ATI 3D Hardware Reviews Confused by all the 3D hype and where ATI stands
in the crowd. You are not alone. Here is a collection of links/articles
and reviews by industry leaders to help you sort out the issues.
1.1 Six-part Primer of
3D Chips/Boards
Read these articles first if you are a "newbie".
Simply put, 3D Hardware offers the possibility of more realism through
increased detail without the time lag.
1.2 Rage I Board Reviews:
Xpression
The 3D Xpression was one of the early low cost boards that combined traditional
2D Windows acceleration with 3D, smooth video playback of MPEG, TV-out
in a low cost package. This board used the original Rage I chipset.
1.3 Rage II Board Reviews:
Xpression+, 3D Pro Turbo, All-in-Wonder The "+" symbolizes the use of the Rage
II chipset. It offers a speedup of about 2x
over the Rage I in 3D benchmarks. Note that higher performance boards,
such as the 3D Pro Turbo, with resolution up to 1600x1200 at high refresh
rates require higher speed memory subsystems such as SGRAM.
"ATI's Rage in the system "
Jim Davis of CNET gives a comparison of GL and VR chip versions
with a competitive analysis from Dean McCarron and Jon Peddie.CNET, Aug 27, 1998
"ATI announces the Rage 128"Early Winbench and OpenGL benchmarks plus
Ty Graham of Microsoft demo'ing DirectX 7.0 and ChromeEffects, Real-time
demos of "Rage Dawning" and "Any World" showing real-time morphing and
walk-thru's in 3D, Smooth DVD, and the worlds first Digital TV/Genlocked
ready images.
.Reported by Graeme Bennet of TCP, Sept 3, 1998
MicoDesign Resources states "ATI Takes 3D Lead With Rage 128:
At a price that should put it into millions of popular PCs, ATI's new 3D accelerator provides impressive performance and more
consumer-oriented features than any other 3D chip so far"
ATI FAQ on new Rage 128 chipset... Rage 128 product/chip
questions covering Xpert 128/Fury differences, GL/VR differences,
hardware/architecture advances, and
integrated DVD/MPEG-2 deocde.
"ATI aims at the High End"
August 27 article by Gamescentre.com discusses the built in Hardware
for DVD with Microsoft Digital TV Evangelist Dave Marsh.
Rob Bicevskis discusses the power managed 0.25um technology that allows
performance without heat.
Gamespot's first impression of beta silicon from
ATI's Rage Fury.
Electronic Buyer's News....Mark Hachman...remember Cable set-top
boxes ? Rage Pro technology will merge Internet and TV singals in
separate windows using a nice compact OS via Windows CE. ATI's
display solutions up through Rage 128 GL are discussed.
Gamasutra...A Game developer magazine
mentions the ultra-thin driver layers and
the OnNow power down technology that allowed for a heatsink-less
and fan-less chip design. SGI has seen prototypes and offers
comments on ATI's fourth generation chip.
RageOn 128 comments...
Cybertitan has a 3D centric description of the Rage128 features.
I have an animated GIF of various Rage 128 prototype boards but
need to clear this with ATI for release first...in
the mean time go to the above site for a preview of a small
low res GIF image of a prototype Rage 128 board. It is green
with the standard black patches and the dreaded
heatsink are nowhere to be seen :<)
Computer Retail Week...
Kristen Kennedy discusses the 8 million transistors with
Phil Eisler of ATI and quotes Jon Peddie on the performance
positioning of the Rage 128 relative to VooDoo2 technology.
Digital Producer Magazine article called "ATI Introduces Next-Generation RAGE(TM) 128 GL"
discusses bidirectional DME(direct memory execution) and the subpicture decoder.
Canada Computer Paper "Rage 128 debut marks ATI's $1 billion year": aticle
covering the Rage 128 launch, Jeff Evans Oct 1998.
Super 7 Motherboard site takes a detailed look at the
Rage 128...the only card with driver support for all of
the following: DOS, Win3.1, Win95, Win98, NT 3.51, NT 4.0,
Mac OS and OS/2. Review can be found here
@3D. A CAD professional
has some nice pics of the Rage 128. Preview forthcoming.
PHS Euroupean Preview
translated to English. Block diagram and some sample images from
Rage Dawning . Oct 25, 1998
Rage 128 Pre/Reviews
Super 7 compatability has arrived....and title of best 2d/3d card
of 1998 Anand's review...I think
the kid will pull an all nighter...cheers!!! Related review of
AIW 128 on April 1, 1999.
Heaven...Sharky's preview of heaven
on Dec. 9, 1999. Part 2 is a
Final Review
of the Rage Fury. Best color, acuity and sharpness seen in 2D, Feb 22, 1999.
Follow up review on April 1, 1999 on related AIW 128 Pro card.
Mondo...Mondo...Marcia/Barry of Adrenaline Vault and
authors of the PC Upgrade and Repair Bible
do the right by the Rage 128.
Addendum
on February 26, 1998 with final
shipping product. The heat sink is not needed but nice.
First impressions on Dec 10, 1998...Drop Vead Dorgeous!!!
