Would it be a mistake to by an 8500?

[Reverend Maynard]

Howdy all. I have tried to be happy with my Ti200, but I realize more and more every day that I need a dual head solution. This being said, is the dual head good on the 8500? I am rather spoiled, having come from a G400 previously, will the 8500 just let me down? I have heard that the 64 meg version is plenty good for gaming, but any further word on that is always welcome.

The biggest argument against buying the 8500 I have heard is the terrible terrible driver support. I'm a patient guy and I don't mind playing with different drivers, is this really going to affect me?

that's all I can think of for now, if you have anything I missed please comment.

[Indiana]

The answer to your question is maybe...

I have a Radeon8500 and don't have problems with it - but there are people that do have, so it still seems to depend on the individuals config.
DualHead is quite good with the exception of missing support for different resolutions/refresh rates in Win2k, but this is not really ATIs fault. Theater mode is a good replacement for Matrox' DVDMax. Display quality is good, not really quite up to Matrox standards, but still good. And those PixelShaders DO look awesome (ATIs Ocean and tubes screensavers, or the Rachel demo). Gaming is FAST - 8990 3DMarks2001 - even though this is "only" a 3DFake score, it still shows some of the cards performance.

But given the latest rumors why don't you just wait the few days until GDC is over? IF Matrox really shows Displacement Mapping on the Parhelia there, it can't be that long until we see cards with this chip....

[GT98]

I got mine as part of deal back when the card first came out though Dell, I'm pretty happy with it but its getting yanked out as soon as I can Afford the Matrox SOON card

Scott

[Reverend Maynard]

So with the 8500 I must run the same resolution/refresh rate on both monitors of a dual setup in Win2k? That is certainly a big downside, as my main is a 21" and my secondary is a 17".

As far as the next Matrox card, I'm not about to wait on a card that hasn't even been announced yet. With the current cost of 8500's I'll have no problem bumping it to another machine when the next Matrox card is finally released. That's actually the point of me getting an 8500, to have a decent card while I wait for the ever present card on the horizon.

[Reverend Maynard]

I just realized I put "by" in the title instead of "buy." Damn I feel stupid. I've been quite the flake lately.

[Indiana]

Originally posted by Reverend Maynard
So with the 8500 I must run the same resolution/refresh rate on both monitors of a dual setup in Win2k? That is certainly a big downside, as my main is a 21" and my secondary is a 17".

Unfortunately that's the way it is - at least up to now, maybe ATI do plagiate the Matrox kludge for this problem as well (after they have quite successfully cloned DVDMax).
Or maybe SP3 for Win2k will fix this finally.

Another "solution" (kind of) would be to use WinXP (which M$ wants you to do and this is probably the sole reason for it not being fixed in Win2k )