The GT300/Fermi Thread - Part 2!

[Luka_Aveiro]

Wow... kinda cheating the system but that's one way to do it!

Where are you getting a 90 day return policy though?

EVGA Step-up program?

[AuDioFreaK39]

Wow... kinda cheating the system but that's one way to do it!

Where are you getting a 90 day return policy though?

Ever heard of the EVGA Step-Up program?

This . . . this is a real fanboy . . . .


You dont have a clue of the final card and you are saying that you will buy 2 and within 90 days change them over . . .

You have no clue how absolutely fed up I am with AMD Catalyst drivers right now..

I have owned two Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 cards for six weeks now, neither of which has worked to produce advertised performance results in Quad-CrossFireX since the day they arrived on my doorstep. The issue described in a recent Tom's Hardware article is nothing more than an improper temperature sensor reporting bug that has been present since Catalyst 9.12 by my knowledge (but has probably persisted even further back), of which I have fallen victim to.

The only solution to the issue lies with the Catalyst makers (see: Terry Makedon) and driver engineers over in Ontario, Canada. Until then, Radeon HD 5000-series owners like myself who are experiencing the unfortunate setbacks of the latest Catalyst driver renditions will either have to join together and mass appeal against AMD's driver development team (see: the purpose of forum cooperation), or simply sit back and wait 30 days between new driver releases until the problem is eventually resolved for every single user on the planet.


This was my first Radeon purchase in over six years, and will probably be my last for quite some time to come..

[Rock&Roll]

You have no clue how absolutely fed up I am with AMD Catalyst drivers right now..

Not what i wanted to read. But I'm not surprised. It saddens me, as ATI did have a stretch many years back that they were better than NV at driver support.

When I read what you just said, It fuels my hope that GT300 and nvidia's multi-monitor tech is miles better than what ATI can offer with the 5870. It would make my decision easier.

[GoldenTiger]

Ever heard of the EVGA Step-Up program?

(driver issues)

This was my first Radeon purchase in over six years, and will probably be my last for quite some time to come..

Ditto except for a quick try with a 4870 (and now my 5870 I've had since launch has the same issues) that I disliked and went with a GTX 280 instead of. I have multitudes of minor glitches/issues/oddities with the ATI drivers I never experienced with my GTX 280 or 8800GT 512, or 8800GTS 640, heck even my 7900GT. All kinds of random alpha texture "ghosting"/flickering, lots of weirdness like fences disappearing depending on camera rotation in various games, occasional scanlines that only appear at 2560x1600 briefly, etc. Before anyone says it's an issue with the card and/or system, I already had a second 5870 on-hand to verify with, and tried both cards in a separate system to replicate the issues.

I have a lot annoyances with forcing AA/AF conflicting with some games (if I keep it forced to play Warhammer Online or Dark Age of Camelot/other games that don't have in-game options, and then forget to switch when launching ones that do, it often just doesn't apply any, forcing me to quit the game, set it manually through the annoying Catalyst Control Center, then re-launch the game and re-join the server/match). Also had a lot of random minor issues such as certain effects in games like NFS Shift causing major slowdown to 1-2fps, then zooming at hyper-speed to "catch up" with what should have been happening in-game, until the very latest Catalyst release several months later.

There's simply too many for me to list, frankly, whereas the nVidia drivers have served me pretty darn well, with my biggest issue being that I had to switch a manual profile per-game to "Force AA" instead of "Enhance setting AA" as a one-time thing. It just plain worked, and it had PhysX for Mirror's Edge (one of my favorites) along with a couple others for visual goodies.

I guess the point of this is: I'm ready for Fermi!

You can see a post of some specific issues I have had here: http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.ph...5&postcount=59

[freeloader]

Anyone notice how ATI has had driver problems since forcing us to the Netframework architecture?

I can honestly say that I've no driver issues with the games I play on my 5850. No vertical lines, gray screens, missing textures, etc...

But I am aware of other people having said issues on 5870's and above. Too bad ATI can't get them right, they may loose a few high end customers to Fermi.

[randomizer]

Anyone notice how ATI has had driver problems since forcing us to the Netframework architecture?

I don't see how that is at all related. .NET is for CCC and has nothing to do with the driver. If you're complaining about driver issues you should try going back to some pre-2000 cards and their drivers.

[Rock&Roll]

Being that this is the GT300 thread, I have a feeling we shouldn't dwell too much on ATI. My parting contribution, in ATI's regard, will be this.

As GoldenTiger, I got a 4870 after the massive amounts of positive reviews only to find my experience with the card left a lot to be desired. I quickly switched to a GTX280 and had no issues (other than the first 185.xx drivers for Win7 being crap until 19x.xx came out).

I've wanted to go back to ATI, since my x1900 was one of my favorite cards I've ever owned. But they keep giving me reasons to go to nVidia....

[Blacky]

idk but if I don't see any news on mid-feb something definitely wrong with fermi...

[WeeMaan]

I really hope 360 (or 380) is worth a upgrade from 5870 cause Atis drivers is indeed a joke.

[xdan]

Normaly Nvidia should be launch Fermi at CEBIT, 2-6 march. But i also expect some solid news, i mean the date of launch and the paper launch in no more than two weeks. I think that now is so silence, because Nvidia quietly ships the chips to the parteners.... to ambush properly Ati...

[madcho]

i agree about the fact drivers of 5870, and 5970 are too much beta drivers.

BUT, i bought the 5870 @ the start, and i don't noticed no real big problem.

Before drivers 9.12 hotfixes, I was seen some brief flash sometimes 20% of the screen for 1/60s become black or white or something else in 2D. Not beautifull and not to be very angry against AMD. Sure a bit surprise. It was about 2 times or 3 per week with 8-10h/day of use.

