I'm sure this will inflame many but....

That's just not nice. Whatever will I do with my X600 card now...
Oh yeah, forgot, I'm leveling a table with it....
 
I think this is quite fine, they are just moving on. And besides those older cards won't probably benefit quite that much from newer drivers, especially when they're not the first in priority when optimizing for the newer generations. But there won't be bug fixes for newer games though, but again those older cards won't probably even play those games.
 
GreenMonkey said:
Mmm, maybe that's how it is now. First install of win7 required some wrangling / inf hacking in July. Don't remember on the last install about a month ago. You're probably right.

Older cards are definitely requiring Vista compatibility mode though. The Radeon 9550 I just installed definitely needed it (kept getting error that the Radeon hardware was not detected). Worked fine w/ Vista comp mode.

I guess if you guys are ok with 2-3 year old cards being marked as legacy support...not all of us upgrade that often. $60 is $60.
Click to expand...

Strange. I guess it depends on the hardware. I've been using windows 7 for what seems like forever now and I've installed it on all kinds of machines and never had a problem with the Vista drivers.

The only time I ever encountered issues was when I was trying to get a driver for an 845 chipset which was notorious for issues in Vista to begin with. I did get it to work though.

2-3 years is a long time in the technology world. This isn't like we're talking about about IDE or PATA that were standards that lasted years before considered "legacy". These are GPU's and they get faster and faster with every refresh cycle. It's just what happens. It's why alot of people stay away from the super high-end stuff because it's worth only a fraction of what you paid for it shortly after it's release.
 
Support has to be dropped sometime, DX9 is now a 3rd generation graphics API, if you've got hardware that old you should probably just be sticking to Windows XP anyway.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Support has to be dropped sometime, DX9 is now a 3rd generation graphics API, if you've got hardware that old you should probably just be sticking to Windows XP anyway.
Click to expand...

DX9 hardware works fine - any console friendly game works at perfectly acceptable settings on later Ati (or nvidia) DX9 hardware. e.g. L4D2 demo released today can be run pretty well maxed on the sort of screen the average user has (average user = valve survey). As long as games are just DX9 console ports which is going to be the case for another couple of years they will continue to work fine as long as the driver support is kept up to date. It is an unfortunate fact that for those not obsessed with huge resolutions and max settings all the time you don't need current hardware to play most current games (e.g. min specs for modern warfare 2 are a mere 6600GT).

As for sticking to XP, when this hardware was still current vista was the OS, people avoided it, now windows 7 has arrived XP die hards are finally moving on. It's not like hardware from that age won't run it. e.g. I had a 7900GTO, Q6600 and 4 gig memory when vista arrived - that machine still exists (I gave it to a friend years ago), recently he put 7 on it, which it is running quite happily, and is still used for gaming (which it does perfectly well).
 
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TheBlueChanell said:
2-3 years is a long time in the technology world. This isn't like we're talking about about IDE or PATA that were standards that lasted years before considered "legacy". These are GPU's and they get faster and faster with every refresh cycle. It's just what happens. It's why alot of people stay away from the super high-end stuff because it's worth only a fraction of what you paid for it shortly after it's release.
Click to expand...

Granted I haven't looked into the full list of cards the one that GreenMonkey listed the 9550 is at least closer to the 5+ year range for age... Now the x1900 range being much newer is still pushing 3 to 4 years old.

I'm sorry but we want our OS's to progress and become more optimized yet we want perfect support for hardware that is post Voodoo era... The list will eventually grow too large plus the Vista drivers will work just fine in Windows 7, I wouldn't expect to squeeze much more performance out of cards that I see in business workstations more often than not these days (besides integrated that is).

It's just AMD's way of letting us know that "They are all dead Dave."
 
Good point, man. Good point. Let me think about it. If I buy a DX11 card today and DX10.1 gets dropped by AMD, it means my DX11 card will still work. Looking at AMD's history, they dropped support for a 4 year old card. DX11 cards were released about 1 month ago.

So if I spend $100.00 on the cheapest model, it'll only last another 3 years and 11 months. Then, my games won't get performance enchancements of 5-10%. 3 years, 11 months / $100.00 = $25.00 per year?? $2.00 per month? Who can afford such an expensive cost. The OUTRAGE I FEEL. If I spend $300.00 on a top of the line video card, it would be almost 6 dollars a month. $6.00 dollars. That's like one-coffee less a month I'd have to have. OUTRAGEOUS!

