ATI RADEON 8500 & ATI RADEON 9100

ATI RADEON 8500 & ATI RADEON 9100
Posted:2002-04-20 By Asboulougia Number of View:8298
ATI RADEON 8500 & ATI RADEON 9100 By :Asboulougia Posted:2002-04-20 xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source Ati 8500 as 9100 (We will See Defferance Later) Is one of The Fastest card Those Day With Two Version 64mb And  128 borth Are 128Bit Memory Channel.lsdfjskdjflsdj lskjdljfsalfkj jflksjlfkjsdlkfjdsal ljflks jdljsa fj lkjslkfjdslk fjflksjfdlksjf lkdslkfjsaljfsl Technical Specifications Truform Smartshader Support for DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 SmoothVision anti-aliasing Hyper Z II Charisma Engine II Pixel Tapestry II Video Immersion II Dual Display Support Integrated Transformation, Clipping and Lighting Twin Cache Architecture SuperScalar Rendering Single-Pass Multi-texturing True Color Rendering Triangle Setup Engine Texture Cache Bilinear/Trilinear Filtering Line & Edge Anti-aliasing Full-Screen Anti-aliasing Texture Compositing Texture Decompression Specular Highlights Perspectively Correct Texture Mapping Mip-Mapping Z-buffering and Double-buffering Emboss, Dot Product 3 and Environment bump mapping Spherical, Dual-Paraboloid and Cubic environment mapping Fog effects, texture lighting, video textures, reflections, shadows, spotlights, LOD biasing and texture morphing The R200 GPU, heart of the Radeon 8500, is a venerable chipset with some very competitive features that still stack up well against the Nvidia offerings in both the GeForce 3 and 4 lineups. Included on the .15 micron silicon are features like the Charisma II rendering engine, Smartshader, Truform, and Pixel Tapestry II technologies. Each ultimately helps to optimize the throughput and handling of graphic elements and render them on the screen as quickly as possible, with the best possible image Features of the Radeon Here you have the general flow and design of the R200 GPU as found on the Radeon 8500 card. The chip has the ability to support up to 128MB of fast memory and a TV Tuner not found on this review card. Below is a short description of the key features of the R200 GPU: Charisma Engine II: The updated Charisma Engine supports full hardware transformation, clipping and lighting acceleration at 69 million triangles/second, and programmable vertex shaders. This is an update of the original Charisma engine and incorporates similar features as those found on the Nvidia GeForce 3 and 4 GPU; T&L is, for instance, implemented in a similar fashion by ATI in the Clipping and Lighting accelerator. Hyper Z II: Hyper Z II is another update to an existing Radeon line technology. Hyper Z II borrows from Tile Based rendering as found on the Kyro and Kyro II in a unique way to reduce Z-Buffer access times and counts. The Hyper Z II engine incorporates three key technologies: Hierarchical Z: As mentioned above, this system checks pixels before they are rendered in certain situations to ensure if they are visible or not. If they are not, they are thrown out and not rendered, unless of course a transparent pixel is in front of them and blending is required for the rendered scene. Z-Compression: This is a lossless compression process that reduces the size of data in the Z-Buffer, allowing it to take up less space and reduce demands on memory bandwidth when the Z-Buffer is accessed. Fast Z-Clear: ATI\'s proprietary method of dumping unnecessary data from the Z-Buffer cache. This technology improves the write and re-write functions, as well as access speed to the Z-Buffer, cutting down rendering time. Truform Technology: Truform makes 3D characters and objects look more life-like by converting flat triangles to curved surfaces. This provides a massive improvement in the appearance of animated characters and curving joints. Smartshader: Essentially this is a set of programmable pixel shaders built into hardware. Game engine coders can program these hardware shaders under DirectX 8.1 as well as OpenGL 1.3 to provide more complex and realistic lighting effects for textures. Pixel Tapestry II: An update to the Pixel Tapestry hardware increases memory bandwidth up to 11 GB/sec. Each of the four memory pipelines is capable of handling six textures in a single pass, giving the card a theoretical ability to deliver 2.2 Gtexels/second. Smoothvision: This unique technology implementation eliminates distracting visual artifacts for smoother looking images -- and without seriously compromising performance through the use of anti-aliasing. Users can not only set their AA level for performance or image quality, but they can