ATi Radeon 9800 Pro

ATi is bringing out their new card, the Radeon 9800 Pro, and all of the hardware review sites which depend on ATi's generosity for pre-release hardware have released their necessarily favorable reviews. Here's a few: Hothardware.com, Hexus.net, HardOCP.com, Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, Extremetech, PCWorld.

Comments

For ATI developers: Linux support of R200 Models

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope to bring to the attention of ATI developers, if they are reading, that it would be nice to release official driver support for the R200 models (Radeon, Radeon 7500 etc) and only the latest 8000+ models.

These cards are partly supported by the DRI project on dri.sourceforge.net since they lack important features as texture compression making them useless for games as DoomIII.

Thanks.

ps. Or at least, please help the DRI guys complete the great job.

Hey michael

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because your a Nvidiot, doesn't mean you can go bash ATI for making a better card or the websites that review them.

I know I speak for everyone here when I say "michael, JUST SHUT UP!!!!!"

ahem

[lingqi]

Why does Nvidia's demo with vid-card shows you this and this, but ATI shows you this? I think we should buy Nvidia based on their sense of ascthetics alone.

seriously though - was it like last week 9700PRO became available? what's up with this break-neck card-releasing? I didn't think it was christmas yet...

Keep it up ATi.

[13Echo]

Keep it up, ATi. Competition is good. I'm really lovin' what I see in the 9X00 series. Keep hammering on improving those Linux drivers while you're at it, because nVidia still has the edge on non-Windows platforms. The day that you release Linux drivers that are on par with those under Windows (as PowerVR and nVidia have done) is the day that I fork out $400 for your car. Rest assured that I will, as long as you back the product.

Here is an inquire article about it too

[lingqi]

lookie here

Quoting: ATI will call the extended set of DX9 features the DX9++, although we suppose it could add just as many ++++++ as it wanted to. ... ... Nvidia should perhaps call its own DX9 extensions DX9## or DX9.NET.

the sad thing is, though - I would not be surprised if Nvidia did release a DX9# or something stupid like that. I mean, look at Athlons naming themselves AthlonXP. ack

Re:What were you expecting?

[Sgs-Cruz]

I find Tom's Hardware to be one of the most honest with this. They never favour Nvidia or ATI, or Intel, or AMD, or Transmeta, or whatever. What they do do that's annoying is talk about the latest card as if everyone needs it. And everyone on Slashdot knows that this isn't true, but it seems to me to be kind of weird when they play up a 2% performance edge that Intel may have as if its a huge thing. INTEL RETAKES PERFORMANCE CROWN! Yay.

I wish hardware sites would talk about more interesting things: serial ATA, 10Gbps ethernet (yes you heard me right... that's what's next...), giant LCD screens (or plasma), 7.1 channel sound, not a graphics card that gives me a 3% edge on directX 9.0 games of which there AREN'T ANY. Okay, rant over :)

I have two questions.

[Martigan80]

1. So can one truly notice the difference between say 45fps and 100fps?
2. How many games will be out within the next six months to take advantage of this cutting edge technology?

I understand this is the business practice of these times. To always wait about 6-8 months before hyping up the next release of something. Why so many changes to squeeze more fps? Is it like trying to add 10 more HP to your Honda? How many people on this place can actually look at a screen shot or video and name what type of graphics card is being used and what options are set like AA and such?

Re:Independent review sites? There's a sweet spot.

[Uninvited Guest]

There must be a very interesting formula at work for early release reviews. The product suppliers want good press and a wide audience. The reviewers want a larger audience for their web site, and possibly fame or a chance to try out the next big thing --first! The readers want interesting, informative reviews they can believe, use for purchases, and quote with authority. These forces pull early release reviews to a common middle. The product suppliers won't provide their product to a site that reports credible, but consistently unfavorable reviews. Readers won't keep reading reviews that are favorable, but consistently boring, unhelpful, or not credible --then the product supplier drops the review site for lack of audience, anyway. So, the review sites that get the chance to review new products are the ones that produce consistently interesting, informative, and favorable (or at least, not UNfavorable) reviews.

Of course, confounding this formula is PT Barnum's line "I don't care what they write about me as long as they spell my name right." Some suppliers may continue to release early products to unfavorable, but popular reviewers, just to increase the overall level of press coverage. Worse yet, since the early product is provided by the product supplier, it may have been specifically modified from the "retail" version to work better on benchmarks, just for the review. For that matter, the reviewer may be tempted to soften a review for the sake of a site advertiser's new product.

Still, what's a consumer to do? I guess we have to take early reviews with a dose of skepticism. Before we make a purchasing decision, we have to wait for a reviewer to buy an off the shelf unit and test it. That's the best way we can be sure the review is more in our interests than the product supplier's.

On the whole ATI vs nVidia thing...

[mraymer]

I'd like to point out what one of the developers said on Croteam's Website. They developed the Serious Sam games, which use a remarkable engine.

Here's the text I'm refering to below.

----

Pipelines, pipelines... February 25, 2003

Hello, world.

Just wanted to write a word or two regarding the issue raised couple of days ago. Seems like the whole Internet community wants to crucify nVidia about the controversy of how many rendering pipelines GeForceFX realy has. Is it 8 pipelines with 1 texture unit, or 4 with 2, or ... uh... I don't know anymore. And it really DOESN'T matter that much!

The only thing that matters is how fast and how good it can render pixels. And both GeForceFX and Radeon9700 are great products, the kind of hardware that developers long for. So, personally, I don't care much what's "under the hood".

Don't get me wrong, I am into 3D-graphic hardware, but this pipeline thing really went out of proportion. Number of pipelines is a good hardware information, and that's all there's to it. It really doesn't need to reflect the speed of the hardware directly. Come to think of it... currently, there are no games that utilize even 1/3rd of nifty features these two boards have.

Oh, before I forget... I'm not "nVidiot" (and I'm not "fanATIc", either). I'm just a game developer who wants good and fast technology for the future. And both ATI and nVidia have it now!

Just my two cents.

Dean "3D" Sekulic

(Programmer)

P.S. Yes, I snapped.

Note for ATI and nVidia developers

[AnonymousCowheard]

Please implement a VGA BIOS disable switch on your videocards. Some of us are working on computer platforms that can't work with your VGA BIOS, yet their exists graphics drivers that CAN use your proprietary graphics-acceleration architecture chipset on your related products.

For example, disabling the VGA BIOS would allow users of Alpha/Sparc/MIPS/PPC/Power(3/4) platforms to use a wee-little standard VGA graphics card that we know works (like a S3, Permedia2, G200, or RagePro), then throw a hefty ATI Radeon 9800+ Pro XPERTONIA ++plutonia++ 256MB or nVidia GeForce FX 6000++BrownOut/cooker 256MB L24a adaptor into the AGP port or hopefully see a 64bit PCI model from ATI/nVidia and we could use your hardware!

Sincerily,

The Alpha Troll