8.7 out?

I dunno.. last time I played 3DMark, I thought it was quite a boring and predictable game.. I kept pressing W,S,A,D, moving the mouse... but the control scheme in this game sucks.. I didn't at all feel like I was in control. It was almost as if the game was on rails. When I kept hitting keys to try and gain some control over the game, it suddenly kicked me back to the desktop, saying something about 3DMark having lost focus... Geez, and people thought Crysis lacked gameplay.. at least you have some control in that game, being able to look in different directions, shoot things and play with the physics.

Not to mention, every time they upgrade drivers, they have to load their hacked profiles to cool down the card?
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I haven't changed, hacked or modified anything and my 4850 has been working great from day 1. You only need to hack the fan profile if you overclock, but I thought this was obvious - when you overclock something, it generates more heat, so you need a better cooler and more airflow to keep things cool... Can't blame ATI for that.

I think ATI should just crank up the fan speed by default, even though it isn't needed. Clearly, many are under the false impression that you "have" to hack the fan speeds or the card will melt or something...not true at all.
 
e5india said:
Cedar I just bought a 4850, my first ATI card ever. I bought this to upgrade from a 7600GT and I'm satisfied with the purchase overall. My problem though is I essentially feel like a beta-tester. I mean, who releases a card and doesnt even have the official drivers on the webpage? ATI has always has the reputation for bad drivesr ( maybe this is an old impression), but it's the impression *I've* always had. And this just reinforces that reputation. I dont mind the temps so much, I see what they where going for. Everyone always bitches about loud fans so they built a chip that can withstand high temps, I get that. But the driver issue is ridiculous. I'm having artifact issues in HL2, that while minor, I never had with the 7600GT. Again, I'm satisfied overall with my purchase and I love supporting the underdog and promoting competition in the industry but to expect me to run unsupported hotfix drivers on a new card thats supposed to be their saving grace, c'mon. I can understand that drivers right now wont be optimized, but at the same time, how long has this card been in production? Are drivers a last minute thing at ATI? Do they make the card then leave the drivers to the interns? I'm not complaining so much about the quality of the drivers but it just seems like the attitude toward the software side of the development process is a bit haphazard.

This is only my second time posting so I might get dismissed as a troll. But I mean this more as constructive criticism. Everything on the software side for nvidia has always felt so polished and professional. Look at CCC, there's orphaned freeware on sourceforge with more polish than that atrocity.
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I agree.

Don't know where to turn though. I left Nvidia cause I was tired of their crappy drivers and crappy chipsets........anybody remember the 8800GT.........same thing, cards hitting 90-100C cause they tried to make the fan too quiet......people hacking bios.......at least you had Rivatuner working with that card right away. Hope Rivatuner gets updated soon.
 
CedarScott said:
Geez man, so gamers get to wait another month for 8.8 and hope performance improves on official drivers? Not to mention, every time they upgrade drivers, they have to load their hacked profiles to cool down the card?

I'm sorry, but I can't support this with my build. I'm going to have to pick up a GTX 260.
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lets be realistic no new card is ever perfect, but you dont have to hack up anything as i didnt do it either and its been kicking ass in every game i throw at it
 
wrangler said:
........anybody remember the 8800GT.........same thing, cards hitting 90-100C cause they tried to make the fan too quiet.
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i was lucky enough to get a GT with the fan revision, that thing cooled like a champ. i had the fan @ 100% all the time and it was much more quiet than my 4870 @ 50%. then again i have an Antec 900 with all fans set to high, so my comp is a noisy bitch anyway.
 
Anyone know if these drivers include the 'clarification' to the 'Transparency AA' settings that the 4870 x2 AA review mentioned, here?
 
Porter_ said:
well that's not even playable :D
i've read on other forums that people are getting better performance with the 8.7 betas than the official 8.7's.
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I'm still waiting for the hacked PhysX drivers...
 
Funny that with the 8.7 drivers I got about 11,110 in 3DMark06 with stock speed, then overclocking the core 90mhz and the memory 200mhz, I got 11,200. Is 3DMark06 that much of a CPU bound test now? Or maybe my E6600 at stock is holding my results back?? Hmm, I think it's probably that.
 
Looks like they liked 8.7, either that or they are fan boys. These 4800 series drivers are the suck though that's for sure. And for the guy going to an nvidia card because their drivers are so solid: you must not have been around for the great 8800/vista debacle of 2007. Nvidia screwed the pooch to end all pooches for a good solid 6 months before a reliable driver was released for their flagship card. Both of these companies consider driver development as an aside to delivering good hardware and it really is getting old.
 
Had about an 80 point drop in non CF, while a 600 point increase while in CF.

God damnit why can't I get multi-monitor CF working :(
 
CedarScott said:
Geez man, so gamers get to wait another month for 8.8 and hope performance improves on official drivers? Not to mention, every time they upgrade drivers, they have to load their hacked profiles to cool down the card?

I'm sorry, but I can't support this with my build. I'm going to have to pick up a GTX 260.
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This is such hyperbole, performance is basically showing minor imrpovements for many people and the fan speed is not broken. So there is only an issue if you want a reason to not buy an ATi card. Nothing wrong with the GTX 260, very nice card, but those are some weak reasons to not considera 4870.
 
