Radeon Drivers

[elbaid]

Can any Radeon users comment on their recent drivers?
I've predominantly used nvidia since my first pc and only once used a radeon card. I found their drivers to be a joke compared to nvidia's and it took a lot of work to get anti-aliasing working in some games. But I've seen some good bargains recently, particularly the 7850 2GB card which seems great for the price.
I may give radeon another chance if their drivers have improved over the last few years, can any body recommend them over nvidia?

Thanks for reading

[c12038]

12.8 are working for me on a HD6850 stable no problems

[kalniel]

Yes, definitely. The new AMD drivers are vastly improved and have taken the lead from nVidia in several ways (I run computers with both). If it comes down to a decision based on drivers I'd definitely go AMD, especially if you're wanting to up image quality (they have some great AA modes including automatic negative LOD clamping so you get fantastic quality).

[scaryjim]

I had an odd issue with ... 12.4, I think it was - certain polygons and textures suddenly stopped rendering in Skyrim. Mind, that was on HD4200 integrated graphics, and it's the only issue I've seen in years (since the old NWN shiny water issue!). I've also built several PCs for friends recently with AMD graphics and they haven't reported any issues to me (and believe me, they're the kind of friends who would complain ).

[elbaid]

glad to hear they've improved, I may go for AMD unless nvidia can compete with the price. i love the physx effects in the batman games, but not sure of many other games that use it, and certainly not to the extent that batman does, i believe you can't even turn fog on with an AMD card!

[Phage]

automatic negative LOD clamping.

[kalniel]

Twisted

[elbaid]

ok i bought an xfx hd 7870 which is a very nice card, but no ambient occlusion in the control center! i forgot that was exclusive to nvidia... oh well

[Zak33]

you know, I have no idea if I've ever missed out on Ambient Occlusion when I've chosen a card?...
In fact I've never really known when to benefit from that particular light manipulation.

Maybe I'm missing summit, but it's unlikely

[elbaid]

Most new games have the option built in. I do remember forcing it in dragon age on an nvidia card and would love to do the same with the new radeon. The effect has quite polarized opinions, but personally if I can maintain decent performance I'll always use it

[kalniel]

I prefer the AMD exclusive image quality enhancements to be honest. I like the ambient occlusion effect on the nVidia based computer in the rare game where it applies it just right, but that's few and far between. The clamping I mentioned above works on any game that takes AA however - I'm a stickler for sharp textures and good AA modes. Would love nVidia to have that too.

[elbaid]

I'm not aware of clamping, I'll check it out