ATI Ending Support for Many DX9 Cards

**MIG-31** · Oct 28, 2009, 08:51 PM

AMD has moved a number of DX9 ATI Radeon™ graphics accelerators products to a legacy driver support structure. This change impacts Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux distributions. AMD has moved to a legacy software support structure for these graphics accelerator products in an effort to better focus development resources on future products.

The following products have been moved to the legacy software support structure (including Mobile and All-in-Wonder Variants).
____________
Source: AMD/ATI

DJ BIG T · Oct 28, 2009, 09:54 PM

thats not right because theres so many dx9 games out their..

Gastrian · Oct 28, 2009, 11:04 PM

The title isn't right really, it should be "ATI ending support for many DX9 cards". Basically ATI are no longer supporting the X series of cards or earlier models and have moved them to legacy status. This is only fair seeing as theire replacements, the 2xxx series were released around June 2007, over two years ago.

AMD/ATI will still support DX9 as the vast majority of DX9 components exist in DX10, 10.1 and 11 architecture but won't support and DX9 only cards (and in fairness they are so out of date that they are barely minimum spec now).

Zardon · Oct 28, 2009, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gastrian

The title isn't right really, it should be "ATI ending support for many DX9 cards".

You are absolutely correct. I have edited it to reflect this.

OldBuzzard · Oct 28, 2009, 11:15 PM

Doesn't ANYONE remember this???????

Quote:

The upcoming release of ATI Catalyst 9.3 will be the last driver to provide a monthly driver update for graphics products predating the R6xx series. What that means is all R300, R400 and R500 series products will be moved to legacy support status - meaning they will be removed from the core Catalyst update and QA testing will be reduced. Moving forward, these products will receive critical fixes if needed as well as updates on a quarterly schedule rather than the monthly schedule adhered to for current products.

Legacy support status is typically reserved for non-current products that have reached a point at which existing drivers optimize performance of the graphics product in question and further driver updates will yield little to no performance improvement. We continue to support non-current products well after drivers have reached this optimal state in order to ensure support for new applications and games.

By moving pre6xx products to legacy support status, we will be able to focus more of our software engineering resources on current and future products, operating systems and applications.

The following is a complete list of products moving to legacy support status:

ATI Radeon 9500 Series
ATI Radeon 9550 Series
ATI Radeon 9600 Series
ATI Radeon 9700 Series
ATI Radeon 9800 Series
ATI Radeon X300 Series
ATI Radeon X550 Series
ATI Radeon X600 Series
ATI Radeon X700 Series
ATI Radeon X800 Series
ATI Radeon X850 Series
ATI Radeon X1050 Series
ATI Radeon X1300 Series
ATI Radeon X1550 Series
ATI Radeon X1600 Series
ATI Radeon X1650 Series
ATI Radeon X1800 Series
ATI Radeon X1900 Series
ATI Radeon Xpress Series
ATI Radeon X1200
ATI Radeon X1250
ATI Radeon X2100 Series
ATI FireGL X1-128
ATI FireGL X1-256
ATI FireGL X2-256
ATI FireGL X2-256t
ATI FireGL X3-256
ATI FireGL Z1
ATI FireGL V3100
ATI FireGL V3200
ATI FireGL V3250
ATI FireGL V3300
ATI FireGL V3350
ATI FireGL V3400
ATI FireGL V5000
ATI FireGL V5100
ATI FireGL V5200
ATI FireGL V7100
ATI FireGL V7200
ATI FireGL V7300
ATI FireGL V7350
ATI FireMV 2200
ATI FireMV 2250

Those cards have been unsupported on XP and VISTA since since April.

Just WHO in their right mind would expect them to have support in Win 7 when they had already dropped support for the earlier OSs

Matth · Oct 28, 2009, 11:50 PM

The legacy driver is now at 9.8, though the page seems to refer to 9.3.

