ATI 4890 + 1.31 = crap

[Jizzyjaz]

Capped at 60 is a strong indication you have vsync on.

What exactly does that do, and is it a bad idea?

[munchkin]

It prevents tearing if the framerates are very high and syncs the framerates with the monitor refresh rate.

It all depends. If you have low framerates it's generally a bad idea to have vsync on because it limits the performance in some cases. If you always have high framerates it can be a good thing to make the graphics look nicer.

[lutorm]

What exactly does that do' date=' and is it a bad idea?[/quote']

Technically, it waits to draw a new frame until the monitor is ready to display it. If your monitor (like most) refreshes at 60Hz, that will cap your framerate at 60. If your computer can't keep a framerate of 60, it'll need two monitor frames to draw one, so you'll see an fps of 60. Basically, the fps will be 60/n where n is an integer. (Though the fps displayed in the game is an average so it won't always be this.)

The advantage, like munchkin says, is that it prevents having the monitor display half of a frame on top and another half on the bottom. The disadvantage is that if your computer can do 40fps, it'll still be 30 because it has to fit with the frame rate.

It's definitely bad when benchmarking, since then you want to know how fast it can possibly render the frames.

[dockhouge]

WHY DO PEOPLE BUY ATI ??????????????

IMHO they were JUNK in the 80's and could never provide the right drivers and they still can't IMHO.

[dkamerad]

WHY DO PEOPLE BUY ATI ??????????????

IMHO they were JUNK in the 80's and could never provide the right drivers and they still can't IMHO.

Because the only game I've ever had a problem with ATI is WWIIOL? Runs everything else just swimmingly. The extent of my driver issues was when My 9800 stopped running under Win2K back in 2005.

But people are probably buying them because $500 build posted on the main page a couple months back said

The Radeon 4850 is a great piece of hardware. We've scrimped and saved to get as much bang for the buck as we can here. I didn't specify a brand for this item as prices and availability are getting very crazy right now in this space. ATi recently introduced their new generation of cards and that makes these increasingly scarce, and incredible buys.

[munchkin]

WHY DO PEOPLE BUY ATI ??????????????

IMHO they were JUNK in the 80's and could never provide the right drivers and they still can't IMHO.

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

I don't know why so many are bashing ATI cards in this forum. I've used them for the last 5 years and never had any problems. I know a lot of others that never have had any issues either. I think it's more of a user problem....