Argh! ATI!

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 7:43 pm

Hi,

since I still fail to understand why my system is pretty idle although Oolite slows down, I've been reading up on it...and just stumbled over this discussion:

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview. ... erthread=y
>>Very good findings, and very good documented also, nice job. I think this clearly classify OGL as BROKEN. Adding to this that Cat 9.1 just dumped on us the big OpenGL 3.0 lie, AMD should sell their product with no OGL support at all at this "industry standard"<<

Together with other problems, people reported that the cards would not be able to use their own memory for OpenGL and thus have to use systems memory, slowing the GPU down to almost idle state while the framerate drops down. That would perfectly explain what I am experiencing, including strange "out of memory" problems.

In that thread they ask other users with the same problem to report using the catalyst driver feedback and probably supply a link to that forum, as the problem is obviously pretty much ignored.

Guess my next card won't be an ATI one, if they cannot fix such a problem.

Screet

Frame · Post by **Frame** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:36 pm

yes ATI has tons of OpenGL related problems.. but this is what happens to GPUs when CPU manufacturers take over. especially their support sections sucks big time..

once every 3 months i get this mail...

"Did the latest release fix your problem", and my reply is now..

"I really have no god damn clue, I removed the card months ago (X800XT).." but in the 1 year I was using it..

They never solved my problem.. I now have a HD 2600 XT.. That with the latest Cat drivers or any of them actually does not perform OpenGL at all on Vista (same problem as on X800), and yet they fail to recreate my problem

While there are just so many other people writing about this Poor OpenGL performance I have to use the drivers supplied to me by HIS, that funny enough is basing their drivers on the Cat code.. So they fixed, and I told them this Months ago.. But apparently their technocrat monkeys do not understand English...

I'm Sorry... This is what you get from bulk education (thinking india here).. without being mad at people from India or anything.

Their support, It takes 3 months to get an answer, after you receive auto generated ones... that just asks you to do the basics.. yes we are all stupid monkeys that just climbed down from the trees...

Next PC is going to have an Nvidia Card, since you can always be sure that Nvidia cards supports OpenGL and Direct X... and what else there might be of interest...

ATI is going to go bust I'm afraid... because their products are falling way behind, their support sucks, and their products are not effeciently priced to deal with these problems...

Leave the boat while You can, use Nvidia...

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:43 pm

I dumped ATi many, many years ago when Quake3 Arena wouldn't run on my AGP 4x 32MB Rage 128 at anything over 4fps but ran on an Nvidia 32MB TNT2 at 40fps and on my Voodoo5 5500 at 60+ fps.

Never have and never will go back to ATi, we've just replaced the gpus in our lab computers (60 of them and we've got a limited budget) ripped out all the X800s and X1600s and fitted 8800GTs - lovely...

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Fri Feb 13, 2009 4:53 pm

Hello again,

I've continued to observe the ATI drivers forum. The OpenGL problems seems to heat up - and a user did deliver an explanations for more problems I found with Oolite, namely the disappearance of textures. It's another ATI OpenGL bug.

Funny thing is, that a moderator of that forum asked everyone who has problems to report them via the Catalyst Crew Driver Feedback:

>>All bugs submitted are read as I have seen the reports. The more people who report a bug, the higher priority it gets to be fixed. If nobody or very few reports it then it wont get fixed as its not important enough.<<
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview. ... TARTPAGE=2

Thus I ask again every ATI user to report all those problems, as that's the only way to get ATI to fix their drivers!

The feedback option can be found at:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catal ... on-vista32
which has a link to
http://ati.supportcenteronline.com/ics/ ... 6&type=web

I did post both links, as the first one definitely works and I'm not sure if the other one might be somewhat session dependant.

Please, report those bugs, otherwise nothing might change and we have to sell our ATI cards to buy nVidia ones. That might work, but would increase monopoly possibilities for nVidia. We need multiple companies building such cards, or things will become worse for all!

Screet

Baza · Post by **Baza** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 7:20 pm

I agree and have sent my comments to ATI. Have tried the DNA drivers in the absence of the Omega ones. Makes no difference unfortunately. makes everything take on a reddish hue?

seems they think its not possible?

http://www.donotargue.com/forums.php?m= ... 462&n=last

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 12:46 pm

Baza wrote:
I agree and have sent my comments to ATI. Have tried the DNS drivers in the absence of the Omega ones. Makes no difference unfortunately. makes everything take on a reddish hue?

seems they think its not possible?

http://www.donotargue.com/forums.php?m= ... 462&n=last

I doubt that it's a hardware issue and guess that those ATI guys just didn't care to fix it in the past.

