Hi, guys.
I feel a bit guilty, I touched a bit of a nerve. I've been logged out of the email account I used to post these messages, so I just found out that a bit of stirr over this has been created.
I feel at this point, I must give you a back story to help you better understand why I said what I said....
I have been using ATi video cards for quite some time now. Actually, I've owned (bought and sold) just about every card ATi or nVidia produced over the last three years. Its become quite a hobby (passion?) for me...I think I like studying the video cards and how they work in terms of performance more than actually playing the games.
As I became a heavy PC gamer about 6 years ago, I went from onboard graphics, to a Kyro 2, to a SiS 315, to a Ti 4200, then to an FX 5200, Radeon 9600, then to a plethora of high-end Radeons and FX's, etc. etc. etc. You get the idea....
Along the way, I discovered W1zzards softmod and hacked bios and found that, dollar for dollar, in terms of performance, if you get the right video card, ATi is, and continues to be, clearly best video card. Since then, I have been hooked on ATi.
But there was a problem for me.....
I couldn't get the damned ATi cards to work right. Constant crashes and shut-downs plagued my gaming experience. I tried P4s, Athlon XP, Athlon 64, different motherboards, different RAM, different BIOS settings, different drivers, different driver settings, different BIOS settings. (...did I say that already?) All for the sake of owning a glorious softmodded, hacked 9500 NP. I even created a flame thread on a forum "The unofficial ATi troubleshooting guide", where I and bunch of other idiots would blast each other debating my troubles with ATi video cards. (" ITS NOT THE POWER SUPPLY MORONS!!!! ") Needless to say, that effort was only fitting for one of Dante's circles of hell, not being anything even remotely resembling "troubleshooting".
I had happened upon ATiTool by then; I was impressed when I first tried it. It immediately struck me as something professional, like it was written by a manufacturer. With all the crap third party software aps, shareware, freeware....assware, whatever- I found ATiTool to be remarkably refreshing in terms of the cleaness of its GUI and overall professional feel.
It became my exclusive overclocking tool for ATi, as I am sure it has for many of you.
Anyway...
Redeeming themselves after the absolute garbage that was the FX series, The nVidia 6 series came out and, alas, I had given up and went with a nice, softmodded 6800. Even though I wanted my ATi, nVidia cards have never given me a lick of trouble. I still say to this day that there is something amiss with ATi's drivers. That's another story....
BUT...there's more.....
I can be a persistent son of bitch, and I recently found myself with (don't laugh) a VERY good emachines box with a 64-bit Sempron processor and an open AGP slot. I figured, why not give it yet ANOTHER try, and I sold the 6800 and bought an X800 Pro and an X800 GTO, both of which performed better than the aforementioned. 5,000 3dMark05 and 58,000 Aquamark 3 is pretty decent performance in my book, esp. for sub-200 dollar video cards. Also, The 256 MB frame buffer is fantastic if you want to run BF 2 on high settings. Can't do that with a 128 MB 6800. And best of all, they ran STABLE. Ahh....blessed stablity with an ATi video card!!! [after shutting down the crud ATi Hot Key Poller, whatever the hell that is...kept crashing Battlefield to the desktop..grrrr....]
It became time again to download the newest version of ATiTool to open these puppies up a bit....
But Lo! What is this I see? A logo?? A bright red logo... with a hammer for the "i" in "ATi" on my coveted ATiTool? Have I downloaded this from a hardware store or a baking soda company? Is W1zzard placing ads on his software? This...this cannot be.... I have finally achieved ATi bliss... and now this? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.............
So....
After all that trouble, I wanted my ATi experience to be as perfect as I could get it. Perhaps I overracted, maybe I am taking out all my pent-up ATi frustrations on a logo, but I just couldn't help the feeling. Hence the email and this thread. And now that I know I can OC, monitor my temps and fan control (I love the fan control, keeps the noise down) AND not have to see the logo, my journey to the dark side of ATi video cards is complete.
I do want W1zzard and everyone concerned to know that I felt bad about this greviance.
When W1zzard asked me, in response to my email, if I knew how to make logos, I felt even worse because I realized that I set myself as the jerk i.e. "You come to me with problems, but no solutions..."
I downloaded some logo making software, but I realized that the critic will always be the worst criticized and nothing I could come up with would be good enough by virtue of such.
And, also, I have no clue what makes a good logo.
I know I ruffled some feelings, and i'm sorry about that. I can be a "tool" sometimes. I am certainly not a master of tact and diplomacy.
I like the new proposed logos. You know, I think the authors may have picked up on some of things about logo in question that I felt were not so good about it. They made the background red deeper and darker, much more consistent with ATi's color scheme and the ATiTool utility's 3D window. They also look a bit more sleek and modern, befitting the character of ATiTool. I would have no problem with any of the newer logos.
In closing, I would like to say, in a way, W1zzard and this community fostered my interest in the world of video cards and PC gaming, so if I gave you guys a little "love tap", for lack of a better term, well.... I just hope you guys aren't too angry with me.
O.K... enough babbling. Back to Battlefield 2, for me....
.
