You might want to search the forum and see what has been posted in the past about the 3850 and other AGP Radeon HD cards. Definitely something that has been covered a lot over the decades 😀

Why not try them all with a selection of games and see for yourself what's the best. It sure would make for an interesting weekend for me 😀

depends on what you play 😉

For XP and this kind of graphics cards, I use this driver version without issues: "12-6-legacy_xp32_dd_ccc_whql".

Take your pick: http://radeon.ru/drivers/amd/xp

There are some modded drivers without Catalyst Control Center bloatware.

Thanks guys. 8.12 hotfix ones, seemed to be the best!

Morning all.
I was wondering the same thing myself so I did a video on it. Thanks to Serpent Rider for that link - very useful list of drivers! Anyway - here are my findings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnCt-wbqPqw
Essentially, either the 8.12 or 9.12 but if they perform rubbishly in games try 12.6. At least that's what I found 😀

RETROKOMODO wrote on 2022-10-28, 08:06:

Morning all. I was wondering the same thing myself so I did a video on it. Thanks to Serpent Rider for that link - very useful […]
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Morning all.
I was wondering the same thing myself so I did a video on it. Thanks to Serpent Rider for that link - very useful list of drivers! Anyway - here are my findings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnCt-wbqPqw
Essentially, either the 8.12 or 9.12 but if they perform rubbishly in games try 12.6. At least that's what I found 😀

Really nice video. Well detailed. Subscribed!

Thanks!

It seems easier to necro this than to open a new thread. I have my HD 3850 AGP in a 939 system with an Opteron 180 @ 2.7 GHz. I had the 13.4 driver (one of the worst scoring ones in Retrokomodo's video) and I wanted to try the 8.12 driver; but after searching for some time I haven't been able to find a live link and that driver isn't listed in the Serpent Rider's link. I was able to find the 8.45 in the HIS manufacturer's site, it was the oldest driver that I was able to find a live link to. The 8.45 gave me a negligible increase in 3d 2001 and 03, but it made a noticeable difference (15,000 points) in Aquamark. This may be due to the card still being a bit CPU limited in this system; as is, a typical 3d 2001 score is around 33,000 points which is about 10,000 less than what Retrokomodo's system scores with a C2D CPU.

Anyway, if anyone can assist me in finding a live link to the 8.12 AGP hotfix driver I would appreciate it.

The HIS link with XP drivers from 8.45 to 8.65. The nice thing about these is that you know they are the correct ones for AGP HD 3850 - the 8.45 installed with no issues. http://www.hisdigital.com/ca/download1-359.shtml

a live link to the 8.12 AGP hotfix

https://forum.radeon.ru/viewtopic.php?t=28939

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-08-09, 04:37:

a live link to the 8.12 AGP hotfix

https://forum.radeon.ru/viewtopic.php?t=28939

Thank you for that! I manually installed the 8.12, but the results from the three benchmarks (3D 2001, 03 and Aquamark) were within the noise, so I rolled back to the ones I had installed from the HIS site, curiosity satisfied. The fact that drivers and information are becoming more difficult to find is depressing to me and I wish that Google had a decent competitor that showed you what you are looking for rather than what the search engine company wants you to see.

With the PCIe cards, 7.11 works best with some old OpenGL games. There was an OpenGL driver overhaul with 7.12 onward. So if you're gonna play KOTOR or KOTOR 2 and maybe some other things, you might want to look for 7.11 or older.

swaaye wrote on 2024-08-09, 18:14:

With the PCIe cards, 7.11 works best with some old OpenGL games. There was an OpenGL driver overhaul with 7.12 onward. So if you're gonna play KOTOR or KOTOR 2 and maybe some other things, you might want to look for 7.11 or older.

Apparently 7.12 also dropped 16-bit dithering in OpenGL on ALL cards, including old ATi cards.

I could never get Kotor1 to work with ATI cards. I always had display artifacts that made the game unplayable (in the main menu already). Various cards tested, 6.12 and 7.12 drivers. Anyone else?

Masterchief79 wrote on 2024-08-10, 07:56:

I could never get Kotor1 to work with ATI cards. I always had display artifacts that made the game unplayable (in the main menu already). Various cards tested, 6.12 and 7.12 drivers. Anyone else?

Try Catalyst 7.11. I think you'll be surprised. I've run the game on X800, X1900 and HD 2900 on 7.11 and it is about the best I've seen it run on ATI. Even the bloom effect works. I don't think even any of the drivers from 2004-2006 run it as well. Catalyst 4.2 was a commonly recommended driver back in the day because most of the effects worked with it, but I think it was crash prone.

Catalyst 7.10 is first driver with RV670 support...
I go with Catalyst 9.1 as my go-to driver, and change it if platform/card has issues on it with specific games (alternatives include 10.2, 11.x or 12.1).

In my quest to find the Catalyst 8.12 driver for my Radeon HD3850 AGP, I stumbled upon a Russian forum that provided a link to a collection of all sorts of drivers from old to new, including bioses and tools. Here is the link if anyone is interested in getting one of these hard to find drivers.

https://disk.yandex.com/d/vfgML2Vm3TR4mw

fiforadrian wrote on 2025-01-11, 15:30:

In my quest to find the Catalyst 8.12 driver for my Radeon HD3850 AGP, I stumbled upon a Russian forum that provided a link to a collection of all sorts of drivers from old to new, including bioses and tools. Here is the link if anyone is interested in getting one of these hard to find drivers.

https://disk.yandex.com/d/vfgML2Vm3TR4mw

Probably from Takedasun