AMD/ATI turns back on AGP users

[NamesDontMatter]

For the past few months some of ATI's older AGP cards like the x800 and other second generation series cards, have been unable to run the latest Direct3D games. Users have noted problems in Hellgate London, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War, Need for Speed Pro Street, and Crysis(These problems often consist of not just minor artifacts, but D3D not even working!). These second generation series cards can not even pass Direct x diagnostics with the current drivers. Some say that those users on "old" graphics cards should upgrade and its simply their fault for having outdated technology. This Bias is contrary to what is actually going on, the x800 series cards are perfectly capable of running most of these games at medium to high settings especially Call of Duty 4 and Hellgate London. The Second and Third Generation ATI graphics cards are often referred to as minimum requirements for these new games, and yet they are incredibly unstable right now. And as being listed under AMD/ATI's supported products list, these cards should work with the latest drivers, but they don't. These problems started roughly with the 7.9 Catalyst release (Back on November 10th). Today ATI released its 7.11 Catalyst set of drivers and still has not provided a solution for these second generation AGP cards.
See Read More for solutions:



Their are two methods to get around this problem.
The first and in my opinion best solution is Omega Drivers 7.10 Release. The omega drivers release is fully compatible with AGP.

According to Deluxe TNT over at Guru3d forums this method yields the following results:
Hellgate London: 100%
Call of duty 4: 100%
Gears of War: 100%
NFS pro street: High frame Stutter even with Frame Rates Above 50+ FPS
Crysis: Untested

The Second method is to install 7.7 Catalyst Drivers then copy the ati3duag.dll and ati3d1ag.dll(if u have this) from last working driver (7.8;7.x) in system32 to a temporary location. Next uninstall the 7.7 drivers and do a driver clean with driver cleaner pro. Then install 7.10 Catalyst drivers.Finally replace the 7.10 ati3duag.dll in safemode! with the one you copied to a temporary directory from 7.7 release.

See This solution here

According to Deluxe TNT over at Guru3d forums this method yields the following results:

Hellgate: Working but some low FPS
Call of duty 4: 100% ok
Gears of War: 100% ok
NFS Pro Street: untested.
Crysis: working but with bugs and terrible graphics

The best of luck to you who are toughing it out with x800 cards, hopefully AMD/ATI will help out the old AGP users soon. I hope this helps some of those select users with this major problem. Might I add a Personal Happy Turkey Day to those of you who live in the United States!

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Lopez0101]

I thought about installing Crysis on my old P4 3.4Ghz system running an AGP X800XT just for laughs to see how well I could run it and at what rezes, but now I dunno if I'll even bother.

 

[erocker]

Quit your bitchin and use 7.6's. We all have to let go of AGP sometime. Hell, at least ATi still supports it's older AGP chipsets as well. Good luck getting Nvidia to support NF3 anymore, AGP is dead... move on.

 

[lpfreak]

hmm well i have an X800GT, but its PCIe, [= and i can run need for speed prostreet fine.

 

[cjoyce1980]

users have know for the last 3 year that AGP was on the way out, so the fact that they have not upgraded to a PCI-E system is there own fault

 

[InnocentCriminal]

What about the people that can't upgrade to PCIe? Not everyone is made of money or wants to upgrade. Honestly, it is disappointing that ATi aren't really continuing support for older hardware but that's how things work. I doubt they're going to spend valuable time and money on making older hardware more compatible with newer software when they can invest that in the more current range products that more people have.

I think it makes sense to continue support for AGP products, as the lowest common demoninator is still DirectX8 (or is it 9 now?) which these cards are still perform well in, & it'll take a while for game developers to release completely native DX10 based games. Plus, with the arrival of good news, that being ATi releasing the 3850 (and hopefully the 3870) in AGP there is still hope that decent driver support will continue, I just can't see them continuing support for the 'older' GFX cards.

 

[cjoyce1980]

What about the people that can't upgrade to PCIe? Not everyone is made of money or wants to upgrade. Honestly, it is disappointing that ATi aren't really continuing support for older hardware but that's how things work. I doubt they're going to spend valuable time and money on making older hardware more compatible with newer software when they can invest that in the more current range products that more people have.

I think it makes sense to continue support for AGP products, as the lowest common demoninator is still DirectX8 (or is it 9 now?) which these cards are still perform well in, & it'll take a while for game developers to release completely native DX10 based games. Plus, with the arrival of good news, that being ATi releasing the 3850 (and hopefully the 3870) in AGP there is still hope that decent driver support will continue, I just can't see them continuing support for the 'older' GFX cards.

for those who don't want to upgrade (or can't afford it) they should not expect new games to work in there full glory, and the complain about it. I would not expect crysis to run on my old xbox or gamecube, so why should it run on pc of similar age.

It's simple really for progress to be made to have to let go of legacy hardware/software.

 

[Seany1212]

for those who don't want to upgrade (or can't afford it) they should not expect new games to work in there full glory, and the complain about it. I would not expect crysis to run on my old xbox or gamecube, so why should it run on pc of similar age.

It's simple really for progress to be made to have to let go of legacy hardware/software.

Im glad you brought this up as it was what i was going to use, i cant believe that people can expect new high graphical demand dx10 games to work on older cards, i have an x1900xt and im still yet to play a dx10 game and when i do i only expect it to work on medium settings at best :shadedshu

 

[rodneyhchef]

It's not just the x8xx series but the x1xxx series as well. Even the omega 7.10 Drivers were unstable on mine and my brothers computer, so now we're back using the 7.7s

 

[Makaveli]

i'm guessing this is only affecting X800 series cards, i'm running a X1950pro AGP and have had no issues with 7.8 7.9 7.10 drivers gonna try the 7.11 later today.

