ATI vs NVIDIA

[Wolfy]

Hey all,

This is probably a question asked many times before but I'm asking it again.

I've always been an Nvidia buyer and am thinking of upgrading from a ti4600, but due to the (comparitively) poor results of the latest cards by Nvidia I'm looking more and more to buying a 9800pro.

What is a concern to me, before I splash out so much money and move away from the company I'm brand loyal to is driver issues.

In the past ATI drivers were considered shaky causing system trouble and poor games compatability (although I have read these issues arent really an... err.. issue anymore). Before I buy into ATI I was wondering if problems like these still exist in the real world and not just a mag article? Can the gamers out there using ATI cards give me your experiences? I am a total graphics slave and I cant play any game that has graphical glitches even if the graphic articfact is slight as it just annoys the F**K outta me.

Any advice is appreciated.

Cheers,

Wolfy

"I'm the dog from the advert. Would you like to stroke my coat?"

 

[cleeve]

Ati's crappy drivers are a thing of the past.

Their drivers are just as good as Nvidia's. Radeon image quality rocks.

------------------
Radeon 9500 (hardmodded to PRO, o/c to 322/322)
AMD AthlonXP 2400+ (o/c to 2600+ with 143 fsb)
3dMark03: 4055

 

[TKS]

What Cleeve said....driver issues are a thing of the past. Don't believe the hype...buy one yourself and see. I did. Happy as a pig in slop now.

----------
<b>It is always brave to say what everyone thinks. </b> <i>Georges Duhamel</i>

TKS

 

[1080jibber]

Catalyst is great. Just as good as the detonators ever were, without all the dx9 glitches! ati has really cleaned up there act, and i am a happy ati customer now. I used to have a gf2 but when it came time to switch i got a radeon 9500 pro, and couldn't be happier both with the card and drivers, no problems whatsoever.

antec 350w psu
xp 2000
asus a7n8x deluxe
512mb pc2100
ati radeon 9500 pro
wd 80gb caviar special edition
16x dvd
creative megaworks 550
nec fe991sb-bk

 

[HardWareBoss]

Do you need to replace your TI46000 now? New cards due Mar or Apr.

 

[sargeduck]

I have a 9600 Pro, and have been downloading the latest drivers the day they come out. Havn't had a problem yet. You will hear of a few quirks, such as crashing with call of duty, but ATI has a fix/work around for that, and will have it fixed in the latest driver. However, the few times that COD did crash, ATI's vpu recovery tool worked great. I would say right now that ATI's drivers are probably better than Nvidia's right now, at this particular moment in time.

Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue

 

[GeneticWeapon]

nVidia drivers are more game compatible than ATi's are. Especially as of lately...

<b>I help because you suck</b>

 

[BirdRobin]

i have a r9600pro too... But my rig freezes up when watching a DVD on intervideo WinDVD, crashes when playing CS 1.6, crashes when playing chaos legion... new drivers installed (3.9) also didnt solve the problem... -_-

B|rD[RoB|n]

 

[Arc_Angel]

i went to a ti4200 to a ati 9800 non pro
im happy i oc it to a pro i have 2.8ns ram on my card

im thinking mybe of trying to get xt levels

but trust me i was big nvidia fan but know i like who ever bring's out the best right nwo its ati but you might want to wai tand see how the xt and fx5950 do i would wait but if you cant go 9800 pro

Arc

 

[SoDNighthawk]

Me too I cant stand any graphics defect. If I am shleping along in Splintercell and take 5 minutes (Without Saves) to sneak up behind a guard in a tight spot and just as I go to snag the guy the graphics decide to jump that Peases me off as well.
I have used and still use both Radeon cards from ATI and GeForce cards from Nvidia. The problems with both companies is that one month the Purchasing guy gets a whole wack of memory chips off the boat from Japan all DDR2 or 3 stuff and it works like a fine tuned sports car and next month they get another batch from a different supplier a more shady deal I am sure that just performs and is not as good a quality.
You see its not the sum of the parts that make a lemon or not its the QUALITY of those parts that make a good card.

The SMT or Surface Mount Technologies has come a long way to replacing the older but reliable ( TH ) or Through hole components.
Still SMT is not as cheap as (TH) built circuit boards and that is the CRUX of the whole issue.
Take a look at the next graphics card you buy or already have. See if it has Radial or Axial Electrolytic Capacitors or voltage regulators. If it does it is a low end card.
If on the other hand the card is built with all SMT components you are looking at a higher end card but YET again the quality of each of those components is also suspect.
As a Rule I purchase ASUS mother boards for any computer I build for the simple reason that they use as many SMT components as possible and only use the ( TH ) components where they can be more efficient in heat dissipation or strength.
Like Cars some times you get a great one and some times you get a door stop.
I have not heard many good things about the new Nvidia FX cards and I am a Nvidia fan as well. It might be time for the new ATI Radeon cards for the big boys to play on.
Seems to me Voodoo caused the death of them selves selling a Voodoo5 graphics card they claimed was AGP Buss enabled when all it did was ride the AGP slot but only used PCI technology. HAS NVIDIA launched the flag ship Titanic on its second and last voyage ? I mean they did buy out Voodoo a few years ago. Perhaps the same bunch of stowaways got on board.