You call 2.24% a big difference in crysis? You must have been kidding I hope. The charts I saw showed little to no gains in any game but coh and dmc4. I'll hold on for a while and see the consensus before I install these babies.
 
scroll down i said that there was a big difference between the CARDS as the sapphire crossfire one had a 13% increase
 
xbob04 said:
This is such hyperbole, performance is basically showing minor imrpovements for many people and the fan speed is not broken. So there is only an issue if you want a reason to not buy an ATi card. Nothing wrong with the GTX 260, very nice card, but those are some weak reasons to not considera 4870.
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My main reason for being hesitant on the 4870 is the drivers. For one the fan speed does seem a bit dodgy... 72 degrees idle in the middle of winter is a bit worrying for me, what's it going to be like in summer?

Then you have the inability to force AA in games. This is a big one for me, as I spend quite a bit of time playing live for speed, which I feel NEEDS a good serving of AA and AF, otherwise it'll give me a headache playing for any length of time, but LFS doesn't have the option for it in game, so it needs to be forced.
 
Tudz said:
My main reason for being hesitant on the 4870 is the drivers. For one the fan speed does seem a bit dodgy... 72 degrees idle in the middle of winter is a bit worrying for me, what's it going to be like in summer?

Then you have the inability to force AA in games. This is a big one for me, as I spend quite a bit of time playing live for speed, which I feel NEEDS a good serving of AA and AF, otherwise it'll give me a headache playing for any length of time, but LFS doesn't have the option for it in game, so it needs to be forced.
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also see weak arguments too, if you don't want an ATI cards, thats cool, lol

1. drivers, have nvidia and see same time frame of releases and would not take a brand over the other because of drivers from what I have expience,

2. 72 degrees, I for only I'm not an hardware engineer, and if I see them the real engineers saying that the card was design to be run at that temp, if the card works correctly, why would I complain them?

3. I don't have any issues aplaying AA to my games from within or from the ATI control, even games like diablo 2 get some, lol

have a good one, hope the 260 treats you nicely ;)

oh and the drivers work great :D

sam
 
I'm happy with my 4850. It's my first ATI card in years. It plays all my games quite well.

If your case has proper cooling, the card runs loaded at less than 90C. My room is a toasty 27C, and the card loads at 82C. And believe me, silicon can take this kind of temperature if you design for it (I am an EE). I am quite certain that ATI took the temperature into consideration, so I will not be replacing my stock cooler.

My only complaints:

1. ATI doesn't support game-specific profiles in the control panel. But since everything runs so well with 8xAA on, I'm finding myself worrying less and less about this.

2. The idle power of this card is kinda high, and I would really like it if a future driver set properly throttled the card and reduced idle load. 50w idle is a bit high in my book for a card that isn't doing anything.
 
It looks like edge detect AA and adaptive AA are broken with these drivers in Vista x64. The settings in CCC keep going back to default on their own and it appears that performance is down in Conan. This is coming from the 8.6 hotfix drivers.
 
Astrodave said:
You call 2.24% a big difference in crysis? You must have been kidding I hope. The charts I saw showed little to no gains in any game but coh and dmc4. I'll hold on for a while and see the consensus before I install these babies.
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Where did I say "big" difference, I said minor improvements.
 
defaultluser said:
My only complaints:

1. ATI doesn't support game-specific profiles in the control panel. But since everything runs so well with 8xAA on, I'm finding myself worrying less and less about this.

2. The idle power of this card is kinda high, and I would really like it if a future driver set properly throttled the card and reduced idle load. 50w idle is a bit high in my book for a card that isn't doing anything.
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QFT! I have been an nvidia fan boy for the past 4 years or so and came back to ati with the 4850 and am flabbergasted that there are no game profiles in their drivers. This is an utter outrage. I can't believe there isn't even some kind of 3rd party utility like nhancer for ati cards. I have a few games that need their OWN settings and it's such a PITA to have to go into the CCC and modify the settings every time I want to play a different game. Nvidia's drivers are crap but at least they are complete. ATI's drivers are crap and are incomplete. No game profiles really is just plain unacceptable.
 
xbob04 said:
Where did I say "big" difference, I said minor improvements.
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I wasn't talking to you, in fact I don't even know where you posted anything about crysis. Some other guy said there was a big difference. 2% is not a big difference but at least it's something.
 
chulerico said:
also see weak arguments too, if you don't want an ATI cards, thats cool, lol

1. drivers, have nvidia and see same time frame of releases and would not take a brand over the other because of drivers from what I have expience,

2. 72 degrees, I for only I'm not an hardware engineer, and if I see them the real engineers saying that the card was design to be run at that temp, if the card works correctly, why would I complain them?

3. I don't have any issues aplaying AA to my games from within or from the ATI control, even games like diablo 2 get some, lol

have a good one, hope the 260 treats you nicely ;)

oh and the drivers work great :D

sam
Click to expand...

1. Well my short experience I prefer nvidia control panel compared to CCC and it seemed to run smoother, I could be wrong, haven't spent a lot of time on CCC.

