6-8 week release cycle, when a small change would have done and then been released as a BETA. You potentially have the best user testing base EVER, and we don't cost anything, in fact, we are paying for your cards The list could go on, but my hands are tired. My question is, What are the advantages of WHQL'ing drivers before releasing them?! And, have you been considering an open BETA program?! Thanks __________________ C}{$

Apr 28, 2003, 10:23 PM	#13
demalion ={DH}=demalion Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 0 Rep Power: 0	Hmm...another set of interview questions? Coolness. Any plans for revamped color controls? I.e., in game gamma controls explained and working, new and easier to understand standard gamma adjustments with mouseover or "What's This?" explanations on how they are best used, maybe some preset sliders or functions like "Boost saturation", "Smooth Bright Gradients", "Smooth Dark Gradients" that users could use more intuitively. (This suggestion has been proposed before in several forms by me, including through Catalyst feedback). I think it would be feasible to place a "positive spin" on beta driver release. I came up with an example approach of a special emphasis in a web page and the install readme on "bleeding edge, fresh from the labs and untested" description for them, adding something with positive tone but clearly reinforcing the idea that problems might be introduced (like "Trailblazer BETA drivers"), and concentration on facilitating ease of installation/uninstallation for users who have problems. Namely, an avenue for handling emergent issues. My question is: how likely is something like this to be implemented? Or, perhaps, is something already in place but just not enacted recently for whatever reason? Hey, with the "mod" craze going around, ever consider facilitating the ability of people to make custom control panels by documenting and maintaining registry key behavior? Only real requirement is documenting changes to registry key behavior already exposed by your own control panel and maybe some documentation on the best way to prevent causing conflict with the ATI control panel so that "guaranteed" functionality can always easily be restored. Of course, as much beyond that as possible would be helpful as well. This is already possible, it is just a matter of facilitating opportunities to reinforce and channel enthusiasm (something that seems to make sense with being the current performance leader). Also might allow someone to address my first point , heh, as well as other issues people have That's all that occurs to me for now.

Apr 28, 2003, 10:33 PM	#14
crxess DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Hagerstown MD USA Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	I would like to know if you relate the weak performance of the 9000 series cards in Nascar 2003 to the Game, Drivers or Available power of corrent generation home pc's. While most games see a great improvement, this one seems to suck the power to perform well right of the 9700 card I use, even without the graphice maxed. What steps would you recommend fo better(graphic) game play?

Apr 28, 2003, 10:33 PM	#15
bhw752k DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Well, I'd like to start by thanking Terry and the rest of ATI for their continued work on the ATI driver set. I've owned a Rage IIc, a Radeon 64MB, and now a Radeon 9700. The drivers have improved tremendously. Keep up the great work! QUESTION ONE ATI, with their Catalyst program, have redefined their commitment (not to mention reputation) regarding VGA drivers. However, this does not apply to their TV-Wonder series. TV-Wonder users continue to be plagued with problems, relating to the WDM driver, the MMC Applications, and in particular problems with Windows XP (which is supposedly supported). These problems are well documented at the Rage3D forums. When (if at all) will ATI's driver reforms reach the PCI TV Tuner products? Will the upcoming TV Wonder Pro rectify these problems, and will the TV Wonder Pro ship with software which allows it the full capability of an AIW 9800? QUESTION TWO There has been a recent trend in which #1 graphics chip producer nVidia releases driver updates which dramatically increase performance in both games and benchmarks. ATI's driver releases also increase speed, but they tend to be less drastic. Examples include the Detonator 3 (for GeForce 2 series), Detonator 4 (for GF3) and the recent updates which have helped the struggling GeForce FX. There may seem to be a simple explanation: ATI ships products with a high quality driver right from launch, and that users are expected to enjoy great performance immediately when the product is purchased. However, this puts pressure on ATI's hardware designers, to ensure that their product will hold a performance lead, even after nVidia releases improved drivers. This was demonstrated when the original Radeon (which impressively matched the GeForce 2 and added unique features) was trounced with the release of Detonator 3. nVidia products seem to "improve" throughout their life cycle more than ATI products do. To regain market leadership, does ATI need to ship tremendously fast hardware (to offset Detonator speedups), or does it need to find ways to produce driver speedups of its own?

Apr 28, 2003, 11:58 PM	#22
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	A question regarding the newest AIW cards' new picture-in-picture ability: Can you add the ability to use picture-in-picture without buying a second TV card? (to use 2 of the 3 inputs present on just a single AIW: CATV and/or S-video and/or Composite) __________________ *Digitalis 3.3* Athlon 64 3000 // ASUS K8V SE Deluxe // 1024MB PC3200 (2-2-2-10 1T) ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro // 20" Dell 2005FPW (DVI) M-Audio Revo 7.1 + Philips Acoustic Edge // Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 320/16 Western Digital WD3200KS + 120/8 Seagate 7200.7 NEC ND-3550A 16x DVD±RW + Lite-On 52x24x CD-RW Antec Sonata case // 480W Antec TruePower personal bests \|\| Aq'3: 46796 \| 3D'01: 20461 \| 3D'03: 6336 \| 3D'05: 2677 \| PC'04: 4605 \| PC'02: 7691,9092,1250

Apr 28, 2003, 10:39 PM	#16
skilled2k1 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: New York Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	My Uqestion is what cards will eb supported in the Cat. 3.3 release for fullstream support in DIVX. Mainly Iask with the intent on finding out wether or not the 9100 will be included aglon with the 9200, 9500,9700, etc. As up until this point they have seemed to leave the 9100 out

Apr 28, 2003, 10:41 PM	#17
CATALYST maker ATI driver guru Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: ATI, Canada Posts: 678 Rep Power: 63	question for Terry 1) How did you get so handsome and fun to be with? 2) ATI should give you a big raise, do you want us all to start a "give Terry a raise" petition?

