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ATI Radeon Released

Posted by emmett on from the swimmy-swimmy-like-a-boy-chased-by-sharky-sharky dept.

Dwayne Mulford writes: "ATI has released their new RADEON with 64MB of DDR memory. It's clocked at 183MHz and really gives the NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS a run for its money. ATI has their product info here and Sharky Extreme did a review of it here."

24 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Tom's Hardware review by _J_ · · Score: 4

    Here's what Tom had to say...

    J:)

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    Oh well, no point in steering now.
  2. Re:Here's the (driver) scoop: by Jinker · · Score: 5
    "shouldn't you at least be helping to write XFree drivers?"

    Hey, if they want to shoot themselves in the foot, they're allowed.

    On the other hand, one wonders exactly how many of these cards they would actually sell simply due to a full suite of Linux drivers.

    Just how big is the hardcore gamer/linuxgeek crossover? Obviously they're the most VOCAL ones on the internet, and so it seems like there's bunches of them. But I'd be willing to bet that a WAY disproportionate amount of them have web pages and are active on discussion boards etc.

    The high end gaming card market is being driven by people running Windows. If ATI loses all of their potential Linux clients, how many would that add up to? Hundreds? Let's be honest here.

    Writing and supporting a driver well is not all that cheap for them. Publishing the specs is.

    I'd rather have a well written community based driver than a poorly written ATI one.

    Greg

  3. ATI Goes Performance? by photon317 · · Score: 3
    Seems to me with this card ATI is finally starting to cater to the "I need high performance graphics at any price NOW" crowd that 3Dfx and then NVidia have dominated in the past... as opposed to their (ATI's) earlier catering to the large volume OEM market for an affordable card that supported the right buzzwords, but which no serious gamer would want.

    With ATI's financial resources, they could possibly change the high-end 3d graphics landscape if they continue moving in this direction over the next generation or two of cards.

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    11*43+456^2
    1. Re:ATI Goes Performance? by barleyguy · · Score: 3

      Actually, both the Rage II and Rage 128 were intended to have leading edge performance, but each of them came out six months or so later than they planned, which put them in the "slightly below average" category.

      One good thing about ATI - their business performance and 2D quality have always been very good. For Desktop Publishing applications, audio recording apps, and similar uses, I've always recommended ATI. Well, that or Matrox. (Also Canadian, which Tom would find very relavent)

      Another point - this card seems to scale well to higher resolutions and bit levels. Because of that, I'd say it is a better card than the GeForce 2. Who needs 120 frames a second at low resolution, when your monitor only works well at about 85 frames anyway? If you can do 85 frames per second, and do it at any resolution and bit level you choose, I think that should be the goal of a fast video card.

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      --- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
  4. Something to remember about video cards... by mwalker · · Score: 5

    Something to remember about video cards...

    640k should be enough for anybody!

    oh, wait...

    GRAPHICS CARDS WITH 64 MEGABYTES OF RAM AND COOLING FANS.

    try to sell THAT to someone 10 years ago. -i- wouldn't have believed it.

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    What happens when you outlaw guns
    1. Re:Something to remember about video cards... by otis+wildflower · · Score: 3

      GRAPHICS CARDS WITH 64 MEGABYTES OF RAM AND COOLING FANS.

      try to sell THAT to someone 10 years ago. -i- wouldn't have believed it.

      Dude, there were cards (or rather, multiple slot boards and/or external processing units) like that back then for SGIs, RS6ks (for CATIA and other CA(D|M|E) tools) etc.. If you had $30-100k+ to spare.

      I never figured we'd be here now.. The Metaverse is essentially here, for at least 2 senses... COOL.

      Your Working Boy,

  5. My life is complete. by 11223 · · Score: 5
    On a side note, the Radeon is the only card on the market to support a hardware alpha cursor (the arrow with a shadow) in Windows 2000.

    My life is complete. It's the feature I've always wanted!

    1. Re:My life is complete. by barleyguy · · Score: 3

      Not yet, there is still the fact that it will take approximately 6 months for them to get the product to market, and 6 months to get working drivers.

      This particular card is the exception to that rule. The card is shipping, and from the reviews I've read, the drivers seem pretty good.

      Sorry I got a ATI Rage Fury MAXX and I'm rather pissed that the card works in Win 9x/NT and Linux/*BSD with XFree86 3.3.6+ but doesn't work under Windows 2000 because they cannot get windows to activate the second chip? WTF?

