New Omega Drivers for Win9x/ME v2.4.44 (07-07-02)

***Omegadrive*** · Jul 8, 2002, 09:14 AM

What's new?

* Based on the Catalyst drivers by ATI.
* Added some new settings to increase image quality.
* Fixed the problem with 7500 cards not working correctly.

Download and enjoy!

http://www.omegacorner.com

Dyre Straits · Jul 8, 2002, 10:21 AM

I'm heading to the downloads now.

Dyre Straits

Jul 8, 2002, 07:28 PM

mmmm which is better these or the omega/plutonium drivers? Its a nice change for us radeon users to be able to choose between three sets of decent drivers.

Jul 8, 2002, 07:42 PM

k im a dumbass, ignore that last post. Omega/plutonium is for xp and 2k, these arent.

Dyre Straits · Jul 8, 2002, 09:44 PM

Did I do something wrong during the installation?

My Device Manager, Display Adapter is showing: Radeon 7200/Radeon(Omega 2.4.39)
BUT, Properties/Driver/Driver File Details is showing: 4.13.01.9044

I did notice that the version conflict warning is different, so, maybe I entered the wrong answer during installation???

Dyre Straits

EDIT: I just went through a 'clean' install after setting my Adapter to Standard PCI VGA. This time I answered, No, to all those version conflict warnings. It did NOT change the above details at all.

Rayder · Jul 9, 2002, 02:06 AM

Dyre Straits, I get the same thing in those device listings.

For me, the drivers corrected a FEW problems(graphic corruptions, fog in GTA3, regained compatibility for some games). But, I have encountered some new ones. With the original Catalyst drivers, I've lost a few resolution selections in 32bit color mode in some games. Anything over 1152x864 in NFS: Porshe and in Test Drive 6 is gone. With the Omega drivers the limitiation in 32 bit dropped to 800x600 and in some cases carried into the 16bit color settings. The 2 games I mentioned are the only ones to exibit this glitch that I have found so far.

Omega's scored about 100 points less in 3DMark2001se than the 2.1 Catalyst's, but we all know that Omega doesn't make 'em for benchmarks

.

So, other than the resolution thing(which started with the 2.1 Catalysts), these new Omega drivers for win9x seem pretty good.

OH!!! And the problem with Rollcage2(Death Track Racing

) killing ALL 3D acceleration upon exiting the game still exists(XP setups don't do this). This was also something that started with the 2.1 Catalyst's(and any other drivers released since, leaks or otherwise) and is only fixed by rebooting the PC.

I also upgraded from a 7200 64DDR to an 8500 128DDR resulting in a significant increase in performance!

From about 3800(on the 7200) to about 7600(with the 8500 128DDR) in 3Dmark2001se.

Dyre Straits · Jul 9, 2002, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rayder
Dyre Straits, I get the same thing in those device listings.

............................................
I also upgraded from a 7200 64DDR to an 8500 128DDR resulting in a significant increase in performance! From about 3800(on the 7200) to about 7600(with the 8500 128DDR) in 3Dmark2001se.

Is that the All in Wonder 8500? I saw one today at CompUSA. I HAVE to have video capture capability.

Dyre Straits

***Omegadrive*** · Jul 9, 2002, 09:06 AM

BIG: OOPS!!!

Forgot to change the name in the device manager

, but they STILL 2.4.44, so don't worry, just a cosmetic bug...

Dyre Straits · Jul 9, 2002, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Omegadrive
BIG: OOPS!!!
Forgot to change the name in the device manager , but they STILL 2.4.44, so don't worry, just a cosmetic bug...

That's what I figured after I did the 'clean' install and got the same result. Guess we'll catch up on the next go around, right?

Dyre Straits

kbleft · Jul 9, 2002, 11:26 AM

So, are these generally better than the regular catalyst drivers or 9043s? Any outstanding problems?

I have been told that OGL color depth is "broken" in the catalyst drivers for Win98 so that everything is stuck on 16bit. Is this true, and is it the same for omega's drivers?

Thanks

Rayder · Jul 9, 2002, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dyre Straits
Is that the All in Wonder 8500? I saw one today at CompUSA. I HAVE to have video capture capability.

