ATI Radeon 9800 Pro vs. NVidia GeForce 5900

HardcoreGamer writes "Today ATI shipped its Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB DDR-2 card in time for E3 and nVidia announced the NV35-based GeForce 5900 which will be available in June. Early tests seem to say that while nVidia edges ahead of ATI in specific areas, overall ATI still has the better card. The caveat is that the next generation of DirectX 9-based games (like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, demonstrated with ATI at E3) will truly determine which is the better card. Lots of coverage at PC Magazine, PC World, The Register (ATI) (nVidia), ExtremeTech, InternetNews, and Forbes/Reuters. Either way, at $450-$500, serious gamers are about to get another serious dent in their wallets."

Comments

Minor annoyances

[DetrimentalFiend]

Just a small note, but one that's been bothering me with all of these reviews: Not all 'next generation' games are 'dx9.' Though the new cards are dx9, many games (coincidently, most of the best games) use OpenGL. Unfortunately, it's much easier to incorrectly call Doom3 a dx9 game than to cite the OpenGL extensions (like shaders) that are used.

(Also, I'll note that Doom3 may be technically a DirectX9 game because its sound and input MAY use it, but in the context that people have been talking about dx9 games, it is still incorrect.)

Re:Minor annoyances

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really rather quite simple. A small subset of 3D games are OpenGL games. These hardware accelerators are incidentally designed to adhere to standards defined by DirectX. They simply expose this functionality as part of their OpenGL implementation, either as vendor-specific extensions or otherwise. Doom 3 will make use of features standardized between DirectX 8 to DirectX 9 3D hardware. No one is going to enumerate every possible OpenGL extension the engine can be run with, as there're numerous render paths. They're not incorrect for using DirectX as a benchmark for functionality the engine will make use of, even if it doesn't use the API. Most 3D engines, though, actually do use DirectX. Source and Unreal both do, for instance.

Re:Minor annoyances

[The Analog Kid]

You right, but that will change as Linux popularity will grow, developers will find it easier to use OpenGL as it cross-platform and DirectX isn't. SDL and OpenAL will come into play as well. People may say that OpenGL is lagging in progress but games like DOOM3 make me somewhat skeptical of these people. Long live Carmack.

Re:Minor annoyances

[Daengbo]

Yes, but, unfortunately my S3 Trio64V+ doesn't support either OpenGL or DirectX9, so I guess I won't be playing Doom3. Sigh. And I was so worked up over it!

Re:Minor annoyances

[Osty]

People may say that OpenGL is lagging in progress but games like DOOM3 make me somewhat skeptical of these people. Long live Carmack.

TheCarmack is a god. There's nothing more to be said about that. What would be a better indicator of OpenGL health is if we were seeing more engines as impressive as Doom 3 being based on OpenGL. As it stands, the current Quake 3 engine and the upcoming Doom 3 engine are the only major OpenGL-based engines I can think of. And they were both done by theCarmack and crew.

Re:Minor annoyances

[unborracho]

shhh!! Don't tell Microsoft! They still think they're all that and a bag of chips!

Re:Minor annoyances

[afidel]

It doesn't matter because the featuresets of DX9 and OpenGl 2.0 are about 99% overlapping. A card that can implement one can very easily implement the other.

Re:Minor annoyances

[quantum bit]

As it stands, the current Quake 3 engine and the upcoming Doom 3 engine are the only major OpenGL-based engines I can think of. And they were both done by theCarmack and crew.

While UT2003 uses DirectX by default on Windows platforms, it does have an OpenGL renderer also. You can switch it to use OpenGL instead, and the Linux version (of course) uses OpenGL by default.

I think it also uses OpenAL...

Re:Minor annoyances

[Anonymous Coward]

You right, but that will change as Linux popularity will grow

HAAA ahha aahahahahahah hhaha heheh ohhh man, that was good!!! Keep em coming!

Re:Minor annoyances

[JebusIsLord]

Doom3 will not use direct3D, but it does use other components of DirectX. Of course you don't need a DX9 3D card to drive those, but still, Doom3 WILL use parts of DirectX (unless you are running on Linux).

Re:Minor annoyances

[Osty]

While UT2003 uses DirectX by default on Windows platforms, it does have an OpenGL renderer also. You can switch it to use OpenGL instead, and the Linux version (of course) uses OpenGL by default.

The Unreal engine, and more generally the guys at Epic (Tim Sweeney) operate under a different philosophy than the guys at Id. The unreal engine is quite modular. In fact, it was originally written focusing on GLIDE as the preferred rendering method. Today, DX is the preferred method, even though the current engine (even with all of its changes, which has surely included complete rewrites of components over the years) can trace itself all the way back to that GLIDE-inspired code.

Id, on the other hand, likes to start "from scratch". Between Unreal I and UT2K3/Unreal 2/Splinter Cell/Raven Shield/all of the other Unreal-based games out today, Id's gone through Quake 2, Quake 3, and is gearing up for Doom 3. Each one of those engines was different, and pretty much rewritten from the ground up each time (I'm sure there are some core components that theCarmack reuses, but essentially it's all new code).

Which approach is better? Depends. Epic's approach to incremental engine design lets third parties license their engine and benefit from on-going development, as well as getting the newer technology out there quicker. Id's approach caters to theCarmack's godlike abilities, and gives us something to look forward to with bated breath. The strength of theCarmack's code proves itself when the aging Q3 engine can still hold its own against the newest of Unreal-based games (for example, the upcoming Jedi Knight Academy game). I say let's keep 'em both.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure Unreal's audio engine is modular as well, supporting the proprietary Miles system, DirectSound, and probably also OpenAL. Same with the input engine (DirectInput, SDL).

Re:Minor annoyances

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep on laughing asswipe, you got it, keep on laughing. I need smug fucks like you to give me something to shoot at.

Re:Minor annoyances

[j-pimp]

Well pick your favorite Doom engine expansion (jDoom, etc) set up a server running the FreeDoom IWAD, and all the Pwads you'd like and get read for me to kick you ass from my 75mhz IBM crAptivia running FreeBSD.

Re:Minor annoyances

[kubrick]

standards defined by DirectX

Sure, but some of us remember the days when "standard" didn't mean "established by Microsoft fiat". :/

Re:Minor annoyances

[Daengbo]

Dood! Name the place! Your ass is mine! hehe

Re:Minor annoyances

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you were alive in the mid '90s, too? Amazing!

Re:Minor annoyances

[Anonymous Coward]

Back then everyone was paying for DOS and/or Windows with their x86 CPUs because they were forced to. It started earlier than that.

Re:Minor annoyances

[j-pimp]

Setup a legacy doom server, unless you have another prefered version. When during the 2300-0700 EST (GMT-5:00) are you available for having you ass handed to you? This will bring back found memories of two years ago when I got massive death match games going in my uni. Use freedoom as the IWAD, but naturally you pick the level and any pwads. Send ip/time/other info to jdearing!cuthNObeat.LUNCHEONMEATcom. Naturally my email server doesnt use bangs.

Re:Minor annoyances

[Anonymous Coward]

That's FUD. No matter how many times you repeat that myth about there being a single DX9 path (or DXn for that matter), it's not going to become anymore true than it is now. You have to poll the driver for capabilities. There's a set of capabilities that are required and a set that are optional. The arguably interesting set (modulo HLSL) is optional. It's not significantly different that with OpenGL. The only point against OpenGL is that there's redundancy in OpenGL (e.g., ARG_fragment_program vs ATI_fragment_program) and you might end up coding the same path (mostly the same thing with slight variations) more than once. But other than that, you have to have multiple rendering path with DX9 as well... if you give a damn about performance, that is. So, please stop FUDding now.

Re:Minor annoyances

[Anonymous Coward]

And you know this because you bring him coffee every morning? Bother to download the original source releases of Quake and Quake 2 and you'll notice that this "coded from scratch every single time" is a myth. You'll see a lot of similarity in the renderers. Q2 is much cleaner, right, but it's not radically new.

Re:Minor annoyances

[Darren Winsper]

Err...Unreal was originally written as a software rendered engine. Glide happened to be close enough to how the Unreal engine worked (at the time) for Epic to quickly code in Glide support before they shipped.

Re:Minor annoyances

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

Id, on the other hand, likes to start "from scratch". Between Unreal I and UT2K3/Unreal 2/Splinter Cell/Raven Shield/all of the other Unreal-based games out today, Id's gone through Quake 2, Quake 3, and is gearing up for Doom 3.

Huh?

There have been many games based on the various Quake engines -- at least as many, if not more so, than on the Unreal engine. You name Splinter Cell and Raven Shield, and I can name Jedi Knight 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein - even Half-Life as various games based on a Quake engine. The list goes on and on for both sides...

Re:Minor annoyances

[Quarters]

This isn't insightful. Too bad there isn't a "Pipe Dream" mod type on Slashdot. Exactly how can developers finding OpenGL easier to use be a function of a growing installed base of Linux? OpenGL is OpenGL, no matter how many computers run Linux. The API doesn't get any more or less easy based on the number of computers than can use it. More developers may use OpenGL if and when someone can prove that putting boxed Linux games on the shelf at retailers will equate to sales equal to sales of Windows games of the same product at the same stores. Currently there is no way you can justify that business model. id/Activition even tried it with Q3/Q3:Team Arena and it failed. Carmack even said as much. Commercial sales of Linux games don't work. Why would any developer or publisher consider dumping money into development of Linux games when it has been shown time and time again that they don't sell. Why would those same developers and/or publishers then use OpenGL when their largest target market is Windows PCs and on those machines DirectX is a better solution?

Re:Minor annoyances

[WNight]

Id's test with Q3 for Linux didn't prove anything. Even my Linux-gaming friends bought the windows version. They didn't want to be two or more weeks behind everyone else. Put both boxes on shelves at the same time and the numbers might mean something.

But really, why not skip the test? Put both executables on the CD and look at server logs a month later to judge the market share.

Re:Minor annoyances

[Osty]

Err...Unreal was originally written as a software rendered engine. Glide happened to be close enough to how the Unreal engine worked (at the time) for Epic to quickly code in Glide support before they shipped.

