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About Radeon Enabler...Have you ever wondered why the ATI graphics that came with your Mac, Powerbook or iBook doesn't have the same features available for the retail graphics cards? For years ATI has bundled software with their retail cards that adds features and extra capabilities. This software, known as "ATI Displays," is designed to only recognize and function with the retail versions of their video cards. These additional capabilities are withheld from OEM and onboard ATI graphics owners even though, in most cases, the chipsets are nearly identical.What does it do?Radeon Enabler patches the ATI Displays application to allow it to recognize most OEM and onboard ATI graphics chipsets. Once recognized, additional features are "unlocked" and will function as if you have a retail card.Please note that hardware dependent features such as "Versavision" and "TV-Out" will not function for OEM or onboard chipsets. They lack the hardware support needed for these functions. Why did you make Radeon Enabler?Until recently, the extra features available for the retail card were mostly focused on the parts of the cards that were legitimately different. For example TVout. The OEM cards lack the hardware to produce TVout. With the release of Radeon Displays 4.1 for the Radeon 9800 Pro, ATI added a capability called "OpenGL Overrides." This enables the user to utilize 3D options like FSAA in games that don't natively support that function. When Radeon Displays 4.1 was released, promises were made that a subsequent release of version 4.2 would add support for "other Radeon cards." While never directly committing, it was strongly implied that this next release would include OEM support.Well, it didn't. If there was a good reason to withhold this feature then that would be one thing. But this is not the case. The retail Radeons have the same graphics cores as the OEM versions. There is no technical reason to deny OEM card owners these capabilities. So out of frustration, I set out to solve this inequity. The result is Radeon Enabler. Beyond the obvious benefits to non-Retail ATI graphics owners, hopefully there's a long term benefit to Radeon Enabler for all Mac users. Maybe ATI will pay attention and see that their customers really do want more features and capabilities from their graphics cards. Perhaps the thousands of people that have downloaded Radeon Enabler will help convince ATI that they need to see beyond their faulty marketing strategy and focus on supporting their customers with the best products possible, at reasonable prices. You might ask, "What if ATI includes support for OEM, Mobilty and onboard chipsets in some future release. Won't that make Radeon Enabler obsolete?" Yes! That's the point and I hope that someday it happens. If ATI supported their customers, there wouldn't need to be software like Radeon Enabler. |
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