Sorry for the sarcasim but really, for $30.00 you could get a card with double the horsepower of our current video card that'll be supported for probably at least 2 years more. That's like 50 cents a month to enjoy better graphics in your games. If gaming, using facebook or just using a pc in general is your hobby, 0.50 cents a month doesn't seem that bad by any means.

You should direct that outrage where it belongs. Ask those damn bastards at Intel why my Pentium 1 could play Lara Croft tomb raider just fine in 1993 but the newest lara croft game wont run? When will I get a new firmware for my intel motherboard to make my pentium 1 run this game properly? I don't want to spend $30.00 on a E2400.
Click to expand...

Hey bright one, you tell me, where do I run and buy new video cards for my laptop? Oh right (sarcasm) laptops are only 50% of the PC marketplace. Shucks. Ok, accountant boy, let's try the math of, oh, say 2k for your "new videocard". Hmm, then drop that by 3 years or 36 months, well that's $55 a month, which might be what you spend on coffee given just how witty your response was.
 
Anemone said:
Hey bright one, you tell me, where do I run and buy new video cards for my laptop? Oh right (sarcasm) laptops are only 50% of the PC marketplace. Shucks. Ok, accountant boy, let's try the math of, oh, say 2k for your "new videocard". Hmm, then drop that by 3 years or 36 months, well that's $55 a month, which might be what you spend on coffee given just how witty your response was.
Click to expand...

Granted I have a gaming laptop as a secondary for when I am watching sports on the living room TV or heading over to a friends house to LAN it up... Gaming Laptops have always had numerous reasons to be the more expensive venture in the world of PC Gaming, with little or lacking upgradability in most areas especially the GPU... I'm not saying that this is wonderful if you fall into this category but it is fair to say that it is just "another brick in the wall" when compared to the other drawbacks mentioned above.
 
sbuckler said:
DX9 hardware works fine - any console friendly game works at perfectly acceptable settings on later Ati (or nvidia) DX9 hardware. e.g. L4D2 demo released today can be run pretty well maxed on the sort of screen the average user has (average user = valve survey). As long as games are just DX9 console ports which is going to be the case for another couple of years they will continue to work fine as long as the driver support is kept up to date. It is an unfortunate fact that for those not obsessed with huge resolutions and max settings all the time you don't need current hardware to play most current games (e.g. min specs for modern warfare 2 are a mere 6600GT).

As for sticking to XP, when this hardware was still current vista was the OS, people avoided it, now windows 7 has arrived XP die hards are finally moving on. It's not like hardware from that age won't run it. e.g. I had a 7900GTO, Q6600 and 4 gig memory when vista arrived - that machine still exists (I gave it to a friend years ago), recently he put 7 on it, which it is running quite happily, and is still used for gaming (which it does perfectly well).
Click to expand...

It's not ideal and yes some people will miss out but it's a reasonable place to draw the line, hardly anyone with hardware that old is going to be running windows 7, there is a reasonable gap between OS's where hardware is appropriate and really old hardware doesn't usualy play well with new OS's, new hardware doesn't play well with old OS's

Derfman said:
It's just AMD's way of letting us know that "They are all dead Dave."
Click to expand...

They're all dead Dave, everybodys dead, everybody is dead Dave.
 
Anemone said:
Hey bright one, you tell me, where do I run and buy new video cards for my laptop? Oh right (sarcasm) laptops are only 50% of the PC marketplace. Shucks. Ok, accountant boy, let's try the math of, oh, say 2k for your "new videocard". Hmm, then drop that by 3 years or 36 months, well that's $55 a month, which might be what you spend on coffee given just how witty your response was.
Click to expand...

Err.. considering there will be Vista updates for those cards... you should be able to install a Vista driver (as I've done) without issue.

My laptop has an x16xx Mobility GPU with Windows 7 and Vista drivers. Works perfectly.
 
Anemone said:
Hey bright one, you tell me, where do I run and buy new video cards for my laptop? Oh right (sarcasm) laptops are only 50% of the PC marketplace. Shucks. Ok, accountant boy, let's try the math of, oh, say 2k for your "new videocard". Hmm, then drop that by 3 years or 36 months, well that's $55 a month, which might be what you spend on coffee given just how witty your response was.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but your complaining about not being able to run the latest and greatest OS on old hardware due to not getting drivers. I am sorry but I honestly can't see your grip here, even without the easy fix. There is only going to be so much backwards compatibility in each generation, hell one of these days 86 code is likely going to have to be abandoned. even if you recently bought it new (or if its still being manufacturer) YOU were buying old tech. If the company mislead you then you have a complaint against them, ATI never promised they would support old tech indefinitely
 
Valset said:
I'm sorry but your complaining about not being able to run the latest and greatest OS on old hardware due to not getting drivers. I am sorry but I honestly can't see your grip here, even without the easy fix. There is only going to be so much backwards compatibility in each generation, hell one of these days 86 code is likely going to have to be abandoned. even if you recently bought it new (or if its still being manufacturer) YOU were buying old tech. If the company mislead you then you have a complaint against them, ATI never promised they would support old tech indefinitely
Click to expand...