Correct. The Unreal engine was also under development for some three or four years before it shipped. I was referring to the Unreal engine at the time of the Unreal I launch.

Re:Minor annoyances

[Osty]

There have been many games based on the various Quake engines -- at least as many, if not more so, than on the Unreal engine. You name Splinter Cell and Raven Shield, and I can name Jedi Knight 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein - even Half-Life as various games based on a Quake engine. The list goes on and on for both sides...

I wasn't saying that games haven't been based off of the Quake engines. They certainly have (Hexen 2, Heretic 2, SiN, Anachronox, Daikatana, Solider of Fortune, Soldier of Fortune 2, FAKK 2, Alice, Jedi Knight 2, RTCW, etc). What I was trying to get at was that in the time spread between the first Unreal and the latest Unreal-based games (the engine being a direct evolution from the very first Unreal), Id has gone through two completely new engines (Q2, Q3) and is working on their third (D3). Duh, of course Id has a huge licensing program. That wasn't the point.

Re:Minor annoyances

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

But aren't Splinter Cell and Raven Shield simply third party games that have licensed the Unreal engine? That is what confused me - I thought you made it sound as if they were seperate Unreal engines. If they are counted, then Half Life and Jedi Knight, etc, should be counted for ids side - thats all im saying.

Well whatever... I guess I dont see the distinction between ids engine evolution and unreals, other than epic seems to release them in smaller time increments. I am not an expert, but I would think ids engines do in fact have some relation to those that came before it and are therefore not "totally new," just as unreals are not.

I've pirated software, songs, before...

[Anonymous Coward]

... but will some smart /.er out there create a way for me to pirate hardware?

That'd be really nice. Thanks!

Re:I've pirated software, songs, before...

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1) *38 snub-nose revolver Step 2) Walk in to Best Buy Step 3) ???? Step 4) Meet your new boyfriend in the county 'clink.

Re:I've pirated software, songs, before...

[Anonymous Coward]

pirating hardware is easy. but you need the source code...

Re:I've pirated software, songs, before...

[saden1]

To get your hands on pirated hardware you got live in Asia. Everything is made their nowadays and their is nothing they can't pirate!

Re:I've pirated software, songs, before...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try copying a picture of the newest card and paste that picture on top of your old card. Your computer won't know the difference and you'll finally be able to keep up with the Joneses.

Will this card let me play EQ full feature mode

[Anonymous Coward]

My basis is being in a zone with about 20
other people with a high GHz and Mbyte machine
and see if the card allows the graphics without
slowing down the game.

Re:Will this card let me play EQ full feature mode

[Anonymous Coward]

"My basis is being in a zone with about 20
other people with a high GHz and Mbyte machine
and see if the card allows the graphics without
slowing down the game."

Ah yes! Spending $250 on a video card, because a 1.5GHz and 1GB Ram isnt enough to keep up with the graphics in that game. Unfortunately the new card does little or no good. But I guess if you spend like 500 dollars on a card - the price of a whole computer - it might allow you to have more than 20 characters on the screen, and not force your character to stare at their feet while playing.

Now I remember why I stopped playing that wretched game.

Re:Will this card let me play EQ full feature mode

[Zathrus]

No, because the problem doesn't lie with the card - it lies with EQ's wretched engine. You can keep throwing hardware at the problem, but it's a bottomless pit.

ummm...dent?

[drwhite]

"...serious dent in their wallets."

Dont you mean 'hole'.

Re:ummm...dent?

[Anonymous Coward]

or perhaps 'crater'

Re:ummm...dent?

[SHEENmaster]

My 80 column video card says that it's top of the line, and it isn't nearly as expensive as this stuff.

The hole in my wallet seems to be filled. I don't play games, so I don't need more modern hardware. I keep movies on disc, so I don't need a larger hard disk. My zaurus covers all my portable media needs. About all I have left to get is a scsi tape drive, but discs cover my backup needs.

Is there any "must have" Linux hardware?

Re:ummm...dent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Kathleen Fent will be forced to turn some extra tricks so that Papa can have a new toy.

Re:ummm...dent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since she only charges $15.00 for a full night of "Slashdotting", that may take a while.

Easy choice

[Anonymous Coward]

The choice is easy: go for the hardware with the higher number after it's name.

Re:Easy choice

[Anonymous Coward]

And the suffix "pro" must be worth at least a thousand. It's a no contest.

Re:Easy choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Motorola 68000

Re:Easy choice

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought the new 3DFantastik 500000 Pro+ V1.1 graphics card and my games run terrific. Of course I forgot to pay my rent trying to buy it so now I'm homeless.

Re:Easy choice

[Evil-G]

Yeah, i hear that the 80486 is faster than a pentium 4. by a factor of 20121.5

Please clarify...

[jpt.d]

Is DetrimentalFiend correct when he says that only parts of doom3 may be dx9? The rest would in fact be openGL correct?

Re:Please clarify...

[damiam]

Yes, he's correct. Doom3 graphics are rendered using OpenGL, but (on Windows anyway), it'll probably use some aspects of directX for input and networking.

Re:Please clarify...

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenGL and the requisite extension are used for Doom 3's rendering. On the Windows build, I'm sure it will be using DirectX for everything else. What interfaces they use for DirectInput and DirectSound is anyone's guess. Perhaps someone that's investigated the leaked alpha could determine the requisite version for the other components.

Re:Please clarify...

[DetrimentalFiend]

Every graphics engine since Quake 1, that John Carmack has made, has used OpenGL. In his latest .plan update he makes many comments about using OpenGL, though the most obvious is this: "Trying to keep boneheaded-ideas-that-will-haunt-us-for-years out of Direct-X is the primary reason I have been attending the Windows Graphics Summit for the past three years, even though I still code for OpenGL." Anyway, if an interesting read is his .plan update when he was first experimenting with OpenGL in quake. Basically, there are not as many problems with DirectX anymore, but he still uses OpenGL. Personally I like OpenGL better because of its design philosophy and because it's cross platform. Anyway, some links are below for those interested.

http://www.bluesnews.com/plans/1/

http://www.exaflop.org/docs/d3dogl/d3dogl_jc_plan. html

Re:Please clarify...

[sjelkjd]

People call games "DX9 games" because the various DirectX revisions give a rough dilineation of the different generations of graphics hardware. Roughly, they are:

DirectX 6: Software Transform and lighting. Most games from this category use lightmaps for lighting, rather than goraud(per vertex) shading.

DirectX 7: Hardware T&L. All those new T&L enabled games you heard about belong here. The opengl equivalent is calling glTranslate, glRotate, etc do to transformations, and using glLight to do lighting

DirectX 8: Vertex and Pixel Shaders. Let's you program the vertex transform and lighting part, and to a lesser extent, the pixel processing part, of the graphics pipeline. Corresponds to the OpenGL extensions NV_VERTEX_PROGRAM, NV_TEXTURE_SHADER, and NV_REGISTER_COMBINERS(for nvidia, similar extensions for ATI)

DirectX 9: Highly programmable Vertex and Pixel Shaders. The old pixel shader model let you do something like 8 operations max, while the new model greatly extends this number. OpenGL extensions are ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM and ARB_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM.

This is really only a brief overview, there are many, many more OpenGL extensions(which you can see here, some of which have no DirectX counterparts. It's easier to tell non-graphics programmers "It's a DX9 game" than "Oh, it uses OpenGL 1.4, ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM, ARB_TEXTURE_PROGRAM, etc", especially since DirectX is a well-known name. People generally aren't as aware of the various revisions of OpenGL(which are mainly exposed through extensions).
Doom 3 uses OpenGL for its graphics. In fact, the basic tech required is really DirectX 8 level(bump mapping and stencil buffer), but it looks better on DirectX 9 hardware(due to the higher programmability). It likely uses other Direct X APIs for sound, networking, etc on Windows.

Re:Please clarify...

[DetrimentalFiend]

I guess my above post may not have exactly answered your question. DirectX is a suit of media components including network, sound, input, graphics. Most developers use it for sound and input. In fact, many libraries, like SDL, simply are a layer between DirectX on windows. I don't know of anyone who uses the network component (direct play), but many people do choose to use Direct3d (the graphics component). Quake 2 and 3 used DirectX for input and sound, if I remember correctly, and used OpenGL for graphics. Because of the .plan file, Doom3 will be OpenGL based, and, because of history and industry trends, we can assume it will use DirectX 8 or 9 for sound and input.

Re:Please clarify...

[Solosoft]

Honestly OpenGL I find is an awsome engine. It runs and looks nice on lowerend computers. DX I personally don't think looks the greatest. I don't know when games have the option to go "OpenGL or Direct3D" OpenGL always looks sexyer ... and if glide is accepted then glide > OpenGL ;-) We all have a little 3Dfx in us

Re:Please clarify...

[saden1]

Agree. I have always found OpenGL to be smoother and more pleasing to the eye. DX kills frame rate and I honestly can't stand anything under 100 frames per a second.

Re:Please clarify...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know of anyone who uses the network component (direct play).

Asheron's Call, the MS funded MORG uses DirectPlay. From what I understand DirectPlay is horrid (or at least it was a while ago).

Re:Please clarify...

[Dada]

Good job explaining this, your post is very informative.

However there a small mistake at the very end: Doom III *definitely* doesn't use DirectX networking (DirectPlay). That API is the worst possible way to do *any* networking, let alone games networking (for which it is supposedly designed). I can't see any reason anybody would use it except for Xbox Live where it is required (I think).

Re:Minor annoyances-Big Bills

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to add to this. At $400-500 serious gamers better get use to eating Ramen noodles.

You know it's time to get more RAM

[ejaw5]

when a new video card has more memory than what you have in system memory

Re:You know it's time to get more RAM

[millertime3250]

It truely is a sad twisted world we live in.

this stuff is getting crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

256 MB RAM???

My first freakin' PC had 20 meg HD.

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[log0n]

My first 'PC' had an 8kb ram cartridge :D

(Vic20)

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[guacamolefoo]

Here we go with the "my first PC thread"... Before long, it will certainly get to "My first PC was actually an abacus constructed by Wu Chen of the Ming Dynasty". It's almost like a geek version of reductio ad absurdum. Well, here goes with my contribution:

256 MB RAM??? My first freakin' PC had 20 meg HD.

My first PC had 8k of RAM and 30 min of storage (cassette-tape -- don't know how many k that was, but it wasn't much). A good old Apple ][ without a floppy drive.

