ATi RADEON - The Empires strikes back (5/15)

Drivers / Software

Now let’s get into some of the more practical aspects. First of all, the RADEON’s driver made a very good impression on me. All of the important options (with the exception of an overclocking menu) have been included. ATi’s DVD-player, CD-Player, File-Player and the Video In feature can all be accessed using the optional ATI quick launch sidebar. The menus are very refreshing considering the monotonous slew of reference driver based releases for NVIDIA based cards we have recently seen. In contrast to said NVIDIA drivers, the RADEON’S TV-Out drivers offer all the necessary options. Only Matrox offers even more options and settings for their Dual Head cards.

Direct 3D	OpenGL	Color / Gamma	Monitor / TV-Out

If you want to output the video signal to a TV, you’ll need to hook it up to the RADEON before booting your computer. Your PC’s monitor is then run in a 60 Hz "compatibility mode", which also means that the picture gets shrunk and distorted. A frequency independent kind of dual view would have been the preferable option, especially since crawling under tables and switching cables isn’t everybody’s favorite pastime...

An interesting feature in ATi’s drivers is the option "Convert 32 Bit Textures to 16 Bit". When this option is enabled, all 32 bit textures are converted to 16 bit textures. This increases performance, comes at the cost of reduced image quality, however. You can see a 4-5 FPS advantage in Q3 with this option.

Image adjustment	Monitor parameters	TV-Out Settings	TV-Out adjustment

Another reprimand is in order for lacking driver compatibility under certain conditions. During the driver installation, the setup program automatically copies an AGP-gart driver as well, overwriting existing configurations without checking with the user first. On my KX-133 system, this resulted in a damaged system configuration that kept the system from booting up correctly, since VIA’s gart file had been overwritten. The only solution was to enter Windows in Safe Mode and reinstalling VIA’s gart. Once this was accomplished, there were no further complications, though.

Unfortunately, the next bug was just around the corner. The RADEON tried output the signal to the 15" testing monitor at a refresh rate it couldn’t handle. Again, the only solution lay in booting into Safe Mode and using a refresh tool like HZ-Tool.

^ ATI CD-Player < ATI DVD Player

Surely these issues will be addressed in ATi’s next driver release. Other than that, the drivers are exemplary. The only glitches I had were some misalignments under 2d with anti-aliasing turned on. AA was also still rather slow, but then again, this is still a prereleasedriver, and as such was remarkably stable. The add-ons also made a very good impression.

Copyright: 07.08.2000 -   RIVA Station 2000 - Lars Weinand
No Copy without Permission!

Translation by Benjamin Kraft

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