Are Radeons cards really better than NVidia?

[clue69less]

you should do more research.nvidias new forceware 90 comes free with the purevideo decoder and supports every Major DVD playback software that is avaible.i havent found a review of the 91.31 yet if i do i will post it.

Go ahead and clean up the drink you blew out your nose before replying to that first sentence, Grape. More research, that's a funny one, GPU.

 

[Multiplectic]

Free with PureVideo? 8O
Maybe that's why it's size climbed to ~45 MB...

 

[Multiplectic]

you should do more research.nvidias new forceware 90 comes free with the purevideo decoder and supports every Major DVD playback software that is avaible.i havent found a review of the 91.31 yet if i do i will post it.

Go ahead and clean up the drink you blew out your nose before replying to that first sentence, Grape. More research, that's a funny one, GPU.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Although they do have a caveat;

"We tend to be conservative with our scoring in HQV, but in a "best case scenario", ATI would score 123 here."

you should do more research.nvidias new forceware 90 comes free with the purevideo decoder and supports every Major DVD playback software that is avaible.i

And it's interesting how they worded their statements about the cost of purevideo as some features are now available free, but it's still not free. Better than before but still not the same.

It's still not 'FREE' but some components have been added to other apps.

And yeah thanks for the 'more research' statement, I believe it was you who said A>B and even your review shows the opposite, so keep looking for the thing that supports your statement, because yours still supports mine.

Now even with the latest results, taking into account the entire review, still seems that they favour ATi, but the margin is closing.

It'll be nice when Firingsquad tests again (in print) because they also add other real-world tests to the mix as well, and we should see improvements there from both compared to old reviews.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

LOL!

Yeah I had to go back to re-edit instert that second comment and address it. Of course it's coke, and dang that stuff stings the nostrils! :lol:

 

[clue69less]

LOL!

Yeah I had to go back to re-edit instert that second comment and address it. Of course it's coke, and dang that stuff stings the nostrils! :lol:

Well, you can live with your nose in the literature only to find that you missed something, but in context, I laughed pretty hard when I read that one. Coke in the nostrils, that's a good pun too.

 

[Heyyou27]

well not so sure about that my friend..i respect your opinion but when it cames to image quality expecially in games ..ati holds the flag up high....

adaptve antialiasing, HDR+AA, temporal antialiasing, AA up to 6x..etc etc that`s what i call quality my friend...

i personally don`t imagine my self to play anything without AA, but that`s just my preference...

good luck

Well, Nvidia supports multisampling and super sampling which is their version of adaptive antialiasing, and all Nvidia cards support up to 8xAA, and 16xAA with SLI.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Well, Nvidia supports multisampling and super sampling which is their version of adaptive antialiasing,

Actually nV's equivalent is Transparency Adaptive AA, not SSAA. And unlike ATi's Adaptive AA, TAA is not support on all cards. R9500 and above support AdaptiveAA since the Cat 6.5s (edit: before that it was only available to the X an X1K series in drivers before running a little hack as outlined in EB, but it's been available for longer, not like it was just added, just added easy R3xx support).

and all Nvidia cards support up to 8xAA, and 16xAA with SLI.

Actuall nV can support 32X AA under their 'quad' SLi.

However, it's questionable what the difference in quality is and whether the performance hit is worth it or not. Sometimes 8X AA doesn' look as good as 6X, and one implementation works better than the other at certain things (like fences with moving object, or static, etc).

 

[cleeve]

Well, Nvidia supports multisampling and super sampling which is their version of adaptive antialiasing

I think Nvidia's version of 'Adaptive Antialiassing' is called 'Transparent Antialiassing'.

Multisampling and super sampling are just different methods of doing regular AA, but 'transparent'and 'Adaptive' AA means that opacity maps are antialiassed.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

It's all about the ALPHA man!

Two good resources Bit-Tech and EB;

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/04/07/transparency_adaptive_aa_explained/1.html

http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=12254&head=1&comments=1

 

[clue69less]

It's all about the ALPHA man!

Two good resources Bit-Tech and EB;

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/04/07/transparency_adaptive_aa_explained/1.html

http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=12254&head=1&comments=1

Cool! I'd missed the EB article.

 

[Heyyou27]

Actually nV's equivalent is Transparency Adaptive AA, not SSAA. And unlike ATi's Adaptive AA, TAA is not support on all cards. R9500 and above support AdaptiveAA since the Cat 6.5s (edit: before that it was only available to the X an X1K series in drivers before running a little hack as outlined in EB, but it's been available for longer, not like it was just added, just added easy R3xx support).

and all Nvidia cards support up to 8xAA, and 16xAA with SLI.

Actuall nV can support 32X AA under their 'quad' SLi.

However, it's questionable what the difference in quality is and whether the performance hit is worth it or not. Sometimes 8X AA doesn' look as good as 6X, and one implementation works better than the other at certain things (like fences with moving object, or static, etc).Corrected, and note I did say "SLI" not "Quad SLI". I would hate to see 32x AA performance on anything newer than UT2004. :lol:

 

[sweetpants]

Check here: http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

Are they really better? Someone here may have told me that NVidia is better.

Honestly, I think it comes down to personal preference. I would think that at super high resolutions with all the eye candy turned on you're not really going to notice a difference between 70 FPS and 72... (as an example)

I can tell you from personal experience I've always been more pleased with the ATI cards I've purchased rather than nVidia cards Just my personal experience and I'm sure everyone has a differing opinion.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Corrected, and note I did say "SLI" not "Quad SLI". I would hate to see 32x AA performance on anything newer than UT2004. :lol:

True enough, yeah since there's no real 'Quad SLi' just SLi+SLi I will use that as my excuse. :twisted:

Funny thing is that the Quadro cards have had 32X for a while and the FireGLs for a more recent time, and IIRC they were adding 64X in nV's Quadro SLi.

