Announced in Aug. 1998, the company still hadn't shipped its next-generation graphics card in late Jan. What's going on?
Touted as "the world's fastest graphics accelerator" when it was announced in August 1998, the Rage 128 chip at the heart of the Rage Fury created a stir in the graphics world, with its promise of unsurpassed 2D performance and 3D acceleration. But where is it? The Computer Paper asked ATI for a status update. Here's the response, from Raymond Spencer, a technician at ATI Technologies Inc. head office in Thornhill, Ontario.
TCP: Are there any "official release" drivers for the Rage 128 yet? If not, what are the latest drivers? I was looking in the BETA section, where there were, as of Jan. 25th, three versions. Which one is the recommended driver for testing?
ATI: drivers from [beta] cd 59 which are the most up-to-date drivers that have been tested. These are not release drivers.
TCP: Is the Rage Fury shipping yet? Are there any Rage 128-based PC products shipping?
ATI: Not quite yet.
TCP: Does it support the ISA based "ATI-TV"? (I couldn't get it to work, despite the fact that the ATI website says "ATI-TV can be used with several different ATI graphics products.")
ATI: The RAGE FURY card will support the ATI-TV product but requires an updated ATIPlayer application. We are working on this software application and it will be available soon.
TCP: Is support for this device planned?
ATI: Yes as above.
TCP: I notice that, as of Jan. 27, the beta section of the ATI FTP site no longer has the following Rage 128 driver directories:
ATI: Please see the site again as it was update yesterday. I will pass the questions on which I have not answered yet and let you know when I know.
TCP: What is the status of these items? Are NT drivers available? Will DVD Player and NT driver ship with the Rage Fury? Will it have a Windows 95 driver? If so, where are these drivers now and what is their status?
ATI: The updates on the ftp site now include the NT4.0 drivers [as of 7 pm EST on Jan. 29, this was not true - Ed.]. The Win9x drivers are for Win98 and Win95. These drivers will all be in the shipping product. The DVD player is scheduled to ship in the box but due to certification issues, we may initially offer a coupon.
Addendum: ATI finally shipped the Rage Fury in late February. Read our hands-on test report.
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