Full review here. Final review on
March 5, 1999 is here. AIW 128 review on June 17, 1999.
Lots of pictures and a review at RageOn by Kyle Strsbourg.
Doctor Tom Pabst's review.
Seems like Tom's elbow is acting up...he seems very irritated in the review above...
Must be the valium he is taking. In the end it is just a video card and Xmas is just around the corner. Enjoy.
Phil Rogers and Brian Hook talk about the 32-bit performance of
the Rage Fury.
Gamers Depot: "...In both 2D AND 3D I have yet
to see a card that provides this level of image quality and detail...". Dec 1998..
Related review on AIW-128
Alan Dang's Thesis on the Rage Fury. Initial preview
has been evloved to a full 5th generation review:
The first generation
reviews focussed on Windows 2D performance. The second generation reviews focussed on Framerate. Third
generation reviews have focussed on Framerate refinement and Quality. The Fourth generation reviews to date
have focussed on all of the above at higher resolution...Alan has expanded coverage to NT performance, NT
OpenGL stability and performance, defining various classes of DVD support and a real world test of choppiness
and the benefits of IDCT, 8-bit pallettized texture support for filmed sequences such as Final Fantansy, 32 bit
performance, heat/temperature/power measurements....etc.
Sister review of AIW 128 Pro/16MB review is here
The Computer Paper Rage Fury preview
has success with the ALI Aladin V chipset. January 4, 1998
Lost CIrcuit's Rage Fury review using the Micostar MS-5184
Super7 motherboard with VIA MVP3 chipset. Great results. January 7, 1998.
Thresh's Firing Squad Rage Fury review
with updated driver to address AGP texturing turned off in earlier reviews.
January 22, 1998. Followup reviwew on March 10, 1999 on the Fury
Fast Graphics's Rage Fury Review is just a bit longer
than a specification sheet. January 22, 1998...plus
Eric's
review of Final Xpert 128 on Pentium II 400 system. Feb 9, 1999.
Review Zone's
Fury review has the 16-bit fuzziness
fixed. January 24, 1998.
Ritualistic's Fury review runs Rage Dawning and says wow!. Feb 5, 1998.
Leader of Mercury Research Benchmark pack on Feburary 8,1999.
Freak runs the first ever Xpert128 review and has a blast. Feb 4, 1998
ATI Invasion moved to ATI World with a review of the Final Fury on
a Pentium II 400 system. Comparitive benchmarks with TNT.
All the links here have been verified recently on
June 26, 1999. The Rage 128's performance
will be very similar across all products and for current performance with
current release drivers, one should read the AIW 128 reviews. Here is
a recent review from France on the
Fury on June 23, 1999...great architecture
that holds up to beyond 1024x768 (Q3) and definitely up to 1280 in Quake2
Phil's Magnum and Fury review has been updated with Quake2 and
Forsaken benchmarks. Click here for a down to earth review
of the Rage Fury and what happens when it is pushed to 1600x1200.
Concerned about Super7 compatability, read this review on
the AIW 128 run on an EPOX mothrboard.
This chip is timed to coincide with the release of faster generation of
memory products aruond the 143 Mhz region.
and the high resolution flat panel support up to 1600x1200.
Advanced 3D features such as anisotripic filtering and AGP 4x round up
the list of improvements.
For those of you who have never owned ATI or have just discovered the Radeon family from
friends, knowlegeable, dealers or shows, read the about this classic review
by Sharky's Extreme comparing current generation 3D video cards in their
Value Video Card Roundup.
Find out more by reading the reviews above and the reviews below which see why
the Radeon fever has been catching. It is now the number one retail video brand.
Radeon VE...a good overview of the Radeon family", Andrew Worobyew/Digit-Life,March 28, 2001,
ATI Radeon LE 32MB DDR...a budget version of the 32MB DDR card with a secret weapon...Anaadtech, Mathew Witheiler, May 23, 2001.
1.6 Optimizing 2D
~
Human factors engineering by the "big" guy has resulted in us having
a number of built in eye processing algorithms. We have very good
sense of changes near the periphery of our sight to warn us against
impending danger. The down side is that as monitors get bigger and begins to
occupies
more of our peripheral vision. The result is that we notice refresh rate
more readily and the headaches/eyeaches begin to to tell us that
things are not exactly right.
The combination of big screens and high refresh rates combine to
produce pixel clocks higher than the FM carrier (350Mhz vs 108 Mhz).
Another closely related quirk is our sensivity to pacing whether it be audible
or visual. The human brain has an amazing internal time clock
that can perceive minute "deltas" or changes. It is this that
allows to appreciate a virtuoso violinist solo but to also be
senstive to variation in framerates. It is far better
(my opinion) to aim
for slightly lower but more stable frame rates as found in
Radeon products. Benchmarking using the "biggest" number
should also become by the standard deviation...bring out your
statistics books.
3D image vibrancy or just plain better looking games...is there
a secret? The Radeon was conceived to manipulate information accurately.