      As far as I know, NO manufacturer has gotten mutiple graphics chips to work under Windows 2000. The Voodoo 5 might work by now.

      It has something to do with the driver architecture of Windows 2000. So you should be bitching at Microsoft, not ATI. Anyway, bitching at Microsoft might gain you Slashdot karma points.

      --
      --- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
    2. Re:My life is complete. by Upsilon · · Score: 3
      As far as I know, NO manufacturer has gotten mutiple graphics chips to work under Windows 2000. The Voodoo 5 might work by now.

      It's an AGP issue. The AGP bus is designed to support one and only one device. The Voodoo 5 gets around this by basically pretending to be a PCI card even though it's on the AGP bus. Unfortunately, this means that it can't take advantage of any of AGP's advanced features. Not that that's a big loss or anything. In case anyone out there still hasn't noticed, AGP is pure hype and really doesn't offer any measurable performance increase.

      Anyway, the Rage Fury MAXX does things a bit differently. The way it's supposed to work is that one chip is recognized as an AGP device and the other is recognized as a PCI device. For whatever reason they're having a hell of a time getting this to work in Win2000. The bottom line is if you intend to use that OS, don't get a Rage Fury MAXX.

      --
      I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.

      "That's right, I'm quoting myself."

      -Upsilon

  6. You combine it with by ch-chuck · · Score: 4

    SGI's Reality Engine, Sony's Emotion Engine, throw in a printer personality cart and you have a really intelligent bot w/ feelings that's a pleasure to have around.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  7. Re:Here's the (driver) scoop: by FascDot+Killed+My+Pr · · Score: 3

    "But I'd be willing to bet that a WAY disproportionate amount of them have web pages and are active on discussion boards etc."

    Which is exactly why they should be catered to. Not all customers are equal, think of reviewers. Each positive review is more than just a happy customer--it is hundreds, thousands even MILLIONS of potential customers. Each of those "hardcore gamers" in a newsgroup/website is a reviewer. Make them happy and the world will beat a path to your door. Make them angry....
    --

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    Linux MAPI Server!
    http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
    (Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
  8. Fear ovecomes me. by doogles · · Score: 3

    When my video card has as much memory as my computer, you know it's time to be worried.

  9. I Truly Am Amazed By It... by Sir_Winston · · Score: 4

    This is the first time that ATI has been on par with performance leaders since...well...probably since before 3D performance was being stressed much at all. I myself have an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 which I'm fond of, but I have reservations about this new chip.

    First of all, ATI's track record for supporting non-Intel chipsets is pretty sketchy at best, abysmal at worst. Currently the Athlon chipsets out now are well provided for in ATI's drivers, but when you consider that new Athlon chipsets are going to be coming out within the next six months which feature many new advancements and changes, from DDR SDRAM to SMP and more subtle changes, I can't say that I'd buy one with performance in mind unless I'd definitely be running an older Athlon mobo or an Intel setup. These ATI boards will definitely be great for their multimedia features, and the All-in-Wonder version especially promises to be interesting, but I doubt performance will be up to snuff on the VIA and ALi next-gen Athlon chipsets because they poorly supported the VIA MVP3 and similar Socket 7 chipsets and to this day their own webpages tout only Intel processors; last time I was there, not a single benchmark was done on an Athlon, and they "recommended" Intel processor boards. With the new Willamette chipsets coming out, it's likely that ATI will make compatability with those their first priority, and compatibility with next-gen Athlon mobos an afterthought. ATI has also had many odd driver issues, like the Fury MAXX not supporting Windows 2000. Just remember that this might not perform well if you upgrade your Athlon mobo...

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    "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
  10. Re:Here's the (driver) scoop: by ranessin · · Score: 4


    Again, Gareth Hughes, from Precision Insight, has already begun work on the Radeon drivers. PI is under contract from ATI to write those drivers. It doesn't sound like they aren't getting any help and it *certainly* doesn't sound like we'll be stuck with a poorly written community driver.

    Ranessin

  11. Linux video card recommendations? by daviddennis · · Score: 3

    While we're sort of on this subject, could anyone suggest a good video card for Linux use?

    I have a Compaq Pentium III/700 system whose video performance lags under Linux as compared to Windows. It's blazingly, even awesomely, fast under Windows but doesn't seem to be performing up to potential under Linux/Mandrake/Enlightenment.