GF.

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[Daengbo]

OK, I'll bite! My first PC was a Tandy Model I with 4kB of memory and a cassette player. Man that thing booted fast!

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[Gropo]

30 minutes of storage!? You spoiled baby!

Our DEC Pro350 didn't have no fancy-pants tape backup!

...And Dad insisted on running some strange UNIX flavor on the summbitch. No LodeRunner for us! We had to write MadLibs in Basic!

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[Savatte]

My first PC had 8k of RAM and 30 min of storage

my first chick had 8k worth of "enhacements" and a 30 min timelimt.

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

The first system I cut my wooden teeth on was an IBM System/360.

I would spend a day creating a punchcard to enter 16 bytes of data at a time. I really miss the old days.

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[Michael Woodhams]

My first PC had 1K RAM, something like 64x64 pixel display (to TV), and I soldered it myself.

Of course, about a month after I* got it working, we got a 48K Apple II with disk drive - and I can't compete with they guy who started on an IBM 360.

* For large values of "I".

My first computer program (as opposed to HP calculator program) was written in Algol on punch-cards where you poked out the chads with a pencil, then sent them to the local bank and got a print out of the results a few days later.

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[AppyPappy]

"My first PC had 8k of RAM "

AHEM....my first PC had 8 bits of RAM. We used to set the bits and then push them into sandstone to form an image and then wait for it to harden. We did that for every instruction. That was our first program. Luckily the code was self-documenting.

CRT? Forget it. We had a blind guy read the sandstone and tell us the output.

But you can't tell young people that today. They're spoiled.

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

my first pc was 2 relays, 3 diodes, a 9 volt battery, some wires and a light bulb. 1 bit storage. top that.

Re:this stuff is getting crazy

[poot_rootbeer]

my first chick had 8k worth of "enhacements" and a 30 min timelimt.

Learn something new every day... I didn't know before that if you overclock a RealDoll it will overheat after 30 minutes!

Anandtech

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the reviews over at Anandtech, and I dunno but it looks like the FX 5900 beat the pants off the Radeon 9800 256MB in all tests save one, and to top it off the 256MB radeon and the FX 5900 are the same price...

Re:Anandtech

[Tyrdium]

Wow... 120 FPS higher than the 256 meg 9800 Pro in Q3A at 1600x1200 with 4x AA and 8x ansiotropic filtering... *drool*

Re:Anandtech

[1000StonedMonkeys]

Tom's Hardware came to the same conclusion. Except for Splinter Cell and some synthetic benchmarks the FX 5900 was clearly the better card.

I really don't have a big choice between the two..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid until ATI starts producing better Linux drivers, I'll have to stick with nVidia's cards for the time being. nVidia has really gotten their act in gear as of late and their latest drivers work great for me under Linux. I see on ATI's website that their drivers don't even support XFree 4.3 yet. Weeeeakk! :)

You know it's time to get a new computer

[geeber]

When a new video card costs more than your entire system is worth.

Re:You know it's time to get a new computer

[afidel]

Funny enough I just built a pretty decent system for significantly less then the cost of either of these cards. It's a AMD Athlon XP 2100+ based system using an SIS746 mobo, 512MB of DDR333 ram, CDRW, 400W server class case, lowend graphics card and a pair of 20GB hdd's I had laying around using software RAID1. Total cost $350, around $100 less than just these cards. Sure it can't play the latest games because it has no 3D accelerator, but that could be remedied for around $120 with a Geforce 4 Ti4200 128MB card, it would still come in at about the same cost as the cards alone.

Re:You know it's time to get a new computer

[ottffssent]

You can build a pretty nice computer for $500. A good motherboard + XP2000 + 512M RAM + 80G HDD + nice case/PSU comes out under the $500 mark. Just add monitor and keyboard.

Your average computer user needs far less in terms of hardware, and even a geek could hold his head up with a $500 computer these days. It's getting harder and harder to justify spending much more, except on peripherals.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[millertime3250]

/agree I love the linux drivers for Nvidia.

decisions

[DanThe1Man]

Hmm, spend $500 for a video card or eat this month. Video card or food, video card or food. Hmm...

Re:decisions

[millertime3250]

Video card. Video card. You know what to do.

Re:decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

Food. When you're well fed you can steal it and get away.

Re:decisions

[parliboy]

Now, now, you overreact. Wal-Mart's got Ramen on special, 10 for $1.

Re:decisions

[sirsex]

Oh, come on. You can probably make it a month without food. And tap water is cheap. Get the card.

Re:decisions

[Lord_Slepnir]

(later that day)

Woohoo! 140 fps!

Re:decisions

[rune2]

Hey I already made that decision a couple of years ago. ;-) You uh can live up to a whole month without food...

Re:decisions

[MacOS_Rules]

...And this is good, because everybody loves Ramen.

Re:decisions

[phorm]

And besides... once a game comes out that you can use that spiffy video card on, you'll be wanting quick meals so that you can slurp them down w/o leaving the keyboard. I expect that a lot of geeks are going to be permanently attached to the computer desks when doom3 comes out... they'll be eating their ramen raw.

Some better reviews

[sjelkjd]

Anandtech and Tom's Hardware are more reputable sites than the story poster mentioned. They also perform more comprehensive benchmarks, including Doom 3 and Unreal 2, at multiple resolutions, with and without anisotropic filtering. The other reviews just seem shallow by comparison.

Re:Some better reviews

[bobbozzo]

ExtremeTech has an extensive review also.

Re:Some better reviews

[Anonymous Coward]

amen.

Re:Some better reviews

[jwdeff]

Yes but with no doom 3 benchmarks. And extremetech is not usually considered a great hardware review site, but that might be due to the ZD ownership.

Re:Some better reviews

[sjelkjd]

Actually, they're "extensive" review was one of the reasons I posted. They don't have Doom3 benchmarks, they only test 2 resolutions per game, and no anisotropic filtering test either. Finally, their UT2003 scores are suspect, they disagree with every other site I've read(and are extremely low). They don't state which driver version they are using, not do they explain the specific parameters for most of their benchmarks, making it impossible to reproduce their results. I don't know about you, but I don't call that extensive.

Re:Some better reviews

[jwdeff]

Also HardOCP has a review with Doom 3 benchmarks.

I sort of did a redundant post about anandtech and tomshardware earlier, my bad.

Re:Some better reviews

[afidel]

You mentioned Tom's Hardware and reputable in the same paragraph and it wasn't talking about the lack thereof, for shame. (yep it's flaimbait but I have karma to burn and Tom has more bias then a CNN reporter, he just changes loyalties every so often to seem "fair and balanced")

So?!

[Ignorant Aardvark]

I'm not impressed with the Radeon 9800 Pro. What I really want is the Radeon 9500 ASC. The price is steadily coming down. Mmmmm, I can't wait to play Nethack in full 3D :-)

Re:So?!

[Anonymous Coward]

oi, YOU again. First r.g.r.n., then gamefaqs, now here.

You really piss me off.

I guess the 'ignorant' part is right...

Re:So?!

[Kynde]

I'm not impressed with the Radeon 9800 Pro. What I really want is the Radeon 9500 ASC [bbspot.com]. The price is steadily coming down. Mmmmm, I can't wait to play Nethack in full 3D :-)

Had you read the article you're kind enough to quote there. The 9500 ASC does _NOT_ contain 3D accelerator, it contains an ASCII accelerator.

What this means is that Nethack on that baby will look good as ever and then some and thankfully no 3D.

Re:So?!

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a joke. Chill

Don't forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is using unoptimized nvidia drivers on a pre-release card. I saw benchmarks that were pulled due to NDA that showed that with the Detonator 50.xx, the NV35 chip performs SO much better than with the current drivers. I say wait, before judging the performance of NV35.

under linux there are no doubts: NVIDIA rulez ...

[DataShark]

closed source or not, the fact is that the NVIDIA drivers on Linux are as good or better that it's win* counterparts ...

ATI is starting to try but has anyone tryed ATIs drivers and compared them, both fetaure-wise, performance-wise and stability-wise with the NVIdia ones ?

so unless /. started covering HW 99% focused on MS platforms the duel is a non issue :-) Nvidia wins by K.O.under linux, and under even BSD :-) ...

Nice to see

[bobbozzo]

Nice to see they got rid of the leaf blower that was on the 5800.

Re:Nice to see

[dfj225]

but what about those of us that try to build the loudest box? J/K, but it would be a cool project.

Preemptive...

[sailor420]

OK... Lets not have any "I really dont understand why anyone needs X card" or "Why buy it now" or "the average Joe doesnt need..." posts. We all know it, we've all heard it... Lets say something somewhat original this time.

You know it's time to get a new processor...

[ripewithdecay]

...when a new video card GPU has a higher clock than your CPU.

Re:You know it's time to get a new processor...

[Solosoft]

http://chris.thesmartone.net:81/sysinfo I run a P166MMX 128mb of RAM 1 Nv GeForce2MX 32mb and a 6gb HDD ... these cards here 0wn my computer :(

Re:You know it's time to get a new processor...

[sydres]

Yeah my first system was a p 133 49 mb ram and a 16 mb voodoo 3 (running at 166mhz) man that was the shiznit ran great gotta love the old voodoos

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[jimbobborg]

ATI's drivers were given to the X crew, they didn't commit them. Check out their archives for more info.

This isn't great news..

[Anonymous Coward]

By the time these games actually are released, there will be something bigger, and better. I think graphics are the single most important aspect of the gaming experience. But don't take out a loan to buy a video card - Save your money.

I upgraded my geforce256 SDR card a month ago, with a Geforce4 ti 4200 and I'm a happy camper. Probably won't need to upgrade this one for an even longer period of time.

Re:This isn't great news..

[ripewithdecay]

I have a GeForce4 Ti4200 (the version with 64MB of DDR-RAM), and I don't plan on upgrading it until Doom3 is released. I played the alpha leak, and the highest FPS count was 12.

