Graphics cards

[Mephistroth]

Alright, voting time, Do you perfer ATI, Nvidia, or other. My brother it getting an Nvidia 5200 FX for his new comp, and amazingly it only costs about 78$ with 128mb. Is this because the FX cards suck, or are they aactually good, but not as good as the Ti cards, which cost more.... (I want to get an Radeon 9500 pro, cause I ehard they were good, anyone want to give me some enlightment here?)

[WickedDeus]

FX sucks.

[ObnoxiousFrog]

Word

[Condrah]

....ok i dont get it....do u want us to vote for the card we prefer or the card we using...it say which card u using but u just said which card do u prefer....hmm
already voted for Nvidia but I would like ATI 9800 =p

[Mephistroth]

I meant perfer, but it doesnt really matter, anyway, does anyone know if 9500 pro has TV out?

[air_head1]

i would assume yes but u would have to confirm that with someone else

[2coasts]

nvidia, best support, there always releasing new drivers

[j03y]

im usin the ati radeon 9500 pro and it does have tv out. i hooked up a 27" to it the other day. the quality isnt nearly as good as u'll get from a pc monitor.
but, id prefer the ati all in wonder, if i had $450 to piss away...

[Delirare]

go back 1year in time, maybe a year and a half. And you'd see the vote percentages something like 90% Nvidia 10% ati

now look at it.. sigh

stupid ati n00bs. Good hardware + bad drivers = bad product. learn it.

FX 5200 Ultras are very affordable amazingly. Perfromance wise their not that wonderful for new stuff, but they can do well. They really shine when you turn on FSAA or Ani.Filtering. Comparible to a ti 4200 until you turn fsaa/aa on, then it blows them away. I also think it has non matured drivers, so give it a few weeks yet

[vawlk]

The ATI drivers have been fine since the 8500 came out. I hear people complain about the nvidia drivers just as much nowadays. The ArtX guys at ATI know their shit and it's not like it used to be.

I use both NV and ATI and they are just about equal IMO as far as drivers go. I prefer ATI because their image quality is better in 2D and 3D.

[TekDragon]

"stupid ati n00bs. Good hardware + bad drivers = bad product. learn it."

If you think ATI is still releasing bad drivers then YOUR the only n00b here.

ATI has grown tremendously over the past years. Theyve been producing better and better cards with great tech support. After following them in hardware reviews I finally decided to make the switch when they released the 9700. All i can say is: wow :) Not only was the 9700 a HUGE advance over the ti4600, but from what i read it also (barely) beats the NV30. Ive played my Radeon 9700Pro on dozens of games and the only problems ive gotten were XP related.

Nvidia needs to pull it together and realize theyve got some heavy competition. Putting out small upgrades every 6 months aint gonna cut it anymore. If they dont start doing some serious R&D upgrades ATI is gonna leave them in the dust.

Now all we need is to get the "n00bs" (*points at Delirare*) to start doing their research instead of spouting some junk they heard over the forums a few years ago.

[Squeeky]

For future reference, This should have been posted in "The Lounge" since it does not pertain to PlanetSide.

[Delirare]

oh i do my research, and i used to be an ati fanboi. had the first release of the first radeon 64, had a radeon 7500, and a radeon 8500. All had very lackluster drivers, and were in a word, shit. I kept thinking the drivers will mature since its good hardware, and itll all come around and they'll be good cards. But the drivers never came around. They still arent here. Go play a variaty of games and you'll see what i mean. Half the games you play with a radeon need massive amounts of tweaking to run properly. Its ridiculous. The late Geforces and now the FX's dont have any of these issues, the only stuff to complain about with the nvidia drivers is their nview stuff, and i personally have never had a problem with that. So while i sit here happily with my ti4400 and i watch my neighbor struggling along with his radeon 9500 ill sit back and remember i told him not to buy that pile of shit.

And maybe you need to go read the hardware sites more often, not ones that are paid off by the companies either. You'll see that some benchmarks like the 3dmark series favor the Radeons heavily because ATi focused on optimizing their drivers for the benchmarks instead of focusing on making their drivers better with performance and compatibility. Ati has a history of doing this to. Its like cheating on a test. Pathetic. Mobo manufacters do the same shit, they'll up their default fsb speed by a few mhz so it outperforms others in benchmarks so they get a higher rating. ATi is better then they were, but I still see countless problems with them, maybe in another generation or two they'll become satisfactory.

[Seabass03]

I hate to say this but these belong in the tech forum. :)

[Timormi]

I'll second that seabass

[WickedDeus]

Originally posted by Delirare
oh i do my research, and i used to be an ati fanboi. had the first release of the first radeon 64, had a radeon 7500, and a radeon 8500. All had very lackluster drivers, and were in a word, shit. I kept thinking the drivers will mature since its good hardware, and itll all come around and they'll be good cards. But the drivers never came around. They still arent here. Go play a variaty of games and you'll see what i mean. Half the games you play with a radeon need massive amounts of tweaking to run properly. Its ridiculous. The late Geforces and now the FX's dont have any of these issues, the only stuff to complain about with the nvidia drivers is their nview stuff, and i personally have never had a problem with that. So while i sit here happily with my ti4400 and i watch my neighbor struggling along with his radeon 9500 ill sit back and remember i told him not to buy that pile of shit.

