I think a baseball bat would help

[wizardofid]

I am finally fed up, I am considering taking either a baseball bat or a shotgun.I think AMD staff should be shot on sight, for the annoyances they have caused so far.

But before I do I am open to some advice.

I got a AMD operton 170 and a NF3 motherboard/ATI4650HD AGP card from a fellow PCF forum member.I quickly ditched the board for a via chipset board to be able to have both cores enabled in window vista and then win7.

The hardware as such is not the headache it's the damn drivers and software that is getting the better of me.

Currently I am still using the drivers supplied with the GPU, as the moment I upgrade the drivers, Softimage 7 crashes, maya crashes , lithunwrap slows to a crawl, and numerous other opengl programs simply refuses to work, that is within Win XP.

Vista and Win7 have minor or no problems.

However I am forced to make use of win XP because of software compatibility issues with win 7 and vista.So having to boot back and forth between OS's is getting a little irksome, and I can't really ditch XP as these tools, are needed or else the game dev would ground to a halt, nor are there any replacements tools as these tools are game engine specific.


So what I am looking at is the best possible advice with regards to the following:

Service Packs: Which one is the best to use, service pack 1 or 2, SP 3 isn't currently cooperative with software compatibility, and can bring things to a halt with simply things like installing a piece of software.Would Dotnet 3 work with SP 2. ?

Drivers: any 3rd party AMD drivers with better OpenGL support that I should know of.


I am in the process of building a new non-AMD system, no offence AMD fanboys the hardware is great, your damn drivers support is the pits.

When the new system is complete, do I use a baseball bat, a shotgun or a depth charge to end the suffering, of course would you like to see a video of said destruction.

Mods can I have a poll please, as I am really planning on doing this. !

[Ron2K]

Poll duly added - with a few extra options.

(EDIT: And someone else overwrote my extra options. Hang on folks, let me put them back quickly...)

[RuadRauFlessa]

Woops we added it at the same time...Think mine overrode your iWonWon2000

[Anakha56]

Wiz what version of Win 7 are you using?

*edit*

Ron reset the votes please? I only saw Vampies ones...

[doo_much]

'Sent' vs 'Send' gents?

[RuadRauFlessa]

Oh deary... seems we are down to allowing the torturing of KillerBytes again. \o/

Wizard... getting proper drivers won't be easy even on an Intel platform. If the OS does not have them try auto update if that fails... oops.... I suggest getting a decent new rig.... spruce it up with a GPU and load that old and trusty XP sp2.

[Anakha56]

Well depending on his version of Windows he could install WinXP mode and have those apps that are not compatible with Win7 run in XPMode.

[RuadRauFlessa]

I haven't actually found an instance where compatibility mode actually makes any difference.

[KillerByte]

Thou shall not send killerbyte old hardware to review. The power of his mind will surely crumble into a black hole as he tries to determine why the fates hate him so much.

PS. XPmode in Win 7 is fantastic. I use it for Macromedia Director 2004, which is sadly what our cover disc is made with, when I need to play with the interface.

[Anakha56]

Not that compatibility mode . I am talking about this one:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtua ... fault.aspx

Has helped on my side...

[RuadRauFlessa]

Not that compatibility mode . I am talking about this one:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtua ... fault.aspx

Has helped on my side...

That is like installing an OS and then deciding that you need to install an actual OS

[KatrynKat]

@ killerbyte

we know you like playing with your toys so this is like reliving your youthful days... that were not so long ago....
sometimes you just have to take one for the team!!

[THE_STIG]

I haven't actually found an instance where compatibility mode actually makes any difference.

It is just a cleaver lie created by Microsoft so that people will still buy their new OS's. It has never and will never work

Not that compatibility mode . I am talking about this one:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtua ... fault.aspx

Has helped on my side...

This one does work ...and is quite cool, as I have every copy of windows since 95 installed on it, except for vista.
But as RRF says it is a bit inconvenient, and most people don't know that it even exists

[THE_STIG]

edit
Double post

[wizardofid]

Wiz what version of Win 7 are you using?

*edit*

Ron reset the votes please? I only saw Vampies ones...

win 7 ultimate

Wizard... getting proper drivers won't be easy even on an Intel platform. If the OS does not have them try auto update if that fails... oops.... I suggest getting a decent new rig.... spruce it up with a GPU and load that old and trusty XP sp2.

