Radeon 8500 real world performance?

While Dave Henrie is being a torture test guinea pig vis a vis nvidia products I thought I'd ask to RAS population at large what the general experience is with ATI's Radeon 8500 and all our favourite sims... N4, NR2002, GPL, F1 2001, et al. I was leaning toward buying a Ti200 but Dave's experience is telling me look elsewhere. Any info appreciated. Regards, Robin

IMO, Dave's experience is not the norm with nVidia products. -- Biz "Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and,......things with molecular structures,....and the....." - Ash Robin <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:KU_g8.77689$[email hidden]... > While Dave Henrie is being a torture test guinea pig vis a vis nvidia > products I thought I'd ask to RAS population at large what the general > experience is with ATI's Radeon 8500 and all our favourite sims... N4, > NR2002, GPL, F1 2001, et al. I was leaning toward buying a Ti200 but Dave's > experience is telling me look elsewhere. Any info appreciated. > Regards, > Robin > >

"Biz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Ll5h8.16264$[email hidden]... > IMO, Dave's experience is not the norm with nVidia products. > -- > Biz From what I went through with both my GF2 MX and GF2 Pro, Dave's experience is exactly the norm. I'm not fond of having to switch drivers to switch games, if you follow, and it seemed I NEVER found an Nvidia driver that worked well with everything I wanted to run. I don't have an 8500(yet)but in about 8 mos of Radeon 64 DDR VIVO ownership, I've only touched the drivers once- and it runs everything I want it to well. With the Radeon Tweaker program you can do just about anything you want with the card. I don't know how fat it is in comparison to other cards- and I don't care. I know GPL stays pegged at 36 fps, and I run NR2002 online at 55+ fps all the time- and the card has yet to give me any trouble at all. Yep, that's a ringing endorsement :) As usual, your mileage may vary. Scott Moore The Pits Touring Car Championship http://www.theuspits.com

"Scott Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> > "Biz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:Ll5h8.16264$[email hidden]... > > IMO, Dave's experience is not the norm with nVidia products. > > -- > > Biz > > From what I went through with both my GF2 MX and GF2 Pro, Dave's

experience > is exactly the norm. I'm not fond of having to switch drivers to switch > games, if you follow, and it seemed I NEVER found an Nvidia driver that > worked well with everything I wanted to run. > I don't have an 8500(yet)but in about 8 mos of Radeon 64 DDR VIVOownership, > I've only touched the drivers once- and it runs everything I want it to > well. With the Radeon Tweaker program you can do just about anything you > want with the card. > > I don't know how fat it is in comparison to other cards- and I don't care.I > know GPL stays pegged at 36 fps, and I run NR2002 online at 55+ fps allthe

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> time- and the card has yet to give me any trouble at all. > > Yep, that's a ringing endorsement :) > As usual, your mileage may vary. > > Scott Moore > The Pits Touring Car Championship > http://www.theuspits.com > >

I've found the same things repeated again and again in the digging I've been doing... seems that the people with the Nvidia based cards have almost come to accept that there will be driver fiddling if you want to run a variety of games. I know that you only see the complaints on ng's and forums but there does seem to be a lot of people who have to fight with the drivers to get that screaming performance out of the Nvidia based cards. I have seen very little reference to fighting with ATI drivers in comparison but I have also seen little reference to performance levels with regards to the 8500 as well... that was why I started the thread, hoping to get some kind of a yard stick to measure the card by performance wise. Regards, Robin

Robin wrote:

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> While Dave Henrie is being a torture test guinea pig vis a vis nvidia > products I thought I'd ask to RAS population at large what the general > experience is with ATI's Radeon 8500 and all our favourite sims... N4, > NR2002, GPL, F1 2001, et al. I was leaning toward buying a Ti200 but > Dave's experience is telling me look elsewhere. Any info appreciated. > Regards, > Robin