Re:This isn't great news..

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd..

Last week I bought a new car for our family of four and turned down the anti-lock brakes/traction control because it was a $586 option.

This week, I had no problems ordering a $525 video card..

Too bad the airbags were not optional as I could have got a much needed CPU upgrade too.

Am I a geek or just stupid?

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[vivek7006]

Absolutely right...

I really dont care about Nvidia's drivers not being open-source as long as they promptly release the official version of their drivers for all the major linux distributions. Ease of installation matters, and full points to Nvidia for understanding that.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[MarcoAtWork]

Definitely, I don't care if -any- ATI card has a 2%-5%-10% performance advantage, having absolutely great drivers from NVidia (for Linux & windows) far outweighs any small performance gains the ATI card might supposedly have.

If the situation is like this (where the cards are pretty much neck & neck) the balance swings even farther towards buying NVidia. The only NVidia card I'd have never ever considered buying would have been the dustbuster...

Given that I'm running an (ancient) dual p3-450 bought 3 years ago, I guess this Fall it might be time to upgrade :)

A Question

[nate nice]

I know a Z-Buffer demands that you double the memory used so I was wondering if anyone knows if that doubles the video memory or if there is a special memory unit for hidden surface removal that the z-buffer makes use of. In this case, it would mean that you actually have 128MB of video memory and 128MB z-buffer. Anyone know?

Re:A Question

[pclminion]

The Z-buffer doesn't have to have the same depth as the frame buffer. Depending on the application, 8 bits per pixel in the Z-buffer is sufficient (as opposed to 24 bits per pixel in the true color frame buffer). To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what depth the Z-buffers on commodity cards commonly have. Anyone know?

Re:A Question

[Magila]

Every consumer graphics card for several generations has had a unified memory arch. Everything from the z-buffer to shadder programs gets thrown in the same heap until all the onboard memory is ocupied and things start being swaped to main system memory (a situation to be avoided). And the z-buffer doesn't double memory ussage, it uses the same amount as the primary framebuffer (well, not necessarily but now-a-days it's usualy the case).

Re:A Question

[sjelkjd]

8 bit z buffer? You are kidding right? An 8 bit z buffer would let you have only 256 unique depth values - think of designing a 3d game level on a piece of 256x256 graph paper, where you can only connect the dots. In fact, that's more precision than you would get with 8 bits. Z buffers are AT LEAST 16 bit on ALL modern hardware. Consumer cards usually offer 24 bit, and sometimes 32 bit z buffers as well.

Re:A Question

[nate nice]

"And the z-buffer doesn't double memory ussage, it uses the same amount as the primary framebuffer"

That's what I meant, just sayng in worst case situation. Was just wondering how the memory was allocated or if all the different bufferes shared the same memory. All this makes memory management harder, huh. Thanx for the info!

Re:A Question

[The boojum]

The amount of memory needed by the Z-Buffer is trivial next to the memory required for the cached textures and the geometry. Typically the Z-Buffer is 16 or 32 bits. Even at 1600x1200 and a 32 bit Z-Buffer, that works out to 1600 x 1200 x 4 = 7.3MB for the Z-Buffer. And probably the same for the primary frame buffer for a total of around 15MB for those buffers. The rest is cached textures and geometry.

Re:A Question

[afidel]

modern consumer level cards do not have a seperate Z buffer memory area. The z buffer depth for the Ati 9700Pro is 24bits, the Nvidia Geforce FX line is 32 bits. But z buffer memory is not half of all memory used, due to Z culling and hidden surface removal it is probably a very small % of the total ram used, the majority in most DX8 level games is probably texture space, and on DX9 level games it is probably split between texture and scratch space (need to store the results of the shader and pixel programs somewhere before final display assuming you aren't doing single pass to RAMDAC)

Re:A Question

[nate nice]

Wow, I didn't realize that it took that little. I really thought it would be more, but you mention textures and that makes sense. Thanx for the info. Just as opinion, what API is better (if you can generalize like that) OpenGL or direct X. I have been using OpenGL myself, as it's portable and I love portable code but have heard good things about Direct 3D. Any advice?

Re:A Question

[Anonymous Coward]

But z buffer memory is not half of all memory used, due to Z culling and hidden surface removal it is probably a very small % of the total ram used,

Um, no. Hidden surface removal doesn't reduce the amount of z buffer memory required; you still need several (2-4) bytes per pixel. It just speed things up by not rendering things that aren't seen.

Re:A Question

[timeOday]

An 8 bit z-buffer? If you're that sure your objects will never touch, just draw them from back to front. If they do touch, you'll get a big jaggy ol' line along the intersection.

I had a card that allowed you to select a 16 vs 32 bit z buffer in the setup panel, and even then it did make a difference on some (poorly implemented?) games.

Re:A Question

[afidel]

Obviously it does, all of the removed surfaces are removed from memory along with their Z buffer data =)

Does this card need liquid nitro+fan like Nvidia?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just need a graphics adapter - not a hot and noisy nuclear power source.

Stay behind and save money

[YetAnotherName]

Whenever I've given into hype, my wallet's regretted it. But buying the current way-cool game a year-and-a-half or more later almost always guarantees it'll run just fine on my current hardware.

There's all the free walkthroughs, hints, and cheat codes on the web by then, too.

Re:Stay behind and save money

[gmhowell]

No kidding. The reason I'm giggling with excitement is that in a couple of months, the ~$100 video cards are going to be really sweet.

But I'll still be getting Deus Ex 2 on release day.

Re:Stay behind and save money

[Anonymous Coward]

There's all the free walkthroughs, hints, and cheat codes on the web by then, too.

And some septillion patches to "just fix that graphic flickering and make the last level actually finishable".

Re:Stay behind and save money

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with staying behind a bit. A new card like this tempts me so, but I know come DoomIII release, I won't be happy.

Just do what me and most of the people I know are doing; wait for DoomIII to be released. Buy new computer parts accordingly. My last upgrade was for quakeIII, and I haven't missed much gaming experience, well least the ones I'm interested in.

ATI Cards and Refresh Rates

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought an 9700 All in Wonder and it produces 'waves' on any resolution under 85hz. This seems to be a common problem with the 9700 while searching for google groups. Is this common with all ATI cards?

Re:ATI Cards and Refresh Rates

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought an 9700 All in Wonder and it produces 'waves' on any resolution under 85hz.

Just remember that the guys who designed these graphics cards grew up in the 70s... these waves are like LSD to your computer. Why should just humans be allowed to get high? Share the happiness dudes!!

Re:ATI Cards and Refresh Rates

[benzapp]

Yes, I have observed this with my 9700 AIW. Check Rage3D and search through their forums. I didn't have any problems with mine until I got a new hard drive, reinstalled XP and decided to use Service Pack 1. All the common problems, waves, some games crashing, TV stuttering...

A small proggie from Rage3D fixed some problems but I think I am going to have to reinstall.

Card works fine in Redhat 9 btw, and is otherwise stable.

Re:ATI Cards and Refresh Rates

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont know about the 900 series, however i am running a 7200 64mb sdr and a 7000 64mb ddr, both with win2k and debian, and neither seem to cause major problems.....just the linux drivers suck

same old

[Anonymous Coward]

um,

same old slashdotters,
same old slashdot post,

what makes you think you can stem the tide of
same old comment(TM) !?!

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[The Analog Kid]

I have to agree. As long as their not shit, don't complain. I'm not a Open Source fanatic. Sure I use an Open Source OS. Doesn't mean eveything has to be open source. I'm sure most of you can agree, which on would you choose the one that works, or the one that works well. Though I don't know why they can't release the specs to the card so Open Source Drivers can be made.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

ATI has never wanted to trouble themselves with Drivers. Historically they have abandoned hardware as quickly as they thought they could get away with. I got bit by this back with the introduction of the "new" windows driver model. A card less than two months old was "unsupported". I made the mistake of buying an ATI PCI TV Wonder while experimenting with HTPC setups. Fortunately that one is still quite useful in Linux. ATI dropped windows support for IT over a year ago. Shortly after I purchased one NEW. The ATI Windows apps still don't work right. Every time they invoke Windows scheduler to set up a scheduled show, they GPF.

I will never forget or forgive that blatant attempt to obsolete brand new hardware. The fact that they can't be bothered to stay current with Xfree doesn't help their case in my eyes.

The only windows box I have left is the one that I play most of my games on. Every machine I own runs only NVidia hardware. The fact that NVidia's drivers support every piece of hardware they've made back to the original GeForce (and I think the Riva) makes me much more comfortable in investing in hardware from them.

Canopus

[zoid.com]

I bought my first 3D card from canopus because it had 6 meg. It was the absolute best 3DFX card available. It cost around $250 at the time. It was a sweet card but within 6 months a better and cheaper card came out and I decided I would never buy the latest and greatest card again. My rule of thumb is to stay 2 generations behind the best and you will have a card that can play any game out there. This may change as soon as a DX9 game comes out but I really can't see a game company "require" anything greater than a DX7 card or they wil really linit their audience....

Re:Canopus

[guacamolefoo]

I bought my first 3D card from canopus because it had 6 meg. It was the absolute best 3DFX card available. It cost around $250 at the time. It was a sweet card but within 6 months a better and cheaper card came out and I decided I would never buy the latest and greatest card again. My rule of thumb is to stay 2 generations behind the best and you will have a card that can play any game out there. This may change as soon as a DX9 game comes out but I really can't see a game company "require" anything greater than a DX7 card or they wil really linit their audience....

This is the cardinal rule of technology -- buy the newest and the best, only do it 12 to 18 months later. Works for lots of things -- Games, computers, HDTV, processors, cell phones, OSes, PDAs, and video cards. Heck, even cars.

Let some other schmuck take the depreciation. Take your cue from me, and you can't go wrong. As soon as the prices come down on those swanky new 286s, I can finally get rid of my PCjr.

GF.

