X1950 Pro users: Your thoughts on the new Catalyst 7.3

[binormalkilla]

Um my benches were a little lower in 3dmark (same overclock) but they were drastically lower in the ATI Tray Tools bench. I went from the Warcat 7.1 to the standard 7.3. I generally use the Warcats because they look a lot better usually.
Your thoughts please!

 

[tkpenalty]

Um my benches were a little lower in 3dmark (same overclock) but they were drastically lower in the ATI Tray Tools bench. I went from the Warcat 7.1 to the standard 7.3. I generally use the Warcats because they look a lot better usually.
Your thoughts please!

Warcats arent for visual quality, omega are. Heck, the shader IQ is waaaaayyyyy more advanced than warcats. Warcats also share a lot of problems with source games. I thought my X1950PRO died when I used the Warcat 7.1s, producing the "floppy guy" artifacts and headless-dog etc.

 

[anticlutch]

Warcats arent for visual quality, omega are. Heck, the shader IQ is waaaaayyyyy more advanced than warcats. Warcats also share a lot of problems with source games. I thought my X1950PRO died when I used the Warcat 7.1s, producing the "floppy guy" artifacts and headless-dog etc.

I haven't noticed any problems with the 7.1 Warcats while playing source...

 

[mehukatti]

7.3 fixed sm3, before 3dmark06 canyonflight was just white flashes. but it didnt do that for everyone there are still few who have prolems with 7.3 and some has reported installing 7.3 and then get only bluescreen

 

[Pinchy]

7.2 are working great so i dont intend on swapping.

 

[Zubasa]

7.2 are working great so i dont intend on swapping.

You are lucky that it works great...
The CCC 7.2 simply start and crash in windows.
Now in 7.3 they fix it and it is working great.

 

[Formula350]

I don't know if it was my BIOS mod, going from CAS 11 to 9, or Cats 7.3, but I went from 4300 to over 4600 in 06.

 

[Ketxxx]

Warcat drivers suck more than a $5 whore. NGO make nice drivers for ATi or nvidia cards, Omega has gotten sloppy IMO. nowhere near as good as they used to be. Standard Cat drivers are quite good now, but the CCC is still clunky, slow, and buggy. Its only truely useful feature is the ability to see GPU temps.

 

[Ketxxx]

I don't know if it was my BIOS mod, going from CAS 11 to 9, or Cats 7.3, but I went from 4300 to over 4600 in 06.

Ok.. maybe I shouldnt be so upset with my 48xx I was getting.

 

[Batou1986]

meh i dropped almost 200 3d marks in 06 going from 7.2-7.3 needless to say im now back with good ole dependable DNA Drivers The only drivers that matter

 

[Ketxxx]

So Ketxx, since I hold many of your opinions and assistance in high regard, I was wondering what you think the best ATi drivers are?

Normal Cats are actually pretty good, as are NGO. Omega are still ok. DNA I'm not too sure about though, I hear more stories to do with oddities and BSODs when people use DNA than any other modded driver.

 

[Formula350]

Well AT and ATT both see temps. ATT can even OSD them, which is why I lurve it so much

Your score is about right, since you have DDR2 and an AM2 chip. Having AM2 isn't a big change, but every stepping helps. Then again, maybe you should be higher with the 512 on your card *shrug*

 

[Batou1986]

i love that osd in att it really makes the program the best

 

[Formula350]

I like it because it completely replaces CCC. It even fixed my friend's Crossfire problem in the latest version lol Hows that for pwnage!

I haven't loaded up World of Warcraft yet, but I doubt it'll run any worse. I've been playing Tribes 2 again out of bordem, in OGL since D3D is broken in it, and that's fine (Other than some odd ogl 2D problem that even occurs in Tribes 1 and all my ATi cards 9700-1950). I'll load up a few games and see if anything is different.

EDIT: Well Crashday and NFS:MW both run fine and dandy. I don't think Temporal AA is working though. Might be an ATT problem, or a Cat 7.3, who knows :\

 

[Ketxxx]

Not that I have anything against 3rd party apps, but they really shouldnt be needed for silly stuff like to monitor temps and use crossfire properly. Since AMD bought ATI their quality has gone to shit. Many probably dont know this, but before AMD come into ATi' picture the catalyst software was actually industry award winning for stability and so forth.

 

[Crydee]

I was using 6.12 then jumped to 7.3 and I got that flicker thing every time I tried to overclock. So I installed ATT and tried overclocking through that and all I get is a black screen and I have to reboot to get any video. I would really like to play with some of the latest drivers but not if I can't OC =( I think I'm gonna switch back to 6.12. Or what's the best way to overclock the core and memory speed for an x1950pro?

 

[Exeodus]

When I switched from 7.2 to 7.3, i would lock up and had to reboot. Then my comp would not shut down on its own. The process would not end when xp wanted to shut down, so it would get stuck on the "logging off" screen. I had to reboot in safe mode, uninstall 7.3, then install 7.2 again and now it seems ok. IMO, ATI rushed another driver to release before it was ready.:shadedshu

 

[mehukatti]

i got problem with 7.3 they didnt work with s.t.a.l.k.e.r fps was 5-15 and now i switch 7.2 and frames are now 40- with maximum settings. 3dmark05 gives 9500 with 3700 san diego 2850mhz and kingston 400mhz 1gb. i try ngo drivers but then i couldnt play nfs carbon frames was high but sometimes they went about 5 and start bothering too much

 

[SpookyWillow]

7.3 fixed sm3, before 3dmark06 canyonflight was just white flashes. but it didnt do that for everyone there are still few who have prolems with 7.3 and some has reported installing 7.3 and then get only bluescreen

lol so thats why that test is 90% all white, thought i pushed my card too far

I was using 6.12 then jumped to 7.3 and I got that flicker thing every time I tried to overclock. So I installed ATT and tried overclocking through that and all I get is a black screen and I have to reboot to get any video. I would really like to play with some of the latest drivers but not if I can't OC =( I think I'm gonna switch back to 6.12. Or what's the best way to overclock the core and memory speed for an x1950pro?

get the latest ati tray tools and use increments of 7mhz or more.

 

[Kursah]

I was hoping for better reliability and OC-ability in vista 32 w/my x1950 pro. Screen still flickers when trying to use overdrive to oc...oh well. I still use ATI Tool to OC...and I can get up to 621/770...but there has to be more..maybe not, but I'm sure hoping. But I noticed when I push to far and the video is reset instead of the driver R300 message I now get a different message, same deal just different driver name: atikmdag

Driver atikmdag stopped responding and was successfully reset.

Kind of a bummer, I kinda liked R300 better LOL! And if I use ATI Tool's 3d cube at my OC'd speeds after about 30 seconds I get that error message...if I turn them down to 614/750 it'll run for about 5 minutes before getting that message...stock, it'll run forever. But the Aquamarks, 3dMarks and my games run fine with my OC so i'm keeping it, just wish I could go for more...I'm craving after turning my x850 pro to an XT PE with bios and OC-ing it more...from 500/500 to 570/620 (AC cooling of course!).

Other than that, I noticed about even or slightly better scores compared to 7.2, but nothing revolutionary.

 

[SpookyWillow]

how do they compare to the 7.1s?

 

[Kursah]

As far as I'm concerned anything is better than 7.1's. I had nothing but issues with them. 7.2 was a sigh of relief at least on some stable front, as it helped me at least enjoy vista somewhat instead of fight it gaming wise.

 

[Formula350]

Didn't we stop at 6.11? Where are 6.12 and 6.13 coming from lol I've never seen more stability in overclocking from drivers, but that's just me. My screen always flickers a bit when overclocking on this 1950.