Upcoming Interview with ATI's Chris Hook

Zardon

We have another upcoming interview with Chris Hook, ATI's PR manager for integrated and Mobile Products, and as usual id like to open this up to our members or anyone who has a question for one of ATIs top mobile experts.

If you have a question you would like to pose to Chris please just post it in this thread and ill make sure it gets to him !

Optimummind

I heard of VoodooPC and Alienware introducing their own proprietary notebooks where mobile graphics cards can be updated through an AGP-like slot. I think their move is great for gamers who wishes to stick in a more powerful graphics module later down the road. When will such designs and implementations become widespread for notebooks and is ATI doing anything about it to facilitate the process?

blah

Since ATI is a Canadian company and now has an awsome product now, is it going to be more involved in comunity sponsorship ? In more particular www.fragapalooza.com and or www.lanageddon.com.





PS.
Western Canada doesn't see much ATI sponsorship. Although We ran the Nvidia DAWN demo on ATI based demo machine at fragapalooza, just to rub nvidia's nose in it. You would be suprised how many people stoped by our booth.

jcastill

1) Will ATI persuade Dell to release a 9600 for the 8200 and older laptops (the design changed so we can't use it)

2) Some new computers come with very old graphic chipsets (For example Sony PCG-Z1A comes with a Mobility Radeon with 16MB) so what does ATI think about getting new standars for the future (for example tell Sony, Dell and everybody to use newer chips)

3) What can be done by ATI so Catalyst officially supports Mobility chips (as reference drivers)

4) We get the idea of faster=more power=less battery time; what do you think future mobile products will be as we see that top cards need a lot of power to work, so how will future products will handle that.

5) Will there be a time when desktop and mobile products are the same? for example the same day the 9800 was introduced, a 9800 mobile was out with the same performance.

6) When will the 9600 PRO will come out and tell us more info about the way it auto clocks (even faster when possible)

7) The mobile market need a lot of speed because the screen resolutions now are (at least in my case) higher than in my desktop, so the chip need more power to render the scene; and like everybody, we love some AF and FSAA; but it just makes today products display slideshows (unless it's a very old game) what do you think the future will be about that?

8) On my Dell 8200, with a M9, Dell drivers show a higher FSAA maximum resolution than using mod drivers; actually with the mod drivers I can't use FSAA, since my resolution is 1600x1200, why does Dell changes the control panel to allow higher FSAA resolutions...

9) Does ATI help notebook makers with new models and what to offer and recommend which chip to use, or they just ask for the chip and ATI delivers.

Really looking foward this interview, mnobile market is very special and it's been ATI strong arm for a long time.

Hanners

- How closely (if at all) do ATi work with notebook manufacturers to encourage them to update the video drivers they make available for their notebooks on a regular basis? It seems that a lot of companies hardly ever update the ATi drivers they make available.

- Is there likely to be a change in policy regarding ATi supplying reference Mobility drivers to users, particularly in light of how well the modified desktop Catalyst drivers work?

- What are your feelings regarding the Mobility 9600 Pro - Is everything still running to schedule on that front, as we are still yet to see it in any real shape or form.

- What do you feel is the most important target for the future when it comes to mobile chipsets?

ToshiroOC

I've heard the sentiment from many people that they're holding off on buying a desktop replacement laptop until they see Mobility 9600 parts out in force and in reasonably priced laptops. Can you give us any information regarding a timeline for wide scale release of the Mobility 9600 part, along with possibly generic pricing information?

Also, do you see the mobile graphic card market as a whole or just with ATI switching to a standardized interface that would allow for user-installed and user-upgraded laptop videocards any time soon?

digitalwanderer

What were your fave FX jokes and what are the best inter-office jokes about nVidia lately?

Zardon

*sighs, VERY loud*

Davidgt

I second the notebook driver question. Compaq never updates thier drivers!!! once every 8 months it seems MY R9000M needs some driver lovin!!!