Re:Canopus

[dfj225]

I agree with you here. I ordered a new computer with a gforce 4 ti 4600 card. While this is high end, it is not cutting edge. Often, people get caught up in all the benchmarking (i know that its easy for me to do as well) and think that their system will suck if it doesn't perform the best. What you have to realize here is that these benchmarks are often in the 100s of fps range (with the differences between cards being a handful of fps). To me, I rather save some $$ and have 40-60 fps. I think that around 60 fps is all you really need to enjoy a game, and if a card can get this with full effects on, then that is even better. Having a card that can't really be used to its full potential seems kinda pointless to me, but if you have the money to spend then go fot it :)

Re:Canopus

[Solosoft]

Fuck man I have the same card ... I recently got rid of it when I updated to the GeForce2MX from a 1mb S3 Trio (internal) Canopus Pure 3D LX ? Voodoo 1 ? 60MHz ? 6mb or RAM :)

Re:Canopus

[Unregistered]

i've heard that you're fine over 30fps and won't noticve a difference over 45. even with 2 machines to compare between. I think the reason they test like that is that no games need all thet grafx power so they can't use reasonable tests. This actually shows you don't need a card, but reviews spin it so you want a new card from their advertisers.

Re:Canopus

[BRTB]

Well, now that I'm about 5 generations behind, I'm seriously considering buying a Ti4200-8x to replace my $39-special GF2 MX200.... $120 and not too far behind the newest generation, if those benchmarks are any indication. Thoughts?

Re:Canopus

[Anonymous Coward]

Get the non-8x version if you can get it cheaper. That 8x AGP port is not worth spending a cent on, it does absolutely nothing for the card.

Re:Canopus

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that you can get a 286 for free, right?

Re:Canopus

[afidel]

What I wish reviewers would start benchmarking is MINIMUM framerate, even if the card averages 120fps if it dips to 20fps for a second it will be highly irritating and noticable. My personal rule of thumb for action games is to find the resolution and settings that average 60fps, then you rarely get below 30fps dips.

Re:Canopus

[poot_rootbeer]

As soon as the prices come down on those swanky new 286s, I can finally get rid of my PCjr.

Exactly. Why spend $400 on the latest 3D graphics card when you can get four hundred 286's for the same price?

Re:Canopus

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Hey, I still have mine! Granted the floppies have probably rusted to nothingness, and it's only usefullness would be as a doorstop, museum exhibit, or one of those freak-show "I can run a webserver on..." machines.

Actually, it's going to be great for when my kids start using computers.

See kids, back in my day we didn't have those fancy Play Stations or Athlons. We had 4.7 MHz and 128K of RAM. And we were grateful! I had to write my own games in BASIC. We didn't even have a hard disk, I had to store all my files on floppy disks.

You kids have it so easy...

Re:Canopus

[BRTB]

Yeah, it's worthless, but they're using the NV28 everywhere now instead of the NV25. Works the same way, same price.

Actually, no.

[voxel]

Actually, alot of times the "beta" hardware with the "beta" drivers runs FASTER than the final product.

Hardware: The problem lies in that the "beta" hardware is carefully crafted and selected so that it lies in a very high yield of the manufacturing build. Later on, when mass production starts you have to clock things down and tone things down in general so you get a nice output yield. Otherwise you will run into the problem Nvidia already did with the 5800 Ultra, they tried to make the cards run like the "Beta" cards did, and nearly got NO cards that worked when trying to manufacture.

Software Drivers: Beta drivers can generally run slower, usually when extra debug info is turned on. However, when drivers are going to pre-release sites, alot of times they are running as fast as they can and are even tweaked to be more unstable just to get better performance... Also tweaked to run on the "beta" hand-select hardware.

All in all, alot of times beta hardware/software is better than the final shipments off of mass production. How much does a "Beta" board cost to make? Well, a company I worked for previously made a $150 board in mass production, but our beta development boards cost $5000.00 a piece.

This isn't always the case though, sometimes Beta hardware is junk, clocked slow, and drivers are slowed down by debug messages... In this video idustry though, anything about to be reviewed and is "Beta" gives the company a chance to Tweak things all to hell without fear when going to mass production, because that was "Beta" performance... :)

- Jeff

Re:Actually, no.

[OrangeTide]

A counter-example is S3. They typically produced "Beta" video cards that costs thousands and could not even run fast enough for the PCI bus and had to underclock the PCI bus to use it. This is often the case with beta equipement that uses FPGAs.

The company I worked at was develping a product on FPGAs that fit into a PCI slot. But they had to clock the bus at half-speed. So instead of good old 33Mhz PCI you had 16MHz.

ps- My Internet is faster than your internet.

you should have invested in their stock

[qewl]

nVidia shot up $5.39 per share to $21.37 on Friday alone when the news of the soon chip release became mainstream. That's a HUGE increase in share value for any company of that size. It's almost unheard of. I sold all my shares before today. Now I can purchase my new Radeon and still have cash leftover with the $2000 profit from only 300 shares bought a week ago for about $4500. =) The stock market kicks ass!

Re:you should have invested in their stock

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and then at the end of the year your taxes will force you to sell off that Radeon and you'll still end up owing money. Don't count that money as free just yet...

Re:you should have invested in their stock

[saden1]

What the government doesn't know won't hurt...Who I'm I kidding, those bastards at the IRS know everything.

Re:you should have invested in their stock

[saden1]

Speaking on nVidia stock i remember when they made their IPO and the price per a share was at 16 dollars. I told my uncle about it and sure enough he invested 12 grand. Few months went by and the stock price skyrocketed to 200+ dollars per a share.

Re:under linux there are no doubts: NVIDIA rulez .

[Soko]

ATIs drivers are by all accounts fine, as long as you've got a single screen. Dual head - that's thier Achilles Heel. Xinerama disables all 3D extentions on the ATI driver, and AFAIK they have nothing like NVidias TwinView. Not sure about the GATOS project drivers either, since I dumped my Radeon 9000PRO for my current GeForce Ti 4200 in order to run 2 screens. (UT2K3 demo runs sweer in a window on the second screen BTW)

Hopefully they'll get thier act together. Competition is nice.

Soko

This is obviously the mid-range

[The Analog Kid]

This is obviously the mid-range chip of the 35 series. The article(the ati is better one) states it can go higher, why do you think its lower, so that can jack it up and call it Ultra. This is like your BMW M5 of the bunch, the Ultra is like your Ferrari Barchetta(Yes you know what I'm talking about you Rush fans out there)

Re:This is obviously the mid-range

[BJH]

Well, no... the Ultra is more like the fully tricked-out ricebox of the range - inverted spoiler, fake vent in the bonnet, ground-effect kit that scrapes the pavement every time you hit a bump...

Re:This is obviously the mid-range

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool name for a car... didn't know they were by Ferrari. Great song.

all in wonder TNG

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the heck can ATI figure out that a dirt cheap all in wonder would sell tens of millions of cards to pvr embedded systems?

When can we get a $299.00 or less dvd recorder, pvr, mpeg4 codec machine for the tv?

Re:all in wonder TNG

[Squarewav]

When can we get a $299.00 or less dvd recorder, pvr, mpeg4 codec machine for the tv?

about the time when mpeg8 comes out and someone creates a 30 gig cd like disk :-D

Depends on your BMI !!

[spineboy]

Buy the card if it's over 25

Forget me not...yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm afraid until ATI starts producing better Linux drivers, I'll have to stick with nVidia's cards for the time being. nVidia has really gotten their act in gear as of late and their latest drivers work great for me under Linux."

Well since we're all being fearful. Nvidia drivers do have issues, windows and linux (otherwise let's disband their help forum). And that's not even mentioning non-x86 platforms. It's nice your loyal, but let's not pretend everything is, or will stay the same. (It wasn't all that long ago that ATI was the one to boo).

To the post under this one. I have some perfectly working but orphen hardware that will not run under W2K. Wanna buy? Why not? I'm certain the companies will come around to supporting them...eventually.

Re:Forget me not...yet.

[quantum bit]

To the post under this one. I have some perfectly working but orphen hardware that will not run under W2K. Wanna buy? Why not? I'm certain the companies will come around to supporting them...eventually.

I have an Aureal Vortex2, which is an awesome sound card -- something like 64 hardware channels, 4-speaker surround sound, great sounding wavetable, and A3D for realistic reverb that actually simulates the sound in 3-D space (Unlike EAX which just has "cave mode", "theater mode", etc.). It's several years only and with the exception of no SPDIF output, holds up feature-wise even against the newest Audigy cards.

Unfortunately the company went out of business before they could produce stable W2K drivers. So now the cards are only really usable on 9X and NT4... You can pretty much forget about Linux / FreeBSD. Creative bought Aureal just before they dropped, but I really doubt they'll ever bother to release any updated drivers.

It now sits on a shelf in my closet :-(

Re:Forget me not...yet.

[Doktor Memory]

I should really start a support group or something for all the Aureal orphans out there.

The thing that really chafes my ass isn't just that Creative didn't ever bother to write new drivers for the old Aureal cards -- they want to sell me an Audigy, not spend money to support a card that never made them any money, I understand. It's that once they bought out Aureal, they then buried Aureal's technology. They own A3D 2.0, and they still haven't produced a card that supports it, and are apparently never going to.

Oh well, that's the way the industry goes.

Re:Forget me not...yet.

[quantum bit]

They own A3D 2.0, and they still haven't produced a card that supports it, and are apparently never going to.

Yeah, that always annoyed me that Creative opted to go for the cheap channed FX even after they bought Aureal. Though I guess it's what the market wants, because being cheaper probably allowed them to sell so many cards... Too bad nvidia didn't buy them instead :)

I still have nightmares about playing Half-Life in 4-speaker A3D mode though. Too bad Doom 3 won't support it -- just imagine how awesome and completely immersive that would be.

Re:Forget me not...yet.

[Doktor Memory]

Heh, screw Doom3. It'll be cool and all, but what I really, really want A3D to be resurrected for is Thief III. The Thief series just won't be the same without the fully modeled reverb effects.

Video cards get faster... who cares anymore

[acomj]

Why would anyone spend 400-500$ on a video card. Unless you really NEED to be cutting edge for the next 6 month or so before the next batch comes out and the price of these cards becomes more reasonable.

I'm not a hard core gamer. I have a Radeon something or other I got with my current machine (powermac g4). It plays wolfenstien and quake 3 great at 1024x768 with lots of eye candy on. I thnk a lot of people get way too caught up in frame rates and technical specs..