»§øЫÑighthåwk™ Don't get mad at the player get mad at the game. Hackers drool and Skill's rule.

 

[Wolfy]

My concern is sorta based on the idea that when yur playing games with an ATI its not uncommon to hear stuff like "the game keeps crashing but ATI are working on a fix/workaround and the issue should be sorted in the next driver rev" ive never had to use a workaround or a quick fix when using an nvidia... i dunno.


im not buying anything just yet as i think it makes more sense to wait till after xmas (ill have more cash and prices will drop) im also not making the same mistake of not researching first as when i bought the ti4600 i had fun bragging about having the bestest card in the world only to have it kicked a week later by the 9700 release which i hadnt heard about. it was very depressing.

on another note is there any justification to buy an XT card as it adds a happy 100 euro onto the price (for me) and i cant see the small gain over the pro worth the price.

"I'm the dog from the advert. Would you like to stroke my coat?"

 

[SoDNighthawk]

Yes I understand Wolfy I guess I come to the boards to shoot the proverbial Chit my BAD.

I know what you mean in spades I have never had a computer that worked correctly in all circumstances.

I spent years with IBM computers and had friends ask me to fix Gateway computers that never ran correctly etc.

There is no FIX or correct choices for a graphics card, both Nvidia and ATI have had driver issues in the past and right now Nvidia has BIGGER problems with the new FX graphics cards.
Those cards are supposed to be the next generation of GPU's for Nvidia and they are banking the company on the performance those cards can provide.
The problem is they are getting a bad reputation because they seem to not work to well at all.

My nephew has a FX 9200 graphics card and a 2.5 GHz CPU he also has a 512 MB of DDR 333 MHz Memory. His graphics are not doing so well and this is after I reconfigured his computer in XP home to run as lean and mean as I could get it Plus trying some minor BIOS settings for overclocking. Even Registry tweaks have done little to improve his frame rates or graphics quality.

I was truly disappointed in the new Nvidia FX 9200 card but that is the low end version of the new FX line.
I would at this point recommend the ATI Radeon cards. I have always used Nvidia cards for my own computers but I was never totally satisfied with the quality of graphics in all my games.

6 Months ago I installed a Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 with 128 MB of memory and it has a AGP 8X buss.
Apparently of the 3 different models of the Ti version the only one that works well is the 8X AGP model and that I have read on many posts.

At this point since I will not spend $800.00 dollars Canadian for the New Nvidia FX9800 card I will bank my money on the latest ATI Radeon 9800 Model.

I also find it terribly annoying that ATI and Nvidia wont separate their product models with different model names.

Now saying all that makes me think about another directly related issue to the Nvidia cards.
Here is something to consider... The Nvidia cards are claimed to be the next generation for DirectX9 and the new 64 model CPU's. If this is true then the cards perhaps are not showing good performance because so few people have a system yet that the cards can perform in correctly.

So to make a long story short you can go ATI Radeon and sleep well... at least they do update the drivers if they find problems.

The short end of the stick is that many game manufacturers have deals with Nvidia and the GPU they use for the graphics cards in the FX line so they have an inside track where ATI does not.

I hate upgrading and I am very happy with this new system I built 6 months ago.
I would like to wait and see how the new FX Nvidia cards stack-up against some more test set-ups and game tests.
I hate benchmarks they are not entirely accurate to everyone concerned however if you get many of them showing the same Baseline then we have to at some point take notice of that performance good or bad.

ATI in the past has had some driver issues true. Nvidia has built a unified driver package that is simple and covers all the cards they currently produce.
ATI has gone to a new type of driver design they call a Catalyst. I believe because we have little choice that ATI has corrected most of the driver issues they had in the past, it is only logical that that would be a big priority around ATI these days.

»§øЫÑighthåwk™ Don't get mad at the player get mad at the game. Hackers drool and Skill's rule.

 

[Vimp]

Hey SoD I think your a little confused. Yes Nvidia makes the FX cards. However the cards with the name 9200 and 9800 are made only from ATI based cards, not Nvidia. Suffice it to say there is no FX 9200 or FX 9800 like you speak of.

On another note though I recomend checking this review out to see Nvidia beat ATI butt with its FX5700 Ultra compared to ATI's competition the Radeon 9600 XT. <A HREF="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1361645,00.asp" target="_new">Review</A>

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Both companies have their issues.

While you may not have experience the nV issues, by the same token I haven't had a game related issue for any of my past few ATI cards either. But it definitely doesn't mean that it's the standard for everyone.

Look at any new driver release and the forums for both camps will be full of "They still haven't fixed X..." and " Well now Z doesn't work" and of course "Y sucks last time I buy their product, I'm switching to W".


As for your last question, no the XT isn't worth the extra if you are looking for price/performance. If you want the very best of the line, and/or want some of the features specific to the XT then it makes sense. But if you make it a purely financial decision it's hard to justify the premium.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <b>RED GREEN</b> GA to SK

<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/" target="_new">-NEW PIC IN THGC ALBUM-</A>

 

[SoDNighthawk]

See what I mean... I was typing so fast I even confused the details.
I in fact meant to say the Nvidia FX 5900 and even the FX5950 cards.

»§øЫÑighthåwk™ Don't get mad at the player get mad at the game. Hackers drool and Skill's rule.

 

[shadus]

Standard SoDNighthawk warning -- Newbies beware! This poster frequently acts as an ignorant clueless lying moron. This isn't to say that all of his advice is bad, just that you should have a collaborating second opinion on anything he says before you buy into what he is saying. See cpu forum or search thorugh his posts for plenty of examples.

Shadus

 

[Vapor]

That's hardly the first time you've done that, too. You sure you know the difference???

Damn Rambus.

 

[fragglefart]

i would love to see the 2.5Ghz processor as well.
Are you sure you dont mean the Barton 2500? >
Nvidia "titanic second voyage?" huh? there have been more cards than that.
"Check the components of your Ati card with a ruler"
yeah get the guys to paint it pink too. >:S


Yes GFFX5200 is poo. do NOT tarnish the 5900Ultra with the same brush, idiot. Thats like saying "Radeon 9100/9100 ,s'a bit rubbish innit? i guess the 9800XT must be arse too."

silly.

i have no idea what dudeface is talking about. "i have Nvidia and Ati cards and i play splinter cell and the graphics jump" hmmm.... looks like a preeetty bad system to me. i hate misinforming posts.
But i do like soup.... time for a warm cupful.

oh some advice? Well if you dont like Ati- go Nvidia, you wont be too dissappointed. On the other hand, if you go Ati im pretty sure you will love the fact you can run Shadermark with no tests omitted!!!

All cards these days roxors heh!
............................................
Render times? You'll find me down the pub...

 

[Wolfy]

Yeah my feeling was that allthough Nvidia cards are lagging behind the ATI cards they still f*cking fly compared to the last gen of cards....

I think I'll sell my soul to ATI after all tho and get me a 9800pro.

"I'm the dog from the advert. Would you like to stroke my coat?"

 

[toxicogen]

maybye you should slow your key binds to accommodate your reaction speed (see gaming forum) :lol:



If all else fails: Read The Manual

 

[Vapor]

WTF are you talking about??? Did I criticize anything other than SOD's stupidity? NO.

Watch who you reply to, especially with such criticism.

On the issue though, I feel that although the 5900u and the 5200 shouldn't be considered sucky in the same light, they both are. Sure, the 5900u is ultra fast...at OGL and DX7/8, but not at DX9 (especially if it's not optimized). If nVidia wanted to build a DX9 card, they should have planned it from the beginning.

The way I see it, if you don't want to play DX9 games, go get nVidia. Not only are they generally faster at non-DX9 stuffs, but putting some money in their pockets wouldn't hurt for the development of future cards and the sake of competition.

If you also simply don't like either company, don't get them...no one is forcing you to buy either one.

Damn Rambus.

 

[shadus]

> If nVidia wanted to build a DX9 card, they should
> have planned it from the beginning.

Which is what I'm really really hoping the nv40 and nv45 do well I'd like to get a nvidia card but I just cant... to much yack compared to ati. So we'll see on the next gen and if they still havent cleaned up their act... hello ati.


Shadus

 

[VChuck]

I also was a Nvidia fanboy,but in lieu of the scandel that was out because of Nvidia drivers and the Fx,s marginal performance,this forced me to reevaluate, I purchased the 9800 pro 128mg.(Hercules)I am very pleased, with the performance, and quality of the graphics.

 

[fragglefart]

*WTF are you talking about??? Did I criticize anything other than SOD's stupidity? NO.

Watch who you reply to, especially with such criticism.*

was that aimed at me? hope not, i wasnt replying to you!
/me confused.

Ok, just to put things in perspective.... everyone run a benchmark. whatever. it doesnt matter. then compare your results to what you SHOULD be getting.
i know what my 5900Ultra rig is supposed to0 score in DX9 games like Halo.... and nothing could be further from the truth. Low framerates? Dont think so. Although my card has a heavy OC, indoor areas never dip below 50fps, and outdoor parts can fly up to and over 150Fps.
Yes, the graphics are running decent shader routines.
1280x960. or 1024x768 with 4xAF.

When the card slows down, as many doombringers have prophesised (which i am sceptical about.... Nv will keep their cards ticking along for a while yet.) i will get another. as i would have done anyway! (like to keep on top of things ) so heres to the next gen cards *glug*

............................................
Render times? You'll find me down the pub...

 

[Vimp]

<b>Vapor</b> - <i>"WTF are you talking about??? Did I criticize anything other than SOD's stupidity? NO.

Watch who you reply to, especially with such criticism."</i>

<b>fragglefart</b> - <i>"was that aimed at me? hope not, i wasnt replying to you!
/me confused."</i>

To funny.