graphics card recommendations.

robin.gordon1 wrote:
 > I have a gf4 Ti4200 which I think will need upgraded when Doom3 and/or
 > half-life2 comes out but which manufacturer.

The general view *used* to be that you'd go ATI for HL2, and NVidia for
Doom3. I'm not sure if that view has changed recently, though.

 > ATI are quick but only use 24bit textures for DX9, NVIDIA aren't just
 > as quick but they do use the full 32bit textures. now after a talk
 > with a friend I am more confused than ever. my friend recently
 > bought a new base unit with an xp2800 and 9600XT graphics card and he
 > said the quality was great. but then last night whilst talking to him
 > he was moaning about how he wished he'd got an NVIDIA card, he
 > reckoned it was a real pain as he was constantly loading patches and
 > editing files to get the latest games to work with the ATI card.
 > is this true? are we getting back to voodoo2 type file adjustments and
 > patches? would I be better buying an NVIDIA card as my old GF4 runs
 > straight away with no adjustments required.

The only patches I've used on my system are the driver patch to turn my
9800SE into a 9800Pro, and to get a better OpenGL driver for Unreal
Tournament. Neither were required to get games running fine, and I've never
had a problem with any game.

On the other hand, if you're going to be using Linux, go for NVidia. ATI's
Linux drivers are pathetic to the point where they lock up my computer if I
try to do anything 3D (though the latest 2D xfree86 ones seem to work).
NVidia's Linux drivers seem to be close in performance and stability to the
Windows ones.

--
Michael Brown
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.emboss.co.nz" target="_blank">www.emboss.co.nz</a> : OOS/RSI software and more
Add michael@ to emboss.co.nz - My inbox is always open<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: graphics card recommendations. 

I didn't think that you could change an SE into a pro. does it work as well
as the pro for I'd thought of buying a pro and soft-modding it into an XT.
I know that there are several pipelines that disabled because the review I
read said that these chips were scrap chips reboxed and sold cheap.
I remember that my voodoo2 used openGL but NVIDIA doesn't. it seems to
prefer directx instead. wasn't OpenGL always a lot smoother and faster than
Microsoft's efforts.
I do remember that he said something about the ATI drivers being really
crap, is that true? he keeps having to upgrade to get the latest game
working.
seems like a lot of fuss to me.
NVIDIA = no fuss but slightly slower
ati = very fussy but makes up for it with more speed.
I wish I could afford a 6800 NVIDIA then this wouldn't be a problem.

Robin
 >> Stay informed about: graphics card recommendations. 

robin.gordon1 wrote:
 > I didn't think that you could change an SE into a pro. does it work
 > as well.

Depends which SE you have. All SE's can be softmodded to enable all 8
pipelines, though not all will have fully functioning pipelines. The SE's
that will turn into fully-featured Pro's are the ones that run at 380/340
AND have a 256-bit memory bus. The ones that run slower can usually be
overclocked to Pro levels, but those that have the 128-bit bus won't turn
into full Pro (unless you take Saphire's meaning of a 9800 "Pro", which
seems to include a 128-bit bus). The one I got was the 256-bit bus
PowerColor 9800SE, which softmodded perfectly into a 9800Pro. The
overclockability wasn't great (the disabled pipelines die at ~395 MHz,
compared to ~220MHz for the enabled ones) but it still is a very nice card


 > as the pro for I'd thought of buying a pro and soft-modding
 > it into an XT. I know that there are several pipelines that disabled
 > because the review I read said that these chips were scrap chips
 > reboxed and sold cheap.

In theory, the SE's are the chips where some of the pipelines have problems.
However, sometimes (or up to about 70% of the time, depending on
manufacturer) you get lucky and score a fully functional chip that just has
4 of the 8 pipelines disabled through software. XT's are mostly just Pros
with a higher clock frequency.

 > I remember that my voodoo2 used openGL but NVIDIA doesn't. it seems to
 > prefer directx instead.

NVidia actually does OpenGL pretty well. OpenGL can be a bit finnicky to get
going on MS OS's (hmm wonder why ) but it runs great on Linux. My GF2MX
ran UT better in Linux with OGL than under Windows with DX (though OGL under
Windows failed to work correctly at all).

 > wasn't OpenGL always a lot smoother and
 > faster than Microsoft's efforts.

OpenGL and DirectX are only vaugely similar. DirectX does have a lot of
flashy things that are unweildy to use in OpenGL, but it's also bogged down
by a horrible architecture (IMO ). OpenGL is a cross-platform,
compatible-with-everything library which does the basics very well. However,
it doesn't handle things such as pixel and vertex shaders in a nice way, and
generally suffers a bit performance-wise when doing this (though possibly my
coding is to blame ).

 > I do remember that he said something about the ATI drivers being
 > really crap, is that true?

Some people have problems with them, though I've never had any issues. A
couple of years ago, ATI's drivers were noticably worse than NVidia's in
terms of stability, bugs, etc, but now they're about the same IMO. However,
as mentioned before, there is still a big difference between NVidia and ATI
with Linux drivers.

[...]

--
Michael Brown
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.emboss.co.nz" target="_blank">www.emboss.co.nz</a> : OOS/RSI software and more
Add michael@ to emboss.co.nz - My inbox is always open<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: graphics card recommendations. 

I definately agree with what you are saying, based on my own experience.
recently I've been playing around 4 games a lot, some new, some not so new..
I replaced my gf4 ti4200 with a radeon 9800 pro, and basically had problems
with 3 out of the 4 games... not major problems but annoying ones such as
having to reset the gamma each time I played a game, then each time I quit
another one etc. It was nice and fast, good image quality but just a real
pain in the neck.

After about a month of emails back and forth to Ati support, I sent it back
for a refund.
I've just got a geforce 6800 GT and it's awesome, works perfectly for me in
everything I've tried, right out of the box.
It cost twice as much but it was worth it because it just works.

just my 2c



"robin.gordon1" <robin.gordon1.DeleteThis@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:sX%Hc.582$f13.63@newsfe2-gui.ntli.net...
 > I have a gf4 Ti4200 which I think will need upgraded when Doom3 and/or
 > half-life2 comes out but which manufacturer.
 > ATI are quick but only use 24bit textures for DX9, NVIDIA aren't just as
 > quick but they do use the full 32bit textures. now after a talk with a
 > friend I am more confused than ever. my friend recently bought a new base
 > unit with an xp2800 and 9600XT graphics card and he said the quality was
 > great. but then last night whilst talking to him he was moaning about how
he
 > wished he'd got an NVIDIA card, he reckoned it was a real pain as he was
 > constantly loading patches and editing files to get the latest games to
work
 > with the ATI card.
 > is this true? are we getting back to voodoo2 type file adjustments and
 > patches? would I be better buying an NVIDIA card as my old GF4 runs
 > straight away with no adjustments required.
 >
 > Robin
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: graphics card recommendations.