ATI 9800 Pro driver technical question.

frosty

Hey Blokes I finally got it! A 9800 pro ati card. I have the doom beta drivers also for the card, even though I don’t play Doom3 if I install the drivers will that help any on fps for UT2003 and Quake3?

Or should I just stick with the default drivers which are working fine now.

I have not played much UT yet, I had the sucker installed and running in like 15 minutes! The one game I really noticed unreal improvement was in Rune, made it and incredible 3d game! Quake3 was pretty hot too with all the settings on high, still gotta fool with UT2003 more.

Any help is appreciated. TIA

tpe

Hey there, you may not notice any improovement in UT depending on what processor you have and what graphics card you had before. I went from a 9800se to a x800 pro and got no difference at all as it was totally cpu dependent, when i overclocked the cpu by 5% i got about the same increase in fps in ut tho.

as for q3a, if you have a 9800 pro in you should get something like 270 fps with timedemo on so i dont think you should worry about it at all.

You may want to avoid the catalyst controll center as it is pretty resource hungry, and i think the current non beta drivers are 4.12 which work fine for doom 3 and hl2, if you do want to try some other ones try the omega ones as they ive a nice improvement and can be switched back very easily with the little uninstall utility that comes with them and you will probably get an all round improvement with all non cpu dependent games.

tpe

frosty

Thanks Tim, I guess I need to upgrade the cpu a bit then. I have a 1700 Athlon, ok you all stop laughing, and my via board will support up to a 2400 a slot. Or I may just hang on and buy a plain jane bare bones and disembowel my athlon to it. Like I said I just ran one dm map in UT and changed my character to Beatrice and did not notice much change yet. Shrugs shoulders. Will prolly be playing Rune somemore.

ElysiumGX

Congrats on the new card frostman. I'm aiming for that one myself, probably the Sapphire brand. You and I should play some DM later.

1. Grab the Omega drivers like tpe suggest. http://www.omegadrivers.net/
2. Athlon 2700+ CPU is good, so you may want to invest in a new board.
3. I prefer ABIT motherboards. They have a nice BIOS tool.
4. New RAM helps too, like Kingston 512's.
5. Make sure your PSU can handle all that. 350W+ should do.
6. Newegg.com. Best Value, Always.
7. Don't ya love computers?

Just messing with ya. Have fun. If your card can be overclocked, pick up a 9800pro compatible Arctic Cooling VGA Cooler, and push that baby to XT speeds if you want.

frosty

Thanks Ely, (or shall I say Hooter Veteran?)

2. Athlon 2700+ CPU is good, so you may want to invest in a new board. Yes, omg, I have spent so much on my system.
Depressing link!

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products...;l=en&s=bsd



3. I prefer ABIT motherboards. They have a nice BIOS tool.
I really like AMD slot a cos of the over/underclocking ability too.


4. New RAM helps too, like Kingston 512's.
I got the newest ram but only 512, need to go to xp too!

5. Make sure your PSU can handle all that. 350W+ should do.
Oh I own a super nice, silent seasonic, but she only puts out 300W.

6. Newegg.com. Best Value, Always. Always liked newegg, I think they used to be called egghead.com yrs ago!


7. Don't ya love computers?
Hey like that bumper sticker says, the more I learn about women the better I like my pc, just joking ladies.

I have the Sapphire that is the 9800 Pro - U so it has total silent operation, cept I mounted a 12 v 80 MM panaflo fan over the top of it to blow some cool air on it. Temps have barely climbed a few c even with full loads. I wonder why so many people warned me of so much increased heat with the 9800 Pro. Scratches head.

DM you, I'd blow you to China dude, cept my home speed is 28.8, qwest sucks scab covered Donkey d!ck in a dark basement somewhere. hehe

I do have 56k at work though, maybe sometime I think your time would be 2:00 P.M. lol

ElysiumGX

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder why so many people warned me of so much increased heat with the 9800 Pro. Scratches head.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe they heard something somewhere from some guy that was using a Mini-tower case with no extra fans...or something. I only suggest the Cooler for overclocking. Haven't heard any problems otherwise. I prefer the massive full tower cases...plenty of air flow. That's right...I like 'em big (Hooters reference).