It's not unsupported, it's legacy support. For those older cards, there is just nothing to do on a month by month cycle, while for newer cards, the first few releases of drivers are likely to deliver performance tweaks.

For Windows 7, the driver download chooser offers the 9.8 Vista driver for these older cards, not sure how well that pans out.

Now the DX8 and earilier are on serious legacy life support, with the final driver for the 9250 and earlier being the 6.11 pre-R300.

ET3D · Oct 29, 2009, 07:07 AM

Yes, that's months old news, and was discussed here at the time (although there's the Win7 context now, so perhaps it's worth discussing again). At the time ATI said they'd be driver updates every 3 months, though apparently that's not exactly what happened (can't say if it was better - 3, 2 months - or worse - 5 months - given just the August release date of the driver).

Judas · Oct 29, 2009, 03:52 PM

i remember when there was utterly no driver updates for the previous generation of cards.

You saw the voodoo 2.... then voodoo 3 came out and suddenly zero voodoo 2 updates.

then geforce 2 came out and geforce 1 was no longer updated..

ATI same case.

PowerVR ... same case..

The unified Driver structure showed up in the Geforce 2/Radeon started up.... and it took off from there.

SeraphicSorcerer · Oct 29, 2009, 07:31 PM

That's the huge difference in ATI and nvidia support, you can install any nvidia driver and it will still detect and install for your card, It's not hard for them to put the product in the code, just not update that architecture.

They're a hell of a lot better then most companies though, and no this is not a surprise.

niceguyrichy · Oct 29, 2009, 08:14 PM

yeah, i did notice this when i recently put a box together with an old X800.
i suppose it's not so bad (much as i still love my X800AiW besides), i got an nv9600gso for around 33£ earlier in the year, so upgrading on even the tightest budget isn't impossible

ET3D · Oct 29, 2009, 09:51 PM

Judas, SeraphicSorcerer, NVIDIA does the exact same thing. The GeForce FX family has been out of the drivers for quite a while. Last driver for them is 2008.07.09. These are newer cards than the Radeon 9x00 family, whose last driver is August 2009. Older cards (GeForce4, ...) don't even have Vista drivers on NVIDIA's site (same as the first Radeons on ATI's site). NVIDIA's unified drivers currently start at the GeForce 6 family. I imagine 6 and 7 will be dropped too sometime.

rajivsci · Oct 30, 2009, 11:33 AM

Seriously speaking, It doesn't matter at all. Because any game release after june 2007 doesn't works on old dx9 cards. Any one wanting to play new games has to buy a new cards. So it won't make much difference.

Judas · Oct 30, 2009, 03:23 PM

oh i know that nvidia has been dropping the previous few generations a little at a time.

the 6xxx is due to get the kick anytime along with the 7xxx..

Oct 28, 2009, 08:51 PM	#1
MIG-31 HardwareHeaven News Mod Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Nottingham,UK Posts: 44,495 Rep Power: 244 System Specs	ATI Ending Support for Many DX9 Cards AMD has moved a number of DX9 ATI Radeon™ graphics accelerators products to a legacy driver support structure. This change impacts Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux distributions. AMD has moved to a legacy software support structure for these graphics accelerator products in an effort to better focus development resources on future products. The following products have been moved to the legacy software support structure (including Mobile and All-in-Wonder Variants). ____________ Source: AMD/ATI __________________ Please Post Your News Submissions Here How you can help HardwareHeaven by using Digg! HH Hardware Diggs / GH Gaming Diggs

Oct 28, 2009, 09:54 PM	#2
DJ BIG T DH FaN BoY Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: ORLANDO,FL Posts: 901 Rep Power: 55 System Specs	Re: ATI Ending DX9 Support for Many Cards thats not right because theres so many dx9 games out their.. __________________

