Catalyst Drivers

[Philip Rayne]

Hi, I have just got a Sapphire Radeon 9600 via ebay. I have installed the
latest drivers from the Sapphire website (version 3.6 of the Catalyst
drivers). I have experienced some crashing of Elite Force 2 (seems like
this is a buggy game), and soldier of fortune 2. Soldier of fortune 2 I
have only noticed whilst over clocking the card so I need to look into that
a little more. I am a little concerned the card may be faulty (though
chances are it is the games).

What I was wondering is if there were any differences between the Catalyst
drivers from the ATI website (now on 3.7) and the ones on the Sapphire site?
Should I stick with the Sapphire drivers as they might be more optimised or
are these just the generic drivers anyway.

Thanks.

 

[Ben Pope]

Hi, I have just got a Sapphire Radeon 9600 via ebay. I have
installed the latest drivers from the Sapphire website (version 3.6
of the Catalyst drivers). I have experienced some crashing of Elite
Force 2 (seems like this is a buggy game), and soldier of fortune 2.
Soldier of fortune 2 I have only noticed whilst over clocking the
card so I need to look into that a little more. I am a little
concerned the card may be faulty (though chances are it is the games).

What I was wondering is if there were any differences between the
Catalyst drivers from the ATI website (now on 3.7) and the ones on
the Sapphire site? Should I stick with the Sapphire drivers as they
might be more optimised or are these just the generic drivers anyway.

I doubt it... the boards are built EXACTLY (as far as I can tell) to the
reference design.

I've always used reference drivers for all hardware if at all possible.

Currently using the ATI 3.6 on my Crucial 9800 Pro since I'm now on my third
attempt at downloading the 3.7s on Dial up with a 2 hour limit (I REALLY
hate ISPs right now.) Current estimate of ETA to cut-off gives me 5 minutes
buffer. Best stop using the net for anything else.

I'd download them with wget in linux, but when I was partitioning I forgot
that the ntfs driver is read only... grrr... I may try to get a read only
driver for reiserfs for Windows - HAHAHAHA

Ben

 

[Ben Pope]

I'd download them with wget in linux, but when I was partitioning I
forgot that the ntfs driver is read only... grrr... I may try to get
a read only driver for reiserfs for Windows - HAHAHAHA

Found one...

rfstool

I'm impressed. Fairly basic but good enough for grabbing files and
directory listings through the command line. Needs an explorer plugin,
could do ftp style transfers then (read only of course)

Ben

 

[Shawk]

I doubt it... the boards are built EXACTLY (as far as I can tell) to the
reference design.

I've always used reference drivers for all hardware if at all possible.

Currently using the ATI 3.6 on my Crucial 9800 Pro since I'm now on my third
attempt at downloading the 3.7s on Dial up with a 2 hour limit (I REALLY
hate ISPs right now.) Current estimate of ETA to cut-off gives me 5 minutes
buffer. Best stop using the net for anything else.

I'd download them with wget in linux, but when I was partitioning I forgot
that the ntfs driver is read only... grrr... I may try to get a read only
driver for reiserfs for Windows - HAHAHAHA

Ben

I have the Sapphire 9600 Pro and I have both of those games - neither of
them crash with the ATI 3.6 drivers. One thing I did do tho' after advice
was to re-install my games after installing the 9600 Pro. I'm told that
some games automatically scan for your set up when they first run - perhaps
those games do this and are 'remembering' your previous set-up? As you can
tell I'm not a techie but hope this helps narrow it down.

Shawk.

 

[Shawk]

I have the Sapphire 9600 Pro and I have both of those games - neither of
them crash with the ATI 3.6 drivers. One thing I did do tho' after advice
was to re-install my games after installing the 9600 Pro. I'm told that
some games automatically scan for your set up when they first run - perhaps
those games do this and are 'remembering' your previous set-up? As you can
tell I'm not a techie but hope this helps narrow it down.

Shawk.

As an update - I upgraded to 3.7's and now EF2 is dire - 1 or 2 FPS at most.
Dont know why but going back to 3.6.

Shawk

 

[JAD]

check to see if your GL and DX settings were changed...

 

[Shawk]

check to see if your GL and DX settings were changed...

Thanks JAD - I'll look at that tomorrow - gone back to 3.6 for now. I'll
report back if 1. I fix it and how and 2. if i need more help.

Cheers, Shawk