Re:Video cards get faster... who cares anymore

[MagPulse]

These reviews are like teaser trailers for LOTR or Reloaded that came out six months before the movie. Except if you pay $100 a ticket you can see it early. Most people will wait, but it's still interesting to see what we're waiting for.

Re:Video cards get faster... who cares anymore

[prockcore]

Aspyr did a crappy job porting Wolf and MoHAA. So the reason you think "a lot of people get way too caught up in frame rates and technical specs" is because you're not seeing the difference.

Wolf and MoHAA look like crap on the mac. The texture quality is horrible.. no amount of hardware is going to make it look any better either. So obviously you don't see the need for better video cards, there aren't any games available that support it.

Now try and play C&C Generals and Splinter Cell and then tell me your card is good enough.

Re:Video cards get faster... who cares anymore

[Erwos]

"Now try and play C&C Generals and Splinter Cell and then tell me your card is good enough."

It's funny you mention this, because I just got C&C: Generals today. So, I installed it, and what do you know? My system is under the _minimum_ requirements - it wants an 800mhz P3, I have a Celeron 700. My video card (AIW Radeon 7200) is not exactly on the cutting edge either.

So, I start the game. And, surprisingly, at the default settings, it's quite playable. There is some slowdown, but in an RTS, it's not so pronounced. Certainly, it's an enjoyable experience. Would it be more fun if it was speedier? Yes, but I'm willing to put up with it as is rather than kick in $500 to upgrade my whole system.

What I'm trying to get at is that these sites are benchmarking at rather crazy combinations of high resolution and anti-aliasing. If you're not afraid of jacking down the settings to 800x600x16, you can usually get acceptable performance even on newer games when using an older video card.

-Erwos

Re:Video cards get faster... who cares anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with Erwos. Though I spent alot on my new computer(because the old one is a K6-2) based on the fact that I upgraded everything, the graphics card I purchased was only $105 bucks Geforce FX(not the new one obviously). Now I can play everything under the sun at high resolutions. Personally, I don't need the next hottest thing this instant.

Besides all that if your monitor can't match your $500 graphic card's resolution/refresh rate...too bad eh?

Guess you'll have to settle for that TV rate-30 fps. One thing about TV...it's all glitchy and jerky...ya know?

Re:Video cards get faster... who cares anymore

[Patoski]

Why would anyone spend 400-500$ on a video card. Unless you really NEED to be cutting edge for the next 6 month or so before the next batch comes out and the price of these cards becomes more reasonable.

You're assuming that everyone uses these cards to game on. Certainly there are lots of people and even industries who absolutely need to be on the cutting edge. One example would be animators who work for special effects companies like Industrial Light & Magic or Weta. Time is money to these companies and top flight animators don't come cheap. Paying an extra $300 for a card that's even 10% faster can mean a lot when you're constantly facing time pressures to get scenes done or trying to add one last detail to a scene. Having a card that operates 10% faster allows for 10% more eye candy in the next movie you will go see. :)

Also, anyone who says 3d drivers in Linux is irrelevant is smoking some good stuff. The 3D effects industry is rapidly standardizing on Linux and are moving away from propietary solutions like those expensive SGI boxes. Why do you think tasty proggies like Maya and X3D have made it to Linux? It's because 3D FX houses were screaming at them to port it. The same thing (but to a lesser extent) happened with 3D drivers for Linux. 3D FX houses pay for top of the line (high margin) stuff and the folks at nVidia/ATI generally listen when those folks are all speaking with one voice. I'm certainly not saying that the 3D FX industry was single handedly responsible bringing quality 3D acceleration to Linux but it was one factor.

Re:Video cards get faster... who cares anymore

[PCBman!]

Well, we expect them to have the latest and greatest out of 3Dlabs, like the $3000 wildcat's that render previews for the CAD workstation user faster then his poor CPU could.

Re:under linux there are no doubts: NVIDIA rulez .

[ottffssent]

But since I don't play games under Linux, the question's moot. In fact, I have two Redhat machines here and one *BSD machine, none of which even have X installed.

Samba, dhcpd, apache, squid, and the rest don't run any better with X installed, so why bother?

I also don't game much under Windows, so I'm asking out of ignorance rather than malice whether there are enough recent Linux games to justify the hassle. Is linux a reasonable alternative gaming platform to Windows?

I just went BLIND...

[mrklin]

from reading timothy's "article" that had more hyperlinked texts than actual text! My graphic card can't render all that.

These cards are just too expensive for most of us

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a 'serious gamer', but my inexpensive GeForce 4 MX440 with 64M SDRAM works just fine with any game I've tried on it, and it was only $70 on sale at Fry's.

Coupled with an Athlon 2000+, 512M of generic PC2100 RAM and an inexpensive ECS motherboard (integrated crapola but good enough sound and Ethernet) it makes a really decent system for under $400 (no Windows tax). A 40G 7200RPM Maxtor drive, 16X DVD-ROM, 48x16x48 CDRW and a cheapo generic case/PS round it out.

I picked a card with an nVidia chipset because it was less expensive than any comparable ATI card and it looks like nVidia's Linux drivers are supported better than ATIs. I wish nVidia was more open about their drivers though...

I wouldn't hold your breath

[Trepidity]

As much as I'd like that to happen, it doesn't seem very likely to happen anytime soon. Really, John Carmack singlehandedly keeps OpenGL alive; if he didn't have such a strong preference for it, DirectX would have just about all the major games out there and hardware support would be significantly worse.

Re:I wouldn't hold your breath

[Verity_Crux]

"Really, John Carmack singlehandedly keeps OpenGL alive;" Uh, anybody purchased a nice CAD program lately that uses DirectX? Or any EDA tool? Or any math tool?

Re:I wouldn't hold your breath

[YE]

Yeah, sure, and the fact the NVIDIA do all their internal research and development via OpenGL has absolutely nothing to do with keeping OpenGL alive.

Re:I wouldn't hold your breath

[jericho4.0]

You're correct, in that any non-game 3D product out there uses OpenGL (and rightly so), but the fact of the matter is that the money lies in games, and that is what will drive the industry for some time.

I would love to see every game developer out there throw support behind OpenGL. After all, it is an open standard, and what has MS done for you lately?

Re:I wouldn't hold your breath

[rikkards]

the money lies in games
Ever purchased a seat for any of Mentor Graphics software? After swallowing that amount of money you definitely feel it. But due to sheer volume you are right of # of games to cad software licenses

Re:I wouldn't hold your breath

[MidnightBrewer]

Games have only turned to OpenGL in the last few years; development of high-end 3D cards has been going on far longer than that (after all, OpenGL was started by SGI for their Irix platform, which is notably game-free.)

Games don't do a very good job of supporting further OpenGL development right now; if you're using a high-end program that requires OpenGL support, the game benchmarks aren't not going to provide you with the best measure of what kind of card you should buy. Most graphics professionals prefer nVidia over ATI, because ATI's drivers are typically terrible for high-end 3D animation programs. If you're into 3D animation, chances are you've got a GeForce card.

Without the game industry, such cards would probably still be twice as expensive as they are now, if not more, but that's about it.

Re:I wouldn't hold your breath

[Quarters]

3DS Max from version 4 on has had the option to use DirectX as it's viewport renderer.

Re:I wouldn't hold your breath

[svirre]

Or any EDA tool

Open GL in EDA tools? Most EDA software is mostly text-mode or at most flat graphics. There may be som e layout tools using a 3d/open GL renderer, but a few MEMS centered tools hardly qualifies the statement 'any EDA tool'.

Of cource since most EDA tools are u*ix only direct-x would be out if/when they want such a renderer.

Re:I wouldn't hold your breath

[The Analog Kid]

Chances are if your into 3D Animation you got a Quadro, not a GeForce. I'm not saying that's its going to happen soon, but it probably will unless Microsoft ports DirectX to Linux to keep them alive(optimistically thinking).

Re:I wouldn't hold your breath

[MidnightBrewer]

Yes, you're right. if you want to be incredibly picky, you should have said Quadro FX.

Doom 3 benchs

[jwdeff]

Anandtech and Tom's Hardware have much better hardware reviews than that ZD reviews specified. They also have Doom 3 bench marks, which put the new NVidia card significantly ahead of the ATI counterpart.

It's the other way around.

[Trepidity]

Unless Linux suddenly got a bunch of new latest-generation games, the issue of Linux drivers is a non-issue. 99% of gamers use Windows to play games, even those who use Linux for everything else (hell, CmdrTaco even reboots to Windows to play games).

Re:It's the other way around.

[Tyler Eaves]

You know, some of us *DO* use OpenGL for things other than games. (Hint: It was oringally designed by SGI for use in engineering apps)

Re:It's the other way around.

[bogie]

Yea most games are for Windows, so what? The parent said under linux Nvidia kicks ATI's ass. This of course is true and has been for a while now. For people considering a video card for linux this is a fairly important piece of information.

So obviously for those of us who do game under linux drivers ARE an issue. So what was your point besides trolling?

Re:It's the other way around.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hint: These aren't professional cards.

Re:It's the other way around.

[dougnaka]

I think this *used* to be 99%. I think now it's heading towards 90%. I ditched my windows partition for more DivX space and only game on Linux now. I mainly play UT2003, Neverwinter Nights, Quake 3, and Half-Life Counterstrike. All using their native Linux ports, except Half Life. I've subscribed to winex but have no real interest in playin the games I have that require it yet. Sure I will soon, but I'd say Linux is a viable gaming platform. The trend is more rather than less games are coming out with Linux support, and helping someone with their Windows box once a month for a half hour is about the right amount to remind me why I left the platform.

Re:It's the other way around.

[afidel]

hint they are better than professional cards for many things. Trust me we upgraded from some FireGL cards to Geforce 3's and our engineer's SolidWorks performance went WAY up. Actually with 256MB of DDR-2 ram I bet these will be faster than just about any pro card out there (pro cards used to have the advantage with huge oncard texture memory, seems the commercial cards are catching up fast)

Speed is only good if it works

[swordgeek]

I have had a handful of video cards since my original trident 8900. Pretty much every time I plug the card in, boot to VGA resolution, install the drivers, and reboot. Everything is done.