I have the R8500 and have played all the sims you list except GPL. I do have GPL, just haven't installed it recently. It works really well on all the other sims you list execept that in OpenGL mode in N4 I noticed the mirror would look disjointed from the frame of the mirror. No matter because I only play N2002 now and D3D is the way to go for that sim. If you get the R8500 it is best to run beta drivers because the official drivers are a bit more buggy (big problem for FS2002). I still don't think ATI has the drivers performing where they should be and to be honest I liked my Hercules GF3 Ti 200 better overall. Only probelm withn that card was that on WinXP I would get the "infinite loop" error while the R8500 gives me no such trouble. But I'm back to Win98 now so should have kept it. I had to set my bios to use 128mb AGP aperature with R8500 or else I would get graphics glitches and poor performance. ATI is aware of this problem so it's not my PC, as I'm sure somone will jump in here and say. I bought Heavy Gear2 from the bargain bin one day and found on the R8500 the hud overlays were solid instead of being semi-transparent, tried it on a GF2 and the hud overlays were fine. Needles to say this makes the game unpolayable on the R8500 because you can't read the text behind the overlays which you need to give all your wingman commnads. I've tried many variation of drivers and it is always the same. I will give kudos to the R8500 for spectacular 2D display though. It's a toss up really, but I think I would rather have a GF3 on Win98 because I know it performs better in the real world even if the R8500 performs better in 3DMark.

With my 8500 I find OpenGL much better than D3D. Higher FPS and seems more stable. "Barry Lyndon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Robin wrote: > > > While Dave Henrie is being a torture test guinea pig vis a vis nvidia > > products I thought I'd ask to RAS population at large what the general > > experience is with ATI's Radeon 8500 and all our favourite sims... N4, > > NR2002, GPL, F1 2001, et al. I was leaning toward buying a Ti200 but > > Dave's experience is telling me look elsewhere. Any info appreciated. > > Regards, > > Robin > > I have the R8500 and have played all the sims you list except GPL. I do > have GPL, just haven't installed it recently. It works really well on all > the other sims you list execept that in OpenGL mode in N4 I noticed the > mirror would look disjointed from the frame of the mirror. No matter > because I only play N2002 now and D3D is the way to go for that sim. If

you

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> get the R8500 it is best to run beta drivers because the official drivers > are a bit more buggy (big problem for FS2002). I still don't think ATI has > the drivers performing where they should be and to be honest I liked my > Hercules GF3 Ti 200 better overall. Only probelm withn that card was that > on WinXP I would get the "infinite loop" error while the R8500 gives me no > such trouble. But I'm back to Win98 now so should have kept it. I had to > set my bios to use 128mb AGP aperature with R8500 or else I would get > graphics glitches and poor performance. ATI is aware of this problem so > it's not my PC, as I'm sure somone will jump in here and say. I bought > Heavy Gear2 from the bargain bin one day and found on the R8500 the hud > overlays were solid instead of being semi-transparent, tried it on a GF2 > and the hud overlays were fine. Needles to say this makes the game > unpolayable on the R8500 because you can't read the text behind the > overlays which you need to give all your wingman commnads. I've tried many > variation of drivers and it is always the same. I will give kudos to the > R8500 for spectacular 2D display though. It's a toss up really, but I

think > I would rather have a GF3 on Win98 because I know it performs better inthe > real world even if the R8500 performs better in 3DMark. >