specify ranges from 2X to 6X AA as well as motion blur and depth of field functions as found in DirectX 8. Hydravision Dual Display Support: Leading-edge dual display support that allows users to connect two similar or different displays to their computer and utilize the displays in a variety of ways. Users can pan their workspace across multiple monitors, create working layers, create various preset environments that can be called on demand depending on the type of monitor use needed, and a wide range of other options. Video Immersion II: Provides an on silicon DVD and TV decoder hardware solution for smooth video playback without relying on additional software layers. This adaptive de-interlacing method, as well as temporal de-interlacing, produces a superior image for motion video on interlaced displays: Computer monitors, for simplicity sake, are non-interlaced devices, while TV style displays are interlaced. Interlaced devices, when connected to an ATI card, have superior image quality thanks to less scan line artifacts. Head to Head, GF3, GF4, and Radeon 8500 Here is a quick comparison of the key features of the Radeon, VisionTek GF3 Ti 200, and GF4 Ti 4600. As you can see, the Radeon 8500 still figures favorably in this pack of current video cards and may be the reason why ATI has not rushed a new chip to market to counter the GeForce 4 from Nvidia. Theoretically the Radeon should be able to beat the GF3 Ti 200 hands down in synthetic and real world benchmarks, while posting numbers that come close to the GeForce 4 Ti 4600.   GeForce3 Ti 200 Radeon 8500 GeForce4 Ti 4600 Core Clock 175 (MHz) 275 (MHz) 300 (MHz) Pixel Pipelines 4 4 4 Peak fill Rate 700 (Mpixels/s) 1100 (Mpixels/s) 1200 (Mpixels/s) Texture Units per Pixel 2 2 2 Peak Fill Rate 1400 (Mtexels/s) 2200 (Mtexels/s) 2400 (Mtexels/s) Memory Clock 400 (MHz) 550 (MHz) 650 (MHz) Memory Bus Width 128 (bits) 128 (bits) 128 (bits) Peak Memory Bandwidth 6.4 (GB/s) 8.8 (GB/s) 10.4 (GB/s)   Installation Installation of the ATI Radeon 8500 is completely straightforward. The documentation is simple to use and guides you through the process of uninstalling your old video card (and drivers) and then installing the new card with the drivers provided by the CD in the box. After two reboots I had the system up and running. As per my norm, I decided to jump right in and fire up a favorite game to get a quick feel for the Radeon and its abilities. After loading Unreal Tournament, the system hung on the introductory movie and I was forced to do a hard reset of the system. This repeated several times on several attempts to launch the game, so I knew something was wrong. Checking the crash and error logs, I discovered that the ATI card suffers a similar problem to Nvidia under MS operating systems called an "Infinite Loop" error. I will be detailing the heart of this problem in a separate article series, but in a nutshell, very little I could do corrected the problem quickly. The only \'quick fix\' I found was reducing the AGP bus speed to 2X, but this is no real solution considering that you have to reduce the performance of your video card artificially to ensure stability. Eventually I corrected my problem and restored 3D stability to my computer through selective hardware and software changes; and although frustrated, I don\'t feel I can yet point a virtual finger at one party and declare them the cause for this issue. Test Computer System Information Operating System: Windows XP Professional - Version 2002 Processor Type: AMD XP 1700 (1433MHZ) with Thermaltake Volcano 7 Heatsink / Fan Physical Memory: 512MB PC133 SDRAM - 2x256MB Kingston Value RAM Motherboard: Jetway 867AS Via KT266 1 AGP 4X, 5 PCI, 2 DDR, 2 SDRAM Hard Drive: Quantum 7200RPM ATA33/66 30GB with 1MB Cache CD-ROM Drive: Creative Labs 52X UDMA 33/66/100 ATAPI with 2MB Cache CD-RW Drive: Lite-On 24x10x40 ATAPI CD-RW w/ 2MB Cache Monitor: 1. Dell / Sony P991 19" 1600x1024 Resolution / 120MHz Max 2. CTX 1765MS 1280 x 768 Resolution / 85MHz Max Pointing Device: Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 Optical USB Keyboard: Microsoft Internet Keyboard (PS2) Network: 3Com 10/100 PCI 3c905c-TX Sound Card: Hercules GameSurround Fortissimo 2 Video Card: Multiple Speakers: Logitech Z-540 4 Point Speakers w/ Subwoofer DirectX Version: DirectX 8.1 Additional Software Installed: Norton Utilities 2002 / Norton Anti-Virus 2002 Quake III v1.17 Unreal Tournament v4.36 Madden 2002 Test Software per the Video Adapter Review Criteria and Methodologies I chose to pit the Radeon 8500 against the GeForce 3 Ti 200 from VisionTek. I feel that in