Which is the general idea.

Well depending on his version of Windows he could install WinXP mode and have those apps that are not compatible with Win7 run in XPMode.

With the way the software runs and win 7 is a big no no....

I just paid for my stuff from PCF so will be getting 4 gig ram and another HDD, then I have to scout for a PCI-e 1.0a compatible GFX, non-amd their opengl support is horrid.

80% of software I use rely on it....

So pretty much destruction on the menu for the old system, once I get the new one up and running....

[wizardofid]

Oh BTW I think for the depth charge...

Dry ice in 5 coke bottles tied to it should do the trick....The idea is to throw it in big dam we have here...of course attached to a line so that we can see what damage was caused....and to do the whole environment thing perhaps score some fish in the process too.

[JollyJamma]

VIA

Well theres your problem mate.
I owned a VIA chipset ages ago, yeah their driver support is bad.

I love ASUS.

[wizardofid]

VIA

Well theres your problem mate.
I owned a VIA chipset ages ago, yeah their driver support is bad.

I love ASUS.

VIA are the only ones that supplied "working" vista drivers, nvidia simply stopped support.VIA ain't the problem, the problem is with openGL and AMD catalyst drivers...the card supports opengl 3.0...getting it work and be backward compatible with older openGL version, is like getting water from a rock...with nvidia cards I have never had problems like that ...ever...the occasional bad the driver but there was always 3rd party driver or new updates that actually "fixes" most problems.... eventually.

[THE_STIG]

Well I must say that some of VIA's chipsets were rubbish and the drivers never worked properly, I have a Aopen Ax-34 with the VIA appolo 133a pro and it took hours of swearing and fiddling with the registry to get the AGP drivers to work so that it would run at 4X mode

[Prime]

Hang on, You are blaming AMD for your woes with VIA and software that won't run on a decent OS and by your own admission there are no Nforce drivers for vista.

Anyone else confused as I am by this?

[THE_STIG]

I though I was the only one who was confused.......VIA have made some rubbish in the past but most of their KT series chipsets(the KT-600 for example) were very good. AMD is not as bad as you say I have Athlon xp 2500+ and it even runs windows 7 flawlessly just as long as you dont try and play any games(very slow, but that is the OS's fault). So why you have so many problems is beyond me , could have something to do with that strange CPU you have

[DeathStrike]

if you are going to hit with basball bat then at least get some liquid nitrogen and freeze real good first so it shatters into a billion pieces

[StarBound]

*edit* Nvm reread the post

[THE_STIG]

if you are going to hit with basball bat then at least get some liquid nitrogen and freeze real good first so it shatters into a billion pieces

but why......AMD's are by no means bad CPUs the problem seems to lie with the OS and the drivers, so go and bash them

[wizardofid]

Hang on, You are blaming AMD for your woes with VIA and software that won't run on a decent OS and by your own admission there are no Nforce drivers for vista.

Anyone else confused as I am by this?

Hang on if you actually read the post, you would know that I said I ditched the nforce board because via had "working" drivers.Also some thing of note is the drivers aren't just any normal drivers in fact AMD released special hot fix drivers, for the last couple of months and not just for one card. The 4 series 3 series 2 series all of these cards which had special AGP versions have had problems.

So it isn't an isolated case it is in fact a few 100000 people with the same problem, the problem is also aggravated by having a dual core system.Google-ing (AMD code 43) is going to give you a few results.This is due to the way AMD handles x86 architect.Since there are no problems with nvidia, and micketsoft hasn't released and specific fixes them self to address the problem.

As for the slow opengl or lack of a working driver falls back on AMD again, a simple google will point you into a new light just how bad AMD opengl support is in game development circles and with games.

Again it isn't just me, there are a few 100 other people is the same boat.So shifting blame on software makes no sense when you have a few 100 thousand people complaining about the exact same problem, even the pci-e counter parts are hardly immune to the opengl problems.

the fact of the matter is AMD has bad opengl support and drivers it's been like this for many years and unlikely to change any time soon...

Oh having 2 or 3 tools that doesn't work in vista or win7, isn't all that bad, considering the main problem is far worse.