Reader Interview: ATI's President & COO Dave Orton

Earlier this year we surveyed our Forum Readers and collected a list of questions that you wanted to ask ATI's President & COO Dave Orton.  Well, the responses are in so without further ado here are the responses to the questions you all asked ATI.

We included as many questions as possible and removed redundant questions as well. ATI's responses are in bold

Drivers & Support

We have heard ATI's stance on Windows 2000 drivers time and time again.  What is preventing ATI from releasing drivers that perform properly under Windows 2000?

A. ATI is dedicated to providing solid drivers under Windows® 2000.  We have made great strides in closing the performance gap between Windows® 2000 and Windows® 98.  We will continue to focus on product performance with further optimizations to the Windows® 2000 RADEON™ driver.  

What are ATI's plans regarding Linux drivers for the RADEON, ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON and TV WONDER lines of cards?

Linux drivers are available for the RADEON™.  These are available from 3^rd party Linux/Xfree86 developers. 

The ALL-IN-WONDER® RADEON™ is supported by the GATOS project.  See http://www.linuxvideo.org/gatos/

The TV WONDER™ products are supported from the BTTV project.  See http://www.metzlerbros.de/bttv.html

Information on the latest ATI developments can be found at http://www.ati.com/na/pages/resource_centre/dev_rel/linux.html.

What is ATI's current schedule for public beta driver releases?

A.  ATI is committed to delivering great products for our customers.  We will move to a more regular schedule for public beta driver releases.  We will be announcing this schedule over the next couple of months. 

Public perception in the online gaming communities is still low due to the lack of public feedback from ATI on a number of user issues. Are there any plans to allow a public forum on ATI's Website, or to provide more rapid updates to the online FAQs and Guides to address user comments.

A. We do offer a feedback form on our current website and we do post FAQs and guides to address user comments.  There are several excellent public forums available today on sites such as Rage3D.com and Radeonic.com. 

I know that ATI cannot provide support for "Special Purpose" or leaked drivers.  But would they appreciate feedback from knowledgeable users and forums such as AnandTech to better identify outside issues that could assist in development and release of better official drivers?

A.     There are several forums currently available on sites such as Radeonic.com and Rage3D.com.

Video for Windows support was not included with the RADEON release, rendering unusable many third party utilities that users of ATI products depended on.  It was thought that ATI would provide such support in later driver releases.  Is this planned for the coming unified drivers, or is there some other solution in the works?

A. There is no current plan for Video for Windows® drivers. ATI supports the standards for the PC video industry. The PC video industry is moving to DirectShow® and most of the popular software programs have moved, or are moving away from Video for Windows.  ATI provides comprehensive information (via the Developer Relations section of our web site) to help developers move to WDM/DirectShow, in addition to the Microsoft SDK:

http://www.ati.com/na/pages/resource_centre/dev_rel/atiddwdm.html

http://www.ati.com/na/pages/resource_centre/dev_rel/aiwviddev.html

It has been noted that the beta for ATI MULTIMEDIA CENTER 7.1 has features to save captures as VCD. Does ATI have plans to enter the low-end video recorder market with a product that allows the user to create their own video CDs?

A. We have recognized that consumers want more than just fast graphics.  They want fast graphics merged with video and other forms of media.  Typical desktop computers do more than just play games.  They are multi-media machines.  That’s why we have created ATI® MULTIMEDIA CENTER.  Yes, ATI® MULTIMEDIA CENTER 7.1 includes the ability to capture VideoCD compliant video. We’re seeing a trend towards an increasing public acceptance for VideoCD. We included this feature to enable users to create their own VideoCDs for playback on a consumer DVD player. The customer creates the video with the ATI® MULTIMEDIA CENTER and then uses a CD burning package such as Adaptec Easy CD Creator to make the VideoCD. 

Will MPEG4 support be possibly included for compression/decompression in hardware like MPEG1 and MPEG2 have?

A. We regularly evaluate new video compression standards and codecs for possible support in future releases of the software.

Why is the ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON still not available in Europe?

A.  ALL-IN-WONDER® RADEON™ became available in Europe in the Fall of 2000.

When will there be a (specific) use for that untapped 3rd texture unit?

A. There has been positive feedback from the development community with respect to the 3^rd texture unit.  There are currently many top game titles under development that will take advantage of the 3^rd texture unit.  Expect to see them available by the Christmas 2001 timeframe.