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Review: ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition
By Mike
Published: 1/7/2005

Intro/Photos | 2D/Video Performance | 3D Performance | Game Performance | Control Panel

ATI's Control Panel Features - 3D/GL Overrides

3D Panel:
This panel has options to add custom game profiles (performance/quality/FSAA/Filtering settings, etc.) for specific games, even those that do not have options to enable options like FSAA. I've mirrored a copy of the Caveats/notes on specific game issues below taken from the ATI Displays readme file.
(BTW: Recent ATI Displays versions (like 4.4.2) enabled this option even for OEM Radeon models. Previously it was only enabled for retail cards so we used a reader's Radeon Enabler (no longer online) patch for OEM cards.)

3D/GL overrrides

The above screenshot shows a "Unique" profile I created for Quake3 via the "add" button, which pops up a file browser where you select the game app location. Then you can select specific performance/quality options that will be used automatically when that game is run.


GL overrides options

The above screen shows some of the standard profile options you can select either as-is (with their default settings) or create your own "unique" profile with the game-specific settings you prefer.

The next section has a list of known issues with some specific games that's included in the ATI Displays readme.


3D/GL Override Caveats: (from the ATI readme file)
The following is a list of games that have been tested and noted to have a problem using ATI Displays' 3D Overrides. The problems are being investigated and ATI will work with the developers to address these and other issues as they are discovered.

Game Severity Problem Solution
Most Severe Problems
Links CE Unplayable Game hangs with VSync ON Disable VSync
Links CE Unplayable Game screen appears black with Multi-sampling FSAA Use Super-sampling FSAA

Sim City 4

Unplayable Game runs extremely slowly with FSAA enabled Disable FSAA
Tennis Critters Unplayable Multi-sampling FSAA causes black regions on menu screen and game is all black except for cursor Use Super-sampling FSAA
Minor Problems
Dungeon Siege    Annoyance Auto-Save screen appears grey instead of frozen action scene when Multi-sampling enabled Use Super-sampling or ignore (does not affect in-game graphics, playability nor performance). A patch for this title is expected from the publisher.
Links CE Annoyance FSAA causes distortion when moving mouse over the swing meter or over menu option buttons Disable FSAA
Myst 3 Exile Annoyance In-game movies are slow and chunky with Super-sampling FSAA Use Multi-sampling FSAA
Return to Castle Wolfenstein Annoyance

Moving between movies/game/menus and loading multiplayer maps sometimes causes a full screen flash of white or yellow with Multi-sampling FSAA enabled

Use Super-sampling or ignore (does not affect in-game graphics, playability nor performance)
Sim Theme Park Annoyance FSAA causes splash screen not to clear during Feral/BullFrog movies (should be black bars) Disable FSAA or ignore (does not affect game play).
Tiger Woods 2003 Annoyance

Background may turn black when hitting ball using 3-Click method using Mutlisampling FSAA (swing meter still renders)

Use Super-sampling or do not use 3-Click swing method. A patch for this title is expected from the publisher.
Tony Hawk 3 Annoyance White edge around skater's shadow using FSAA and Anisotropic Filtering Disable FSAA and AF
GL Options Have No Effect
CroMag Rally GL Overrides have no effect on game
Diablo II GL Overrides have no effect on game
Otto Matic GL Overrides have no effect on game
Spyhunter Application cannot be selected from file dialog. Mac OS' file dialog does not see the Spyhunter file as an application Changing the game file's Application type to "APPL" will allow file dialogs to identify it as a valid application. From a terminal: "SetFile -t APPL filename.app" - requires DevTools be installed or Resorcerer may be used instead.



Index of Mac X800 XT Review

Intro/Photos | 2D/Video Performance | 3D Performance | Game Performance| Control Panel

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