Eatmeingreek
Gentard
join:2001-06-29
San Francisco, CA
| reply to JTY
Re: ATI 8.16.20
I had an ATI card, and it plain SUCKED! Yes, I got rid of it, and I'm basking in the glow of twin GeForce 6800s. The drivers were stable like warm Jell-O, and the performance was 1/3 of what I got under WINBLOWS.
Besides being unstable and slow, ATI graced me with driver updates every 6 months at best. I think I went a full year between versions at one point, and to add insult to injury, the damn thing wasn't very stable under Win 98SE, either.
I still have an ATI on my laptop, and I can't find WINDOWS drivers for it! ATI does this nasty little trick where they claim you should get your drivers from the laptop manufacturer. The manufacturer doesn't make my model anymore, so they haven't updated the drivers in about two years. No such problem with nVidia. Their vendor-independent driver works no matter who built your card.
I've learned my lesson, I'll never spend another penny of my hard-earned on ATI crapware.
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"PowerPoint is a distraction. People use it when they don't know what to say." |
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ftzsee
Premium
join:2001-11-22
clubs: | Off Topic, but are your 6800's in a SLI configuration? |
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Eatmeingreek
Gentard
join:2001-06-29
San Francisco, CA
| Two machines. One's an Ultra (picked up at fire-sale price after the 7800s came out,) and the other's a GT.
I'd love to build that FX-57 system with SLI 7800 GTXs, but the wife controls the purse strings...
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"PowerPoint is a distraction. People use it when they don't know what to say." |
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benyto
Premium
join:2000-07-09
Chico, CA
edit:
August 19th, @05:59PM
| reply to Eatmeingreek
I'll chime in just because I don't want to miss a chance to jump on the Anti-ATI train.
I learned my lesson long ago, way back with a Rage Pro '98. I have to agree with Eatmeingreek  ; ATI's support sucked back then, and it still sucks now. The only cards I use of theirs are sitting in headless servers that only need a VGA card to POST.
To paraphrase Michael Elkins, "All video card manufacturers suck. nVidia just sucks less."
Edit: Because I can't spell. |
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xrobertcmx
Premium
join:2001-06-18
Sterling, VA
clubs: 
 ·Comcast
 ·EarthLink
| reply to Eatmeingreek
I've got an Nvidia in my laptop, a Gefore FXGo5200 w/64meg dedicated. Dell is the only one to provide drivers for it, the unified ones at Nvidia will not install for anything. Dell discontinued the Inspiron 5150 and has not updated the driver since November 2004. Works fine in linux, but it is the one thing dragging my machine down. It can not be upgraded, I wanted a dedicated card in the laptop, so I went with this model, and at 2 years old she is still decent for a laptop but there are so many better cards out there.
P4M HT 3.04 ghz
1.25gig PC2700 (upgraded)
60gig 5400RPM HD (upgraded)
1400x1050 SXGA+ (15 or 15.4 I can't remember)
4+ hours on battery SuSE or Windows XP
GeForce FXGo 5200 w/64m Video (AGP4)
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4 More years and we won't have a country. |
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Eatmeingreek
Gentard
join:2001-06-29
San Francisco, CA
| I'd blame this one on Dell, not nVidia. I've got a similar situation with a Creative SB Live! that came out of a Dell machine. No driver troubles with plain ol' regular Live! cards, but Dell OEM ones are not-so-special. You see, Dell is in the habit of strong-arming their hardware suppliers into creating "special" versions of their products for Dell. In my particular case, "special" means "crippled". In any case, Creative did not enjoy the Vaseline-free experience, and refuses to support the Dell variant. Dell provides ancient drivers.
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"PowerPoint is a distraction. People use it when they don't know what to say." |
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xrobertcmx
Premium
join:2001-06-18
Sterling, VA
clubs: | reply to Eatmeingreek
I understand that. But I at least was able to build a XP 3400+, but linux don't like it. Very, very hard to get anything to install. Most distro's like to lock up while booting the CD to install. |
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Eatmeingreek
Gentard
join:2001-06-29
San Francisco, CA
| Hehe, I've got the exact opposite experience. Never had any trouble installing Linux on an AMD-based system, all of which I built myself. Installing Linux on big-name-OEM Intel-based machines was not so good.
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"PowerPoint is a distraction. People use it when they don't know what to say." |
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