"How hard is it to know the Radeon 8500 is also known as the R200? "
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It's not hard if I own one.... but like I said, I do computer support. For small businesses.... I see 200mhz Pentium MMX to 2ghz P4s every day.... Mostly cheap ones, mom&pop shop machines, packerd bells, Acers, Dells, Compaqs.... Every single day... do I really need to memorize the 3-4 different driver names each card might show in properties to download the correct driver each time?? How about when the say 'ATI Xpert 2000/Rage Pro'??? Jesus!! Does it say that on their web-site?? No, it has both listed individually... AND Rage Fury Pro, Rage 128 Pro, Rage LT Pro, Xpert 2000, and Xpert 2000 Pro.... Freaking great... let's hope I am not at a client that has a 56k modem so I can take my time playing the guessing game on downloads waiting for the driver that doesn't say 'This card is not detected in your system'..... it's not like I can pull the card and get a good part # off of it like any Intel, 3Com, Adaptec, etc, etc.... card and find it real quick... just start searching on all the #'s you see on the card, no standardization here either on part #s either. At least on OEM USR Robotics modem part # is standard on every single time, it is in xxxx-xxxx format... can search on that # on google and find the part....
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"Huh? They don't list drivers, they list products, and then you click on drivers. Have you seen ATI's updated website? It's been vastly improved. "
Yes. I am there every single week it seems. Are you arguing with my semantics here or about how good their web site is for ease of use of downloading the drivers?? The drop down list is in random order as far as I can tell to pick the 'Product' you want a driver for.... my only assumption is that they are listed in chronological order by release date?? I can see that as a question on 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' for the first 10 people who want to be contestants..... 'OK... the first person to answer this question correctly will be our first contestant tonight.... Place these 4 ATI video cards in chrological order from first to last by release date. A) XCLAIM CR 128 B) ATI Rage XC C) ATI ALL IN WONDER PRO (that was a seller in the 486 days!!) D) ATI 3D CHARGER (OMG!! when I clicked on this one it opens the RAGE IIC drivers page.... which was also on the list.... I really don't need this..... )
It's starting to come down to Total Cost of Ownership now my friend... these people are paying $75 an hour for me to find this crap for them when I could just use the 1 standard NVidia driver I have burned on a CD I carry with me..... And if they bought a really cheap system, all for a video card that cost $7 less.... (We get whatever el-cheapo ATIs for $34, and a cheap TNT2 for $41 for business users that just want a cheap PC.... trust me.... you will be happier supporting the $41 card.... unless you are just trying to rip the customer off all you can for the added service calls they will make for the next 2 years)
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LONMAX:Why do all retail PC's have ATI cards?? Because they buy the cheapest part they can for each piece... and I hate cheap.
"No, it's simply because ATI has been in the market for much longer than nVidia. "
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mmm... Did you make this up??
Is that the latest business model for being a market leader in the home PC Market?? 'No, we don't use the fastest.... we don't use the most stable.... we don't even use the Cheapest!! We use the OLDEST!!'.....
I assume that is a quote from as least 1 of the companies that failed in the .com crash.... I guess it kind of in a twisted way supports why even top name brand manufacturers don't use CAS2 memory even in their proclaimed 'Workstation' machines.... not because the slower memory is cheaper... but because it has been around longer!!! That's the ticket!!
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"IMO, that's some pretty empty excuse for not getting an ATI R8500 card which will be superior to the TI200 and cheaper, in the case of the R8500 OEM at Newegg. Then again, it's your decision."
I can respect what you are saying, if you are an End User.... even if you are a bad ass overclocking/programming end user.... because you bought a few individual ATI cards iver the years that rated well and were stable because of your clean windows system, saved money, etc..... I could imagine I would think the same thing if that was the way I experienced things. I am not flaming you, I am telling you why I hate ATI. But if you are an actual person who does this kind of support for a living and has done it over 7 years... then this is a flame full on
. Just like 1 AMD 1000 chip will overclock to 1300.... another will not overclock at all. One of the main things you are buying with an ATI card is a bigger chance for a lemon..... a small chance it is... but like .002 chance on a better card, and a 1.8 chance on an ATI card... both very small numbers.... unless you have installed (what seems like) thousands of video cards in your life.... and updated drivers 10 times more than that.
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"ah, a personal welcome to THGC
The Ti200 will serve u well."
NVidia fan are we?? Thanks a lot for the really infomative post you gave that put another Email in my inbox that had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE QUESTIONS I ASKED!!!!!
(psssst..... Flamethrower205.... work with me here.... I am with you, but I didn't want that guy up there to think as a new poster on these forums that I was ripping on him..... see.... I saw his answer before I left for work this morning, and all day this ATI rage built up in me and I could not get on the web to post it out!! I justs didn't want him to think I singled him out!!)
Anyawy...... sorry AMD but you said "that's some pretty empty excuse for not getting an ATI R8500 card which will be superior to the TI200 and cheaper"
So I had to extrapulate my post to make it as full as I could. 12 years of frustuation came out in my post.... I have a freaking 800mhz with a GForce256. It is as fast as many 1.6Ghz PCs we sell customers 6 months after the user had them.... that's why I format and reinstall 2-5 times a year. I know if I bought any $100+ ATI card right now it would blow my gf256 away.... It would PROBABLY..... (less chance than other brands) be just fine support wise ONLY because I run a very clean system, and I would like it (performance/quality wise).... but that 1 card would not do a damn thing to relieve the stress that all the others have caused me and will continue to do so.
Last thing.... I have AD and bad memory as far as unimportant things go (like the 42 aliases 1 ATI card can go through....) but here is my timeline I remember, just briefly of what was hot and what was not.... but and paste and add what you remember.
286-486 days - All you new was S3=slow and stable, but Diamond had the 'Top of the Line' stuff....
486-P1 - I think the ATI All In Wonder came out somewhere in here.... really crappy card for gamers and business users, but did all that Wonder stuff.... no clue what it did as I had no desire to know... but I think it did like 2 other things other than show DOS or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on you monitor.....
Same period---- diamond has all the 'Multi-Media' stuff.... CDROMs are up to 2x and 4x!!! Creative Labs cant do quite as much in 1 set for the money, but everything is compatible and they only need 2 IRQs assigned, not 3 like all the Diamond kits!!
Well... there is to much left to keep going.... Hercules.... Diamond Lightspeed 2meg card (I still have one in my closet
didn't get rid of it when I threw away the SCO Xenix 5.25 floppies earlier this year) Matrox, Guillemont, Sound Blaster (Opened with a few hit speed demons that lasted for a month or less on the charts), TNT2 (Never heard of NVidia when these guys were the top myself... but that is around when they really got good and started the 1 stop shop for drivers....)
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by lonmax on 06/10/02 08:30 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b> 
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