Ars: ATI a takeover target?

[Gurm]

@|Mehen|: I've had tons of problems with the 7500 cards and early 7000/VE. They were drivers issues mainly. 7200 and 8500 were working fine and I never had a problem with my 9700 or 9800pro.

Yep. The 7000/7500, known at the time primarily as "Radeon DDR" or "Radeon SDR", were plagued with problems. This was the six-month period before ATI switched to "Catalyst" drivers, the old drivers were HUGELY problematic. ATI got a big influx of driver talent from SOMEWHERE around that time.

[Kurt]

ATi's very own Waterloo...

[The PIT]

Guess thats why there Linux drivers are so shite. The students are used to windoze.

[Liquid Snake]

Yep. The 7000/7500, known at the time primarily as "Radeon DDR" or "Radeon SDR", were plagued with problems. This was the six-month period before ATI switched to "Catalyst" drivers, the old drivers were HUGELY problematic. ATI got a big influx of driver talent from SOMEWHERE around that time.

Yeah I had a 7500 for a while. The pre-Catalyst drivers had some problems but nothing that trashed my system. Afterwards I had no problems, and I have no problems with my current 9800 Pro either.

[Mehen]

ahhhh, well most of the experience ive had with the 7000 series has been in the last 2 years, mostly people just buying the cheapest card they can, that would explain why they have always seemed alright to me

[Kurt]

Yeah I had a 7500 for a while. The pre-Catalyst drivers had some problems but nothing that trashed my system. Afterwards I had no problems, and I have no problems with my current 9800 Pro either.

I couldn't even change the driver from the RELEASE one for most of the cards. Any other driver would mess up the display exactly like a faulty RAM chip would have. Reinstall the original driver and the problem was fixed. Luckily the new drivers fixed that and the cards' drivers were updated and all's well.

This should have NEVER happened.

[Gurm]

I couldn't even change the driver from the RELEASE one for most of the cards. Any other driver would mess up the display exactly like a faulty RAM chip would have. Reinstall the original driver and the problem was fixed. Luckily the new drivers fixed that and the cards' drivers were updated and all's well.

This should have NEVER happened.

Happens all the time, to every company. nVidia does this every second or third release for one or more of their cards.

[Kurt]

That's the problem. It SHOULD NOT happen, EVER. Companies have it too easy these day with the web and an easy way to update/upgrade software. Makes for sloppy releases that "can be patched" later...

Of course, this never happening is pure utopianism...