ATI Reality Thread

I'll save the rant about how pissed I am that the long-promised ATI Catalyst 4.5 driver fix has turned out to be strictly for 9800 and 9700 cards. Between my membership fee and computer upgrades, I've spent over $500 to be able to use SL, and currently can't use it at all. There are more bugs now than I ever saw during the Beta Test. Enough is enough...this is where I'm drawing the line.

I've only one question for LL: will there ever be a fix for all of the other Radeon cards, 8500-9500?

If not, please just admit it so I can leave now. Life is just too short to be jerked around like this. I've been waiting a year, listened endlessly to "we're working on it," and am out of SL until it's really fixed.

LL is not ATI. They do not control the development of ATI's drivers.

But they *do* control the development of the Second Life engine, and frankly, it does seem awfully creaky.

A house of cards built upon a house of cards, balanced on top of a table full of marbles.

LF

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the Lindens have ever promised or guaranteed that ATI would release drivers that would fix all their problems. They can only pass along what ATI tells them. If ATI chooses to focus their development time on fixing issues with a select few of their cards, but leave out the specifics on which cards will be affected when communicating with Linden Lab, the Lindens can't really report anything more than they've been told.

The simple fact of the matter is, ATI's driver support sucks. Big time. It always has. Yes, the Lindens should consider heavily rewriting the rendering engine to avoid using the parts of the OpenGL spec that ATI's drivers don't like, and I'm sure they have. The problem is that the time involved to do that may not necessarily be worth it, particularly not when ATI seems at least willing to try and fix their drivers.

Whether it's nVidia, Matrox, Intel... there are plenty of cards that render SL just fine. It's not favoritism, and it's not LL jerking you around. It's ATI putting out shoddy drivers.

If you're unsatisfied with the performance of SL --or any other product or service-- it would be completely reasonable for you to reconsider whether or not you want to be paying for said service. Were I in your position, I would certainly do the same. Only you can decide if it's worth it.

I couldn't agree more with the points you've made, with one exception: I have several times received specific promises of specific fixes from Lindens, whom I won't name, which haven't materialised.

As far as promises are concerned, I'll only say that SL system requirements call for Radeon 8500 or better. LL can't promise any particular quality of service, and the TOS specifically says they guarantee nothing. But if the system requirements say that SL runs on Radeons, and in reality it ofttimes doesn't on some platforms, I fell they have an obligation to at least amend their stated hardware requirements.

On the bright side, I'm a Charter Member with no additional land tier, so I pay no monthly fee. That said, I feel that I do pay for SL with personal time--time spent testing, and reporting/tracking bugs. I daresay the Lindens would agree that I've done more than my share in this regard over the past year. The personal time I've donated is worth far more than 15 dollars a month.

Yes, the fault is mostly ATI's, and I'm currently looking at the possibility of switching to an Nvidia card. I'd advise all Radeon users to do the same, since the problems are only likely to increase as SL becomes increasingly complex and graphically demanding.