My System:
1.3GHz AMD Athlon
512MB's 266MHz DDR SDRAM
3DMark2001SE benches:
Geforce3 6443
Radeon 9500 8614
Software 9700 9801
With the Radeon 9500 (3.3ns memory) there is a short pause in display after I close down any 3D application. Not after shutting down out of a 3D display mode, but out of a 3D application. 3DMark can play all its benchmarks and go back to windows, but when I press its close X I get a short pause in all display.
With the Software tweak to 9700 I do get purple checkerboarding, which is very disappointing. However, I get it in the oddest places, such as bitmap images or low contrast textures. In some games it's not there at all, in others it's all over the place. It seems to be only on certain textures and only certain colors in textures. I get the impression that certain colors in the textures become transparent and this checkerboard is behind them, much like Photoshop's transparency.
Also, in the first half of the 3DMark tests there were no checkerboards at all. It's as if they started to appear as the card began to warm up. Half way through the Nature Game 4 demo is when they first appeared. And they NEVER appeared in a single test that actually used the 8 software enabled pipelines, such as the fill rate test.
With it's 3 display outs and dual monitor support this is a very nice card to have, even at just 9500 levels. However, when faster is possible it's hard to be satisfied. But it's also much quieter than my Geforce3, almost NO fan noise.
I'm wondering if there is a way to fix this or if I should pay the 15% restocking fee and shipping to try a different 9500 from newegg.com. I don't know if it's worth another $30 and 5 days to risk that I might get an 8 pipe friendly card.
Comments, suggestions, laments...
iddqd, tell me how it goes with you. If you get a good card from newegg.com then that might make me more inclined to try exchanging it.