The term image quality is a confusing one which is also a product of
2D quality that can be judged using programs making heavy use
of text such as WORD and EXCEL. In the 3D world, when 32 bits of colour
depth is used, acceptable roundoff error in the 16 bit world by
using mathematical approximation (Taylor series approximations
of sine, cos and exponential functions) are not as acceptable.
The Radeon chip contains a math accurate
IEEE-754 computation unit. Can this accuracy be determined ? Yes, it turns out as we can
compare the math unit in the graphics chipset to the one in the CPU.
In a recent roundup, the Radeon proved to have the most accurate
graphic computation unit.
If you examine the graph above, you will notice that the 2D text
quality is just a shade below top notch. There will be a facility
within a future driver release (post 7049) to allow the user to "dial in"
the 2D quality to account for issues dealing with the following:
Variable noise of power supplies found in computer cases
Motherboard regulation
Impedance mismatch of cables and monitor termination
Different combinations of power supplies, motherboards, and cables may
or may not see any problems with the same monitor.
The current Radeon tradeoffs have been design to account
for this interaction with a wide variety of systems but
tradeoffs need to be made for some monitors.
To resolve this, a user enabled option will be provided
in the driver to select slower edge rates to accomodate non optimal cable/monitor interfaces. There may be some small tradeoffs in resolution for
fast tracking (very high bandwidth) monitors.
The user can choose the setting that best
suits his system. It is all to do with effectual sets of priorities and tradeoffs. Again,
both modes have their advantages...it is up to the user to decide what
works in his particular system.
If you examine the chart above and rethink the ranking process, a card
with the best performance but a blank screen should get a "0" score...it
is not a graphics pipe to your eye. With this in mind, you can
Take the scores in each column and ignore the video score to get a score out of 90.
You can then take this score and multiply by 10/9 to get a score
out of a 100%. This number does not take 2D Video Quality into account.
The last thing to do is take video quality in effect by
multiplying the above result by "2D Video Quality"/10.
So what are the modified rankings and score when this is done ?
Rank
Card
Score
1
ATI 32MB DDR
78.5/100
2
ATI 32 MB SDR
75/100
3
Matrox G450
68.3/100
4
Elsa Gladiac MX
68/100
5
Herc Prophet II MX
57.2/100
6
Leadtek GeForce2 MX
56.8/100 ** tie
7
MSI 816
56.8/100 ** tie
8
3dfx Voodoo4 4500
56/100
So if you want the best GeForce2 MX chipset based card...take the ELSA version.
This seems to line up better with the tone of the reviewer's subjective comments. Ever wonder why Matrox has such a following...look no futher
than this modified table....but the Radeon cards stand a shoulder
above the rest and this explains why it is presently the best selling
aftermarket upgrade graphics card.
Summary of Shimmering:
1) The following is a rough summary of guidelines to help people sort out 2D shimmer. 95% of systems are fine but some system
exhibit a slight shimmer. Thanks to Eman for beta testing (as well as others on this forum), Ichneumon for the GIF,
and Gia for the coding the original beta patch. Some users have seen immense improvements and others have seen little.
In those cases, I have to look elsewhere for the problem. Some hints are suggested below.
2) 2D artifacts can be due to
a combination of system issues and/or
interaction
of power supply noise,motherboard regulation, crosstalk between separate guns,cable mismatch
between the cable itself and the monitor termination. BNC cables can help in two of the areas.
3) The current driver D7.16 release of drives have a facility to alter the characteristic of the DAC.
Driver Locations: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/services/whql/drivers/winme/disply/a256651.exe http://www.microsoft.com/hcl ul TYPE=SQUARE>
->set search string to "radeon"
->English Ver. D7.16-1114M-102C-ATI
4) There are also 7041 "leaked" drivers floating around whose build and origin is of unknown quallity. They are reputed to be the same or similar to the D7.16 drivers. Use at your own risk. You can check the file information by doing the following:
My Computer->properties(right click)->Device Manger->Display Adapter ->Radeon->Driver-Driver File Details.
It should say something like:
D7.16xxxxxxxxxxxxx
5) Add registry:
Run regedit and expand the folders starting from HKEY_LOCAL.
Go to the DAL folder and double click it, then add the following registry key called
and make a new variable of type DWORD called GCOOPTION_SLowerEdge with a value of "1". xxxx represents adapter "number" which is assigned by Windows.
To add a registry key,first, click the edit menu, click on the "new" icon.
You will be queried for the type of the variable you are creating.Choose DWORD value.
Fill in GCOOPTION_SlowerEdge. Give a value 1.
If you have correctly edited the registry it should look like the following
Reboot and tell me if the 2D looks better.
Fill in GCOOPTION_SlowerEdge. Give a value 0.
Reboot and tell me if the 2D looks worse.
Keep the value that makes your 2D look best.
2.0 Comparison of 3rd Generation
Video Chipsets
As much as I would love ATI to be the the hardware that
everyone uses, there are other companies out there that compete for your
dollar. I have included the actual html code of Johnathan Greenberg's Greenberg's
editorial
here for archival reasons as these pages tend to dissapear.
