VOGONS


First post, by dr.zeissler

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It would be really helpful if there is an overview about the ati-drivers with the supported chips and the required os and dx-version.
I have a RadeonVE PCI 64MB in my D1215 Desktop and I am searching for the best win98 driver. the latest driver is mostly not the best.

The R7000 is a dx7 card. I think I will checkout a Cat 2.4 first.

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Reply 1 of 16, by swaaye

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There isn't really such a thing as a best driver. You usually need to see what works with whatever game you want to play. You usually want a driver somewhat newer than the game. Or check the game's readme for recommended driver versions.

Catalyst 2.4 should be ok though. That's a 2002 driver.

Reply 2 of 16, by dr.zeissler

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Cat 2.4 leads to a freze after installing when rebooting.
Cat 3.2 works, but has anoying bug that displays strange patterns in the win9x gui when setting the desktop bitdepth to 32bit.
Strangely enough this bug is not visable when using "seagreen" colors. strange.

I will add rage3d-tweaker next and checkout some games.

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Reply 4 of 16, by dr.zeissler

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The RV100 chip used in the radeon 7000 is from 2001.
another strange thing is that only with the last and dx9 optimized omaga-driver the techdemo radeons ark looks fine,
with all other tested drivers I got more or less glitches. Mostly on giant reflecting areas.

btw. it absolutly stunning that the radeon 7000 can display that quality and effects without having a fully featured pixel shader pipeline.
it has only one pipeline at all that does not have the features to get a even pixelshader 1.0 requirements, but it is flexible so that the ati-guys could make it happen, that the radeons-ark techdemo could look like a high-end pixelshader-demo.

it's much better in quality then the matrox-g400-techdemo which also has some "reflecting water effects" without having pixelshader-functionality and any kind of shaders.

The radeons-ark demo is a real stunner for such a low-end card like the R7000. To me there is no other techdemo, game or even a demoscene-production kown that uses the pipeline in such a way the radeon-ark demos does.

http://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=1292&page=4#c549377
Doc

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Reply 5 of 16, by swaaye

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R100 has basic pixel shader-like capabilities called register combiners, and support for EMBM. NV1x is pretty similar except it can't do EMBM.

G400 is certainly less capable but can do EMBM.

DirectX 8 pixel shaders aren't really that much more exciting. DX8.1 PS1.4 on Radeon 8500 was a nice improvement though.

Reply 6 of 16, by SPBHM

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kind of OT but I'm not finding the info and is related to drivers and this GPU,

when using DVI on a R100/RV100 card do you have access to scaling options like on newer cards? on windows 98 or xp

Reply 7 of 16, by swaaye

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SPBHM wrote:

kind of OT but I'm not finding the info and is related to drivers and this GPU,

when using DVI on a R100/RV100 card do you have access to scaling options like on newer cards? on windows 98 or xp

Radeons can't do aspect ratio scaling until the X1000 series cards. If that's what you're wondering. They all can do a full screen stretch though. It's called ratiometric expansion in laptop world.

Reply 8 of 16, by SPBHM

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swaaye wrote:
SPBHM wrote:

kind of OT but I'm not finding the info and is related to drivers and this GPU,

when using DVI on a R100/RV100 card do you have access to scaling options like on newer cards? on windows 98 or xp

Radeons can't do aspect ratio scaling until the X1000 series cards. If that's what you're wondering. They all can do a full screen stretch though. It's called ratiometric expansion in laptop world.

I'm talking about keeping aspect ration and centered image at lower resolution, like I get with the FX 5900 under windows XP and also modern cards when using DVI,
was this added for AMD only with the X1K series or does R100 offer something like it? also if anyone knows what are the oldest Nvidia and ATI card with these options?

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this is a 640x480 game running with a 1280x1024 screen, apart from the "monitor scaling" picture which is sending the real resolution all the others are sending a 1280x1024 output,

Reply 9 of 16, by swaaye

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SPBHM wrote:
I'm talking about keeping aspect ration and centered image at lower resolution, like I get with the FX 5900 under windows XP and […]
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swaaye wrote:
SPBHM wrote:

kind of OT but I'm not finding the info and is related to drivers and this GPU,

when using DVI on a R100/RV100 card do you have access to scaling options like on newer cards? on windows 98 or xp

Radeons can't do aspect ratio scaling until the X1000 series cards. If that's what you're wondering. They all can do a full screen stretch though. It's called ratiometric expansion in laptop world.

I'm talking about keeping aspect ration and centered image at lower resolution, like I get with the FX 5900 under windows XP and also modern cards when using DVI,
was this added for AMD only with the X1K series or does R100 offer something like it? also if anyone knows what are the oldest Nvidia and ATI card with these options?

The attachment aspect.jpg is no longer available

this is a 640x480 game running with a 1280x1024 screen, apart from the "monitor scaling" picture which is sending the real resolution all the others are sending a 1280x1024 output,

R100 will not have "fixed aspect ratio scaling". X1000 cards are the first with that.

I get confused about DVI behavior daily ( 🤣 ), but I think the Radeon will output your selected resolution to your monitor, which the monitor can scale however it likes. However, if the monitor EDID doesn't enumerate a specific resolution, the Radeon will output the monitor's native resolution and stretch your chosen resolution into that as centered or full-screen-stretch. DVI is complicated and card/driver behavior varies.

The lack of aspect ratio scaling is especially annoying for notebooks. You get stuck with only stretched or centered output.

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Reply 10 of 16, by dr.zeissler

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When I am talking about a centered image, it's all about the vga-textmode (mostly 720x400 or 640x480)
and the vga and ega lowres resolutions (320x200/320x240) it's VERY annoying having to center the image
in the norton-commander when quitting a game, or the other way round.
But the R7000 is very good at that! A Voodoo3 is also very good. Integrated intel-chipset-gfx are best.
They are perfect and do not need to be recentered at all.

btw. Have you noticed that the R7000 supports EMBM like the G400 Matrox cards!

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Reply 11 of 16, by dr.zeissler

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swaaye wrote:

R100 has basic pixel shader-like capabilities called register combiners, and support for EMBM. NV1x is pretty similar except it can't do EMBM.
G400 is certainly less capable but can do EMBM.
DirectX 8 pixel shaders aren't really that much more exciting. DX8.1 PS1.4 on Radeon 8500 was a nice improvement though.

Thx for clarifying this. The R7000 is a very good card for retro-gaming, except the lack of 8bit palletized-textures and some problems with fog-table.
I do recommend the rage3d tweaker to get 100% control over the GPU, but it can not fix all problems.
Overall the R7000 is a real stunner in my opinion.

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Reply 12 of 16, by dr.zeissler

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@swaaye
Do you know any software that uses these "basic pixel shader like capabilities" beside the radeons-ark demo?
And do you know why only the omega-radeon driver (req. DX9) displays this demo correctly (without glitches)?

Thx
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Reply 13 of 16, by dr.zeissler

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The lights in DoomGL look better on 16Bit Voodoo1/2/3 then on 32Bit R7000.
How can I optimize it so that the coronas look better on R7000?

Interesting comparison though:

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Reply 14 of 16, by matze79

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Does mean nothing.

Just compare both cards on higher resolution and the radeon wins.

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