I just got an ATI 9500 pro--my first ATI card. The driver installation was a five hour nightmare of crashing Windows, exception errors, hangs, and black screens. When I was done, I couldn't set the refresh rate. Nothing I did (including installing the latest drivers, and trying to use the 'secret' max. refresh setting in the ATI display controls--it wasn't there at all) could get me off of 60Hz.

Games crashed. Windows hung. Horridness. I talked to the manufacturer, and they said it was a bad card--get an RMA, and ship it back. This I can believe.

The problem is, I can no longer set the refresh rate on my OLD video card anymore! These damned drivers screwed up my system substantially! Removing them didn't help at all. I'm going to have to dig into the registry most likely.

If the replacement ATI card doesn't work any better (hardware AND software), then I'll be going back to nVidia permanently, or at least for another two generations. At least their stuff works.

Re:Speed is only good if it works

[kannibal_klown]

DUDE... I had the same problem. It drive me crazy, especially the refresh-rate thing. I switched to nVidia and haven't looked back. The only thing keeping me considering ATI is that all-in-wonder card. But then again, I can just buy a seperate tuner.

Re:Speed is only good if it works

[drinkypoo]

ATI is known for shitty drivers. What really has me pinched is that my Innovision Inno3D GF4Ti4200 128MB AGP4X is such a POS. In order to get it to output on the proper connector I've actually had to remove it, reinstall the mt GF3Ti200, and then reinstall the GF4. How lame is that.

Re:Speed is only good if it works

[no_mayl]

Totally agree except for the point where you hope that ATI hw+sw combo will work better for you.
Come to the force... get an nVidia.

ATI might be faster, but IT sure can't take curves as nicely as an nVidia.
It is like owning a dragster, you can do 1/4 mile realy fast, but that is about it.

I owned a voodoo, voodoo3, GeForce3, and then ATI all-in-wonder Radeon 9700 pro.
I have retruned my 9700, and am waiting for my FX5800.

I did try realy hard to get it to work. But ATIs support, even with the evidence in front of them was: upgrade everything and re-install. They did not even bother reading what versions of drivers I had.

Here is the tale of the Radeon 9700 pro nightmare.


--
jpa

Re:Speed is only good if it works

[nautical9]

If you use Windows NT or XP, the refresh rate problem may not be with your video card drivers (at least according to this site). Get the excellent RefreshForce utility, which has worked wonders for me over two different cards - I had no idea I could run 1024x768 at 144Hz with my monitor.

As for the crashing, well, yeah - ATI drivers suck.

Re:Speed is only good if it works

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, I have found that that ATI Radeon 9500 Pro is one of the worst products that ATI has put out in recent history. It is very fast, and very cheap but it crashes way too much. Way more than a 9700 or a 9800 (which in turn crash more than a Geforce FX)

Re:Speed is only good if it works

[johannesg]

Let me add my own tale of woe. I got a Radeon 8500 card recently (last month). Installed it, installed the drivers from the CD, found I could not play Metal Gear Solid 2 anymore (nice when you are halfway through).

Downloaded latest drivers from ATI. Uninstalled previous drivers, as required. Installed new drivers - setup crashes during installation. Repeat, same result.

Filed a bug report with ATI. First they want to know everything about you, then they give you a google-eye view of their problem database. Since I reported "driver crashes during installation" I was given such gems as "Windows crashes during boot". Did that help? Hell, no it did not.

Next page, then. Have I tried reseating the card? Rebooting Windows? Reinstalling my drivers? Thanks, wow! I'll be sure to try _that_ again. Not.

Finally, I could enter some text which I thought would go to a person. I (once again) entered my problem report and some personal data. I click on 'send'. Almost immediately I get a reply. I look at it, expecting a "thank you for mailing us" type mail. Turns out that instead I have received that google-eye view of their problem database - again, but this time in the mail. As if they were saying "We know you are an asshole who won't take the time to read our excellent solutions, so we'll just give you the same thing twice. Maybe that'll teach you."

There have been no other communications from ATI since then. That makes things simple for me: I won't do business with them. I have a product here that is unreliable and unsupported. I am looking to buy a new system soonish (to play Doom 3, which my current crate won't handle) and I was looking for a 9800. This episode has changed my mind: I'll get an FX. Hopefully the prices will come down a little bit. But wait, this is not yet the end...

Browsing around on the internet I then found a way to get the driver installed anyway, by going through some obscure route. This worked! And then I found out games that previously rendered in glorious 32 bit color were now limited to 16-bit color. I tried to find a solution to that for a couple of days more, and failed miserably.

In the end I put back my GF2. It is not fast or snazzy compared to more recent cards, but it has served me well so far. I'm also happy to report that I made good progress on Metal Gear Solid 2 since then.

The weirdest bit: after I put back the GF2 my machine immediately rebooted back into the Detonator drivers, but when I uninstalled the ATI crap it also wiped out the NVidia drivers. Thanks, ATI. I sure appreciate that kick in the butt, and I'll be sure to remember that when I buy my next card.

drivers

[jchristopher]

ATI's terrible driver support is reason enough to choose NVIDIA instead. Their "support", or lack thereof, especially for laptops that use their integrated chipsets made me swear never to buy another one of their products years ago.

Re:drivers

[n_jed]

ATI's terrible driver support

This is like beating a dead horse. The drivers are no where near as bad as what they have been in the past. Perhaps you should stop living there...

Re:drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what you mean.. I used to have an ATI All-In-Wonder 128 (big POS).. I took it out and installed a GeForce 3.. I tried uninstalling the ATI drivers, but their stupid installer wont let you unistall the drivers unless the ATI card is installed! So to this day, I have a bunch of ATI drivers that I cant get rid of because of their shoddy design.

Re:Preemptive...left field

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lets say something somewhat original this time. "

Gee...your hair smells terrific.

If you like to OC...

[MoeMoe]

What it comes down to isn't which one is more powerful, but which one can become the most powerful... In this case I would take nVidia since a few registry mods will open up an overclocking menu in the video properties...

That's just one of the many "secrets" I know, let me tell you about Area 51, if you really want to fi-

Just a sec, someone's at the door...

these cars

[Anonymous Coward]

will be just like the top end 3dfx cards, the 4gpu 128mb voodoo was shit quick, but to expensive. very very soon, the spec cards will far overtake the spec required by games, and many things could happen:

the video card companys pay game developers to make resoursce hungry games, so to sell all cards

the video card companys could stop there R&D for a year to put them inline with game spec

or the video card companys could do what they are doing now, and squeezing every last cent on something NO ONE really needs.

its like a mclaren F1, fucking fast and a very good car. but only very few people can afford one, so why bother dreaming about it.

si

not worth it

[dh003i]

Is it really worth paying an extra 200% for an improvement in performance (over say a GF2 or 3) that will amount to maybe 50%?

The smart thing to do is to find reliable benchmarks on the graphics cards for a taxing game (e.g., Quake 3 Arena at 1600x1200 with all the goodies). Then divide the price of the card by the average benchmark score. The one with the best price/performance ratio is the best card to buy: all the others, you're getting fucked over on.

Re:not worth it

[Unregistered]

50% is generous. Until the next-gen games come out you won't see an advatage. My gf3 can pust 1600x1200x32 in anything i've thrown at it. My monitor does 1280x1024. So except for FPS (which doesn't matter over a point and my gf3 easily does that, at least for what i can test it with) ther is no appreciable diffrence. Now you won't be able to play doom3 on your okder card at full everything, but i bet i'll still be playable.

Re:not worth it

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't played many games have you?

GF3 GTS on Athlon 2100+, 1024x768x32, Freelancer, judders in certain areas (Tradelane+jumpgate textures), 1600x1200x32, fps ~10 at best, not playable.

Just one example.

Doom3? Not a chance on anything better than 640x480x16.. The top of the line is not necessary, but your advice is flawed.

Next bit, true FPS over a point doesn't matter, but your card has never seen that point.

30Fps is not enough to play an FPS with. Its ok for films, but not for video games (primarily because films use motion shots, video games use stills) 60fps is pretty much the playable minimum.. 100 if you can get it, its much smoother, and is very noticeable.

I suggest you stop giving out advice on how your purchase was the best and how you made the right choice and just because you can't afford a better card it doesn't matter because you don't need one. If you want to convince yourself use hypnotism, not slashdot.

Re:not worth it

[afidel]

Try NWN, on my GF3 Ti200 I can only get about 25fps at 1024*768 with a bunch of the more hungry options turned off. Of course its a RPG so the fps doesn't matter so much but I definitly wouldn't mind over 40fps.

funny blurb

[Anonymous Coward]

(C) 1999-2003 BBspot LLC. BBspot is a satirical news and comedy source and meant to be funny. If you are easily offended, gullible or don't have a sense of humor we suggest you go elsewhere

Re:under linux there are no doubts: NVIDIA rulez .

[ipjohnson]

Then this graphics card and discussion don't apply to you ...

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[Anonymous Coward]

dude. i won't even look at the responses, because you are probably getting flamed.

my response: forgetting about 3d (both will acceptbly play ut2003, sof, quake, etc...both wil do good opengl)

the real problem? 2d.

take anyone new to linux (but with xp or os-x experience) and put them on a gnome/kde desktop. their first experience just click around will be vastly different.

1. xfree86 nv or radeon driver...the interface feels "laggy", and not quite as snappy as your typical os-x, 2k, xp desktop (all hardware being equal)

2. using Nvidia's proprietary driver, the interface in gnome/kde just hum along, window dragging, min/maximizing etc....nvidia's driver in 2d is at LEAST TWICE AS FAST as anything xfree86 drivers can muster.In fact it's so good, it seems faster then XP or OS-X for me.

