TeamATI to Provide Live SL Radeon Tuning
by Alphaville Herald on 22/09/07 at 3:37 pm
Staffed Live Help!
by JayR Cela
For the first time ever while visiting the TeamATI advertisland yesterday, I was greeted by an actual person – Tuttle Paster. Tuttle and another TeamATI member, cOOter Toll, gave me some insights of what to look forward to in the next month or so. The really big news is Staffed Live Help. Yes, you did read that correctly. TeamATI Members will be available to assist users in getting their video gear optimally tuned for the SL environment.
Along with live help there will be some unspecified contests featuring random prizes and L$ awards, some live band concerts, as well as some seminars featuring key ATI engineers, programmers, developers, and gamer enthusiasts for Q & A sessions. I learned more about what is coming as I talked to Tuttle and cOOter – and if what they tell me is true, your Radeon dreams may about to become true.
JayR Cela: i have been here a many times and is always empty
Tuttle Paster: We are trying to fix that.. sorry
JayR Cela: you are ATI employee ?
cOOter Toll: well I am a Member of TeamATi, we are Sponsored by AMD/ATI
Tuttle Paster: We work strictly on the gaming side of AMD
JayR Cela: oh kool
Tuttle Paster: Should be a lot different in about a month
JayR Cela: ah what ya got in mind ? if ya don’t mind me asking
Tuttle Paster: we will be doing something different. We are a marketing team for AMD so we get a little more flexibility on things..
JayR Cela: well thats interesting / finally more corps. are actually starting to realize / there has to be a reason for people to want to come to their campus
Tuttle Paster: Exactly…we are gamers… for gamers..we will also be brining in AMD actuals for Q and A
cOOter Toll: and one of the main things we’re working on is a live help area hopefully we can assist people in getting their settings right on their video cards, so SL actually works for them
JayR Cela: oh wow that’s an excellent idea
cOOter Toll: we will be having several events in the coming weeks, we just have a few finishing details to take care of first we want to get our Help area and things like that going first
JayR Cela: ok fantastic
Tuttle Paster: And support the AMD partners as well..
cOOter Toll: If you ever have any questions, feel free to ask anytime
JayR Cela: well I’m glad i stopped by here this evening
Tuttle Paster: Me too
JayR Cela: I think this is exciting news for ATI graphics card user and fan club types as well / especially them
cOOter Toll: we’re trying to make it a place you would like to visit and hang out, and hopefully we can make SL a better place in the process. we are also going to have a lot of events, and free L$ giveaways
JayR Cela: if you all can staff this operation, with pleasant and skilled people, I think there is a darn good chance you will have a winner on your hands. there are lots of ATI users
cOOter Toll: we’re trying…. we will be hiring a few people in SL to do PR for us, we just haven’t worked out all the details as of yet and we are also always looking for new Team Members that fit the Band Of Brothers profile
JayR Cela: ha ha / I have several avatars and a generic name. I can be a Dragon 1 day / a super he-man warrior the next / or a wicked sorceress the following day
cOOter Toll: well I only have time for the one avi…lmao
JayR Cela: thats part of what certain portions of SL can be like sometimes. you can meet all kinds of people
cOOter Toll: isn’t that the truth
JayR Cela: lol / yep
cOOter Toll: but that’s what makes SL so great. without the people this would be a boring place
So if you are an ATI graphics hardware person, it looks as if this will be the place for you. The official web site is http://www.teamati.com/ and once you get the opportunity to meet one of the staff be sure to ask for your official AMD ATI RADEON group tag and keep abreast with all the latest news and events.
Jessica Holyoke
Sep 22nd, 2007
So let me get this straight, there’s an island on SL that will help me get SL to function properly, but wouldn’t I need SL to function properly to go the island?
Inigo Chamerberlin
Sep 22nd, 2007
Not exactly Jessica – there’s evidence of a corporate ‘getting it’ at last. Let’s give them a chance?
For a long time now, largely due to tacit Linden promotion, there’s been this thing about ATI being crap and nVidia being the only way to go in SL.
So, it seems ATI are going to attempt to do something constructive about it – help residents. Something LL isn’t at all interested in doing.
IF ATI can pull this off and actually contribute to SL, while promoting their product of course (but, hey, there’s no such thing as a free lunch) more power to them!
Jessica Holyoke
Sep 22nd, 2007
I think ATI is doing a good thing by staffing a corporate sim. I was just pointing out the irony of having help for people who may have trouble getting onto SL by having a help island in SL.
humanoid
Sep 23rd, 2007
Bah! I’ll wait for the AMD-rewritten linux driver to come out before I drink any more ATI/AMD Cool-aid. The SL linux client is unusable with an ATI X1650/256mb video card because ATI’s 3D drivers stink. My ancient laptop with a GeForce2Go/16mb integrated chipset runs SL faster. That’s just sad. I do hope AMD succeeds in making up for ATI’s years of linux neglect. I’ve had great success with ATI cards in Windows-based systems.
Nacon
Sep 23rd, 2007
No kidding, I am ATI user and I still find it retarded that people still saying Nvidia is the way to go…. because they are hopeless with technical term that they had to work with. Nvidia has a control center where it takes over on it own, applying setting without your permission sometimes. Some people’s Nvidia aren’t doing a good job with the setting for SL.
There’s no such thing as “this videocard is better than this” between ATI and Nvidia, they are the most powerful companies into videocards, fairly equal match. However… I’d say ATI is better because they have good honest service all years long. They don’t go trying to brainwash you into buying their card in some videogame’s intro… like Nvidia’s stupid ads in most EA games.
