[MacNN Staff]

[from MacNN reader Devin Kass]

"ATI continues its lackadasical support for the Macintosh video card market. Their new driver update which claims support for the XclaimVR 128 does so at a high cost. On my 8600/300, the TV tuner no longer receives UHF channels, Diablo II still doesn't recognize the card's existance, and the installer doesn't smartly install files as it claims it should. I've got full drivers for a Radeon card, and an extension has been removed which may be essential to the card's functionality (ATI offscreen memory manager).I've also been forced to upgrade to a later revision of the MacOS (from 8.5.1), as only 8.6 and 9.0 are recommended, with a warning to users of 8.6. The only bright spot in this whole mess is the plaguing audio problem has finally subsided. When I used to run the Xclaim Video Player, the audio would become tinny and distorted after quitting the app, which has only been resolved by a restart... However, since I cannot get most local channels anymore, this is a moot point. I'm reverting back to OS 8.5.1, the 4.2 universal Rage128 drivers, and the Diablo II ATI Hack...

[tycheung]

Hmm....my experience has been relatively decent. Not being much of a TV expert, I'm not sure if my UHF channels still work, but I can still get cable over the TV tuner. Diablo II works, although I have a gut feeling that it is faster in 256 colors/software mode - perhaps my PowerCenter can't handle the thousands of colors. For Diablo II, you have to retest the monitors - relaunch the app holding down the option key until you get a prefs. dialog box, which will have an option to do this.

[AAPl Shareholder]

NO UHF!!!!!!! What will we doooooooooooo!


But anyway... I love my new Radeon. This card is the first good thing to ever come out of ATi

Why are you running Mac OS 8.6?
Running anything less than OS 9 is just asking for trouble.

[Dr Evil]

I installed the update on my B&W G3 350 with the OEM Rage 128. Under OS 9, I have found screen redraws to be MUCH faster as is pretty much everything both Finder based and in other applications. I didn't notice much of a difference in Unreal Tournament, but I also did install that update last night too. Overall I am happy with the better general performance boost, but my next video card will come from Nvidia when available.

[This message has been edited by Dr Evil (edited 11-08-2000).]

[SteveTech]

I actually thought this driver update would fix the Rage Orion / older PPC incompatibility. My 6500 still freezes solid if I try running anything with 3d hardware rendering. Oh well...I guess I should of returned the card when I had a chance to.

I noticed that the installer left a non-labeled extension from the old set, simply called "ATI XClaim VR 128" in my extensions folder. (It doesn't even have an extension icon, merely a blank document icon.) Should I leave it there? Or delete all my ATI extensions and run the installer again?

Also, am I correct in assuming that this update doesn't include a new version of XClaim Video Player?

Thanks for info on both these questions....
Eric.

I hope someone has a solution for this (I will look into the "offscreen memory manager" extension and it's existance/non-existance). I have a rev. B beige G3 minitower with a built in ATI rage pro, and I added a PCI rage orion. I have no monitor attached to the rage pro. Every time I do a driver update from ATI, Unreal Tournament is unable to run in Rave or OpenGL until I disable the "ATI Extension" and "ATI Control Panel". In the past, disabling these two items with some additional hair-pulling has allowed me to run again with 3D hardware acceleration. With this latest update, I cannot. Diablo II does not detect Rave or OpenGL when I rescan; Quake 3 Arean says it can not initialize OpenGL engine, and UT can only run in software mode. Can anyone suggest a solution to this? I tried completely removing OpenGL and the ATI stuff and reinstalling from the RADEON update, with no luck. I also tried every combination of turning on or off the ATI extension and control panel. Many thanks.

Maybe if you people stopped supporting such lame products, they'd pay attention. You couldn't pay me to buy an ATI card anymore. The last 3 years has only resulted in buggy crap from them. It's one thing after another. Go for 3Dfx or Formac for good cards.

[outZider]

It's obvious how uneducated you are about video cards if you're recommending a 3dfx card. They're overpriced and underpowered compared to the competition.

- oZ

darwin: Milage is going to very. My PowerBook G3 (Lombard 233 MHz) gets noticably slower under OS 9. Not a good solution in my book, particularly when OS 8.6 is the most stable iteration of OS 8 that exists.

outZider: I've tried 3 different ATI cards in my StarMax (4400 clone). None of them worked completely; one of them didn't work at all. On the other hand, 3Dfx cards that weren't even supposed to work on the Mac have always performed flawlessly. Given the choice I'd go 3Dfx -- power is useless if it doesn't work. (To say nothing of the fact that, as my machine has no AGP slot, Radeon isn't even a consideration for me, nor will it be until December at the earliest.)

[rjenkinson]

downloaded the update, but i'm hesitant about installing it. is it intended for built-in RAGE128 cards or just OEM ones? or does that not matter?