Dyre Straits

No, it's just the regular ATI 8500 128DDR. The AIW 8500 will FORCE you into WinXP(no 98 support), and I'm still with Win98se for now(I have a brand new XP cd but.....). I got the card from CompUSA for $199.99. I'll kinda miss the video-capture abilities a little, but I could just get a TV Wonder or something to get that feature.

Or go to the XP machine here to do any video capturing, it's got a AIW 8500 64DDR

BTW, I couldn't believe it!! With the 8500 128DDR and the 9039 drivers, I got 7619 in 3DMark2k1, with the 9043's I got 7531, with the 9016 ancient drivers, I got a 7719, go figure. Fill rate and point sprites came up a little low, but everything else was faster. All results were using the default test settings and 24bit Z-buffer in Win98se. This card flies!!

Rayder · Jul 9, 2002, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by kbleft
So, are these generally better than the regular catalyst drivers or 9043s? Any outstanding problems?

I have been told that OGL color depth is "broken" in the catalyst drivers for Win98 so that everything is stuck on 16bit. Is this true, and is it the same for omega's drivers?

Thanks

D3D seems to be more broken with resolution settings than OpenGL. With OpenGL I was able to set res and color to anything that I want.

With the Omega drivers for Win98, I had even MORE problems with D3D res & color though the problems were only with certain games(NFS: Porsche, Test Drive 6) than with the 2.1 Catalyst's.
OpenGL seemed to be just fine, but I only have a couple of them to try(4x4EVO2, GTA3, Heavy Metal FAKK 2, Wizardry 8).

Dyre Straits · Jul 9, 2002, 12:54 PM

That's all I've had time for any playing and I played it for about 3 hours last night with NO problems at all. That game is one beaut of program.

The rest of my time on the computer I've been making CD copies of my grandson's birth (Born on the 4th of JULY!) and my older son's wedding (July 6th) and making VCD of the video.

I love my CD Burner, my RADEON 64 DDR VIVO....and the ability to put these things together in a 'near' professional manner.

Dyre Straits

kbleft · Jul 9, 2002, 05:57 PM

I just installed the newest omegas (2.4.44) and here are my results/difficulties/concerns:

1) on first boot after successful installation, my 16bit and 32bit color settings were reversed. After the drivers installed, my desktop was set at 640x480 @ 16bit. First I changed it to 1024x768, which went ok, then I changed to 32bit color. That resulted in a lot of color banding in my background picture, which was 32bit. Oddly, the color banding went away if I set it to 16bit. For the most part, the settings went back to normal after another reboot. The effect carried over to 3DMark. This was repeatable on a reinstall of the drivers: same reversed settings for one boot.

2) 32bit color display was not crisp. After the second reboot, which solved the problem with the reversed settings, my 32bit color desktop was no longer (color) banded. On the contrary, I would describe it as fuzzy. Specifically, colors blended well, but they seemed to bleed just a little between regions, as if the picture went through a filter to decrease sharpness. You could also say that it looked like the picture was being dithered from 32bit to something slightly lower. Again, there was no banding, so any dithering would have to have been very accurate, but the picture did not look smooth; instead, it looked fuzzy like a picture in newsprint (made of small dots). I could not tell if there was any effect in games or benches since I couldn't think of a good demo for the problem.

Related question: is it possible (or is it a feature) for a graphics card (radeon8500) to dither images to lower color depth? Perhaps in response to information gathered from the monitor when SmartGart runs? I ask because some LCD's are specified to display 24bit color dithered to 18bit (they can display a 24bit picture accurately if dithered to 18bit color). Is it possible that SmartGart thinks my monitor needs this?

3) Drivers use the old-fashioned control panel.

4) LOD slider defaults to "fuzzy". I noticed this and wondered if it was the cause of my fuzziness problem. I changed it to sharp, and as I expected, it had no effect on my background display, but it resulted in some color banding in OGL demos. This strengthens my belief that the drivers were dithering the image in some way. In other words, I think the 8500 was using an incomplete color space and dithering between similar colors to make it look complete. Then, when the LOD slider was set to sharp, dithering was reduced and banding appeared. (Just a theory.)

5) 3DMark2001 locked up in the title screen before dragothic. Not repeatable.

All of the above issues were resolved by reinstalling the 9043 leaked drivers.

Mcrobrewer · Jul 9, 2002, 08:19 PM

I noticed the old style control panels as well???

Am I missing anything by using the old control panels???

I did not notice any other problems that the previous poster has with regards to 16/32 bit color...