ATI Rage

Let me start off by saying that I have long been a fan of ATI. I have been custom-building my computers, and during that entire time, I have been using ATI video cards with Intel chipsets. Why? Well, mostly because it's what I've always used, and also because I've heard bad rumors about how some new games (of the time), in spite of being licensed by nVidia, didn't work so well with nVidia cards. As for the Intel, because its speed was what was listed, not all this "oh, well AMD Mhz are different from Intel Mhz" crap.

In any case, I liked ATI over nVidia because I thought that their chips had better bang for the buck. Whether or not that was the case isn't important. The problem I now have is with a certain tablet I purchased from my local college.

Up until now, I had been buying the parts I wanted off Newegg and assembling them myself. Along with being cheaper, there's something very satisfying about building your computer with your own hands. I suppose it's the same kind of joy a father gets when they look at their child and ponders about how they had been a wad of goo in his balls. However, my need of a tablet (something I couldn't assemble on my own) forced me to go with the Gateway tablets that the college was offering. So far, I've actually not too much trouble, except for its lovely habit of overheating for even the simplest games. I need both a laptop cooling unit AND a high-power desk fan blowing over it at all times.

My real problem is with my graphics display adapter.


Don't get me wrong, the Mobility Radeon HD 2300 works just fine, but in order for it to keep working, it needs updated drivers, right? Well, there's the problem. ATI doesn't have a driver for their own product! Seriously, look:



Now, according to Wikipedia, the Mobility Radeon HD 2300 came around in the second quarter of 2007, which makes sense as that is when the tablets for the university were ordered and assembled. That means that it's been a year. A single year, and ATI has forgotten about their own product. Sure, maybe it was reclassified. Maybe it was under one of the other options in the list, or maybe the drivers were available with the rest of the Radeon drivers. Nope. I tried. The ATI driver installer cheerfully informs me that no ATI products were detected.

Duh...


I'm really not sure who to blame. Although ATI has apparently been nefarious for driver trouble, but I've never hit a bad spot until now. I certainly never noticed a problem before ATI merged with AMD. Since then, the website has been very user unfriendly, and since I have a fair bit of experience with ATI but none with AMD, I'm apt to point my accusing finger at AMD for causing this trouble.

Why did this suddenly become a problem, you ask? Well, I recently got a copy of Mass Effect and have been anxious to try this BEST GAEM EVAH that I have heard about. Also, I hear there are sex scenes. With bare boobs. Didn't games used to get into trouble for this sort of thing? I remember how Indigo Prophesy had to cut nude scenes from the game in order for it to even be released in the USA. What happened? I'm not so certainly I actually like that, to be honest. I like my games and I like my porn, but I don't like them mixed, thank you. It's like taking bacon and ice cream and putting them together.

But I digress. Mass Effect informed me that there were updated versions of my display adapter drivers. Really? Well I sure as hell can't find them! In light of the AMD/ATI website's user-unfriendliness, I decided to email them to ask about the missing drivers.



But, uhoh, I have to register to do so, which requires me to "register my product." That means specifying what it is. Well, seeing as all I've got to specify what my (unlisted) product and what my (unlisted) problem is, this makes for a bit of an awkward situation. Frankly, it's fucking bullshit. Why the hell should I have to play their stupid little games to get support for MY product? It shouldn't require registration! At the most, just enter an email address to contact me when my question is answered and have one of those stupid word scrambles to prove I'm alive.

Additionally, their website brings up a pop-up box every so often if you have been idle, informing you that you have been idle and asking if you want to extend the session time. If you don't respond, it automatically logs you out. Why? It claims for security reasons, but how does someone else seeing how I'm having trouble finding lost drivers put me in a security risk? Again, it could avoid this whole problem by not having registrations in the first place! Just let me make the damn ticket, then let me know when you get back with the answer.

UPDATE: After first automated reply pointed me to a trouble-shooting FAQ area (really, are those ever any good?) and me insisting that I wasn't being properly helped, I got a reply saying that I should download the drivers from my tablet manufacturer's website.

So... ATI is passing the buck to Gateway for drivers pertaining to THEIR product?

I'm buying nVidia from now on.