And maybe you need to go read the hardware sites more often, not ones that are paid off by the companies either. You'll see that some benchmarks like the 3dmark series favor the Radeons heavily because ATi focused on optimizing their drivers for the benchmarks instead of focusing on making their drivers better with performance and compatibility. Ati has a history of doing this to. Its like cheating on a test. Pathetic. Mobo manufacters do the same shit, they'll up their default fsb speed by a few mhz so it outperforms others in benchmarks so they get a higher rating. ATi is better then they were, but I still see countless problems with them, maybe in another generation or two they'll become satisfactory.


Please link us with some "recent" examples. Ati makes the best card out...Nvidia is lagging behind. Next thing you'll tell us is that the AMD 3000+ beats the PIV 3.06 w/HT. Yes, agrees this should be in tech forum.

[vawlk]

Originally posted by Delirare
Go play a variaty of games and you'll see what i mean. Half the games you play with a radeon need massive amounts of tweaking to run properly.

I will say again...while this was true with the early 8500 drivers, I've had not problems with any game since.

The late Geforces and now the FX's dont have any of these issues, the only stuff to complain about with the nvidia drivers is their nview stuff

The only thing? Check out the nv forums some time and look at some of the problems they have had over the last year. Oh, and that vacuum cleaner-for-a-fan would be another thing to complain about.

And maybe you need to go read the hardware sites more often, not ones that are paid off by the companies either. You'll see that some benchmarks like the 3dmark series favor the Radeons heavily because ATi focused on optimizing their drivers for the benchmarks instead of focusing on making their drivers better with performance and compatibility. Ati has a history of doing this to. Its like cheating on a test. Pathetic. Mobo manufacters do the same shit, they'll up their default fsb speed by a few mhz so it outperforms others in benchmarks so they get a higher rating. ATi is better then they were, but I still see countless problems with them, maybe in another generation or two they'll become satisfactory.

heh. I'm sure ATI tweaked the drivers to make their single slot/regular fan card destroy the 2-slot vacuum cleaner when you turn on AA and AF in all those games used for benchmarking. Well thanks to NV we now have a new benchmark.....the dB level.

For years, NVs solution to remaining on the top was to throw speed and memory at the problem and it finally caught up with them. Caught with their pants down from the xbox production, they rushed out a card.

The ATI drivers are fine. Only problems you'll ever have are with games that program for the NV cards and use proprietary NV extensions instead of sticking to standards.

If you really want to get dirty, explain to me how every time an ATI card comes out, the NV driver team dug down deep and produced a new set of drivers that increase performance 30%.
The nvidiots eat that shit up...and suddenly their drivers rock. I wonder why no one takes that a step further in their head......

(if this belongs in the tech forum, then move it you ninnie)

[DarkDragon00]

ATI. hmmmmmmmmm... so many damn probs,

the radon series has problems with a MMO game WWII Online, the game will be see-throughable and u wont be able to use it as an advantage cuz u can here the shit trying to comprehend, it burns itself out. The drivers had only been fixed recently after so many yearrs of crasp.

My Geforce4 Ti4600 has never dissapointed me, man it rips through the graphics with more effciency then ever seen!!! I mean this card knows how to smart process. Now as for the Nvidia drivers, they have always been kept up-to-date, never failed to bring us the best, and they have always brought the competition to its knees.

Now if u want a card with a consistantly reliable company go with Nvidia, i trust no other with my graphicing needs!

[Seabass03]

EDITED to protect the innocent.

I see squeeky made his comment.

[TekDragon]

Its really pointless to discuss. Those who own new ATI products realize how superior they are to the latest crap releases by Nvidia.

When a company releases a graphics card that overthrows the latest card released by the main company in the industry, and that SAME card beats the 'main companies' NEXT card 6 months later.... thats when you know its time to put away your old, outdated prejudices and get with the facts.

My brother is an Nvidia fanboy, but only because he doesnt read the facts, or he reads the "facts" straight from Nvidia's mouth. I love playing WC3, CnC Generals, Anarchy Online, HOMM4, MechWarrior 4, AC2 (bleh), and a slew off other with MAXIMUM settings across the charts and ZERO slowdown and watching his jaw drop when he sees the cool effects. First thing he said when he saw how sweet CnC generals was running on a Radeon9700 was: "How much do you think I could sell my ti4600 for?"

I told him not to worry, theirs plenty of idiot fanboy sheep out there who will gobble it up, not realizing their company is sinking faster than the titanic.

[Bluegold]

Hey Delirare - why talk about nothing but old technology when RIGHT NOW Ati is producing better cards that run faster, smoother, and kick Nvidia's butt are on the market? The 9700/9800 Pro cards have impeccable drivers, great support, great compatibility, etc. etc. etc. etc.