Concerning the coloring, I've strange effects with the 9.1 driver from ATI - for example, the GriffBoa looks entirely different now. More like bright blue/green metal!

I also wrote to Asus and have received a caseid including a personal answer - that guy didn't even try to ask me further details but instantly delayed it to some other department for comment - and wrote that he's looking forward to their answer to my inquiry. Beginning to read that message, I thought it would be an automated answer, but turns out that there's really someone working there thinking that there's a big problem to solve...

Screet

Baza · Post by **Baza** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:18 pm

I'll try shappire...perhaps if we can get the manufactures looking at it?

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 6:38 pm

Baza wrote:
I'll try shappire...perhaps if we can get the manufactures looking at it?

I hope so. The 9.2 drivers don't solve the OpenGL issues. Still no acceleration on my 4870x2, still the rectangular nebulae (yes, I know, I could use the version Solas created as a work around for ATI driver bugs, but that would not solve the real problem).

Strange:
Some days ago they removed the "discuss drivers in our forum" as there have been many complaints (people voting 1 out of 10 for driver quality, writing many threads about ongoing and ignored issues).

Now I did write again that the 9.2 drivers still do not fix problems and still miss the acknowledgement of the problems reported - result: I am not allowed to VIEW the forum anymore?!? Did it crash? I can login, but I cannot go to the forum - and I also can't do it if I do NOT log in!

Code: Select all

An Error Occurred while trying to perform the external authentication routine. The following error was received:

Login Denied, you are not authorized to login to the forums.

Correct your error and try the front page again.

http://forums.amd.com/game/index.cfm?forumid=11

Maybe my error was to buy another AMD/ATI product

Are there any german lawyers around? Maybe I should sue them for reimbursement now...

Screet

Baza · Post by **Baza** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:18 pm

Tried 9.2 drivers now all the planets are transparent and everything is still pink! Thats it.... now fed up! nVidia here I come!

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 7:33 pm

Baza wrote:
Tried 9.2 drivers now all the planets are transparent and everything is still pink! Thats it.... now fed up! nVidia here I come!

Well, with the 9.1 drivers, the colors were entirely wrong on ships with shaders.

This seems to have been resolved, but still all my caduceus turrets appear red!

I tried the HIS drivers (modified ATI Catalyst, it appears) on my Asus card...and those color issues were completely gone. Fur Rendering did work instead of crashing. Nebulae and OpenGL acceleration were still missing, though.

Wrote back to Asus with an update concerning the 9.2 drivers, further explanations/links...but I am really VERY close to settle this in court. Wonder if I should first try to ask the vendor of my card to take it back because of defunct drivers (without hardware issues) - at least their support acknowledged this to be an ongoing problem and suggested to switch to NVidia instead. I dislike supporting monopolies, though - but that dislike is not strong enough in order to pay for something that doesn't work as advertised.

Screet
P.S.: I now can confirm - they got annoyed about my public bug report. They blocked my entire machine from READING on their forums. Instead, there's now some "GREAT COMPANY!" postings to be found. They removed postings from me which they did not like. They did not send an email explaining this. Until they give me a good excuse, say sorry and fix the problems soon, that will be the last AMD/ATI thing I ever bought in my entire life!

Baza · Post by **Baza** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 8:25 pm

Well I think thats really petty pathetic behaviour. They are getting free bug reports for christ sake! Whats the best Nvidia card for about 100 GBP?

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 8:47 pm

Baza wrote:
Well I think thats really petty pathetic behaviour. They are getting free bug reports for christ sake! Whats the best Nvidia card for about 100 GBP?

I don't know - I've got a similar problem myself. Only slightly more expensive than the 4870x2 from Asus which I currently have is this one:

MSI (Retail) GTX295 1792MB 2xDVI/HDMI

The card should become available soon - and it would take some time to get the money back for that ATI one anyway.

If anyone got suggestions on better alternatives, please let me know. Since I cannot work for the next years, I need something to do...and thus I'd prefer a card as good as possible.

Screet

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 11:35 pm

Baza wrote:
Well I think thats really petty pathetic behaviour. They are getting free bug reports for christ sake! Whats the best Nvidia card for about 100 GBP?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0017XNS7G/

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 3:21 am

Baza wrote:
Tried 9.2 drivers now all the planets are transparent and everything is still pink! Thats it.... now fed up! nVidia here I come!

Funny. I didn't have transparent planets in the beginning - but after staying a little on the Lave station, I launched...just to see rectangular nebulae and stars through a transparent Lave.

ARGH!

Screet

Post by **Kaks** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:08 am

Transparent planets might happen as a result of resizing the game window.

It's a potential side effect of using SDL_SetVideoMode in the code. It's also happening on my nvidia, but it should be corrected in trunk fairly soon...