ATI Catalyst 8.2 Analysis - XP

[Comment Bot]

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[alphasingularity]

Not since the 7.7 review have we seen the x1950pro and even farther back (mid 5.x I think) has AGP been seen. Which is really too bad, I think, since there is still many grandfathered systems pulling gamming duty out there. With a slow realease of AGP products hitting the shelves it would be nice to see a x850xt, x1950pro, hd2600xt and hd3850pro review on a P4/A64 system. Alas these are but dreams, I know. However, as a user of an old rig, I must say that this release of drivers has seen the first bump in performance in a long time, albeit a small one.

First for what I'm running:
P4 3.2c @ 3.61 1:1 with 1.5gb OCZ ram (2.5cas)
Abit IC7-max3
Antec TrueBlue 480watt psu
Audigy 2
Sapphire x1950pro AGP (640/1460)
On Xp pro (fully updated)

Only one benchmark here(3 runs averaged):
3dmark06
cat8.1 - 4050 (this was generally the score all the way back to first install with 7.10's)
cat8.2 - 4150

While not benched, Oblivion and Crysis seems to run a little quicker, not much but a little.
Settings:
Obivion: all on high @ 1280x1024 ~35fps
Crysis: all on med and post proc. on high @ 1152x864 ~30fps

So if you are running old stuff, then get this one for sure, just make sure to install the components one at a time, as the self installer seems to bugger up mid install.

[Mr.Tweak]

We would love to cover a full range of systems and GPUs but it's just not physically possible.