Sorry I should have said in my experience with my GF2 MX400 and GF3 Ti200 cards. Not IMO, apologies to Dave. I read the posts about nVidia driver problems and assume I must just be on another planet, I have yet to have any problems, nada, zero...course I know how much some of you guys like to bash anything and everything that YOU can't get working. -- Biz "Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and,......things with molecular structures,....and the....." - Ash Scott Moore <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > > "Biz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:Ll5h8.16264$[email hidden]... > > IMO, Dave's experience is not the norm with nVidia products. > > -- > > Biz > > From what I went through with both my GF2 MX and GF2 Pro, Dave's experience > is exactly the norm. I'm not fond of having to switch drivers to switch > games, if you follow, and it seemed I NEVER found an Nvidia driver that > worked well with everything I wanted to run. > I don't have an 8500(yet)but in about 8 mos of Radeon 64 DDR VIVO ownership, > I've only touched the drivers once- and it runs everything I want it to > well. With the Radeon Tweaker program you can do just about anything you > want with the card. > > I don't know how fat it is in comparison to other cards- and I don't care. I > know GPL stays pegged at 36 fps, and I run NR2002 online at 55+ fps all the > time- and the card has yet to give me any trouble at all. > > Yep, that's a ringing endorsement :) > As usual, your mileage may vary. > > Scott Moore > The Pits Touring Car Championship > http://www.theuspits.com > > > >

Yeah there isn't much fighting with ATI drivers, Either the one you have works or it don't, there is no other options. I have had ATI cards in the past and there was at best 2 drivers to choose from, the offical and specail purpose. If eithr one don't work hope and pray someday they might release a new one. I admit the Nvidia drivers can be a hassle to get working, but at least you have options. In my personaly experance the only real issues I have had have been with F12001. All other titles I wn have ran its just a matter of how fast. I kinda of like having new drivers come out and pick up some speed. It helps make thoose huge investments hold up longer. Im not either for or against ATI just pointing out another point of view. MadDAWG.

"Barry Lyndon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Robin wrote: > > > While Dave Henrie is being a torture test guinea pig vis a vis nvidia > > products I thought I'd ask to RAS population at large what the general > > experience is with ATI's Radeon 8500 and all our favourite sims... N4, > > NR2002, GPL, F1 2001, et al. I was leaning toward buying a Ti200 but > > Dave's experience is telling me look elsewhere. Any info appreciated. > > Regards, > > Robin > > I have the R8500 and have played all the sims you list except GPL. I do > have GPL, just haven't installed it recently. It works really well on all > the other sims you list execept that in OpenGL mode in N4 I noticed the > mirror would look disjointed from the frame of the mirror. No matter > because I only play N2002 now and D3D is the way to go for that sim. If

you

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> get the R8500 it is best to run beta drivers because the official drivers > are a bit more buggy (big problem for FS2002). I still don't think ATI has > the drivers performing where they should be and to be honest I liked my > Hercules GF3 Ti 200 better overall. Only probelm withn that card was that > on WinXP I would get the "infinite loop" error while the R8500 gives me no > such trouble. But I'm back to Win98 now so should have kept it. I had to > set my bios to use 128mb AGP aperature with R8500 or else I would get > graphics glitches and poor performance. ATI is aware of this problem so > it's not my PC, as I'm sure somone will jump in here and say. I bought > Heavy Gear2 from the bargain bin one day and found on the R8500 the hud > overlays were solid instead of being semi-transparent, tried it on a GF2 > and the hud overlays were fine. Needles to say this makes the game > unpolayable on the R8500 because you can't read the text behind the > overlays which you need to give all your wingman commnads. I've tried many > variation of drivers and it is always the same. I will give kudos to the > R8500 for spectacular 2D display though. It's a toss up really, but I

think > I would rather have a GF3 on Win98 because I know it performs better inthe > real world even if the R8500 performs better in 3DMark. > Have you tried F1 2001 with your R8500? I have a R8500 Retail, and I get horizontal lines while in the menu screens for this game. I returned my R8500 for another one thinking the card was defective, and my second R8500 does the same thing, but much less than my first R8500. I sometimes get these lines while in Windows XP, but I really notice them in F1 2001. Really odd, I've tried every driver that's available, but no luck. If I can't resolve it, the place that sold me my R8500 will exchange it for a GeForce 3. I'll be giving the new 6043 drivers a try tonight. System: CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1700 Motherboard: EPoX 8KHA+ Memory: DDR DIMM 266Mhz 512M (No ECC) Hard Disk: 60gig Western Digital 7200rpm Floppy Drive: High Density 1.44 3 1/2 Video Card: ATI Radeon 8500 (Retail version) Monitor: 19" NEC Accusync AS95F Soundcard: SoundBlaster Audigy OEM Thanks, Steve