Apr 28, 2003, 10:43 PM	#18
sireric ATI Hardware Guru Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Santa Clara, CA Posts: 53 Rep Power: 0	More questions for Terry: 1) You're my idol. How can I become more like you? 2) So many talents. Do you sing well too? Last edited by sireric; Apr 29, 2003 at 12:46 AM.

Apr 28, 2003, 10:48 PM	#19
patje Former Mobility Modman Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Belgium / Antwerp Posts: 1,475 Rep Power: 66	Hey Zardon, First of all, I've just been shocked with your new avatar. I hope you look better in real life, still nice tough Q's for Terry: - Ask Terry what he thinks of your avatar -Why did I not make it in the Beta Program ? and now serious: - Ask him what he thinks of my program? I'm curious (or any driver-tweaking related apps and sets) Maybe its a question Chris Hook would give a better answer to if you would interview him once. I'm looking forward to the interview! Patje __________________ Last edited by patje; Apr 28, 2003 at 10:55 PM.

Apr 28, 2003, 10:50 PM	#20
threedaysdwn DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 16 Rep Power: 0	I have one question, that I ask a lot, and never get an answer to... Have you looked at the problems in Asheron's Call 2 caused by your drivers? The first issue affects pixel shader-enabled Radeon cards, and when Pixel Shaders are enabled in the game, causes graphical degradation over time. Secondly, there are general performance problems, some probably caused by the game code, but perhaps there's some improvement in the drivers that can be made? Finally, enabling shadows of any kind has a drastic effect on performance... this does not happen on Nvidia cards, and so I'm forced to conclude that it is again a driver issue. I'd also like to say that I second the above proposal that non-WHQL drivers be released as a "public beta." Much like what happens with Nvidias drivers. Every now and then they have an "official" build that is WHQL certified and slapped up on their homepage. But it seems like every week they have a new beta drivers, often with performance improvements and bug fixes. Nvidia's team is obviously a driver-writing machine! Any chance you guys will adopt a system like theirs? Thanks and keep up the good work. __________________ Asus A7N8X Deluxe AMD Athlon 2400+ ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB

Apr 28, 2003, 10:59 PM	#21
Angelus84 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Will the 42k Capture Bug on the AIW Radeons (7200) be fixed or have ATi looked into it and not been able to recreate the bug or fix it? Thanks for the huge increase in driver stability over the last year or so.

Apr 29, 2003, 12:05 AM	#23
digitalwanderer Colour Commentator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Highland, IN USA Posts: 5,619 Rep Power: 0	A most important question for Terry Makedon!!!! Does Zardon's new avatar scare the living crap out of you too? And are all the rumors about your enormous penis size true? __________________ WTF is up with the sigs?

Apr 29, 2003, 12:41 AM	#24
megatron DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 93 Rep Power: 0	The beta driver releases/leaks have been drying up lately. I agree WHQL sucks, its the reason these drivers have been delayed. M$ is a puttz. __________________ My system specs and 3dmark2001se score Rad8500 bioses, UT2k3, GTA3 pages & more. Also watercooling endeavours.

Apr 29, 2003, 12:58 AM	#26
~~tenndevil~~ Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 128 Rep Power: 0	I have 1 single question 1: Raven Shield has optomised for ATI all over their website and in the game itself, why then is the ATI 9000 series the worse card to use for this game? All you have to do is read their (UBI's) forums and you will see this is the worst performing line of cards.

Apr 29, 2003, 01:24 AM	#27
capjpuk DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Im really fond of ATI.....but I have many serious problems with catalyst. I always look for the newest driver but in the case of catalyst 3.2 sometimes I wish it never came out so I could stick with 3.1 I have All in Wonder radeon 8500DV on an AMD Thunderbird 1400 with 512 crucial SDRAM and I cant make it stop hanging!!!. I read every info about it and I have checked for Windows XP patches and fixes and all sorts of issues. I have formated MANY times...clean installs etc. It seems to me that these drivers are just not ENOUGH. Issues with Open GL games are the most common. Multimedia Center 8.1 though is a lot more reliable than the previous version. I don't really understand all that technical stuff but I would like to see FIXES...or NEW DRIVERS that fix Open GL issues for at least chipsets like 8500 which is pretty old. I hope with Catalyst 3.3 we could at least play Counter Strike......

Apr 29, 2003, 01:25 AM	#28
night DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	didnt read the others, but just to make sure it gets brought up... there are MANY people that STILL want 3D glasses/stereo driver support

Apr 29, 2003, 03:31 AM	#30
rhinochan321 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 8 Rep Power: 0	Half Life (counter-strike) A small bug was introduced with cat 3.1 / 3.2 in counter-strike (half life) if I hit escape while playing a game online I get a black screen and it hardlocks my computer. FiringSquad did a small article about this problem too. Will this be fixed with the upcomming driver release ?? Please tell me yes because right now I'm still using cat 3.0 and the drivers are slow for many other games Thanks Terry for your committment. -sheng