 

[cjoyce1980]

i'm guessing this is only affecting X800 series cards, i'm running a X1950pro AGP and have had no issues with 7.8 7.9 7.10 drivers gonna try the 7.11 later today.

the X series cards and below are effected by this only, the X1xxx series AGP cards are fine and will continue to work.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

i cant believe that people can expect new high graphical demand dx10 games to work on older cards...

You can't run DX10 games on DX9 hardware, but I think I know what you mean, as in games that come in both flavours or are in need of some graphic prowess. Now, I have nothing against progression and it's only natural for companies to stop supporting products after so long - I'm not moaning about that. I'm just stating my disappointment in the fact that driver support for relatively recent products (such as the X1k series) have been of a lesser quality than what customers are used too.

I think what NamesDontMatter is getting at, is the fact that stability and the a-like have since been forgotten for products that are listed in the latest game's minimum requirements/supported video card lists. If they're listed, then don't the graphics companies (in this case, ATi) feel an obligation to create the support for their products that are supposedly able to run these games - albeit not at the games desired maximum, but the cards maximum ability?

On the other-side of the coin, ATi will probably stop optimising the Catalyst drivers for the older cards in favour of their new AGP series. Hoping that you'll purchase one of these instead of upgrading to a whole new set up - at least they're supporting 'us' in that sense.

the X series cards and below are effected by this only, the X1xxx series AGP cards are fine and will continue to work.

I have an AGP X1950 Pro as you can see from my specs, and I can't use any of the latest drivers (can't comment on the official 7.10's or .11's as I'm currently without ADSL so I'm unable to download them). I think this was more of a programming fault more than the fact they're limiting support. The 7.10 betas worked fine, and I'm looking forward to trying out the 7.11's too!

I wouldn't say AGP is dead either, I haven't read of any card that can fully utilise the available bandwidth through AGP, maybe with the exception of the 8800 Ultra, but even then I haven't read anything to say so.

 

[NamesDontMatter]

Quit your bitchin and use 7.6's. We all have to let go of AGP sometime. Hell, at least ATi still supports it's older AGP chipsets as well. Good luck getting Nvidia to support NF3 anymore, AGP is dead... move on.

Read the article 7.6 do not work for those games. Your benevolence is lacking bro.

 

[cjoyce1980]

what i believe Seany1212 means is that the newer games are designed to support DX10 aswell as DX9, but they are more geared towards DX10 as developers love to take advantage of new hardware.

At the moment it is a benefit to support DX9, soon this is going to become unecessary so you will have to move to new hardware or stop playing newer games totally.

 

[lemonadesoda]

I thought about installing Crysis on my old P4 3.4Ghz system running an AGP X800XT just for laughs to see how well I could run it and at what rezes, but now I dunno if I'll even bother.

I'm running on P4 3.0 with FireGL x3... similar to X800XT. And it runs fine. Not as pretty as a new CPU/GPU, but very playable, and graphically, still better than Far Cry.

 

[zekrahminator]

It must be limited to the AGP cards, my X850XT runs Crysis fine on Catalyst 7.10.

 

[lemonadesoda]

AMD should really get the x800 drivers fixed. Why? Because everyone on an x800 right now is a potential customer for the HD28xx and HD38xx in 2008. Piss off your existing customers, and they'll move to another provider.

The AMD executive that thought it would "save a few bucks" to kill support for x800, and consequently alienate hundreds of thousands of customers, should be FIRED.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Looks like Ill give these omega drivers a gander and see if they will work. Granted, its not the 7.11s but hell, they should at least install with no issues.

 

[Morgoth]

yea agp wil never die!

 

[TheGuruStud]

I'm running on P4 3.0 with FireGL x3... similar to X800XT. And it runs fine. Not as pretty as a new CPU/GPU, but very playable, and graphically, still better than Far Cry.

640x480 doesn't count roffles

 

[Lopez0101]

AMD should really get the x800 drivers fixed. Why? Because everyone on an x800 right now is a potential customer for the HD28xx and HD38xx in 2008. Piss off your existing customers, and they'll move to another provider.

The AMD executive that thought it would "save a few bucks" to kill support for x800, and consequently alienate hundreds of thousands of customers, should be FIRED.

Well, I don't think they'll go to Nvidia because they don't make ANY AGP versions of their new cards and haven't for a while. So I don't think ATi has much to worry about as far as people switching to another provider. ATi is doing more than Nvidia is concerning AGP.

 

[erocker]

Read the article 7.6 do not work for those games. Your benevolence is lacking bro.

Um.. they sure as hell work for me on my AGP system! While I feel for a lot of you that can't afford a new PCI-e system but be creative with your money. Buy used. Btw, a lot of the "problems" are caused by your aging chipsets, not necessarily your card.

 

[Scrizz]

Matrox g200 ftw

 

[aonbt]

new products

if companys are going release new products then they should support new products,just bought agp 2600 xt,what a nightmare fnding drivers that work 100%,tried 7.8,7.10,7.11 text allways ends up corrupted...if they cant support,dont release

 

[TheGuruStud]

if companys are going release new products then they should support new products,just bought agp 2600 xt,what a nightmare fnding drivers that work 100%,tried 7.8,7.10,7.11 text allways ends up corrupted...if they cant support,dont release

Have you tried modded drivers? Xtreme-G, NGO, etc?