You'll find the Radeon 8500 is faster than the Ti200. There have been a lot of beta drivers released lately, but most of them are good going all the way back to the ones packaged with the card. The 8500 I'm testing plays very well in all the games you mentioned. You've got about 4 days to get one for $139 at Best Buy. They're 189 less a $50 rebate. For that price, the card is hard to beat. -- Slot Tweaks & Reviews www.slottweak.com "Robin" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:KU_g8.77689$[email hidden]... > While Dave Henrie is being a torture test guinea pig vis a vis nvidia > products I thought I'd ask to RAS population at large what the general > experience is with ATI's Radeon 8500 and all our favourite sims... N4, > NR2002, GPL, F1 2001, et al. I was leaning toward buying a Ti200 but Dave's > experience is telling me look elsewhere. Any info appreciated. > Regards, > Robin > >

23.11 and never had to switch a driver to run any program. I think its just the person behind the PC. <VBG> Stick with ATI, its slower and thus less dangerous. LOL -- Scott B. Husted ICQ# 4395450 http://www.Husted.cc "Scott Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > > "Biz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:Ll5h8.16264$[email hidden]... > > IMO, Dave's experience is not the norm with nVidia products. > > -- > > Biz > > From what I went through with both my GF2 MX and GF2 Pro, Dave's experience > is exactly the norm. I'm not fond of having to switch drivers to switch > games, if you follow, and it seemed I NEVER found an Nvidia driver that > worked well with everything I wanted to run. > I don't have an 8500(yet)but in about 8 mos of Radeon 64 DDR VIVO ownership, > I've only touched the drivers once- and it runs everything I want it to > well. With the Radeon Tweaker program you can do just about anything you > want with the card. > > I don't know how fat it is in comparison to other cards- and I don't care. I > know GPL stays pegged at 36 fps, and I run NR2002 online at 55+ fps all the > time- and the card has yet to give me any trouble at all. > > Yep, that's a ringing endorsement :) > As usual, your mileage may vary. > > Scott Moore > The Pits Touring Car Championship > http://www.theuspits.com > > > >

Yup, a whole lot slower.... http://gamershq.madonion.com/hardware/halloffame/ 'nuff said. Scott B. Husted <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> 23.11 and never had to switch a driver to run any program. I think its > just the person behind the PC. <VBG> > > Stick with ATI, its slower and thus less dangerous. LOL > > -- > Scott B. Husted > ICQ# 4395450 > http://www.Husted.cc > > > "Scott Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > > > > "Biz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > > news:Ll5h8.16264$[email hidden]... > > > IMO, Dave's experience is not the norm with nVidia products. > > > -- > > > Biz > > > > From what I went through with both my GF2 MX and GF2 Pro, Dave's > experience > > is exactly the norm. I'm not fond of having to switch drivers to switch > > games, if you follow, and it seemed I NEVER found an Nvidia driver that > > worked well with everything I wanted to run. > > I don't have an 8500(yet)but in about 8 mos of Radeon 64 DDR VIVO > ownership, > > I've only touched the drivers once- and it runs everything I want it to > > well. With the Radeon Tweaker program you can do just about anything you > > want with the card. > > > > I don't know how fat it is in comparison to other cards- and I don't

care.

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> I > > know GPL stays pegged at 36 fps, and I run NR2002 online at 55+ fps all > the > > time- and the card has yet to give me any trouble at all. > > > > Yep, that's a ringing endorsement :) > > As usual, your mileage may vary. > > > > Scott Moore > > The Pits Touring Car Championship > > http://www.theuspits.com > > > > > > > > > > >

"Schooner" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:HC8h8.26005$[email hidden]... > With my 8500 I find OpenGL much better than D3D. Higher FPS and seemsmore > stable. In N4 yes, not in N2002 though. And there is the mirror problem in N4 in OpenGL, not a game killer, but annoying still.

