hmm, the 4.4 CATS are out!

[Mehen]

"Rumors are flying, but here is a bit of fact for you. ATI's next-gen part, codenamed "R420," will in fact be a full 16 pipeline VPU. You can take that to the bank, put it in your pipe and smoke it, or do whatever you want to do with it."

http://www.hardocp.com

[The PIT]

Well the new drivers fixed one or two problems I had with the 9200 all in one. Teletext now works properly and I can now set the speakers again from the sys tray without it crashing out.

[The PIT]

Spoke too soon got in from the football match and my main machine wouldn't boot into XP. Just a black scrren. Uninstalled and re-installed drivers in safe mode. If it happens again bac k to the 4.3's.
Other machine happy.

[2Whyzzi]

OmegaDrivers for Cat4.4(a?)

I just finished installing the Omega drivers for the to soft mod my notirious Sapphire 9800SE 128bit bus card (The card that is notorious for not wanting to be soft mod'd). Funny thing, the 3DGraphics seem to be just fine, even with the Rad-Linker running the card @ 350Core 350Mem (3.3ns Samsung DDR) but there are certain spots my text (eg Window Title Bar Text, certain web pages modified by the font parameter) looks like it went through a paper shredder! No kidding!

I'm left wondering if a driver version would fix this problem or would I have to "un-soft" mod this beast. I read in another thread that some prob /w the Sapphire edition of the 9800SE can be reduced by forcing the ZBuffer ?(was it compression)? to low...

I'll leave it like this awhile and see what happens.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Originally posted by |Mehen|
"Rumors are flying, but here is a bit of fact for you. ATI's next-gen part, codenamed "R420," will in fact be a full 16 pipeline VPU. You can take that to the bank, put it in your pipe and smoke it, or do whatever you want to do with it."
http://www.hardocp.com

http://www.darkcrow.co.kr/

There will be two versions of R420 according to darkcrow... which does not make a lot of sense. The R420 releasing on April 26 (Radeon X800 PRO) will have 12 pipes, while the R420 releasing on May 31 (Radeon X800 XT) will have 16 pipes. I think there are some mistakes on the chart. 1 Core codename with different amount of pipes? That does not make a lot of sense. I am guessing that the 16 pipe version will have another codename...

Nevertheless, I think R420 with 12 pipes will not be as good as GF6800U, while the 16 pipes version maybe faster than the 6800U, because NV40 is not a true 16 pipe. But by then maybe NV will have something out.

but then... NV40 is almost a total redesign, while R420 is an update to R3X0... so maybe by now NV40 has more efficient rendering algorithms or something...

[Wombat]

Re: OmegaDrivers for Cat4.4(a?)

Originally posted by 2Whyzzi

I'll leave it like this awhile and see what happens.

It looks like it's just with lettering. Have you tried rebuilding your fonts?

[2Whyzzi]

dang

Can't find the XP file that cache's the fonts. Deleting fntcache.dat doesn't do anything. (Haven't tried deleting the file while in Safe mode though) On the bright side, switching to ClearType for font rendering makes the fonts all bright, shiny, and uncorrupted.

Thanks for the heads up!

[Wombat]

You need to install TweakUI. "Repair Font Folder" is one of its repair options.

[Maggi]

Re: OmegaDrivers for Cat4.4(a?)

Originally posted by 2Whyzzi
... 350Mem (3.3ns Samsung DDR) ...

to me this looks like artifacts due to your mem being clocked too high

either reduce your mem clock, or at least make sure you have fast writes disabled at those speeds

[Kooldino]

Odd it only effects bold text of that one font.

[The PIT]

Sounds like Wombats suggestion is a good one.

[2Whyzzi]

(Somewhere in the middle)

I tried using tweakui 20010 for xp to rebuild the fonts. it didn't work. Not even in the administrator account (ntfs filesystem). And the newer tweakui doesn't want to install (see attached).

Actually the fonts have that shredded look when the mem is not overclocked. I don't have the RadLinker setting the clocks after boot (yet), so as it stands I have to manually overclock before playing a 3D game. Which suits me fine as I'm not sure what the values really should be yet.

OK So this is what I remember:

Fonts corrupted. Removed PCI Latency patch. no change (in either fonts or PIO mode for CDRW) Removed IDE primary, secondary, bus master driver in safe mode. Reboot. Detected IDE devices. Reboot. ReInstalled 451, reboot. Reinstalled Omegadrivers from start->all programs->Radeon Omega Drivers 2.5.36a->(Re)Install. Reboot. Fonts looked OK at that moment. Then I installed the latency patch and went to bed (need that to create decent mp3s on this mobo). Fonts back to being corrupt today unless I pick cleartype for font rendering.

My guess is I've lost some important registry key or have a corrupted registry via a registry cleaner that I used some months ago, and didn't really show up until really show up until installing a new video card. I'm thinking I need to start new with this machine and and by that I mean re-installing Windows XP. That, and some compressed air. Do you have a (dust) bunny inside?

Anyway, thanks to all those that offered suggestions!

[2Whyzzi]

the windowcap didn't post

when i hit the preview button. so lets try that again.