2. I know the whole thing about "it was designed to run that hot", but where I lieve, in summer you can sometimes get issues with overheating even at stock temperatures. My friend bought custom coolers despite the fact he doesn't overclock just because of the extreme heat (where he was it would get up to 35 degrees INSIDE and well over 40 outside... not quite as bad where I live, but still it gets hot).

3. So AA works?? You can confirm this, 100% sure? I've heard lots of people complaining AA doesn't work if you try and force it, only if you enable it in-game. If it works, then sweet.

Dont act like I'm some sort of nvidia fanboy, all it does is show how much of an ATI fanboy you are. I'm as unbiased as you could be, I only ever buy based on performance and features. I've only owned 2 PCs of my own, one had a TNT2 and my current one has an 8800GTS 320mb. When I got the 8800GTS there was no ATI card even close to the same performance at the price point. I was building a computer for my friend a couple of weeks ago and got the 4870 for it because of the great price to performance ratio.

However now the GTX260 has come down from $500 to $400AUD, so its a harder choice.
 
I wish they did fix the 4850 fan issues. People including me has faced overheating cards such as the 3870 which "Green Screen of Deaths" when it goes past its operating temp. I had Rivatuner that beast down from 100C to 50C at load to keep it cool.

The same with 4850 ~78C idle down to ~45C idle.
 
Tudz said:
1. Well my short experience I prefer nvidia control panel compared to CCC and it seemed to run smoother, I could be wrong, haven't spent a lot of time on CCC.

2. I know the whole thing about "it was designed to run that hot", but where I lieve, in summer you can sometimes get issues with overheating even at stock temperatures. My friend bought custom coolers despite the fact he doesn't overclock just because of the extreme heat (where he was it would get up to 35 degrees INSIDE and well over 40 outside... not quite as bad where I live, but still it gets hot).

3. So AA works?? You can confirm this, 100% sure? I've heard lots of people complaining AA doesn't work if you try and force it, only if you enable it in-game. If it works, then sweet.
Click to expand...

I agree with you somewhat. I went from a computer with a 6600GT to a new computer with a 4870. While I like the CCC in some ways, others I do not. I cannot seem to get GPU scaling to work in the original Counter-Strike (not source). I think that the GPU scaling only works if you can apply AA or AF in the game, but I could be wrong. My reasoning for thinking this is because I loaded up Warcraft 3 and I know for a fact that game uses AA and AF, but I do not ever recall CS using it. I could be entirely wrong. Every other game that I own, which happen to be pretty new in comparison to those previous titles I mentioned, will work with GPU scaling. I do miss my game profiles from nVidia... But I also like the performance of my 4870.
 
Well, my experience w/ 8.7, a 4870, and Vista 32-bit was horrible. Large drop in frames (TF2) and, amazingly, what appeared to be micro-stutter on a single-card setup.

Back to 8.7 beta.
 
I am going to try this out when I get home, as long as there are no significant performance drop I am sticking with it.
 
My 8.6 with hotfix has been solid... you guys got me wondering if I should even bother with 8.7. Anyone running Vista x64 tried these drivers yet?
 
I've been using 8.7 on Vista x64 for about a month now and no problems so far.
 
Copyright said:
My 8.6 with hotfix has been solid... you guys got me wondering if I should even bother with 8.7. Anyone running Vista x64 tried these drivers yet?
Click to expand...

I am running Vista 64 and I have had no problems with these drivers. Installed The Orange Box after updating from 8.6 to 8.7 and ran TF2 flawlessly at 1920x1200 max everything.
 
I'm running Vista64 with 2 4850's cf'd. Put in 8.7 last night & have some minor stuttering. I saw this with the original install from the CD that came with the cards but it went away when I installed the hotfix drivers. I'm going to uninstall the 8.7's tonight & put the hotfix back in. If the micro-stutter goes away then I'm sticking with that driver version & skipping 8.7. 3DMark scores went down by a minor amount with 8.7 for me also.
 
TechBlaster said:
I'm running Vista64 with 2 4850's cf'd. Put in 8.7 last night & have some minor stuttering. I saw this with the original install from the CD that came with the cards but it went away when I installed the hotfix drivers. I'm going to uninstall the 8.7's tonight & put the hotfix back in. If the micro-stutter goes away then I'm sticking with that driver version & skipping 8.7. 3DMark scores went down by a minor amount with 8.7 for me also.
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I also had some micro on COD4, w/ the 8.7 . I uninstalled, went into safe mode ran driver sweeper. Went into normal mode, installed drivers restarted, fired up COD4, now it runs even better then 8.6 hot fix.
 
Spaxspore said:
I also had some micro on COD4, w/ the 8.7 . I uninstalled, went into safe mode ran driver sweeper. Went into normal mode, installed drivers restarted, fired up COD4, now it runs even better then 8.6 hot fix.
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So you're saying the 8.7 worked better than 8.6 hotfix after running driver sweeper and reinstalling 8.7?
 
that is correct, u just got to run driver sweeper in safe mode after you uninstall the existing drivers
 
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