Author Topic: Win2K Radeon Drivers (Read 437 times)

PapaFox · « **on:** February 12, 2001, 07:12:00 PM »

Anyone found a good Windows 2000 driver for the ATI radeon? Radeon works great in Win98. When I installed the original driver which came on the CD, I got fine frame rates on the Carrier deck in F6F (33fps 1280x1024res 32bit color), but when I installed D7.20-0110b-119E-ATI (5.13.01.3100) drivers, (dated Jan16,2001), the fps decreased to 18fps.

Why not go back to the original drivers? Well, when I use those drivers and Alt-Tab to get to the desktop, I cannot return to AH without a memory dump. The newer drivers allow the swapping between desktop and AH, but the FPS is too low. Any suggestions? I'm throwing a Voodoo5 5500 back into the machine until the radeon driver issue is concluded. The machine is dual-boot, and I am happy with the Win98 performance, but Win2K is so much better for my other apps that I greatly prefer to fly there as well.

Lephturn · « **Reply #1 on:** February 13, 2001, 06:46:00 AM »

Are the latest radeon drivers not working in Win2k? I don't have the card, but I understood the last update was to have fixed the Win2k problems.

Have you tried here: http://www.ati.com/na/pages/spdrivers/index.html?parent=0&folder=65&doc=51

RADEON Windows 2000 Display Driver
DirectX 8/OpenGL Special Purpose Driver
Version: D7.20-0110b-119E-ATI (5.13.01.3100)
posted January 16, 2001

If anybody tries these in Win2k I'd love to hear how it goes.

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AcId · « **Reply #2 on:** February 20, 2001, 09:41:00 PM »

AnandTech has an interesting article pretaining to ATI vs. NVIDIA drivers on Win98 vs. Win2k its worth a read but doesn't shed a lot of light on the "why's" the bottom line was that ATI is having a hard time with getting their Win2k drivers right.

Has anyone done any testing regarding AcesHigh with ATI or NVIDIA cards on those 2 OS's?

If not I'll be happy to on the NVIDIA side of things. I may also be able to do ATI, I think a friend at work as new ATI I could maybe borrow.

[This message has been edited by AcId (edited 02-20-2001).]

PapaFox · « **Reply #3 on:** February 21, 2001, 11:06:00 AM »

AcId,

The Anandtech.com article was interesting. Here is a bit of a benchmark comparison, fyi.

ATI Radeon 32DDR- vsynch on
Resolution 1280x1024, 32 bit
128mb RAM, 650mhz PIII o/c 866 mhz
Test graphics: Sitting on deck of cv in F6F with engine idling (AH Ver1.05p6)

Original Drivers for Radeon
Win 98- 33fps
Win2000- 33fps (but unable to alt-tab back to AH after visiting desktop)

Radeon 5.13 drivers
Win98- 33fps
Win2000- 18fps

Conclusion: If ATI wrote the drivers properly for Win2K, performance would likely be similar to win98 performance. Until that day arrives, though, Radeon is best operated on Win98

Currently operating Win2000 with Voodoo5 5500 card. Performace almost identical to Win98 performance and VERY stable

[This message has been edited by PapaFox (edited 02-21-2001).]

[This message has been edited by PapaFox (edited 02-21-2001).]

bloom25 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 21, 2001, 12:22:00 PM »

That has been my experience with ATI cards in general. The hardware works fine, it just seems like their drivers are always buggy or slow. I'm not alone either. Tom's Hardware came to the same conclusion about the Radeon, it has decent performance, but the drivers leave much to be desired.

I haven't found a single ATI driver that doesn't have either flickering or tearing text problems. Many also "forget" to draw textures, or leave windows on the screen even though they are closed.

I now avoid ATI at all costs.

(BTW: Did you know that on the Xpert cards you can't install Win2k with them installed! You have to use a PCI video card and then put them in. ME is the same way.)

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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

DB603 · « **Reply #5 on:** February 22, 2001, 12:14:00 AM »

S!

A good site for new ATi Radeon drivers is also www.rage3d.com There are newest beta-drivers etc. and a quite good FAQ.I have no problems with Radeon in AH whatsoever in WinME.FPS range from 15-87FPS in 1024x768 32-bit with farthest visible range.Lot of cons and smoke(especially) together reduce FPS quite much.

DB603
Lentolaivue 34

Flanker

PapaFox · « **Reply #6 on:** February 22, 2001, 10:39:00 AM »

DB603,

I have to agree with you that my experience in Win98 and WinME with the Radeon has been quite good.

It is the Win2000 drivers that are lousy. I will check the site you mention, but I uploaded the latest Win2000 drivers only 3 weeks ago, and they still ran at half the speed as they should.