While I might have been more delicate in my response I can understand frustration with laptops and the DX9 killoff for ATI. The technology is usually a generation behind the desktop. Core I7's are just now showing up in laptops. Not everyone has the bucks to pay 5K for the latest and greatest hardware. Vista and 7 using aero rely on 3D acceleration for more than just gaming. So I can understand the frustration.

But I can't remember ever using an ATI catalyst driver on my ATI based laptops. I was always stuck with whatever the laptop manufacturer offered up on the download page. It's only recently that you could use Nvidia forceware drivers on laptops and they have all kinds of disclaimers about it.
 
RAF_OldBuzzard said:
Where have some of you people been?

ATI dropped support for DX9 only cards in all operating systems including XP.

ATI stopped supporting the DX9 cards after the 9.3 Cats. They did say at that time that they would/might do QUARTERLY updates for the DX9 cards if it was necessary. They haven't done quartely updates, but they did release an update with the 9.8 drivers.

Just go to the ATI site and look for XP drivers for the X1950 and it will direct you to the 9.8 legacy ones.

ATI's release on this:
Click to expand...

I knew of this as well, because my brother's machine had a 1950pro. I noticed this when trying to update the drivers for a particular game that woudn't work with the drivers loaded (Darkest of Days). This resulted in me replacing my 8800gt with a AMD 5850, and giving my old card to my brother.
 
venm11 said:
Yes, my problem exactly. I can't run Windows 7 on my laptop with an x1300? WTF?

They should at least create a stable baseline Windows 7 driver, it doesn't have to support multiple GPUs or other advanced features, or be super-optimized. Can W7 use vista or XP drivers?
Click to expand...

Like previous people have said, just use the windows vista driver. Your not going to do much gaming with a x1300, and Windows 7 will work with windows vista drivers. Ok?
 
I can still run my X1900XTX ($40 to upgrade FROM this card? *hangs down head and shudders at launch price* geez where did the time go, feels like it's barely been a year and a half) with the existing drivers, and it's going to run anything produced in the last year or two as good as it ever will. Any features missing from driver updates are going to be games that the card probably has no business running anyway , and not worth making a difference with updates at least.
 
Yeah, I don't see this as a problem either. Once a new generation is released, all subsequent driver updates GENERALLY do little for previous generation cards anyway.
 
jwalk6 said:
While I might have been more delicate in my response I can understand frustration with laptops and the DX9 killoff for ATI. The technology is usually a generation behind the desktop. Core I7's are just now showing up in laptops. Not everyone has the bucks to pay 5K for the latest and greatest hardware. Vista and 7 using aero rely on 3D acceleration for more than just gaming. So I can understand the frustration.

But I can't remember ever using an ATI catalyst driver on my ATI based laptops. I was always stuck with whatever the laptop manufacturer offered up on the download page. It's only recently that you could use Nvidia forceware drivers on laptops and they have all kinds of disclaimers about it.
Click to expand...

actually you can, Driver haven has a mod for the mobile catalyst drivers that will make them work with most any card. again it is a mod so its not kosher but by all accounts it works.

but for as the point this is more then a couple of generations ago and all it said was that updating for anything but bugs. if your on that kind of low end laptop I would not expect to be able to upgrade to the newest OS. Nothing anyone has will stop working, they just can't upgrade to win 7 without using vista drivers (or the current) its not like when the edge 3d stopped being supported for what amounted to a refresh ( window 98 the next year). I understand the frustration too I just don't think the anger here is justified.
 
Update on the main page R.E. driver support

http://hardocp.com/news/2009/10/30/amd_clarifies_driver_support_on_dx9_only_hardware_in_win7

From AMD:

WDDM1.1 (Windows Display Driver Model) is the driver architecture required to run Windows7. To meet the Microsoft dictated requirements, GPU’s must be DirectX10 and later level hardware. So as stated on our website, Windows 7 users with DirectX 9 AMD graphics hardware can use the legacy Windows Vista WDDM 1.0 drivers (as it is not possible for DirectX 9 hardware to support the WDDM 1.1 driver requirements). On a separate note the move to "legacy driver" status happen when we moved our DirectX 9 based hardware to a legacy support structure back in March 2009, and we were quite public about this. We’ve been providing updates to this driver on a quarterly basis - in fact we will be posting a new legacy driver in the next few days.

