When I ran the older NVidia GeForce FX series APG models NVidia had a desktop manager rather then the Catalyst Control Center where you saved your profile and could load that like you would a Windows theme easy enough. The first ATI card was simply spotted on a shelf in a Circuit City of all places while simply browsing what they had then and given a try when looking a 256mb card over a pair of 128s. The performance increase was soon noticed then and I stayed with ATI models since.
With ATI cards the common thing seen is taking one chip or series of chips and using them on the next line up. Like I was saying earlier the 9550 also had the 9600 vpu chip using the same versions of the CCC. But you do end up with a good 45mb or larger download when going for that along with the drivers instead of the drivers only updates.
And then the next lineup comes out and no go with the next CCC for the card you are running like the 9xxx were dumped fast just prior to AMD buying out the original ATI and making some improvements since in that area. Now you are finally able to get a newer catalyst for an older card you thought was long toast without support. The former doa 9xxx series is still foobar while the X1xxx cards have seen newer updates for much longer since the buyout.
|