I finally got a Radeon 9700 Pro, and fortunately have not had any installation or compatibility issues. I do have some performance concerns however, but I'm not sure how well founded they are.
To start, my 3DMark2001/03 scores are pretty well in line (11009 and 4378 respectively), but in many cases, actual game performance is less than I expected. All OpenGL games I've tried run silky smooth (>80 fps) at high res and with 4x FSAA and 16x AF. UT2003 also runs quite well, usually at around 90 or so fps in-game.
Now here's the problem: Dungeon Siege, Unreal II, and Rainbow Six: Splinter Cell, all run at relatively poor performance levels. DS and Unreal II usually hover around 30-40 fps and Splinter Cell usually around 20-30, sometimes dropping into the teens! This all at 1024x768 with no FSAA or AF! Can anyone with any of these games and a R9700PRO attest to this kind of performance, especially Splinter Cell?
I tried both the Catalyst 3.1 and 3.2 drivers, made sure fast writes were disabled, and updated the VIA 4-in-1s. I have a hard time believing that an Athlon 1800+ with a Radeon 9700 PRO and 512MB of RAM should be producing this dismal performance.