Now AMD/ATI is here, where’s the hell is Nvidia and Intel? Oh right, they came and left, leaving junks all over MoU’s Sims.
BigJack
Sep 23rd, 2007
Hmmmm, would this comment fit into the “stating the obvious” category?
ATi_Guy[TeamATI]
Sep 23rd, 2007
Thanks for the great comments!
For the Linux driver thing, I can’t really respond since I don’t use it. The number of people using Linux vs. Windows to actually game (rather than serve games or business apps) is very very very very very very very small. Linux people won’t admit to that so I’m sure this is going to inflame several hundred people while the millions of Windows users won’t care.
I can think of no better way to explain the nature of TeamATI and what we’re doing in SL. Yes, AMD sponsors us. No they don’t dictate what we do and what we say nor to they provide us with our opinions. No AMD employee would say what I just said above no matter how true it is.
As far as how AMD “get’s Second Life”… AMD has their own corporate island which is, as far as I can tell, just as popular as virtually every other corporate island. Where AMD is different is that they are allowing a gaming group they have been sponsoring for years to do some really cool stuff for them.
The TeamATI island is TOTALLY a work in progress. We are building and scripting the things that are important to us and the things we think are important to other people. We have a bar and a garage sale and houses. We also have an expo center where you can pop in and learn a little about technology if you want. Our island is where we hang out.
AMD is a business. Second Life is a business. The real reason SL doesn’t have more corporate presence is the fact that it’s almost impossible to make actual real money by being there for anyone other than Linden Labs.
Think about this, there is a significant portion of it that carries over into real life. There really are a lot of real life businesses that have some kind of presence, you can spend real US dollars to get in-game currency and SL just had a convention in Chicago. But when it comes to empowering real business to make real money SL falls completely flat.
It is very rare that a company does something just because it’s fun or cool. But TeamATI is no company. We ar bunch of people who have been gaming together for years and fell into SL the same way most other people have. We learned to build and script by trial and error and reading guides.
Of course we are all AMD fans; we always have been. We had been building our little island for over two months before AMD even found out. I was very glad when they said- hey, this is kind of cool. What are you going to do next?
So now we find ourselves in a position to do more cool stuff like contests and giveaways. If you’ve read this far I’ll give you a little sneak peek into something really cool. We have some info on the next-gen card and will be posting some info about it as well as some contests in which you can win one.
Is that a corporate play at marketing? Of course it is. But remember that AMD is routing it through gamers to gamers in SL. Of all the things they could be doing they think that SL really is important and so does TeamATI.
Melissa Yeuxdoux
Sep 23rd, 2007
I’m with humanoid. Once AMD releases the information needed to write an Open Source driver that can take full advantage of ATI graphics cards and that driver exists, I’ll switch from nVidia so fast your head will spin. Until then, I’m sticking with nVidia, who at least provides a functional driver for Linux.
shockwave yareach
Sep 24th, 2007
When I built my rig, my principle objectives were bloody fast video encoding for home DVDs and good SL performance. Thus I have a X1650Pro card with 512M of ddr3 ram. It has been a good card. But alas, I have to run it with Catalyst 6.2 because every driver update screws up SL. How hard IS it to stick to OpenGL and keep it working, huh?
When ATI/AMD gets rid of OpenGL (like we know you are trying to do) then I’ll no longer be able to run Second Life. I’ll also not be able to run Google Earth, Moray, Nasa Whirlwind, and a couple of games as well. Guess what’ll happen then – I’ll no longer run ATI cards in my computers. If ATI cannot keep OpenGL then I won’t be able to keep ATI. Which is a pity because I’ve run ATI cards since 3dfx went foom.
ATi_Guy[TeamATI]
Sep 25th, 2007
Melissa-
This is a perfect example of what we’re trying to help with. This isn’t a support forum so I don’t want to derail it. Feel free to come by our site or get with us in-game for some help.
I will say that a google search for “second life X1650″ produces no results of anyone having a problem like this in the first ten pages. I popped one into my PC here and ran the game with no issue.
The point is that we will do the best we can to help you figure out what the problem is and get it fixed. When is that last time you asked someone for help and they went as far as to install the card you are using to see if they could recreate the problem you’re having?
ATi_Guy[TeamATI]
Sep 25th, 2007
As for the Linux/OpenGL specific questions, I would refer you to this article: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=821&num=1.
It has some great information.
Justkickzazz Taurog
Sep 27th, 2007
For all those users whining about OpenGL implementation being bad on ATI cards – the exact opposite is true. The ATI compiler at least complies with the rules outlined in the books and does what it is supposed to do (not to mention the quality of the graphics) – whereas NVidida have their noses so deeply up Microsoft’s ‘biological backside’ that they fully concentrate on DirectX and OpenGL is a neglected stepchild. In case you doubt this statements, feel free to visit the ‘folding@home’ forums of Stanford University and read/ask around. They use a graphical client based on the ATI series….
I DO agree that AMD/ATI should finally make the transition of releasing an open source driver for Linux, but I don’t see that happening anytime in the near future as AMD is better in keeping information locked up than the Bank of England in keeping their money *remembers the last release ‘orgy’ of the 2XXX cards*
Lloyd
Sep 19th, 2008
Actually i got 3d exceleration on HIS ATI Raedon x1650 pro 512 in slackware linux with the newer driver of there website GLX gears reports over 5,000 fps so umm yeh the only problem i have w/second life is some time the ground infront of me goes black or light blue but other than that it runs pretty smooth