"Steve" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:mf9h8.32050$[email hidden]... > Have you tried F1 2001 with your R8500? I have a R8500 Retail, and I get > horizontal lines while in the menu screens for this game. I returned my > R8500 for another one thinking the card was defective, and my second R8500 > does the same thing, but much less than my first R8500. I sometimes get > these lines while in Windows XP, but I really notice them in F1 2001.Really > odd, I've tried every driver that's available, but no luck. If I can't > resolve it, the place that sold me my R8500 will exchange it for a GeForce > 3. I'll be giving the new 6043 drivers a try tonight. I don't have any such prooblem in F12001 on an R8500, that's under both WinXP and Win98. Might be an incompatibility with your motherboard or a bios setting you have. Try a different AGP aperature and/or turning off fast writes. If it can't be solved, then by all means get the GF3.

"GTX_SlotCar" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Pr9h8.2871$[email hidden]... > You'll find the Radeon 8500 is faster than the Ti200. There have been alot > of beta drivers released lately, but most of them are good going all theway > back to the ones packaged with the card. The drivers that shipped with the card were crap. No working Smoothvision and if you ever saw MS FS2002 on those drivers you would agree with me.

Not sure what you are talking about. There is a constant flow of beta drivers available for download for the Radeon/8500 at www.rage3d.com. There is on average a new beta driver every 2-3 weeks. -Tim "MadDAWG" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > Yeah there isn't much fighting with ATI drivers, Either the one you have > works or it don't, there is no other options. I have had ATI cards in the > past and there was at best 2 drivers to choose from, the offical andspecail > purpose. If eithr one don't work hope and pray someday they might releasea > new one. I admit the Nvidia drivers can be a hassle to get working, but at > least you have options. In my personaly experance the only real issues I > have had have been with F12001. All other titles I wn have ran its just a > matter of how fast. I kinda of like having new drivers come out and pickup > some speed. It helps make thoose huge investments hold up longer. Im not > either for or against ATI just pointing out another point of view. > > MadDAWG. > >

I noticed the higher fps in OpenGL on NR2002 but the graphics are not quite as clear as they are in D3D. -Tim "Schooner" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:HC8h8.26005$[email hidden]... > With my 8500 I find OpenGL much better than D3D. Higher FPS and seemsmore

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> stable. > > "Barry Lyndon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > > Robin wrote: > > > > > While Dave Henrie is being a torture test guinea pig vis a vis nvidia > > > products I thought I'd ask to RAS population at large what the general > > > experience is with ATI's Radeon 8500 and all our favourite sims... N4, > > > NR2002, GPL, F1 2001, et al. I was leaning toward buying a Ti200 but > > > Dave's experience is telling me look elsewhere. Any info appreciated. > > > Regards, > > > Robin > > > > I have the R8500 and have played all the sims you list except GPL. I do > > have GPL, just haven't installed it recently. It works really well on

all > > the other sims you list execept that in OpenGL mode in N4 I noticed the > > mirror would look disjointed from the frame of the mirror. No matter > > because I only play N2002 now and D3D is the way to go for that sim. If > you > > get the R8500 it is best to run beta drivers because the officialdrivers > > are a bit more buggy (big problem for FS2002). I still don't think ATIhas > > the drivers performing where they should be and to be honest I liked my > > Hercules GF3 Ti 200 better overall. Only probelm withn that card wasthat > > on WinXP I would get the "infinite loop" error while the R8500 gives meno