Zardon

This question has been answered before and I know the answer indepth, but its a very good question and asked often, ill make sure this one gets to chris so he can answer himself.

Davidgt

Thankyou!! Cause newest drivers on the compaq website arent even cats........

Version: 7.80.3-1.00 D 1/8/2003 that was the last update

digitalwanderer

Honest question, why do so many people react that way when I ask what is I feel a realistic question? Don't you think the folks at nV & ATi don't joke about it a bit?

I wasn't trying to start a flamewar with the question, I was honestly curious.

Davidgt

Will there be any 128 meg mobile options in the near future if so which OEM`s will be supporting that option

Zardon

Of course they do..... But you know what, thats all cool and funny I guess ........ do you think Chris hook seriously wants to take time out to answer that when there are so many interesting issues regarding mobility, ATI products, hardware, drivers and the like? Commenting on another companies failures and behind the scenes jokes dont fall into the professionalism I would expect with ATI, certainly not on a website Q&A interview session.

Then again maybe I think there are more valid questions to be asked.

ok anyone else got questions, this will be closed soon, lets not go offtopic.

bloc

Besides the typical PR answer, that ATi's team is working hard and always finding new ways to optimise/improve our cards for modeling applications like 3dsmax or maya, what are some reasons why ATi's cards don't perform as well as Nvidia cards on those types of applications.

We know ATi cards are the best for games. It's weird that the performance lead doesn't transfer over to modeling apps. What am I missing?

bloc

kcaj

when are we going to see another performance jump in the catalyst drivers as the last few releases have simply been minor bug fixes

demalion

Any chance of a 9600 enabled TabletPC? Perhaps I'm just odd, but I really look forward to running DX 9 screen savers and demos on a mobile unit I plan to use creatively and in many situations. The greater convenience of the TapletPC concept just makes me look forward to it more.

Kilgor

How about when the Radeon Mobility 9100 IGP will be widely available?? When will it be out for laptops and AMD processors? And will there be a DX9 IGP chipset sometime in the next 6 months? Also, do older cards, such as the Radeon 7000 and 7500 receive the same level of attention to drivers as say the Radeon 9xxx series?

Optimummind

If your age is over 23, you need to grow up. If Zardon were to ask that question, what would ATI think of him? Zardon is trying to keep it professional and you're making an ass of yourself. If you do it purposely for whatever reason, you can. You're neither unique or funny in my perspective.

JLP

I'm planing on buying a two notebooks with Linux installed on them. How is your support for this OS and your mobile products? What are your future plans regarding support for your mobile products under Linux? Thanks in advance!

albanc

Could 3D chip makers agree on a standard such as PCMCIA so owners of notebooks could upgrade their 3D adapters : I'm working in the game industry and bought last year a 3000$ Compaq with a Radeon M6 in order to demo my games and my 3D engine to clients. A year after, the 3D adapter is completely outdated while the notbook is still great. I don't want to have to change my whole notebook and spend another 1500$ to get a new 3D chip ! this is crazy !

Removable adapters would be an opportunity for graphic chip makers to sell more 3D chips and for users to keep their notebooks up-to-date for games and other 3d applications.

AT_curiousB

I would like to ask a question regarding this, about to be released, simulator from Microsoft.

I am not sure if this is the right place but, here goes.

It has been posted on various Flightsim boards that the new Flight Simulator suffers from peculiar problems regarding image quality when used on 'puters equipped with ATI Boards, eg, flickering menu pages, fading text, flickering scenery objects.

Are these problems being looked at by ATI, and is it possible that a fix for these issues will be incorporated in the next Catalyst Driver release?

gtforce

ATi refuses developing and providing Stereo drivers. Why ATi is so stubborn?
nVidia has been providing Stereo Drivers for years!

They (I guess) have stereo drivers for professional cards (FireXL?), that use the same chip as Radeon 9xxx series. There are also 3rd pary Stereo Drivers that (kind of) work with Radeon 9xxx series. So, it is doable; why would not they just do it?