Summary: Windows7 users on DirectX9 can and should use the legacy Catalyst driver which will be updated quarterly.
Click to expand...
 
It was already a non-story from the start. I can't see why people were freaking out so much.
 
MrLonghair said:
That must have been me and the Star NL-10 dot-matrix printer that I can only use daytime because it wakes up the neighbours.
Click to expand...

Lol - does it also need a dedicated 220/30 amp run to power it??!

Seriously though, I don't see this as an issue at all. They are older hardware first off, and if MS requirements for WDDM 1.1 support requires at least DX10 level of support, then ATI really has no choice in this matter.

I am still running a 9500 modded into a 9700, a 9600, an AIW 9800, 7800GT and 880GTs in my multiple puters. The older ATI model cards (9xxx series) have been in legacy support mode for years now, and I have been running "legacy" drivers as well for since this happened (WinXP), and no issues at all due to this on these older cards.

I only game on the most recent system, and that has modern (DX10) cards in it (the 8800 GT for now, until I upgrade them in a few months time). If your still gaming on one of these older cards, maybe its time for you to consider an upgrade to a modern card.
 
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I just read through this entire thread, and it amazes me that some people are severely lacking in the reading comprehension department. It was point blank stated that the Vista drivers would still work... Last time I checked, Vista drivers worked pretty much perfectly in Win 7.

Maybe, I might be out of the loop, because the last time I used a DX9 only card was 2+ years ago. (I'm running a 9600GT now, looking towards a sweet 5770 or 5850)

I just don't understand how people can and have been so worked up over this... :confused:
 
lol if someone bought a 5000 series radeon which is a Dx11 part to run in Windows XP which is capped to Direct X 9 and will never see Dx 10 or 11, you're a fool i'm sorry.

Another reason why windows XP needs to die!!!!
 
Makaveli@BETA said:
lol if someone bought a 5000 series radeon which is a Dx11 part to run in Windows XP which is capped to Direct X 9 and will never see Dx 10 or 11, you're a fool i'm sorry.

Another reason why windows XP needs to die!!!!
Click to expand...

Except that there aren't many DX10 games worth playing and a few of them like Crysis can use DX10 mode with a hack so again it looks just as good on XP.

DX11 remains to be seen whether it will do anything remarkable, DX10 is over and done with.
 
KayossZero said:
Except that there aren't many DX10 games worth playing and a few of them like Crysis can use DX10 mode with a hack so again it looks just as good on XP.

DX11 remains to be seen whether it will do anything remarkable, DX10 is over and done with.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:

You mean like the improved effeciency of the DX11 code path? Where the same level or greater level of detail as a DX9 or DX10 title, offers a greater level of performance when run in DX11? If memory serves me correct here, you can utilize AA with much less of a performance hit under DX11. How is that not a good thing?

Or these games?

Bioshock 2
New AvP game
Mass Effect 2
Battleforge
Stalker Call of Pripyat
Crysis 2
Dirt 2
EA/Dice's Frostbite 2 engine (BF1943 and BF Bad Company 2)
HL2/EP3

Hell, I dont even have a DX11 capable card yet, still on DX10 cards for now, but I am salivating over the DX11 titles coming out in the next year. Sure you can most likely run them in DX9 mode, but why would you want to and suffer the performance hit associated with it?
 
To meet the Microsoft dictated requirements, GPU’s must be DirectX10 and later level hardware.
Click to expand...

*cought*BULLSHIT*cough*.

By Microsoft's own standards, DX9 parts are just fine for Win7. Strangely, nVidia seems to have no problem implementing WDDM 1.1 drivers for their DX9 parts. Hell, Intel GMA 950 has full WDDM 1.1 support.

In addition, WDDM 1.0 drivers can still claim full Windows 7 compatibility. AMD could take the previous WDDM 1.0-compatible drivers, and they should pass the Win7 compatibility test just fine.

AMD's full of shit. This is done solely to get naive people with older hardware to upgrade to achieve "compatibility".
 
The Radeon x1400 mobility works fine under windows 7, this is soo much a non-story.
 
Evil_SPanKY said:
:rolleyes:

You mean like the improved effeciency of the DX11 code path? Where the same level or greater level of detail as a DX9 or DX10 title, offers a greater level of performance when run in DX11? If memory serves me correct here, you can utilize AA with much less of a performance hit under DX11. How is that not a good thing?
Click to expand...