price and overall speed these two cards are comparable since they were both competitors until the recent release of the GeForce 4 lineup. Currently the Ti200 averages around $115 while the Radeon 8500 bottoms out at $124. I will include some raw numbers from the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 as needed to show the disparity between ATI\'s mature lineup and the newer Nvidia line. In variance to the Video Review Criteria for AVault, thanks to the emergence of XP for home users, the image was not reloaded for each video card. Rather a 2MB PCI video card is installed along side all normal hardware and the base \'image\' created with a Roll-Back point made in order to allow a restoration to the previous hardware/drivers after testing either video card. All test software and benchmark utilities, as well as test utilities and patches are loaded prior to the Roll-Back point. Quake III Arena Performance under OpenGL was visually impressive, but another striking fact that came out during testing is that the most recent drivers for the Radeon have improved high resolution, high color depth frame rates. Previously Nvidia cards had performed better in this area on average, but no longer.   Unreal Tournament Again the Radeon outperforms the similarly priced GeForce 3 card. Frame rates are consistent throughout the range of testing, averaging once again over 10+ FPS higher than the Ti200; and the latest drivers keep the performance edge consistent at higher resolutions. Image quality was solid, with no noticeable defects; previous versions of ATI drivers had some texturing issues but this seems to be addressed with the latest version     3DMark 2001 As you can see, the 3DMark 2001 results place the Radeon consistently about 400-500 3DMarks higher in performance across the board. For comparison, the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 from VisionTek has only a 250-350 3DMark edge over the Radeon in informal testing. This ultimately means that the Radeon 8500 is still a solid performer long after its initial release to the market and it will perform well for end users for the foreseeable future. WinBench 99 1.1 As expected, the Radeon outperformed the Ti200 here as well. This means that even with business and desktop applications, as well as graphic utilities, consumers will benefit from having a Radeon on-board.   -- we also Note That The 8500 radeon can be easly Modded Into 9100 With Sample Bios Flash +Better Image  Quality +Better Video Quality +Better Performance For Sure With 128mb The radeon Will Get The Level Of Ti4200 Serie But There Is Only Few One Availble In the Market 2D Performance and Quality: ATI is well known for the quality of its 2D graphics and text on the desktop, and the Radeon continues this long tradition. Text was crisp and clear, and 2D graphics such as those found in older RTS games were fast and clear. Although Nvidia has concentrated a lot of effort in the past few years on improving their performance and quality in this area, ATI is still king in my opinion, though the margin narrows seemingly with each new generation of video cards. Direct3D Performance and Quality: Image quality was excellent in UT. I had expected the gap to be somewhat closer between the two benchmark cards, but the full support for DirectX 8.1 built into the Radeon is telling, keeping its performance once again ahead of the GeForce 3 Ti200. OpenGL Performance and Quality: Once again, frame rates were high and blistering with high quality visuals. ATI still maintains a slight edge over Nvidia due to the absolute quality of their OpenGL imagery and standards support. Imagery was free of any noticeable defects whether in Quake III, Medal of Honor, or Jedi Knight II. Stability was excellent and I never once experienced a crash or problem with OpenGL based games. Dual Monitor Support: I only tested this in a limited fashion as I normally have no need for this feature. Dual monitor support was solid and smooth, and the wide variety of support options for displaying and panning worked well. It compares well with the features found in the latest generation of Nvidia products and matches what was once the sole domain of Matrox. Overall:Good xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source we would be happy to answer for your question . if you have suggestion or comment regarding this review our support would be glad to help just join our forum and ask u will get the best answer to discuss check our forum section :-) RATE THIS REVIEW 1 2 3 4 5    / 5   View Stat

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