    The video setup that came with it is an Intel I810 or 815 chipset. My suspicion is that the driver wasn't that well optimized for Linux.

    All I really want is screaming fast 1280x1024 @ 32 bit colour. I'm not fond of shooting up stuff, so I don't need awesome 3D performance or anything, just the ultimate possible regular graphics.

    I don't use Windows at all on the machine, but would like to be able to use BeOS. I may eventually use the machine for video editing (MiniDV/FireWire) under BeOS or Linux, so anything that would make that work better would be good.

    Any recommendations?

    Many thanks.

    D

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  12. The problem with ATI. by Matt2000 · · Score: 3

    No matter what the performance results of new ATI products, you can pretty much guarantee that it will be at least 2 driver releases after the actual release of the card when you will be able to play any games with stability, and you will also be pretty much guaranteed that the card will NEVER get it's drivers to the state where everything works satisfactorily.

    ATI has burned me too many times by abandoning my card before the drivers get mature enough to be stable and consequently I won't be buying any of their stuff again.

    Hotnutz.com - Funny

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  13. Crunch time for 3D? by Hortensia+Patel · · Score: 5

    I'll be interested to see how this one does.

    Consumer 3D acceleration has advanced at a phenomenal rate in the past few years, for two main reasons.

    Firstly, until now everyone has been chasing SGI's taillights. SGI and OpenGL pretty much defined how to do fast 3D, so hardware and API designs have evolved toward that goal in a fairly consistent manner. (Except for a few unsuccessful oddballs like the NV-1 and D3D-RM.)

    Secondly, it started off as a wide-open market with no entrenched leader. Lots of competition, leading to low prices and very fast product cycles.

    This picture is starting to change, which is why I wonder whether the rate of progress is going to slow down. Firstly, consumer hardware has now caught up with SGI. SGI's "high bandwidth throughout the box" systems still win for some workstation apps, but there's no gaping chasm in speed or features any more. We're in uncharted territory now, and there's much less agreement about what the next goals should be. If every vendor starts innovating along radically different paths, apps will have a harder time using them all, and without app support the upgrade cycle is broken.

    At the same time, the competition is thinning out drastically. ATI is now just about the only significant competitor to NVidia; 3Dfx is just about hanging in there but is suffering from repeated slippages and is going to have a very hard time catching up. These days NVidia is very, VERY influential in defining the direction of Direct3D, and will become more so now that they've been selected for X-Box. Remember that D3D (unlike OpenGL) has no extension mechanism, so a D3D version written to favour one vendor is a huge competitive advantage - if other vendors can't get their features exposed then they've effectively wasted a generation.

    I'm a big fan of NVidia. Their hardware is superb, their drivers are excellent, they have a serious commitment to OpenGL and cross-platform support, and they contribute a lot to the graphics community in terms of research. But I'm not sure I'd like to see a total NVidia monopoly on consumer graphics. For that reason, if no other, I hope Radeon does well.

    1. Re:Crunch time for 3D? by taniwha · · Score: 3
      I think it will slow down - but probably not for the reason you think - there's a memory bandwidth wall fast approaching in the consumer space - by which I mean that if you are using off-the-shelf DRAMs there's only so much bandwidth you can get out of them and they're already pushing them to the max - no more factor of 10 performance boosts in the pipes without gross rearchitecting of people's graphics pipes (and software/drivers/etc). We saw this same thing happen with 2D - for a long time companies were fighting to outdo each in 2D graphics performance - 64-bit cards, 128, 256 etc - but you can only push bytes into dram so fast and wider buses mean more pins but only factor of 2 performance increases - eventually there came a point where everyone's performance became pretty much the same and no-one really cares any more provided it's 'fast enough'.

      Instead in the 3D space I think you'll see a broadening of the features available - and more optimization to avoid drawing pixels at all - Radeon seems to already have some of this with it's 'Hyper-Z' stuff