9.12 hotfixe changed that. And i don't noticed any other problem, with my multi screen.

10.1 introduced a problem with multiscreen and when the monitors shutdown. I don't like this, i shutdown manualy my montors, the crt goes down but LCD stay green, and the PC detect again screens when i move my mouse to wake up the PC.

That's not a big problem but i hope 9.12 to fix that.

I don't buy multiGPU for heavy drivers problem, i was on dual 3870 ( not a X2 ) but i don't liked to use so much power for low improvement and so bugs to the start. So i aim always the best GPU in 200-350€ including 20.6% of VAT range.

I was suprised too there is so much low issues with this new GPU with this old architecture. My mind is the process make inside too much bugs. The is always bugs process. Some serious and some not serious. The TSMC process was total failure even they don't want to say it but we know AMD aimed to start to sell 5870 in end of june with old planings.

And i'm looking for a cheap eyefinity not with TN monitors rig. ( just 3 monitors ). If anybody found something great.

Currently i'm on a iolair 24" MVA.

LED screens are available ? LCD is a shame.

[RaZz!]

[...]
LED screens are available ? LCD is a shame.

LED screens are LCD. they just happen to have LED instead of CCFL backlight

[zalbard]

LED screens are LCD. they just happen to have LED instead of CCFL backlight

Perhaps he means OLED displays.

[DosDuoNo]

Perhaps he means OLED displays.

Or Perhaps he means an LCDOLEDTFT

[E30M3]

Ever heard of the EVGA Step-Up program?






You have no clue how absolutely fed up I am with AMD Catalyst drivers right now..

I have owned two Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 cards for six weeks now, neither of which has worked to produce advertised performance results in Quad-CrossFireX since the day they arrived on my doorstep. The issue described in a recent Tom's Hardware article is nothing more than an improper temperature sensor reporting bug that has been present since Catalyst 9.12 by my knowledge (but has probably persisted even further back), of which I have fallen victim to.

The only solution to the issue lies with the Catalyst makers (see: Terry Makedon) and driver engineers over in Ontario, Canada. Until then, Radeon HD 5000-series owners like myself who are experiencing the unfortunate setbacks of the latest Catalyst driver renditions will either have to join together and mass appeal against AMD's driver development team (see: the purpose of forum cooperation), or simply sit back and wait 30 days between new driver releases until the problem is eventually resolved for every single user on the planet.


This was my first Radeon purchase in over six years, and will probably be my last for quite some time to come..

Same here ATI no more

[Bodkin]

Same here ATI no more

And me, see that 5870 in my sig, its a gtx 275 now waiting on fermi. Ati cards are great, drivers suck

[HuffPCair]

And me, see that 5870 in my sig, its a gtx 275 now waiting on fermi. Ati cards are great, drivers suck

Yeah I have been wanting to upgrade my GPU, but I just keep trying to be patient with Nvidia and see what they release. They are starting to take a little to long though.

[freeloader]

I don't see how that is at all related. .NET is for CCC and has nothing to do with the driver. If you're complaining about driver issues you should try going back to some pre-2000 cards and their drivers.

Not a chance. I remember having a "out of sync" error with an AIW card that ATI couldn't even figure out.

You're probably right about .NET and I'm just blowing wind out my ass, but it sure as hell seems that way.

[JohnJohn]

I wonder what % of "Ati drivers suck!" are because inefficient uninstalling of nvidia drivers and posterior installing of Ati driver.

Personally never had a problem with ati drivers, obviously every time i go from nvidia--> ati i make a clean windows install.

[InCredible]

hmmm so a new thread was started to fill it with more bs?...talk of ati drivers upgrade strategies etc...should of just left the last thread open..

[N19h7m4r3]

I wonder what % of "Ati drivers suck!" are because inefficient uninstalling of nvidia drivers and posterior installing of Ati driver.

Personally never had a problem with ati drivers, obviously every time i go from nvidia--> ati i make a clean windows install.

Same.

When I went from my 8800Ultra to 4870X2, I never fully cleaned my HDD from the NV drivers and I had nothing but problems.

Clean OS install and Not a single problem with ATI, it's even my first ATI card.

If I install a new ati driver I uninstall the old one in safemode and remove any trace of it, then install the new one. Still no problems.

[drizzt5]

And me, see that 5870 in my sig, its a gtx 275 now waiting on fermi. Ati cards are great, drivers suck

When they first come out, then weeks and months later they improve until you get a fair amount more stability and performance then you had with the original drivers. My old 4850 crossfire went from hardly working, to working great after a few driver releases.

[Nedjo]

the second page of this thread proves it self completely useless in terms of the topic it should cover! Do we really need any "Fermi" thread at all?

I mean the bl00dy card will be out in the next 30 days, so why not await and have "official" GeForce XXXXX thread?

[LordEC911]

Nvidia's Q1 does not start with the new year.

Correct, that is their financial Q1...
When they state when they are going to launch a product, they aren't talking about their fiscal year unless they say so...

[STEvil]

Same.

When I went from my 8800Ultra to 4870X2, I never fully cleaned my HDD from the NV drivers and I had nothing but problems.

Clean OS install and Not a single problem with ATI, it's even my first ATI card.

If I install a new ati driver I uninstall the old one in safemode and remove any trace of it, then install the new one. Still no problems.

Had a 4870X2, 8800GTX, 8800GTS, 8600GT, and X1600XT in this rig at one time or another, never reinstalled the OS once and have had no problems other than bugs introduced by programs such as the "AMD GPU Clock Tool" or whatever it was called (it over-rides fan speeds and/or temperatures sensors).