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First time with ATI....what drivers?

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RuffRyder88

Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2002
Location
UK
I am going to upgrade my Ti4200 to a Saphire 9700NP, and want to know what the best drivers are. My priorities are stability and quality, but abviously i don't want rubbish performance.

I have Windows XP SP1 and a Abit BD7II mobo.

I'd appreciate some good info.

Thanx.

regards,
bob
 
Unless you want to play Vice City.

In that case use the 3.1's I found them to be the most stable... with the least problems. But they dont have the 9800 driver path that gives the 9700's a little boost.
 
It may be different with ATI, but Omega drivers seem to get a mixed response from NVidia and I have been led to believe that using omega drivers is really liking playing russian roulette!

Is it any different with ATI? If I get omega, can you say with 100% certainty that i will have excellent quality and stability with good performance?

I guess i want the 'safest' drivers.

What do you guys think?

regards,
bob
 
also, what if i just installed the latest official drivers, the 3.4's from ati's website?

I plan to format and re-install XP, so it will be a clean install.
 
From my experience w/ ATI, always go for the latest drivers. There's usually a pretty big performance boost, and the quality usually improves.
 
I made exactly the same move myself from a Ti4200. I've found the Omega 3.4 Drivers to be the best so far, especially as I didn't have to install the ATI Control Panel or use another program for overclocking.

The problems with Vice City were fixed with the latest patch.
 
Wam, what is the conrol panel? I went to the ati website and they are a seperate download.

What features do they add?
 
...the Omega Drivers have the Control Panel built in so no seperate download. Not sure why they are seperate in the first place but ATI must have their reasons.
 
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wow, thats a bit strange having them seperate!
I assume i install the actual driver first, the the control panel?

Thanks for the help guys.

regards,
bob.
 
Wam said:
...the Omega Drivers have the Control Panel built in so no seperate download. Not sure why they are seperate in the first place but ATI must have their reasons.

I'm pretty sure it's a courtesy thing, for people who don't have broadband. Combined, they'd be a rather large download for dial-up users.
 
Omegas are usually very high quality drivers. They optimize for gameing and in my experience the reduction of bench mark scores is very minimal, but thats just my experience on the benching.

Basically, the omegas are just ATIs drivers with some gaming issues addressed and optimized.
 
oc noob, i am tempted to go for the omegas, due to the quality but i am worried about the reduction in pefromance.

Could you tell me how big the fall is, in % terms? and how big the increase in qualit is?
I need to know because i run FS2002 which can bring any pc down to its knees, so every drop of performance counts!

I guess i am asking whether they are worth it.

regards,
bob.
 
its hard to tell - each system performance differently. generally its not even noticable. The best thing to do, is to try both and go for the one that you prefere
 
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