I disagree with the diver issues regarding to ATI Radeon 9700, In my opinon ATI is doing an excellent job with its Radeon Series.
I strongly recommend you all to read this artical at Tomshardware
http://www.tomshardware.com/business/02q3/020925/index.html
it discusses some of the steps that ATI is taking to improve their Drivers. They accually are listening to their customers.
This page talks about ATI's drivers:
http://www.tomshardware.com/business/02q3/020925/atimojo-09.html
Here is a direct Qoute from the site
"What we having been seeing however, in email and in discussions within our THG Community Forums, is that many of you are still concerned about the drivers and software that make up part of the 9700 equation.
Thanks to Chris Hook at ATI, we were able to have an exclusive chance to have a "no holds barred" discussion with Joe and Terry about these subjects. We asked some difficult questions regarding the drivers and consumers' perceptions about ATI drivers. We also received news of a new beta program that is coming soon.
After this discussion, we are even more convinced that ATI has a deeper and more genuine commitment to driver development than ever before, and if drivers are the only reason that you would not consider the purchase of an ATI product, it seems you had better re-think your position. Terry and his team know they have something to prove, and they are working very hard to deliver drivers that should not only increase in performance over time, but become some of the most stable in the industry, as well. It is hard to argue with men on a mission, so read on to see what they had to say to us.
THG - Can you guys tell me who you are and what your responsibility is at ATI?
JC - My name is Joe Chien, and I am the Director of Software Engineering, responsible for the Radeon 9700 software and the drivers.
TM - I'm Terry Makedon, and I'm the Senior Product Manager of Software on the Marketing side. CATALYST Software Suite is one of the products which I am responsible for.
THG - I find it interesting that the industry has come to the point where we actually have to have a product manager for the drivers. I think there has been a perception in the past that the drivers have been a weak point with ATI. And that is just not the case anymore, is it, Terry?
TM - Absolutely not. For any of your readers that do not know, we launched the CATALYST software suite a few months ago. CATALYST is the family name for ATI's software, which includes our graphics driver software, our MULTIMEDIA CENTER (which includes DVD, and TV players), HYDRAVISION (our multi-monitor software), and our REMOTE WONDER software (to use our remote control for your PC).
With the CATALYST launch, we have an unparalleled level of commitment to things that our customers tell us matter the most. Those are what I refer to as the CATALYST attributes, and they include things such as performance updates, stability, new features, and usability. In fact, CATALYST is focused on seven attributes. These are all based on the feedback that we are getting from our customers, whether it be OEM customers or the end users. We have decided that we are going to make the strongest commitment to provide the best software suite available in the marketplace.
Another note is that the frequency of updates for the drivers was important for our users. So, we made a commitment to provide eight to ten driver updates per year. Ever since we launched CATALYST, it is actually a six-week cycle that we are on. We are on CATALYST Version 3 right now, and we have hit our schedules to the day as planned. So, the entire software organization is working toward that six-week cycle. We want to post new drivers and introduce new bug fixes, performance boosts, new features, or what have you, as frequently as makes sense.
Having said all that, the trick is to find the delicate balance of all these attributes that ensures the driver will be of value to the most users as possible. For example, we can focus one driver release to just introduce new features, but not improve performance or increase stability. That, in my mind, is not acceptable. I would prefer to issue a driver that has some new features, as well as some new performance, as well as some new stability. To illustrate the example, look at an excerpt from the latest release notes included as part of CATALYST 02.3 posting (Below)
You can see that this driver set provided:
Performance Improvements;
New Features;
Stability enhancements;
User-Friendliness.
All as part of a unified driver set, which is fully certified from Microsoft. And this was made available just six weeks after the previous CATALYST driver was posted. "
There are a lot more extra information about ATI's drivers on the site, I incourage you all to check it out if you haven't aready had a look yet.
