Just got an ATI RADEON 8500....where's the cream filling???

It's not a bad card, but i'm not thrilled at all with it's performance.

My V5 5500 had better image quality although it didn't support alot of the newer features.

the 3DMARK scores on this thing are pretty horrible considering my V5 got 2000...and this thing only gets tops about 3500, and if your wondering, it's the retail version, not the le or the crippled version of the 8500.

This is with the newest drivers from the ATI site and a FRESH format and install of WIN ME, so its not a conflict or corrupt installation...bahh, what a waste of money just to keep up with the ever expanding software/hardware market. Not worth it in my opinion, but i'm going to keep it, see what happens after messing around with it a while. At least i'll see somewhat of a speed increase in some of the newer games I play, for now, i'm done playing around with the crappy drivers seeing i've tried everything I can to increase the performance of this thing with no luck...ohh well...new toys can sometimes be more of a hassle than the old ones......time to go stick in the V5 again...this thing is shelved for a bit.

My OEM 8500 got 7900 on 3DMark2001, right out of the box. And another 1200 after driver update.

"this thing only gets tops about 3500"

...

Something is very wrong here...

i'm working on 10k default bench with my 8500.
3500 is way way low unless ur using a 550.

dude i get 1500 with my card. there must be something wrong with it. maybe you should return it.

I get over 5k with my 7500. Fresh instal of ME (blech) but did you update all of your chipset drivers and whatnot? You were using a V5500 which makes no use of AGP it runs on PCI66 and thats it, so you definatly need to enable what was not in your bios for one and chipset drivers prolly too.

OK...after 4 hours of messing with this thing..(tweaking, trying different drivers..OC'ing it) I have come to the conclusion that this card really sucks, i did get the 3dmark score up to 7000, but the image quality is pure garbage on this thing, UT looks like crap...TACH OPS is horrible...CS (even though i haven't played it in a while) looks like S***....so far i see nothing about this card that is worth it except for the framerate, and if people out there think that this card has better image quality than an NVidia card, the the NVidia cards must suck even worse ( I refuse to even try anything NVidia) i'm definetly going to return it even at the cost of the 20% restocking fee, this card is garbadge, i'm sorry i wasted my money on it, all the hype about this card i have read and heard from friends is now BS....this thing is junk....guess thats what happens when ya get used to the image quality a voodoo cranks out...framerate is crap when the image displayed gives you a migrain......

ughhh..no more ATI...no NVidia thats for sure, guess its just me and my trusty V5...personally, i'd like to hang the 8500 out in my backyard and take a few shots at it with the trusty 357...might be worth it after the dissapointment and frustration..heh heh

Psycho,

You definetly are doing something wrong.... I went from a voodoo5500 to a radeon 7500 and the v5 got smoked in every department, apart from FSAA. What are ur specs? It could have something to do with ur agp setup, i know i had to do some things to get my card working properly. Once i did, man i forgot all about my v5.

"personally, i'd like to hang the 8500 out in my backyard and take a few shots at it with the trusty 357"

So I guess You... ahh... don't like it?

IronLungsta said:

Psycho,

You definetly are doing something wrong.... I went from a voodoo5500 to a radeon 7500 and the v5 got smoked in every department, apart from FSAA. What are ur specs? It could have something to do with ur agp setup, i know i had to do some things to get my card working properly. Once i did, man i forgot all about my v5.

Click to expand...

I fixed the issues about the speed, the card is blazing fast now, but, the image quality sucks so bad I can't deal with it.....texture tearing...crap dissapearing right in front of me....HORRIBLE antialiasing...friggin white border around EVERY game I play..the drivers suck for this and most of ATI's cards, i figured give em another shot...but seems like they still got their heads in their a**es, the card has potential, but not in the areas i thought would be better...FPS doesn't matter to me...30 is fine..but image quality..now thats something that for me has to be exceptional or its junk.....and the 8500 is junk. the FSAA wil NEVER compare to the V5's....and aside from all the "wonderful new features" like hardware T&L, dot3 bumpmapping and all the other advertising gimicks and hype that the V5 doesn't have, the cards image quality still sucks....i threw my old V3 3000 in a spare machine just to see if THAT had better image quality....sad thing is..it does.

As far as all my settings go....agp aperature is set to 64...anymore is pointless.....no V5 drivers are still 'hiding" in the system...its a fresh install....did all the updates..got DX 8.1...you name it...i did it...the card just sucks....

PS...sorry to all for my ranting...but for a card thats 2 years old to have a better image than a brand new one..thats pretty sad...and if you never seen a V5 @ 1024x768 4x FSAA in UT, CS...MECH 4, TRIBES 2..etc.etc...you've missed out on the best image quality in a card ever seen...but again...sorry for my frustration...