Well I certainly hope DX11 provides all those things. Maybe my memory isn't serving me well but to my recollection, just about every version of DX claimed efficiency over it's predecessor yet almost always performed slower when the new "path" was used versus the previous one.
 
Valset said:
actually you can, Driver haven has a mod for the mobile catalyst drivers that will make them work with most any card. again it is a mod so its not kosher but by all accounts it works.

but for as the point this is more then a couple of generations ago and all it said was that updating for anything but bugs. if your on that kind of low end laptop I would not expect to be able to upgrade to the newest OS. Nothing anyone has will stop working, they just can't upgrade to win 7 without using vista drivers (or the current) its not like when the edge 3d stopped being supported for what amounted to a refresh ( window 98 the next year). I understand the frustration too I just don't think the anger here is justified.
Click to expand...

I tried that, that mobile modder only adds support for mobile chipsets, not the older dx9 cards, unless this has changed recently.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
They're all dead Dave, everybodys dead, everybody is dead Dave.
Click to expand...

NOOOO!!!!

"Jumps out to a cliff"

hehe that was a good post, but seriously my girlfriend has an X1950GT AGP card which came to the market in the middle of june 2007, how's possible that the card is no longer supported? A pity, it works fine with Windows 7 and most games except Resident Evil 5 which an error appears stating that a DX9 function call is not available, no matter which driver version is used, the game won't start unless if I use the X1K patch made by a user which cheats the game as being a GeForce 9600GT and then the game runs fine, except that some zombies are headless or have black heads with no face or their eyes and mouth are floating above their necks in the void. I bought in march 2007 a GeCube X1950XT AGP card which I sold later in november, I would be really pissed off If I were the owner now.

My other box which is an old PC that I use for experiment, has an X800XT PE which works fine with Kubuntu/Ubuntu 9.10, it also works fine with Windows 7 with Aero enabled using the 9.8 drivers.
 
jeremyshaw said:
read the thread before posting more rant.
Click to expand...
Which part(s)? I'm a little curious myself as to why NVIDIA's able to release WDDM 1.1 drivers for their DX10-incapable parts (supposedly -- I haven't confirmed this) but AMD claims that conformance to WDDM 1.1 requires DX10 support.

I think this as much a non-issue as everyone else here, but I am sort of wondering whether AMD's reasoning holds water.
 
phide said:
Which part(s)? I'm a little curious myself as to why NVIDIA's able to release WDDM 1.1 drivers for their DX10-incapable parts (supposedly -- I haven't confirmed this) but AMD claims that conformance to WDDM 1.1 requires DX10 support.

I think this as much a non-issue as everyone else here, but I am sort of wondering whether AMD's reasoning holds water.
Click to expand...

Like I said earlier in the thread, I'm not too grumpy since win7 is working fine with Vista drivers.

But I'm personally much more likely to buy an Nvidia card next. They aren't discontinuing support of 2-3 year old cards, and theycontinue to do at least occasional updates, even for their ancient cards, even for legacy Linux support.

I've only ever bought one Nvidia card and I had to return it (a ti4200 which had a voltage issue with my KT133 motherboard causing reboots). I suspect they will be getting more of my business in the future.
 
I didn't read the whole thread, but some people need to clue the fuck in to the real world. This seems like another case of AMD actually being honest of what is going on. If their stated definition of Microsoft WDDM 1.1 is correct, they are simply in compliance and being honest about it. My question is, since DX9 parts aren't supported, is NVIDIA just conning customers into thinking htey have the latest and greatest support for Vista, even though they are not in compliance, or are they separately developing two driver series now?

Either way, are people really bitching about them not supporting tech that's over four years old now? Seriously, why are you even on an enthusiast website in the first place.
 
R0N1 said:
I think this is quite fine, they are just moving on. And besides those older cards won't probably benefit quite that much from newer drivers, especially when they're not the first in priority when optimizing for the newer generations. But there won't be bug fixes for newer games though, but again those older cards won't probably even play those games.
Click to expand...

AMD stated quite plainly that this would happen *last year* with the entirety of the X1K series moving to legacy status (the HD series, starting with HD2000, supports DX 10 and is not affected).

Also, there *are* AGP versions of some cards in the HD3xxx series (and even the HD4xxx series) available if you have to have an AGP card for your P4 Northwood-C running Windows 7. (Don't laugh, such an AGP computer actually exists.)

Non-story.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161284

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161308
 
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