ATi or NVIDIA?

Post by **Derek** » Sun Nov 02, 2003 2:03 pm

Which video card maker do you prefer? ATi, or NVIDIA?

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 5:45 am

I guess this is the only board I know where this question won´t necessarily raise a flame war.

I voted for ATi because I just bought one (not shipped yet), so I don´t speak from experience.

There seem to be some games out there that clearly prefer NVIDIA boards. But most games work better with ATi right now at high quality settings (AA, AF).

You can only guess what´s going to happen with next-gen games, but it looks like Half-Life2 will work better with ATi and Doom3 will work better with NVIDIA (exclusive merchandise deal vs. exclusive rendering path, IIRC

). But with everything delayed to February or later, you can only buy a card for available games. And for those, ATi seems to be the better choice.

I´m still afraid of driver issues with that new 9800 non-pro, so I´ll keep my Geforce3 for a while in another system. I remember the problems I had when I changed from 3dfx to NVIDIA (Voodoo2 -> GF2MX).

hyperspace · Post by **hyperspace** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 8:54 am

I voted ATI. I don't have one but when I get one of my two new systems on-line, it will get an ATI. All my other graphics cards are nVidia. Will be interesting to find out how far ATI has gone.

Post by **Derek** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 12:10 pm

Wolfram: Aren't all the Doom3 demos running on ATi machines? I remember reading so...

As for the drivers, I have to say that ATi has been doing very well with its CATALYST "one driver for all" software.

NVIDIA's latest FX card isn't bad though, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 12:34 pm

Derek wrote:Wolfram: Aren't all the Doom3 demos running on ATi machines? I remember reading so...

I don´t know. I read John Cramack said there was a special rendering path for the Geforce FX series. Some preview benchmarks on Tom´s Hardware showed the FX 5800 and 5900 ahead of the Radeon 9700/9800 but the _high_ quality benchmarks on the next page (and hq set ingame meant anisotropic filtering engaged, IIRC) showed the cards head-to-head.

24seven · Post by **24seven** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 4:58 am

From what ive read some where:
Halfe-Life 2 is said to be better for ATi cards.
Doom3 is said to be better for Nvivia cards.

kuun · Post by **kuun** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 4:04 pm

ok..

i chose nvidia because my geforce 2 mx 200 card is the best video card i've ever had..

my ATI rage Pro IIC agp AND my PCI car were both awesome cards... but my GF2mx is better

Kuun

PDR60 · Post by **PDR60** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 10:29 pm

Being a Linux user, the choice was obvious. Nvidia support is lightyears ahead of ATI for Linux. I am typing this on my Docked Dell Latitude running Mandrake 9.2. It has an ATI rage Mobility and in order to get it to work docked I have to use a vesa driver. I configured another (later) Dell for a coworker and she was able to use the Nvidia driver(geforce card). Her video is sooooo good and mine is just an old vesa driver. If I run undocked only I can use the ATI driver. But when docked, it just flakes out. Besides My boxes at the house have never had an issue configuring with Nvidia whether in Windows or Linux.

For a Linux user Its best to stick with what works. That is Nvidia.

RRLedford · Post by **RRLedford** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 2:03 am

ATI beats Nvidia for highest level gaming now. Code in games using DX9 PixelShader 2.0 have to be recompiled to run decently on the Geforce FX5900 Ultra. Nvidia clearly messed up on this one & benchmarking will not easily compare them accurately anymore at this level.

I still prefer Nvidia's unified drivesr scheme - one too many driver-from-Hell stories in my ATI memories. Dell once told me to use the system restore disk to resolve an ATI driver blue-screen on a "Precision ($-too-high)Workstation", when the only thing put on the machine was all the Microsoft Win-XPpro updates & Norton Antivirus CorpEd. If the ATI driver can't tolerate these changes to the system - might as well just chuck the bloody card altogether. The arrogant fools Dell acted like I shoul just do without the updates & virus protection since they had no support for obtaining another improved driver version.

Post by **Derek** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 2:13 am

ATi has been using the unified driver scheme for a while now. I too remember the days of ATi driver hell, but I am thoroughly impressed by the progress ATi has made.

Thumbs up!

(I still love my Geforce2 MX

)

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 4:47 am

Derek wrote: ATi has been using the unified driver scheme for a while now. I too remember the days of ATi driver hell, but I am thoroughly impressed by the progress ATi has made.

Thumbs up!

My 9800 non-pro has arrived a few days ago, and it works nicely. First I had a visual bug, flames in UT (original) were not drawn correctly under Direct3D. But that was fixed when I installed DX 9.0b. Serious Sam (1) doesn´t work yet, but it´s an old installation, don´t know if I patched it etc.

Had a Geforce 3 in that machine before, and almost all games have been playable with acceptable details on that to date. The 9800 allows to play games with 1280x1024 and anisotropic filtering enabled that worked ok without af in 1024x768 with the Geforce 3. Some UT2003 levels like Magma that were unplayable at higher details now are smooth. But don´t expect to play everything with 8x AF and 4x AA.

It will be interesting to see how these 9500-9800 cards will perform in the long run. When I bought my Geforce 3, it was only 10 or 20 percent faster than a Geforce 2 Pro. But in UT2003, it is about twice as fast.

Derek wrote: (I still love my Geforce2 MX )

Had a Hercules 3D Prophet 2 MX in my secondary machine until it was replaced by the Geforce 3 yesterday. The GF2MX still performs nicely for such an old card. You can play UT2003 or NFS6 in 800x600x16 at decent frame rates (for me).

Damn... I only got three computers, and I hesitate to replace the Matrox G400 on my BP6. Poor old GF2MX... I´ll give it to a girl I know. She hates shooting ugly things creeping at you through dark tunnels, but she loves adventures like Syberia and realMyst, which also require a 3D card today...

kuun · Post by **kuun** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 12:49 pm

heheheh

shooting creepy things in dark and dank tunnels and hallways....

she'd die if she were ever stalked

Post by **Derek** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 12:51 pm

magog wrote:I miss Matrox from the list.
They may not build the FPS cruncher gameing cards, but the cards are very good and have lot's of features.
I've got the Parhelia since Aug. 2002 and it's a great card, that runs every game until now with enough fps on my 1024x768 flat panel.

Merry Xmas!

How much did you pay for the card when you bought it?

Post by **Derek** » Wed Dec 31, 2003 10:46 am

Nchalada wrote:ATI cause I love my 9600 Ez Pro 256 lol

Have you tried overclocking it

naro · Post by **naro** » Mon May 03, 2004 1:28 am

i prefer nVidia...

but i'm oso using an ATI...

but i choose whichever is wallet-friendly..

Holodeck2 · Post by **Holodeck2** » Mon May 03, 2004 4:36 am

always been an ATI fan expecially after the 9700pro came out. and the parahelia cost too much for too little bah, looks good on paper but in real life application it's only ok. bad for gaming good for showing off

BCN · Post by **BCN** » Mon May 03, 2004 8:02 am

I vote ATI cause they made progress and a good one, for me to buy their 9800pro with 256mb. though all the time I remember myself I preferred Nvidia.

davd_bob · Post by **davd_bob** » Mon May 03, 2004 11:55 pm

I went nvida. I still use older stuff mostly and my TNT2 AGP 32meg easily outpreforms my ATI AGP 32meg. I think my ATI is an older class of card though.