Oct 28, 2009, 11:04 PM	#3
Gastrian HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 105 Rep Power: 39	Re: ATI Ending DX9 Support for Many Cards The title isn't right really, it should be "ATI ending support for many DX9 cards". Basically ATI are no longer supporting the X series of cards or earlier models and have moved them to legacy status. This is only fair seeing as theire replacements, the 2xxx series were released around June 2007, over two years ago. AMD/ATI will still support DX9 as the vast majority of DX9 components exist in DX10, 10.1 and 11 architecture but won't support and DX9 only cards (and in fairness they are so out of date that they are barely minimum spec now). __________________ Current PC Athlon XP 64 3200+ (S939) 2GB DDR RAM 128MB GeForce 6600GT Windows 7 Beta/Win XP Pro

Oct 28, 2009, 11:50 PM	#6
Matth Flash Banner Hater Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 3,210 Rep Power: 62 System Specs	Re: ATI Ending Support for Many DX9 Cards The legacy driver is now at 9.8, though the page seems to refer to 9.3. It's not unsupported, it's legacy support. For those older cards, there is just nothing to do on a month by month cycle, while for newer cards, the first few releases of drivers are likely to deliver performance tweaks. For Windows 7, the driver download chooser offers the 9.8 Vista driver for these older cards, not sure how well that pans out. Now the DX8 and earilier are on serious legacy life support, with the final driver for the 9250 and earlier being the 6.11 pre-R300. __________________ Mary had a little lamb, Her father shot it dead Now Mary takes her lamb to school, Between two crusts of bread

Oct 29, 2009, 07:07 AM	#7
ET3D Hopeless Dreamer Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Dreamland, near the pool of infinite graphics cards Posts: 2,738 Rep Power: 73 System Specs	Re: ATI Ending Support for Many DX9 Cards Yes, that's months old news, and was discussed here at the time (although there's the Win7 context now, so perhaps it's worth discussing again). At the time ATI said they'd be driver updates every 3 months, though apparently that's not exactly what happened (can't say if it was better - 3, 2 months - or worse - 5 months - given just the August release date of the driver).

Oct 29, 2009, 07:31 PM	#9
SeraphicSorcerer HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Florida Posts: 2,171 Rep Power: 134 System Specs	Re: ATI Ending Support for Many DX9 Cards That's the huge difference in ATI and nvidia support, you can install any nvidia driver and it will still detect and install for your card, It's not hard for them to put the product in the code, just not update that architecture. They're a hell of a lot better then most companies though, and no this is not a surprise. __________________

Oct 29, 2009, 08:14 PM	#10
niceguyrichy spiritual.. Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Scotchland Posts: 4,891 Rep Power: 116 System Specs	Re: ATI Ending Support for Many DX9 Cards yeah, i did notice this when i recently put a box together with an old X800. i suppose it's not so bad (much as i still love my X800AiW besides), i got an nv9600gso for around 33£ earlier in the year, so upgrading on even the tightest budget isn't impossible __________________

Oct 29, 2009, 09:51 PM	#11
ET3D Hopeless Dreamer Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Dreamland, near the pool of infinite graphics cards Posts: 2,738 Rep Power: 73 System Specs	Re: ATI Ending Support for Many DX9 Cards Judas, SeraphicSorcerer, NVIDIA does the exact same thing. The GeForce FX family has been out of the drivers for quite a while. Last driver for them is 2008.07.09. These are newer cards than the Radeon 9x00 family, whose last driver is August 2009. Older cards (GeForce4, ...) don't even have Vista drivers on NVIDIA's site (same as the first Radeons on ATI's site). NVIDIA's unified drivers currently start at the GeForce 6 family. I imagine 6 and 7 will be dropped too sometime.

Oct 30, 2009, 11:33 AM	#12
rajivsci HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: India Posts: 112 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Re: ATI Ending Support for Many DX9 Cards Seriously speaking, It doesn't matter at all. Because any game release after june 2007 doesn't works on old dx9 cards. Any one wanting to play new games has to buy a new cards. So it won't make much difference.