Now the thing I'd like to see is whether 800x600 with 32X looks any better than 1024x768 @ like 6-8X. Of course that would be rather subjective, but I'd trust Cleeve to look into that. *Hint * Hint * 8)

I remember seeing a review where the reviewer prefered running 6X AA versus the higher resolution (it was like 16x12 versus 19x14) with no or 2X AA, whereas [H] usually prefer higher resolution to higher AA as a rule.

Anywhoo, I think you're right, these insane levels of AA are for when you go back and replay titles, that's theonly reason I use ATi's SmartShader, because it's neat playing a game matrix style or with Stylized B&W, but as a current game feature it's usually useless due to the performance impact.

I remember playing COD in ASCII mode, OMFG that was tough, and sniping was out of the question! 8O

 

[cleeve]

It's all about the ALPHA man!

"opacity map" is another way of saying "alpha channel", mate.

Funny we answerwed the same post at the same time again. Haven't been doing that as much for a while.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

"opacity map" is another way of saying "alpha channel", mate.

I know, I wasn't disagreeing, but looking at my comment it looks like I was correcting you, sorry mang.

It was more of a Weird Al Style agreement : "It's all about the Alpha baby!" (or Austin Powers style if you prefer)

Funny we answerwed the same post at the same time again. Haven't been doing that as much for a while.

Yep it's been a while since I had to write the " D'oh! Ditto what Cleeve Said " line.

You me and Paul usually did that alot.

 

[cleeve]

Yep it's been a while since I had to write the " D'oh! Ditto what Cleeve Said " line.

You me and Paul usually did that alot.

Yeah. I guess this means we've been successful in teaching a new generation of THG forummers... most of the time it seems everybody is giving out pretty good answers to stuff.

 

[clue69less]

Yep it's been a while since I had to write the " D'oh! Ditto what Cleeve Said " line.

You me and Paul usually did that alot.

Yeah. I guess this means we've been successful in teaching a new generation of THG forummers... most of the time it seems everybody is giving out pretty good answers to stuff.

OK. OK, that's enough self-back slapping. We give you plenty of props so you don't need to add to it.

 

[bluntside]

Nvidia and Ati Have their share of Benchies. As it may seems thr ATi looks better, I love Ati but decided to try a 7900gt. Its a great card for the money. I think that Enthusiasts perfer the Nvidia cuz of its OC capabilities, and the forecware frivers are a heaven. Great Hardware, OC, and recent forceware drivers= Kick ass performance!
I've heard the the Catalyst drivers tend to have bugs and all sorts of other stuff inside it, Like grass Lol

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

LOL!

Hey it's just a bunch of us Old-timers, sitting on the e-porch sipping lemonade and reminiscing about the Olden-Days.

 

[Heyyou27]

I think Nvidia's version of 'Adaptive Antialiassing' is called 'Transparent Antialiassing'.

Multisampling and super sampling are just different methods of doing regular AA, but 'transparent'and 'Adaptive' AA means that opacity maps are antialiassed.

I have a correction; Multisampling and Super Sampling are both Transparency antialiasing settings.

 

[JeanLuc]

It’s amazing how discussions about computer hardware can degenerate in flame wars.

Anyways, It depends what you mean by x is better then x. There are also factors that are personal to people that you need to consider such as power consumption and the noise the fan makes. To some it may sound silly but to others its very important.

Pound for pound the fastest single graphics card on the market is the ATI Radeon X1900XTX (I think that’s the title they give it). In most benchmarks it beats the its NVIDIA rival by a small margin apart from Doom 3 and other OpenGL games.

Next there are the SLI and Crossfire setups. There’s no contest here SLI is the more mature technology and more established. That’s not to day the Crossfire is bad but SLi is clearly the better performer.

Now this is going to sound strange but personally I have preferred ATI cards to NVIDIA cards although I have only ever owned 1 ATI card (9600) compared to 3 NVIDIA cards. I found when I switched from a GeForce FX5600 to the Radeon 9600 (the 5600 broke) the image quality in certain games (Unreal 2004) was noticeable better then its NVIDIA rival. Since then I have been a fan of ATI so why have a brought NIVIDA’s? Hard to say, the cards I brought such as the 6600 GT have great bank for buck value, they have a good cooler, the latest ATI card have duel slot tornado fans which makes then noisy, also the ATI use more power.

I guess I’m a bleeding heart ATI fanboy. Never mind computer overhaul soon (waiting for Core 2!) I’ll see if there is a ATI card out there for me. Hopefully I can find a X1900XT with an Artic cooler fitted as standard, because at the moment I’m looking a the 7900GT

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Anyways, It depends what you mean by x is better then x...
Pound for pound the fastest single graphics card on the market is the ATI Radeon X1900XTX (I think that’s the title they give it).

And really even that depends on what you mean by 'CARD'.

The X1900XTX is arguably the best single PCB solution, but the GF7950 would be the best single PEG connector solution performance wise where it outperforms more often than not.

All a question of context IMO.

 

[Multiplectic]

Yeap, that's true, but those Ultra-Mega-Super-High-End cards are *REALLY* useful with resolutions beyond 1600x1200, with AA and AF all the way...

 

[GPU]

i'd like to see how the G80 and R600 Compare to each other.the inquirer reports that the G80 is in working silicon stage.
Nvidia's G80 has 32 pixel pipes