You have not learned very well I am afraid. Examine whatever it is you consider to be your means of learning from experience.
As for knowlegability, I can teach you this: ATI knew about thier driver problems for years and did little or nothing to correct it untill recently. This tells you something about the company. What it tells you, is that the folks at the top in ATI are too interested in trying to keep up with NVIDIA and have great advertising… so much so than they will not spend a dime to put out descent drivers. They are willing to let customers deal with the problems in order to spend thier money and programmers’ time on making a new model card. This kind of company is not one that you want to do business with.
ATI has since quit providing telephone tech support beyond 30 days from purchase. If you have an ATI card and need help, I hope you have another PC so you can do all of the emailing it will take to get help weeks later. Just one more reason to avoid ATI. BTW, if you buy a card with an NVIDIA chipset, you can get phone support from the maker, usually indefinately, whether they are PNY, Gigabyte, or whatever company is the manufacturer of the card.
I personally called ATI telephone tech support to try to resolve the issue of vsync and gamma that frequently changed. I did not know at the time that ATI drivers WOULD NOT vsync regardless of what was tried, and that the gamma issue was a known driver issue. I spoke to both level 1 and a level 2 techs, and also a tech supervisor. They all insisted that the drivers would vsync. The truth is, they would not, and they knew it. Still, they lied to me and kept telling me that the problem must be my monitor, which we have all learned since was thier great lie of an excuse. If they had simply been honest about the drivers being faulty, I might have had respect for them.
I do not respect a company that knowingly lies to their customers to avoid replacements, shipping costs, or any other expense. I have been in customer service/retail management most of my adult life. ATI has neglected two critically important concepts in business by which EVERY SINGLE SUCCESSFUL business that wants to STAY in business operates:
- You must make the customer satisfied, even if it means losing a sale
- You must never lie to the customer.
Packard Bell was bought out and has since dissapeared (once the largest PC sales/maker in the world for several years straight) because they neglected these two concepts. The ex-CEO of Packard Bell himself admitted this in an interview about 3-4 yrs ago.
Another company which pulled the ole “Lie to em to get a buck” scheme is McAfee, who promised tens of thousands of customers free updates for a year to their Office 2000. No such updates were ever available and it pissed off many many people. They would not even respond to customers’ emails on the issue. They simply ignored them altogether. Naturally, I use Norton now, and I am more than very pleased.
I have built 4 PC’s, currently own 2, and have bought 5 video cards, all of differnet brands. I have installed and tinkered with more video drivers than anyone should ever have to. I have also learned to avoid user-made drivers that promise performance increases or bug fixes. I have learned from experience to patronize hardware makers who’s hardware not only provides good performance, but is stable and consistent, and to avoid those that do not. I have also learned to avoid companies that do not make a sincere effort to please me or who lie to me outright. Unless ATI has a new CEO and Board of Directors, I still do not trust them, never will.
Perhaps if you have read this post, you will be more “knowlegable”.
