ATI's OpenGL Problem

I recently ran into this problem with my new Aspire 5102WLMi notebook. I thought it was a motherboard bios problem, but after further examination and research it's looking like this issue is larger than Acer. The problem is more thoroughly analyzed here: http://fixthe200m.wordpress.com/

The gist of the situation is that ATI graphics systems based on the X300 GPU (including Xpress 200m/1100/1150) may perform at unthinkable levels of craptacity in OpenGL applications, including Kotor, Savage, the Quake series, and the Unreal Tournament games (when set to render in OpenGL mode).

What kind of crapacity are we talking about? Think 2 frames per second in 3DMark. 4-8 fps in Savage. Etc.

How do I know these games aren't just too much for my hardware? Because I can run UT2004 in Direct3D mode at an amazingly smooth framerate with all detail levels and features maxed out, but if I set it to render via OpenGL I can't even aim with all options set to minimums. (OpenGL is faster for many graphics cards.) The problem seems to be present for ANY OpenGL application.

I'm posting this here because I wonder how widespread this problem is, and if anyone has been able to fix it. If this is only true for a limited number of these cards, it would be worthwhile to harass Acer and get a new laptop (hopefully with a working card). But if everyone has this issue, then all of these cards are defective and swapping for another one is just a waste of time.

Anybody else have this experience?

 

Welcome to ATI sucking Though those framerates don't sound right, this is a press release done by a company I used to work for, and am still good friends with the owners/developers:

http://3dnature.com/ati.html

To be fair, ATI has fixed the issues outlined above with later drivers, but thay may or may not help you.

I don't think it'd be worthwhile to harass Acer, as the only recourse is a completely different card model. It's almost certainly not just a specific run of chips. If your card runs D3D well, there's nothing physically wrong with it. So, either return the laptop and get something with an NVIDIA card, or just deal with it, unfortunately. You could be having driver issues, so make sure you use the latest Omega's drivers and see if those fix anything.

 

I can't return it. Unfortunately, I didn't happen to run an OpenGL app in the first 30 days of owning the computer. I guess the lesson there is to immediately run every benchmark and diagnosis tool you can get your hands on on every new piece of hardware you ever buy, the very same day you buy it if possible. Be your own quality control. Because if anything gets past you during the returnable time period, you're stuck with it... even if you do have a warranty and even if it is defective hardware. What are warranties good for again?

 

Well, you could make a case to Asus, you just won't be able to replace just the card. As a 200m, it's not even a card, it's integrated into the motherboard. You'd have to argue to return the whole laptop and get another, different one more than likely, as all the laptops in that line will have the same cards. Period.

Best bet is upgrading the drivers, seeing if it'll work. If not, then your only recourse is returning it as defective hardware and getting a different laptop, which is a major pain in the rear.

 

The site I linked to has an extensive list of drivers and versions of drivers that have been tried and did not resolve the problem.

I've been on the phone with Acer once already about this, but I'm going to have to reinstall Windows XP MCE (instead of Pro) because that was the original OS and they refuse to even talk to me about the problem until I put it back in factory condition. Given their attitude thus far, I'm betting an exchange for a completely different model is going to be difficult to pull off.

 

There is not much Acer can do about it except release a BIOS/Video Firmware update. But in order for that to happen Acer has to collect data and forward it to the OEM who actually makes the motherboard. Laptop technology evolves so quickly that manufacturers usually never release updates once a specific model is over a few months old.

Personally, I raised holy hell with HP over the 200m's OpenGL, opening trouble ticket after trouble ticket, but those pleas and complaints ultimately fell on deaf ears. ATI knew of this problem which is why Xpress 200m support was pulled from the Catalyst drivers starting with 6.2 through 6.5

The only way I see this ever being fixed, or even directly addressed, is to get some techie website (like Toms or Sharky Extreme) to do an expose on the issue and place pressure on ATI/laptop manufacturers to finally do something about it. The problem with that is... nobody from any of those places has replied to any of my emails so far.

 

ATI's problems with OpenGL go up and down their entire product lineup, from high-end desktop cards, all the way down to the lowest integrated chips. Lousy performance, buggy gamma correction, you name it, it's there. And it's been broken for a long time.

The only ATI card I've owned that game reasonable OpenGL performance was an X1900 XTX. Even then, lesser NVIDIA cards I've owned have absolutely destroyed the Radeon in this area.

 

I've never been really impressed by the performance of ATI cards, but I've never seen anything as sad as this. If this kind of thing is somewhat normal for ATI, I have to wonder how they're still around.

The first thing I bought from ATI was a Rage card back in the day, and even then they had general performance issues. That card was 10 steps backwards from the aging Diamond Stealth I bought it to replace. I decided then to stay away from their products, and used Nvidia cards for a long time, but I got a laptop for Christmas with a Radeon 7500 (not my choice) and again was disappointed coming from a GeForce2. Later my dad bought an All-in-Wonder that he's still having driver-related problems with. And yet, despite all these bad experiences, I bought a new laptop with ATI graphics just because of a great price tag. I guess I just don't learn. I kept telling myself that their cards can't all be bad and that I just hadn't had good luck in the past.

But these X300 OpenGL problems are much worse than anything else ATI has done. I won't be biting at the hook again.

 

Except that they actually run Doom 3 and the like really well with updated drivers. So well they for a while managed to dislodge NVidia as the best performer in that (OpenGL-based, NVidia-optimized) game.

Their OpenGL support has improved drasticall in the last year or two. Apparently that doesn't include the 200m though.