Ditched my Radeon X1650 Video Card

I was talking about the GF8600GT when I said it doesn't come in AGP. I'm not about to mess with new motherboards and processors etc....so went to my favourite PC makers site....I priced the one I want at $2777. (It will have to wait...!)
 
Well that was for their top-of-the-line gamer PC, which I really don't need and did include all the usual "free" extras that most PC makers throw in, and which I can talk them out of if necessary.
It's the place I got my current one (which was the top-of-the-line then). They allow you to tailor everything to what you want.
 
I dunno... My build will (should) have 2GB memory, an E6750, 2x500GB HDs, and an 8800GT. Pretty gamer-ish if you ask me :smile:
 
Well the new ATi 2900's are out. But for AGP you wont find much anymore. The manufacturers are atrting to lean toward PCIe now. Espically with PCIe 2.0 almost finalized.

For me if i can get the cash together i would get a 8600GTS 640MB. But only cause i do have PCIe. It is decent and does support DX10.

While DX10 isnt that big of a thing right now it might be. Who knows where M$ and game developers are going to be heading with that technology in the next couple of years.

Also there are some DX10 games out now. Flight Simulator X, Halo 2 and a few others all support DX10. The problem isnt the games, it is the drivers. From all the people i talk to that own a DX10 card, they say the drivers are worse than the ones for XP. Within Vista that is. They have had several BSOD's among other issues.

I like nVidia personally. Their cards have been great for me and what i do. Light gaming along with some GFX work. But overall since AMD acquired ATi there has been little to no work done on the GFX market for them. Even with the release of thier first DX10 cards they are still falling short of the nVidia 8800 GTX cards. Which isnt a good sign. Espically with the length of those cards. I mean a GFX card that is almost 10" long. Who really has room in their case for something like that.

All in all i have decided to wait. The market right now isnt saturated (flooded is another term to use) with GFX cards right now. You have a big choice from nVidia but nothing from ATi. At least IMO. Until i can see more production out of ATi i will wait just a bit longer.

Plus with DDR3 RAM starting to make a appearance for both PC's and GFX cards it is a bit better to wait and get a DDR3 based card. The memory is faster than DDR2 and doesnt require as much power. So instead of needing a 1,000 watt PSU you will only need a 800 watt. :joy::tongueout:
 
Well, Flight Simulator X, Halo 2, and Shadowrun are fake DX10.

Microsoft made them check for DX10 (to see if it was being installed on Vista) then go ahead and use DX9, which they were programmed on.

It's a bunch of FUD aimed at getting more Vista users. I have reinstalled Vista (had to for a program I'm working on) and have the XP left. Halo 2 runs faster on XP than it does on Vista (both with the latest ATi drivers).

I'm getting the 8800GTS (don't really need to pay that much more for 640MB of memory!), which I think has DDR3 memory modules. However, there's no way in hell I'm getting the DDR3 version of the DQ6 (which, hopefully, will be my new mobo!) because I'm not paying 1000USD for 2GB of memory!! :lol:

I know it's basic supply vs. demand, but damn those prices are high! :angry:
 
When you say the latest ATI drivers, do you mean theat you downloaded the drivers only for Vista or the Catalyst suite?
I had some problems in Vista only when I tried installing the drivers only (which seems a new thing for their Vista downloads, as they only had the full suite previously) in that it installed some strange ATI CMI component that threw up immediate red errors in the Event Viewer.
It ended up with me getting a BSOD as I couldn't find the usual ATI uninstaller and ended up screwing up everything and reinstalling Vista.
Not helped by the fact that I also have an ATI TV Wonder 650 card and the two always leave bits of themselves behind.
This time around I've told Vista not to load drivers for the TV card as Vista's Media Center works fine without the drivers, so I don't need Catalysts Media Center as well.

By the way, am I right in saying that there aren't any DX10 software out there yet? I also read that so far PCIe is no faster than AGP.
 
There is no DX10 software. But PCIe is at least twice as fast as AGP. AGP can only go to 8x. Which has a throughput of 2.1 GB/s @ 533MHz. While PCIe runs at 2.5GHz/s with a throughtput of 8GB/s in each direction.

So to me there is a big difference. PCIe is way faster. While AGP maxes out at 533MHz PCIe can get almost as fast as a first gneeration P4. Faster than some AMD chips. While movig 8GB/s in each direction. That is faster than some RAM modules.

So to say that PCIe is no faster is a understatement. I got my info from Wikipedia.
 
I got mine from something I read on a gamer forum somewhere. While the theory is fine apparently current software throttles it back (or something like that).
Eventually it will shine, I am sure.
 
Yes and Yes :smile:

No DX10 software yet exists (wait for Crysis), and AGP's potential hasn't been maxed out - it's just politics and business.
The keyword is "potential" here. While PCIe is plenty fast, hardware isn't using that extra speed.

Same with SATA. There is SATA 3.0 GBps and SATA 1.5GBps (SATA I & II). The world's fastest SATA drive (the Raptor 150GB) is only SATA I, yet it operates a hell of a lot faster than other SATA II drives. However, with SATA I, the limit has been (finally) reached: 2xRaptor 150 in RAID 0 is drastically limited by the 1.5GBps controller.

But with graphics cards, the limit hasn't been met. I think it's close, but I remember reading a report somewhere that says AGP can even handle SLI if anyone bothered to implement that functionality. Again, that's not to say PCIe isn't faster, but just that at this point in time, it's extra speed is trivial.

I've just installed Vista from scratch, no previous driver residue: installing the ATi drivers (no driver-only package is available, but I chose not to install the Catalyst Control Center) worked just fine here.
 
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I'll give ATI driver update a go again then. Right now I'm using what Windows loads..generic I guess.
 
Well, from an error-less event viewer to this now:

Log Name: Application
Source: SideBySide
Date: 25/07/2007 8:49:48 AM
Event ID: 33
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: R2D2
Description:
Activation context generation failed for "M:\Program Files\ATI\CIM\Bin\Setup.exe". Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC80.MFC,processorArchitecture="x86",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="8.0.50608.0" could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="SideBySide" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49409">33</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2007-07-25T12:49:48.000Z" />
<EventRecordID>1400</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>R2D2</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>Microsoft.VC80.MFC,processorArchitecture="x86",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="8.0.50608.0"</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>M:\Program Files\ATI\CIM\Bin\Setup.exe</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

Appears twice at every boot. AMD/ATI Support, here I come...yet again!
 
Ex_Brit said:
Strange - it has stopped appearing as of this morning. Must be because I screeched at ATI...LOL
Click to expand...

Yeah, that reminds me...

some years ago, my friend had some PC(800mhz!!) and we wanted to write DVD... and system crashed a couple times, and I said "Okay.. you're going DOWN!! this time... and it worked! :lol::lol:
 
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Well Sarge, you are probably going to question my sanity. I just threw the X1650 in the garbage and bought an X1950 Pro on eBay. Not cheap ($185US plus shipping from the US, hopefully no import tax as it's made just outside Toronto) - which is the topmost DX9 board. My new power supply should handle it. It has two 4-pin molex power connector sockets- both have to be connected!!
I don't know why I waste my money like this but maybe I like to see how far I can stretch this old machine.
I believe that the HD2600 will be out in an AGP version in August but it will be very expensive and I really don't need DX10 capability.

All this just to get my Vista performance score up...LOL

I can always resell it on eBay.:scared:
 
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