ATi vs. nVidia

[O(V)eGA_l2el)]

I have heard that the upcoming Catalyst 4.x drivers are going to be geared towards the XT series of cards(which is great for me); ATI cards have great DirectX support, but what about the current OpenGL support?

[Eva_Unit_0]

OpenGL doesn't seem very active lately...take a look at all the big releases recently. They all use directx. (for the shaders, I'm guessing) The last big OpenGL engine was the Quake III engine, if I recall correctly, which ANY current card can blow through no problem. My old Radeon 7500 could run Jedi Knight II everything max at 1280x1024.

[Guest Ballz2TheWallz]

lol but there are stil games that prefer nvidia cards.ive been faithful to nvidia but they rushed out the fx series way to fast they should have used there time to perfect drivers

[bigred]

it's not a matter of prefecting the drivers. the core of the chip is the problem. it's not flawed persay. it's just not correctly designed. and trust me, you think the performance diff between nvidia and ati is bad in HL2. it's just as bad in Doom III. after trying out a 5900 ultra in Doom III and then a 9800 pro 128mb on the SAME rig, that 5900 ultra was retired from my uses, and sent on it's way to my friend to be ebay'd off. Until nvidia replaces the FX chips, no driver release is going to save them... cuz everytime they make a step forward in drivers to counteract ATI, ATI strikes back with even better drivers. the tides have turned on nvidia, and time will tell if they can turn them back.

[Some_Guy_]

I'm still an nVidia fan, but that's because my last ATI card (a 7000) didn't impress me much. Maybe it was just the drivers, but I didn't like the way it stuttered in GTA3.

 

I bought a 9000 Pro, had exactly the same problem. Possibly just the drivers. I was so disgusted that I returned it, and wrote as the reason "Hate it."

 

My GF3, on the other hand, has never let me down. I can play any game I have (or trial versions of new games that I don't own for that matter) at 1024x768x32 bit at full quality settings, with no problems at all. No slowdowns, no stutters. I get decent 3d2001marks as well. (6750 range with PC in sig)

 

For a while (actaully before the 7000) I had a GF4 MX420. Good card, decent benchmarks, but it didn't support hardware DVD decoding. At the time I was using my PC as a DVD player, connected to the TV. I wanted hardware decompression, so I eBay'ed it and get the 7000, which I found was good for 2-d but not so good for 3-d.

 

Just my experience, and why I'm still an nVidia fan.

[RVE]

Homeworld 2 uses OpenGL and that game looks awesome on my 5900.

 

Still I find all these "Look at the HL2 benchmarks!" posts kinda borked...It's like running benchamrks on Longhorn and saying "OMG! It's worse than Windows XP!"

 

The product isn't even out yet, you can't exactly take these HL2 benchmarks as the absolute true outcome. Sure, we all know Valve and ATi are all on eachothers jocks, of course HL2 will run better on an ATi card. Once Valve comes out with an official benchmark method rather than some leaked version of the game being tested, than I'll take those official benchmark numbers more seriously.

 

Back to OpenGL for a second: With Homeworld 2, crank up all those details and zoom in close on your battlecruisers and all those ships, the detail and graphics are awesome! Sure OpenGL is getting kind of old while we wait for OpenGL 2, but it can still produce great looking games and provide good performance as well.

 

For me personally, I've never played the original Half-Life, and never played CS, sure HL2 looks awesome on footage I've seen so far, but I'm more excited about the graphics engine rather than the game.

 

With my recent upgrade for X-Mas, went from my old Geforce 3 to the eVga 5900SE, and the upgrade is amazing. And for all you "SE" haters, SE in this case does not mean gimped. Still has the 256-bit and not 128 like the 5700's or the 9600's. Has the same 400mhz core as 5900's, and just has lower memory clocks at 700mhz. It came with full retail version of Call of Duty, and was priced total under $200. Was like $201.18 with tax and free shipping from NewEgg. Now I can crank up the res on the games I play and turn up the AA and AF. SWG looks awesome with 4xAA and 8xAF and runs smooth also. Halo doesn't support AA but with AA off I can keep the res cranked up. It was an awesome deal for under $200.

 

Basically my point with the last paragraph was that sure ATi makes a better performing card with the 9800's, but that doesn't mean nVidia's cards are crap either. Sure a Ferrari may be fast as hell, but it doesn't mean a Ford Mustang sucks because it's slower than the Ferrari.

 

Besides, by the time HL 2 and Doom 3 come out, ATI and nVidia will probably be close to cranking out the next best thing. Those R400's or whatever the number is will probably run HL2 a helluva lot better than 9800's, and the next core nVidia makes will probably erase some of the bad design decisions of the current core.

 

But believe what you will, I'm not saying ATi sux in any shape or form, I'm just saying just because nVidia might not have the fastest card in the world doesn't mean that they suck. Just like Jamal Lewis, the running back for the Balitmore Ravens, sure he didn't break Eric Dickerson's single season rushing record, doesn't mean he sucks just because he's not in 1st place, he still kicked .!

[Agallion]

i still love my ti 4600..holds strong

[bigred]

first off, ATI was the first to come up with a hardware dvd decoder built into thier chips (all the way back to the old 64bit rage pro turbo). secondly thier tv output has always been better than nvidia.

 

and finally a radeon 9000 vs a geforce 3 is not a fair fight. the 9000 was built by ati to run against the MX cards, not the higher end card. it's a stripped down 8500 (more so than the 8500LE). the 9100 and 9200 got a better memory controller to make up for the short comings of the 9000 and made a dramatic improvement to it.

[LobbDogg]

I'm still an nVidia fan, but that's because my last ATI card (a 7000) didn't impress me much. Maybe it was just the drivers, but I didn't like the way it stuttered in GTA3.

a 7000? No wonder why it stuttered, it was the lowest end card from ATI at the time, and GTA 3 did require a bit of horsepower.

[dling]

was at " toms hardware guide " it seems that the ati cards fair better in most of their test then do the nvidia cards, overall . i have had, both, and now use the ati

R 9800 pro. " i vote ATI"

[Neural Interface]

my first real cards were Gforce 2 400 and Gforce 4 420, and they were good for there time but ATI has won this round (generation) of cards but lets see what the future holds, hopefully Nvidia comes good next time becuase that is only for us the consumer, lower prices and better cards B)

[c0ld]

,Jan 1 2004, 11:10 PM] hopefully Nvidia comes good next time becuase that is only for us the consumer, lower prices and better cards

ATi cards were cheaper then nVidia cards last time I checked.