Radeon 256: Ati enters the player market

…2000: Ati has been the market leader for a long time – but the company will only enter the market for graphics chips that are really suitable for gaming on April 24th: with the Radeon 256. The old Rage chips, repeatedly reheated and in the Rage Fury Maxx even twice on one circuit board soldered, were quite successful, but they never had a real chance against Nvidia’s fresh Geforce series and of course the Voodoo chips from 3dfx. With the first Radeon, previously known under the code name R6, later changed to RV100, Ati finally caught up with the competition: T&L unit, anti-aliasing, two pixel pipelines each with an incredible three texture units, a core clock of up to 183 MHz and initially 32 to 64 MiByte DDR memory – all this puts the new chip within striking distance of the Geforce. Overall, it is considered to be more functional, but slightly slower than the fastest Nvidia chips – Ati will clearly only overtake it with the R300. But even if Ati doesn’t secure the performance crown with the Radeon 256, the manufacturer succeeds in making a remarkable entry into the high-end market, which finally establishes Ati as the third force alongside Nvidia and 3dfx – and ensures that players continue to play after the At the end of the voodoo maker you still have a choice.

Also read our review article on the subject:
• The most important Ati graphics cards: From Rage to Radeon HD 5870
• PCGH review: Development of 3D graphics cards (Part 1)
• PCGH review: Development of 3D graphics cards (part 2)
• PCGH review: Development of 3D graphics cards (part 3)
• PCGH Review: Development of 3D Graphics Cards (Part 4)
• PCGH review: Development of 3D graphics cards (part 5)
• PCGH Review: Development of 3D Graphics Cards (Part 6)

…2007: Conceived by Tolkien, refined by Turbine: On April 24, 2007, the first cheeky level 1 hobbits padded into the vastness of the virtual Shire of The Lord of the Rings Online. The special attraction of LOTRO for fans of films and books lies in the new interpretation of the well-known world. Because in addition to famous areas and characters, the creative minds of the Boston development studio have used the freedom of the template and also designed creatures, characters and lands that are unknown territory even for those familiar with Middle-earth. Coupled with excellently told quests and a multitude of loving details, a unique role-playing world is created.

Two expansions and numerous patches, called “books” in LotRO jargon, later, players cavort in adventurous realms such as the depths of the mines of Moria. Or they brave the horrors of Mirkwood. But LOTRO also offers a lot of motivation away from the adventure: player houses, a living crafting system and legendary weapons that become more powerful together with the characters are just a few examples. Even if The Lord of the Rings Online does not compete with the user numbers of a World of Warcraft, the constant supply of new and well thought-out content as well as the constantly busy server shows that a small but fine alternative to Blizzard’s successful MMO has established itself.

Suitable for Birthday of LOTRO the colleagues from Buffed have published a special.

…2012: Ati, which has belonged to AMD for years, has its sights set not only on the gamer market as a whole, but also on the market for mobile gamers. And for this purpose, namely to accommodate many Radeon GPUs in notebooks, some graphics chips based on the then current Graphics Core Next architecture are being sent into the race. The series is codenamed London, the models Chelsea (HD 7700M), Heathrow (HD 7800M) and Wimbeldon (HD 7900M). The fastest portable GPU uses the Pitcairn XT, which is the desktop equivalent of the Radeon HD 7870 and offers slightly lower clock speeds to reduce power consumption and heat. Accordingly, 1,280 shader ALUs, 80 TMUs, 32 ROPs and a 256-bit wide memory interface with up to 2 GiByte GDDR5 VRAM are provided. Notebook manufacturers can also choose alternatives in terms of size and format, especially when it comes to storage – as always, caution is advised here. For more details, see our GCN Mobile Chip Launch Report.