cptsulu's Full Review: ATI RADEON, (32 MB) AGP Video Card
When it was released, the ATI Radeon became the world's most advanced graphics core. Sure, the nVidia GeForce 2 still outperforms it, but the technology behind the Radeon made it more elegant. nVidia used a brute strength approach to reach its performance levels, while ATI used smarter technology to compete. So even though the Radeon has slower memory and a core that's clocked slower, it is able to reach performance numbers close to the nVidia.
The technology behind the Radeon is ATI's HyperZ technology. The limiting factor in getting great 3D performance in todays graphics cards is memory bandwidth. ATI's HyperZ technology allows the card to determine which objects will not be visible to the viewer and tells the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to not render them. This way, bandwidth will not be used to render something that is not going to be seen anyway.
Another technology that puts it ahead of the competition is its class (GeForce 2 class) is its DVD hardware assist. 2D performance is what made ATI great so they didn't skimp out in this department. While most graphics cards only support hardware motion compensation (a DVD decoding process that requires a lot of CPU power), ATI also include inverse discreet cosine transformation (another CPU intensive decoding process), making it champion in this department. It's even better than the GeForce 3.
The iDCT already makes it the leader in DVD decoding, however the HyperZ is not. Clocked at 183mhz, the Radeon is only 17mhz slower than the 200mhz GeForce 2 GTS or Pro. Its memory efficient HyperZ technology should allow it to defeat the nVidia product. When it was first introduced, the ATI ran circles around the GeForce 2 in 32bit color. When nVidia released new driver, ATI was left behind and hasn't been able to catch up since.
ATI has never been known for writing drivers well. The technology behind the Radeon is more advanced than the GeForce 2. However, its drivers are the reason its being held back from glory. I run a Windows 2000 box and the Windows 2000 drivers completely destabalized my system. I tried driver after driver, even leaked beta drivers, and couldn't my system stable. Who needs a state of the art video card when your computer crashes every five minutes and, as a result, rendering you unable to use it anyway? Okay, I know I'm being unfair because I know of many people who are running a Win2k box and using a Radeon with no problems. It probably just doesn't like my hardware. But the point is, the drivers should make it work with all hardware. Not just some hardware, but all hardware.
No one wants to spend 100+ dollars on a product that MAY work in their computer. And even if it works, they have a piece of technology that's, hardware-wise, supposed to be the superior one in its class, but, instead, performing slower than others. With the prices of the GeForce 2 and Radeon getting closer and closer, the consumer should go for the better performing and not-so-buggy, product: the GeForce 2. ATI has a great product, it just doesn't know how to tell the operating system how to use it properly. And until they do, this potentially great product will be eaten up by the competition (ala 3dfx).
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