New Radeon64 owner with questions about drivers and N4

[denttech]

Getting a Radeon next week. I plan on running N4 only! After installing the drivers off the packaged CD, will N4 run OK? I have a Dell PentII 450 and 256 RAM. I'm also getting SB Live X-Gamer card as well. What drivers should I use for this game to run well? I'm looking for good framerates with most if not all the goodies ON in N4. PS I'll be upgarding CPU in a month or 2.
Thanks Jim M

[Guibs]

well I would suggest NOT to download the driver which come with the card. They are far too old.

I think you have 2 option

1) download and install the officiel 7075 drivers from Ati website (www.ati.com). they are the fastest driver I tried on my radeon to date

2) Download the beta driver 7099 from www.rage3d.com, main page, top-right corner). They are the latest beta drivers. They are a little slower than the 7075 but they do solve some of the problem people had in many games.

I guess you can try the 7075 and seeif they work well with N4. If you experience some issues with N4 and the 7075 drivers, install the 7099, that should fix most issue out there. It did for me but not for N4 since I don't have the game.

As for the X-gamer, download and install LiveWire 3 from www.sblive.com

[Commish]

7075's work the best for me with N4, other versions of drivers gave me issues from getting knocked back to the desktop, to missing numbers from the cars. I haven't had any of that with this version, it actually runs pretty well on my system, PIII 533EB, 128 ram, Radeon 32ddr, PCI 512, 98se. I average anywhere from 25-50 fps depending on where on the track I am and if there is a heavy duty multiple car crash. Good luck and happy racing.

[Itchiee]

And I say use the 7093's..
http://support.ati.com/drivers/winme...137093_sp.html

They are the best (In my Opinion) drivers that ATI has made yet..I can run ANYTHING and not have a problem..If your going X-Gamer get the X-Gamer5.1 ..As it has newer drivers & more features..And only a few dollars more..Good luck..
Any questions.. [email protected]

['69 Cooper S]

The 7075's would be my suggestion too. I also have had good luck with the 7041's. I tried the 7089's last night and didn't like them. I found the image quality to my eye to not be as good as the 7075's. I haven't yet tried the 7093's or 7099's.

Don't expect to see screaming frame rates with Nascar4 with a lowly PII 450! It ain't going to happen! Sorry :-(

I have as you can see from my sig a PIII450, 256mb, SBLV and a Radeon 64mb OEM O/Ced to 183. With world view set to about 50 to 60%, Car detail at medium or high, 50% draw ahead, everything like reflections, etc, turned on running in OpenGL at 1158 X 768 I get, under racing conditions with 17 cars draw ahead, no mirror on only between 15 - 24FPS Average! When there is a multi car pile up FPS drops to 4 -9FPS!! Hardly enough to control the wheel, let alone actually be able to race!

Nascar 4 is a resource hog! I have not seen much of a difference whether I run it at 800 X 600 with nothing turned on or run it at 1600 X 1200 with everything turned on! You need, in my opinion at least a kick butt processor, fast pipelines and lots of ram, not to mention a fast vid card.

Good luck.

[denttech]

Thanks for the reply! I run N4 with NO mirror, 26 cars, not too much eye candy but still get 20-30 FPS, but it also dips down in heavy traffic. I'm hoping with the Radeon card and more RAm and a faster CPU I can get most if not all details on and get the same FPS.
I'll get the 7075 drivers and the 7099 drivers and for the SB Live X-gamer(which I believe is the 5.1 version) the latest drivers. But I'm saving all your suggestions in case I need them.
Thanks again,
Jim