AKAK and others: ATI HD 3850 agp install help

[Eagler]

I used the power adapter that came with it. I have a good ps - 550 watt so I don't think its the problem - it fixed my low 12v amps with the 7800gs I'm trying to upgrade. I have a new 750watt ps I'm gonna try next.

TilDeath - you don't think the card is enough of an upgrade to see an improvement in AH?

[drdeathx]

Eagler your power supply should be just fine. ATI cards are not as power dependent as Nvidea.


Here are a few quotes from Inquirer testing

The only other real nag with the driver installation was that once the HDMI Audio Out feature was activated, it automatically redirected your audio without some much as a “thank you, sir” ? so you have to go to your sound devices and reselect your output.

The question remains, however. If you have an ailing AGP system, should you buy this card or not? Well, if you have no plans on buying a new PC until the end of the year, we’d say the HD 3850 PCS AGP 512MB is a sure bet ? it’ll get you up and playing the current generation of games at resolutions and image quality you’ve never experienced before on your system. It’s a tad bit expensive, though ? and you don’t get much out of the box, software-wise.

Just remember, this is about all ATI’s partners can do to improve your performance, short of you going out and buying a modern PC. The HD 3850 AGP gives your midget Pentium something to stand on in a world of Core2/Athlon/Phenom giants. If you are one of the latter, do not mock the 3850 on AGP, it scores 900% better than our old Geforce FX5900 and almost 800% better than our Radeon 9700Pro. You can rest assured your AGP rig has a year's worth of gaming left in it.

The Good
Enough performance to play today’s games, ZeroTherm fan is way better than your old AGP dustbusters, HDMI with HD Audio out.

The Bad
Big card, pricey.

The Ugly
No Vista / DX10 support.

It may be a step up from your 7900 but if it is probably not a lot.

[Ack-Ack]

I used the power adapter that came with it. I have a good ps - 550 watt so I don't think its the problem - it fixed my low 12v amps with the 7800gs I'm trying to upgrade. I have a new 750watt ps I'm gonna try next.

TilDeath - you don't think the card is enough of an upgrade to see an improvement in AH?

Contrary to some comments, the ATI 3850 is actually a pretty good card, even the AGP version.  You just need to make sure that you are using the ATI 8.12 AGP Hot fix drivers.  Also, that article that was quoted in the post above mine, it's incorrect.  The ATI 3850 has full Vista support, it has to as it is a DirectX 10.1 compatible video card.

Your power supply should be fine and most likely is not the issue.  I would guess that you need to make sure that you are doing a clean install of the drivers.  In the Add/Remove section in your control panel, run the ATI Uninstaller program and follow the directions.  Afterwards, reboot your computer.  When it reboots, the Add New Hardware wizard will start, hit 'Cancel' to stop it from running.  If you haven't already downloaded the hot fix drivers do so now (save it to your desktop).  Double click on the hotfix driver .exe file and follow the instructions to install the drivers.  Reboot your computer and then adjust the settings to your liking. 

You've probably already done this but make sure that your AGP port speed is set to 8x speed.  This can be done in your BIOS.

Hope this helps.


ack-ack

[drdeathx]

ATI 3850 AGP has vista issues with some games. 3850 AGP does have some bottleneck problems. I don't know if I would count on full vista support on a AGP release of a current card although it is nice to see ATI either trying to help AGP users or simply trying to take your money. 

[Ack-Ack]

ATI 3850 AGP has vista issues with some games. 3850 AGP does have some bottleneck problems. I don't know if I would count on full vista support on a AGP release of a current card although it is nice to see ATI either trying to help AGP users or simply trying to take your money. 

Our own compatibility lab has fully tested out the ATI 3850 card in Vista and they found no issues with it after testing it out on 5 different systems, each with different hardware configurations.  The only issues that popped up were general Vista issues not related to the video card itself.  We found less issues with the ATI 38xx line of cards than we did with the ATI 48xx line, the 4870 x2 being the one we had the most issues with under Vista.

ack-ack

[Eagler]

thanks a bunch
I re-did the process and removed ALL references to any ati or nividia driver using driver cleaner in safe mode.
I then rebooted and installed the ati hotfix driver set and all seems well. I think my opteron 170 is the bottleneck now.
The computer is stable again and it is faster.
thanks again for all the help <S>

[drdeathx]

Our own compatibility lab has fully tested out the ATI 3850 card in Vista and they found no issues with it after testing it out on 5 different systems, each with different hardware configurations.  The only issues that popped up were general Vista issues not related to the video card itself.  We found less issues with the ATI 38xx line of cards than we did with the ATI 48xx line, the 4870 x2 being the one we had the most issues with under Vista.

ack-ack

Older single core CPU's will bottleneck with this card(AGP). It has been proven in many tests. It is fact. Vista uses way more resources and older CPU's will benchmark up to 20% slower than XP. The CPU simply cannot keep up(the card can) with "Newer" title games and games that rely on higher CPU usage and Vista will definitely not help it. Crysis players have bottomed out in low single digit FPS. This card is a decent thing for some who have "Newer" AGP technology and it probably will be a improvement over 5000/6000 Nvidea series cards and older ATI AGP cards. It probably will be a lateral move from the Nvidea 7000 series but no comparisons have been published. Consider it a quick fix until the user updates to a new computer.

The PCIE version of  the 3850 seems to be good. I had the 3870 for a short while and the performance was nice. I benchmarked almost 13,000 in 3Dmark06 with a AMD 9850 BE with a MSI K9A2 MB. If the 3850 performs like the 3870. I would say its a nice card and well worth the $. If I read this post correctly, we were commenting on 3850 AGP.

Eagler, I think you may be correct in your analysis. Try running lower textures and go for more performance rather than quality.

Ack, can you publish those results and what software/games it was tested with? (AGP)