-r.


[This message has been edited by rjenkinson (edited 11-08-2000).]

Originally posted by outZider:
It's obvious how uneducated you are about video cards if you're recommending a 3dfx card. They're overpriced and underpowered compared to the competition.

- oZ

I can buy a 3dfx Voodoo3 for $80-120 depending on whether I want the 2000 or 3000. Both are faster than anything short of the Radeon.
How is this overpriced and underpowered? True, the Formac cards cost much more than they should, but 3dfx's originals beat the Rage128 cold and are easily competetive in price.

LoneWolf I beleive he was refering to the V5. The V4 is a pretty good deal. As far as choosing 3DFX over ATI one thing to support a decision like this is the amount of support you get from the companies. 3DFX has shown a lot more support to the mac market and much more fequently updated drivers. One should seriously consider a 3DFX card if DVD is not an issue (since it currently doesn't support DVD)

[slboett]

The problem with non-ATI cards in Macs is that if you have a DVD player, it won't work with those other cards...not a good option, IMHO.
I must also say, I haven't had any problems with the built-in ATI or retail ATI cards save for the first few months on the then-new Blue and White G3's.

Scott

[ddukes]

Oz

I was about to say how uneducated you are about video cards, but that wouldn't be right .

What I do want to say is that what competition to the ATI cards are you referring to? The Voodoo 4/4500 and 5/5500 cards definately are competitive with their high fill rate and _hardware_ full screen anti-aliasing.

Even the Voodoo 4/4500 is now reasonably priced and its scores are identical to the 5/5500.

[madoka]

Originally posted by MacNN Staff:
[from MacNN reader Devin Kass]

"...The only bright spot in this whole mess is the plaguing audio problem has finally subsided. When I used to run the Xclaim Video Player, the audio would become tinny and distorted after quitting the app, which has only been resolved by a restart...

I'm not sure if this is the exact problem you're experiencing, but I noticed that XClaim Video Player switch the sound input to "RCA In" and won't switch it back when it quits, which results in dimmer volume for everything (didn't experience distortion in my case). All I have to do is to change the sound input back to "None" then the problem is solved. I am using OS 9 thou, so I'm not sure if that's the case.

Has anyone figured out how to get rid of the "ATI Config" menu, which is always visible on the right side of the menu bar? It says that I can disable it by holding down option and C while booting, but this has no effect.

wixar - the ati menu will not show up if you disable the ati extension. in my experience you don't need the ati extension to enable hardware 3D acceleration, or the control panel. that may have changed with this driver release, as i am experiencing my own problems (see previous post). good luck!

To get hardware acceleration in Diablo 2, hold down the option key while the program starts up, and then tell it to rescan the monitors. I have a Rage 128, and this worked with no problems. (Even though the updater is not supported on OEM cards like this.)

I wasn't really impressed with D2's hardware rendering, though. It added some subtle benefits, but also dropped frames at times. Overall, I don't think that that is ATI's fault as much as the fact that Macintoshes just don't aren't made well for 3D acceleration. (Slow bus speeds, etc...)

If you have a RADEON or a processor better than a 350 Mhz G3, you'll probably find RAVE rendering to be better than software in Diablo 2.

Nevin

This update still doesn't fix the Diablo II problem - ATI is full of s*it! I've got an 8500/120 with a 400 MHz G3 and a Rage 128 Orion (a week old). Ran the new installer, booted up D II with the option key - rescanned and nada/zip/zilch. Still only allows software rendering. The only way I can get this card to work is to use the DII Hack to get RAVE rendering (which looks significantly better and allows the perspective mode - seems much smoother too). Why in the heck can't a manufacturer fix a simple problem like this?

I was glad to get this driver update as it finally got the RAVE and OpenGL modes working on my yikes G4/400 within Diablo 2. The game looks great now, but I have a new problem. Every so often, while playing D2, the graphics begin to get really distorted as I get tons of snow and artifacting on my screen. Once it starts, the problem will not go away until I restart my computer.

Please help.

wondering if someone can help me out.

I bought radeon and installed it and it's software. Then Ati Xclaim Video Player (I have Xclaim VR 128 for my 2nd monitor) stopped working.

"cannot locate ATI Video Digitizer" (extension).

Installing software again didn't help.

btw, the extension (ATI Video Digitizer) is actually in the extension folder...

Extension manager doesn't seem to recognize it though (not disabled... just not listed).

I have the same problem with the ATI installer not installing "ATI offscreen memory manager"...this is with a new Radeon. And that menu bar icon really annoys me, they should have an option to remove that. I suppose this is ok for V1.0, but for a card that comes BTO with macs, I really expected more seamless integration of the card's drivers. Perhaps when OS 9.1 is released we will have this?

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