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> > such trouble. But I'm back to Win98 now so should have kept it. I had to > > set my bios to use 128mb AGP aperature with R8500 or else I would get > > graphics glitches and poor performance. ATI is aware of this problem so > > it's not my PC, as I'm sure somone will jump in here and say. I bought > > Heavy Gear2 from the bargain bin one day and found on the R8500 the hud > > overlays were solid instead of being semi-transparent, tried it on a GF2 > > and the hud overlays were fine. Needles to say this makes the game > > unpolayable on the R8500 because you can't read the text behind the > > overlays which you need to give all your wingman commnads. I've tried

many

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> > variation of drivers and it is always the same. I will give kudos to the > > R8500 for spectacular 2D display though. It's a toss up really, but I > think > > I would rather have a GF3 on Win98 because I know it performs better in > the > > real world even if the R8500 performs better in 3DMark. > > > >

"Robin" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<KU_g8.77689$[email hidden]>... > While Dave Henrie is being a torture test guinea pig vis a vis nvidia > products I thought I'd ask to RAS population at large what the general > experience is with ATI's Radeon 8500 and all our favourite sims... N4, > NR2002, GPL, F1 2001, et al. I was leaning toward buying a Ti200 but Dave's > experience is telling me look elsewhere. Any info appreciated. Get a Geforce 3 Ti200. As far as drivers go, the 23.11's came out several months ago, are still the newest available through official means (nvidia.com) and work flawlessly with every game I use them with. For race-sim reference, I play F1 2001, Grand Prix Legends, Nascar 4/2002, and Rally Trophy with full details at 1280x1024x16 and minimal slowdown, and this is on a Windows 98 machine that hasn't been formatted or optimized in a long time. I have noticed some bugginess in F1 2001, but I've put that down to lazy coding on ISI's part (great game, but tons of bugs), especially since it was a patch to their software, not a driver upgrade, which fixed the initial problem with Nvidia cards. Everything else I play is great, including Operation Flashpoint, Medal of Honor, various sports games, etc. Haven't had a single problem on older stuff like Thief, Quake, Hexen 2, etc either. Come to think of it, in 20 years of owning a computer, F1 2001 is the only game I've ever had a technical problem with, so take ppl's complaints about Nvidia/F1 2001 with a grain of salt. I have never owned an 8500 so I can't make a performance judgement, but it does seem like it was released about a year before it should have been if the never-quite-stable state of their drivers is an indication. Jason

So its faster on a 1gig machine. Scaling. Then again, the ATI drivers are probably not registered for faster than that speed. ;) -- Scott B. Husted ICQ# 4395450 http://www.Husted.cc "Scott Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:i4fh8.39785$[email hidden]... > Yup, a whole lot slower.... > > http://gamershq.madonion.com/hardware/halloffame/ > > 'nuff said. > > > Scott B. Husted <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:[email hidden]... > > 23.11 and never had to switch a driver to run any program. I think its > > just the person behind the PC. <VBG> > > > > Stick with ATI, its slower and thus less dangerous. LOL > > > > -- > > Scott B. Husted > > ICQ# 4395450 > > http://www.Husted.cc > > > > > > "Scott Moore" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > > news:[email hidden]... > > > > > > "Biz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > > > news:Ll5h8.16264$[email hidden]... > > > > IMO, Dave's experience is not the norm with nVidia products. > > > > -- > > > > Biz > > > > > > From what I went through with both my GF2 MX and GF2 Pro, Dave's > > experience > > > is exactly the norm. I'm not fond of having to switch drivers to switch > > > games, if you follow, and it seemed I NEVER found an Nvidia driver that > > > worked well with everything I wanted to run. > > > I don't have an 8500(yet)but in about 8 mos of Radeon 64 DDR VIVO > > ownership, > > > I've only touched the drivers once- and it runs everything I want it to > > > well. With the Radeon Tweaker program you can do just about anything you > > > want with the card. > > > > > > I don't know how fat it is in comparison to other cards- and I don't > care. > > I > > > know GPL stays pegged at 36 fps, and I run NR2002 online at 55+ fps all > > the > > > time- and the card has yet to give me any trouble at all. > > > > > > Yep, that's a ringing endorsement :) > > > As usual, your mileage may vary. > > > > > > Scott Moore > > > The Pits Touring Car Championship > > > http://www.theuspits.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >