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Comprehensive Video Benchmarks
Crusader writes: "Matt Matthews has produced an extensive series of benchmarks which examine four separate games' performance on the Voodoo5, the Rage 128 Pro, the G400 Max, and the GeForce 2 3D graphics cards under Linux. Performance against Windows 98 is also included." We also received: driveitlikeyoustoleit writes, "3dfx, NVIDIA and ATI's best are all pitted against each other in a high-end 3D video card
roundup. The authors pit six GeForce2 GTS (from ASUS, Creative,
ELSA and Hercules) based cards against an ATI Radeon 256 and a 3dfx Voodoo5
5500. Performance for a change isn't the only criteria in question (although the end scores are somewhat weighted in favor of fps) but also at full-scene
anti-aliasing, image quality and DVD performance/quality are critically looked at. The screen shots page showing off FSAA comparisons are great visual indicators of what the cards can do."
One thing that doesn't seem to get addressed by ANY Linux 3D hardware review I've seen (One was also in LJ recently), is the issue of stability.
We run Linux because it's stable, even in cases where we know that we lose performance because of that stability.
Well, all of these reviews basically say, "If you can afford it, buy NVIDIA! They're fast!".
So what if your card is fast but your machine crashes in the middle of a game? NVIDIA's drivers just plain suck in the stability arena - My machine crashes on a regular basis in both Q3 and UT with those crap drivers. Even Windows looks rock-solid compared to Linux when using those accursed drivers! And all this because the only difference between the Quadro and GeForce is a PCI/AGP device ID and a few flags set in the driver because of said ID - it's the only plausible reason for being the only vendor not to release source/specs. (Check out http://www.geocities.com/tnaw_xtennis/)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Whenever I have needed help I have found the nvidia people that sit in that channel very helpful.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
All this from the same crew who benchmarks Q3 at 1600x1200, and spits on any card that loses that race (how many ppl have monitors that can do 1600x1200 at 100 hz anyways?)
They rated the Elsa card as SuperFantasticGetOneOrDie, yet the identical Powergene card was rated as "bleh," for those "those on an extremely tight budget" (the powergene is only $10 less than the elsa.) But according to the reviewer "you don't get a name brand" with the powergene, so stay away unless you are ghetto. Reality check anyone? BOTH cards are stock reference designs, except for a possible future tv in/out module for the elsa.
Also, by reading these "shootouts" one would get the impression that quake 3 is the only game on the market. If they benchmark some other game, it has to be a quake clone. I play the Quake series to death, but I also play strategy games like Homeworld (which can bring a video card/cpu to its KNEES during intense battles.) Where is the benchmark on some non-FPS game?
How about image quality? I personally turn on FSAA on my Geforce when playing Homeworld at 800x600, because it looks SO much better than 1024/768 without FSAA. If sharky reviewers would play something besides FPSs then stuff like image quality would get ranked way higher.
Anyways, thats the end of my rant. Whenever you read one of these reviews, keep in mind the biases of the reviewer, and remember that they sometimes get caught up in "reviewerland," which is not necessarily connected to the "real world."
:wq