February 22, 2002

Some time ago, I posted a news item about ATI Radeon 8500 cards, and how I was disappointed by their performance when compared to GeForce3's. I knew it was a driver problem -- on the paper, ATI's card has better hardware than the GeForce. But I just couldn't understand how Kyodai Mahjongg, with Background Cube and Realistic Tiles enabled, could run twice slower than a normal GeForce3. After I posted the message, I received comments from ATI fans and NVidia fans, and since I didn't want to start a war between the two sides (I like everybody, I'm cute :o)), I removed my comments from this page. Well, today I want to discuss about it, because the problem is no more. I downloaded Beta Drivers 6043 for Windows XP, ran Kyodai Mahjongg, and it just looks magnificent, running twice faster than it used to. I'm really excited about how fast these drivers are ! Now I can't wait for the GeForce4, then the Radeon 9500, then the GeForce5, then the Radeon 10500... Oops, I'm a bit too fast myself now...