  14. Consumer hardware has gotten REALLY fast. by be-fan · · Score: 4

    For those of you who haven't been on the scene lately, I'll clue you in. With the arrival of the GeForce, consumer 3D hardware has gotten REALLY fast. Right now, the GeForce 2 GTS is nearly the fastest 3D card availabe on PCs for workstation tasks. If you head over to Intergraphs's website, you'll see their comparisons between the Elsa's NVIDIA Quadro-based card and Intergraphs Wildcat 4210, which is currently the fastest workstation card availabe (more than twice as fast as the SGI Visual Workstation series in awedvs tests.) However, the Quadro-based card is nearly 50-70% the speed of the intergraph machine. Considering that the Quadro is only 135MHz compared to the GeForce2 GTS's 200MHz, plus the fact that the GeForce2 has twice as many pipes, it means that a GeForce2 is probably close to the performance of a Wildcat 4210. Thus, you can get nearly all of the $2000+Wildcat's performance in Hercules's $400 64MB GeForce2 card (which can be run at 235MHz core and 200+ MHz RAM). That sound you just heard was a collective orgasm from all the 3D Studio users who just realized that a $5000 PC can take the place of their $10,000 intergraph.

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  15. NO HARDWARE SPECS, NO GIVVA MY $$$A by maynard · · Score: 5
    On the other hand, one wonders exactly how many of these cards they would actually sell simply due to a full suite of Linux drivers.

    Just how big is the hardcore gamer/linuxgeek crossover? Obviously they're the most VOCAL ones on the internet, and so it seems like there's bunches of them. But I'd be willing to bet that a WAY disproportionate amount of them have web pages and are active on discussion boards etc.
    I can't speak for any other Linux users, but I'll sure buy the ATI Radeon if it's significantly better than the 3dfx Voodoo 5. I've got a Voodoo 3 right now, and very much wanted to purchase a GeForce 2 until I found out NVIDEA wasn't releasing hardware specs for their product. I'm not going to spend $300+ for closed hardware for which I can't get opensource drivers. Period.

    Never mind the ethical dilema of supporting hardware manufacturers who "do the right thing" for us free software proponents, even if it means giving up a few features every now and then. Frankly, I'm not about to shell out that kind of cash to anyone unless I know I'll be able to support the hardware years from now when it becomes outdated. When's the last time you saw a modern driver under Windows for the GD5380, or S3/968? Telling me to buy new hardware is NOT why I run Linux/BSD.
  16. Drivers for Radeon by HeUnique · · Score: 4

    Well, Precision Insight (Hi Gareth!), are already working on the drivers for the Radeon graphics chip, so drivers for Linux should be vailable soon..

    Also, Intense 3D will release soon a driver for XFree 4.0.x RSN (the driver for their WildCat series is written by Intense 3D, so expect some kick-ass performance!)

    --
    Hetz (Heunique)
  17. I work for ATI... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

    and do you know how many driver writers there are here? I'd say less than 50. We have 2D, D3D, DVD, OpenGL, and other drivers to write for 4-5 products in the pipeline. We're actively paying DI to develop open-source 3D drivers, and XFree developpers have access to most of our 2D register specs. And finally, we have to keep outpacing a ferocious competitor on both the hardware and software side. (something to most companies would find impossible, we did to a point, and we'll continue doing.)

  18. Re:Queasy... by HeUnique · · Score: 3

    Lets see..

    So far, the XFree team did the whole 2D drivers for most of known cards (and they did/doing a great job! - I just hope that someone from the XFree documentation people will write some documentation about the Xv extention, please?? we need some video in X and DGA is not enough!)

    Precision Insight are doing the 3D drivers for the popular cards (Matrox, ATI, 3DFX).

    IMHO, I think We need a new group that will write another "driver layer" which will support most (if not all) Video extensions of those cards - motion compensation, iDCT, you name it (the BTTV did this quite nicely with the TV Tuner cards)- so if a program needs to output a video - it should use this "driver" - same as DRI being used for 3D graphics (I hope I explained myself correctly - I'm pretty tired right now :)

    I hope that some representitives of those hardware companies who read this post can release some info /specs about their video extensions (well, at least Matrox did release some info about their YUV -> RGB conversion if I'm not mistaken).

    Thoughts anyone?

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    Hetz (Heunique)
  19. Video Capture? by Starselbrg · · Score: 3
    I finished up the review thinking to myself "wow, this is quite a fast card, and from ATI no less". Then, all of the sudden, on the last page listed under "pros" I see that video capture is supported!

    It has on the fly MPEG2 compression of video-in. That's simply amazing; what's more amazing is that no one is talking about it. This is feature I've been looking for in a high-quality video card.

    The big question is, however, will there be Linux support for this? I know there isn't really any video-editing software for Linux. But, with a cool card like this, people might get interested in it.

    If this feature had Linux support and if the priced dropped a bit (boy, $399 is pricey), I would certainly buy one.

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