Hmmm, before you physically destroy the card, send me a pm. Maybe I'll buy it from you.

i love my new radeon 8500! i get 9000 on 3dMark2001

LOL! PsychoPhreak, your comp probably just sucks. You probably don't know how to install drivers well or tweak your system. I just replaced my GF2 Pro with a Radeon 8500 and i love it.

there's obviously something wrong since you complain about things disappearing and whatnot.

7500 smoke v5? heh.... my old hercules mx smoked a v5 5500 no prob

Lets not get carried away inteleron... The v5 smoked the first mx...
In practically every regard...

JoeCrappa said:

LOL! PsychoPhreak, your comp probably just sucks. You probably don't know how to install drivers well or tweak your system. I just replaced my GF2 Pro with a Radeon 8500 and i love it.

there's obviously something wrong since you complain about things disappearing and whatnot.

Click to expand...

well theres a first time for everything i guess, what i mean by that is, when someone obviously has nothing constructive to say, they resort to personal attacks...first one towards me on this site...ANYWAY..not that I NEED to explain myself or defend my technical skills, the point is I do know how to install drivers and as far as tweaking goes...well lets just say i've attempted things most people wouldn't have the b***s to do. I've modified/tweaked everything from simple bios's to actually changing pc board layouts themselves, so lets just say the skills are there, and they been there for over 15 years.

ANYWAY..back to the subject, with an OC of 300/290...i'm getting 7500 in 3dmark.....but again I'LL REPEAT MYSELF FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TROUBLE READING...(ahem)...the image quality sucks...if only anyone who reads this could see the image on my monitor, they'd then understand what I'm saying....it's just that freakin' bad....and switchin' back and forth between drivers and tweakin' just hasn't helped at all....so if someone has something constructive to say or a suggestion......by all means, all comments are appreciated..but for those who just like to throw in petty little remarks....might as well keep quiet.

Psycho,

The Nvidia-image-quality is a myth. It's actually BETTER than the Radeon by a large amount. ATI's drivers are horrible, and they purposely cripple the image quality in many popular games such as Q3, HL, UT, MOHAA, etc. to get better benchmark scores on websites because they know those are what sites use to test speed. Nvidia's image quality is actually very good, it's similar to my old V5 5500. Quinconx FSAA with 32-tap anisotropy is about equal to 4x FSAA on my old V5 in image quality.

hmmm...maybe i'll have to cave in and try a GF3 ti500.....ack..what am i sayin..i must be tired....maybe...something i have to seriously think about....although NVidia has never been a favorite of mine....(sigh).....i'll hold onto this 8500 untill the next driver comes out...if its still this bad...then i have no choice but to make this thing a windchime with holes...


sucks though....all my cards before 3dfx were ATI....then 3dfx....was a diehard 3dfx fanatic...still am...nothing else could do....now I just might have to give them ( NVidia )a shot.....

id hold on to the card phreak. its taken me a while to like my card.
but after a couple driver releases its runnen great.gf3ti500 btw and it sucked to me when i first ran it.
what kind of system you running this on?
also what are you using to tweak this with? powerstrip or a ati tweaker? or none at all?
mabey your card isnt as bad off as you might think.

PsycoPhreak said:

It's not a bad card, but i'm not thrilled at all with it's performance.

My V5 5500 had better image quality although it didn't support alot of the newer features.

the 3DMARK scores on this thing are pretty horrible considering my V5 got 2000...and this thing only gets tops about 3500, and if your wondering, it's the retail version, not the le or the crippled version of the 8500.

This is with the newest drivers from the ATI site and a FRESH format and install of WIN ME, so its not a conflict or corrupt installation...bahh, what a waste of money just to keep up with the ever expanding software/hardware market. Not worth it in my opinion, but i'm going to keep it, see what happens after messing around with it a while. At least i'll see somewhat of a speed increase in some of the newer games I play, for now, i'm done playing around with the crappy drivers seeing i've tried everything I can to increase the performance of this thing with no luck...ohh well...new toys can sometimes be more of a hassle than the old ones......time to go stick in the V5 again...this thing is shelved for a bit.

Click to expand...

Well something ain't been done right thats all I can say and get rid of ME imho. The 8500 is a good card much better than your old V5500 thats a fact.

You will get lots of help through the forum, I do not mean to be a **** but your 8500 has show much more to offer you will see.....

Heck what is the rest of your gear, I got 5090 with my 7500 on 3D Mark2K1 and all tests show the 8500 scoring high 6K and well into the 7K range with a decent cpu and good ram.

Do not start your whining yet , I gotta continue reading the replies to your post now lol.

Cisco KId