If i'm introducing a non-techie to linux, I NEVER let them use the desktop unless i have the nvidia binary loaded....i don't want them to make their ENTIRE FIRST IMPRESSION on the basis of a laggy interface due to mediocre drivers (xfree86 itself works quite well, when in conjunction with a good driver)

most radeons are supported by xfree86 code...therefore are subject to the same poor 2d as well.

using a a firegl with ati/ibm drivers again proves that it's the xfree drivers that suck...as they are almost as good in 2d as nvidias.

my point? there's a world of difference in a single driver. linux is far more appealing to your average user when it's behaving snappily using the nvdia driver.

you might think i'm an nvidia fanboy.

guess again.

i own 1000 shares of atyt.

because when it comes to chip stocks, linux is still irrelevant. the chip market is not influence by linux ...yet.

atyt
nvda
amd
intc

have the majority of their user base in windows & macs.

Someone explain the math to me...

[Travoltus]

Designing a game that requires a $400+ video card, restricts sales to those with the dedication, obsession, and means, to replace the $200+ uber card that they had just bought last year.

This is not sound business economics, no matter how you cut it.

Re:Someone explain the math to me...

[TeraCo]

At least not until you can sell the engine to other developers a few months later at a couple of hundred grand a pop, plus a percentage of royalties.

That sounds like a great plan to me.

Re:Someone explain the math to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well in case you didn't notice these days the engines try to be scalable. So the more powerful the card the better it looks but people with antiquated hardware can still enjoy it.

Graphics Cards Revolution coming...

[XplosiveX]

Wait until PCI-X is out and you will look back at these days and laugh. Bandwidth will be the key with PCI-X.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[David Koresh]

ATI drivers are available for 4.2. My '/var/log/XFree86.0.log' says:

(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so
(II) Module glx: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.4349
Module class: XFree86 Server Extension
ABI class: XFree86 Server Extension, version 0.1

Either being current with XFree86 development doesn't matter or ATI is up one on nVidia in the driver department according to your metric.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[Bobzibub]

It would be nice to not have to recompile Nvidia's modules every time you changed your kernel though.
Or to not have a downloadable one /w some wack'd out latest beta kernel.

Small complaint, I know....

Later!
-b

orthey could be the same since it's a unified drvr

[SuperBanana]

closed source or not, the fact is that the NVIDIA drivers on Linux are as good or better that it's win* counterparts

It's a unified driver. Has been for a LONG time. Obviously the kernel hooks etc are different for Windows versus Linux, but the rest of the code is all the same. Claiming the "linux drivers are better" is clueless linux zealotry(sp?)

Re:*my* first freakin' PC...

[mark_space2001]

Had a (1 -- one) 5 1/4" floppy drive. And 64k of memory. Which had to be shared with the video hardware. And if we wanted to transfer files, we didn't even have a network. We had to copy our data to a floppy and (you guessed it) WALK OUTSIDE IN THE FREAKIN' SNOW FOR FREAKIN' MILES AND MILES.

There. Now lets see you young 'ums top that. :p

Come out of the closet!

[Anonymous Coward]

"there will be a new, better card in 6 months..."
"too expensive for me, i'm happy with my Hercules printer card..."
"why a fancy 3d card, games run just fine on my C64..."
"it doesn't run on linux..."
"bah, i will wait until it costs $50 and then buy it"


What is this people, a nursing home? Come on, you know you want the cutting edge stuff-- there is no need for pathetic rationalizations like the above. $500 for 6 months of superiority is not big money, heck, it's barely one month's rent. I can't wait to be able to put my grubby paws on one of these puppies.

Re:Come out of the closet!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this people, a nursing home? Come on, you know you want the cutting edge stuff-- there is no need for pathetic rationalizations like the above. $500 for 6 months of superiority is not big money, heck, it's barely one month's rent. I can't wait to be able to put my grubby paws on one of these puppies.

Feh. Why should I pay as much for a video card as I did for my whole system if I don't really need it to run anything I care about right now? Really, my GeForce 4 MX440 64M SDRAM is more than good enough for now, and 6 months from now what is top of the line now will be 1/2 the price. I'd rather upgrade more often and be a little behind state of the art. I've got lots of other things to spend my money on... But thanks for being willing to overpay for the latest thing, if it wasn't for guys like you giving the mfr's a quick return on their investment the prices wouldn't be able to drop so fast...

what generation is this tech?

[Doppler00]

I was using a TNT2 video card for the longest time until I found a Geforce2 card that someone abandoned. Do a lot of people actually keep up with all the new video card technology by buying every new product release?

Re:what generation is this tech?

[cptgrudge]

Do a lot of people actually keep up with all the new video card technology by buying every new product release?

Some people do. It doesn't take that many to buy into it in order for it to pay off, because the cards at that point have a ridiculous margin on them. I started a video card upgrade plan that seems to work well.

Beginning with Nvidia's RivaTNT, I skip a generation and then wait 6 months after release. You don't feel *all* of the brunt of the big prices, since there are a bunch of "Ultra" versions by that point, and I don't have any trouble running games in the time between. I also don't buy the latest games right away either, and prefer to let a patch or two come out.

I haven't had a problem yet with running games.

Re:what generation is this tech?

[tempfile]

I'm also still using my GeForce DDR. I'll perhaps buy a 9700 Pro or 9800 Pro some time next year. The other advantage of that scheme is that your performance improvement is huge. The 9800 would be how many times faster? Five? Six?

Re:Does this card need liquid nitro+fan like Nvidi

[Anonymous Coward]

Now now, it's only a nuclear power drain, not source

Re:*my* first freakin' PC...

[aflat362]

after all you old farts who had 8K ram computers keel over 40 years from now and I go on slash dot and tell all the kids that I had a Pentium 1 computer with 166 MhZ they will all be like . . . nah they won't care either.

You know, it's interesting...

[chameleon_skin]

...because I love computer games, but I haven't owned a cutting-edge video card in about five years, and if anything my gaming experience has *improved.* Why? Because ninety percent of the time games that are written to use the features of brand-spankin'-new video cards are so intent on milking the most out of the card's technology that they fail to concentrate on the most important aspect - gameplay. If a game is actually innovative, challenging, and involving, then it's still going to be enjoyable two years from now despite the fact that its graphics aren't quite up to par with the latest offerings. Because I've got a wimpy 10Mb video card, all of the games I can play on my machine are a year or two old. Sure, this means that I miss out on a lot of the online gaming experience - a lot of the multiplayer servers for a game are dead by the time I get around to playing it. But if those servers have disappeared inside of eighteen months, then how good was the game in the first place? Half-Life is pushing five years now, and there are still tons of places to play it. $450 for a freakin' video card? Sheesh. Give me a break. I'll wait until they're $100, by which time all the mediocre games will have disappeared into a much-deserved oblivion while I'll just be ready to tackle the top ten of the bunch. Sure, a year and a half is like an eon in computer gaming, but the ones that last the eons are the best anyway. Chess, anyone?

Re:You know, it's interesting...

[Soul-Burn666]

Agreed. I started playing HL online only 2-3 years after it was first release. Quake3? Again only 2 years after release.

I have a gf2mx (had a V3 3000 when I started).

Old games are still compelling because they look good ENOUGH and the gameplay is surely good enough to shadow the only "ok" graphics.

Re:You know, it's interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have not played Morrowind then. With 50+ mods and the FPS optimiser used to kick out the view distance to 3X, I think the 5900 is just about right. Good thing someone said somewhere that Wallmart has Ramen 10 for $1.

Re:Minor annoyances-Big Bills

[Anonymous Coward]

$400-$500 worth of Ramen noodles! We may have some self-mummified gamers out there.

Re:*my* first freakin' PC...

[mark_space2001]

... hell I don't care right now...

Re:*my* first freakin' PC...

[hdparm]

There. Now lets see you young 'ums top that. :p

Easy - I still don't own my first PC :pp

Will the Real Perspecta 3D please Stand Up?

[VoidEngineer]

Yeah, but does either of them have 3 Gbit DDR SDRAM for 360 degree autostereoscopic 3D viewing? I think not...

I quote the Resolution / Color / Performance / Memory specifications of the Perspecta 3D, which is available from Actuality Systems.

- Volume comprised of 198 2-D slices (1.1 slices / degree)
- Approximately 768 x 768 pixel slice resolution
- 24 Hz volume refresh
- Full color (21-bit hardware-based stippling)
- 8 colors at highest resolution
- Polygons / sec.: To be announced
- Dual volume buffers
- TI(TM) 1600 MIPS DSP high-performance embedded processor
- 3 Gbit DDR SDRAM (100 Mvoxels x 3 colors x 2 buffers)

Granted, there are only 8 colors available at high resolution, but it points out the fact that 3D graphics cards and monitors have a long way to go yet. I don't mean to be a troll, but I get rather pissed-off when these video card manufacturers, with their planned-obselesence, talk about their latest-and-greatest "3D" video cards. Please; these are pseudo-3D video cards; and if you've worked with a stereoscopic video system (virtual reality system) or an autostereoscopic video system (3D television system), you'll know what I mean...

(Granted, I only got to work with this kind of technology for a couple of months in college, so I'm not an expert on this stuff... still, I know stereo3D from pseudo3D when I see it...)

Re:Will the Real Perspecta 3D please Stand Up?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually you're a little bit of a knob.

The 3D in "3D video card" refers to the fact that the images you see on the screen are generated as a result of 3-dimensional geometry being completely processed (any number of transforms) in, wait for it...3D, and finally projected onto a 2-dimensional screen.

Volumetric *display devices*, as you describe, are a completely different animal. I would classify them as closer to a monitor than a graphics card.

Re:Will the Real Perspecta 3D please Stand Up?

[Minna Kirai]

Having seen the Perspecta 3D in person, I can take a guess as to what the "TBA" polygon/second number will be.

Around 90.

That is, they showed an animated scene with 30 polys in it, and it got about 3 fps. And obviously, a 30 poly scene is so simplistic, it's pointless to bother viewing it from different angles. (They were wireframe, remember- No opacity with this device!)

Their higher-resolution demos (primarily individual 3d models, or playbacks of medical imaging) took more than 30 seconds to call up onto the device. That is, there is a significant delay before you can start to see a new 3d picture (Although once the picture is loaded, it will remain as you walk around the ball to look from all sides)

I had difficulty imaging what was taking so long- copying 116785152 pixels into a buffer shouldn't take excessively long over a SCSI cable. (And each pixel is less than 4 bits). I groundlessly decided that the conversion from a 3d voxel image into scanning instructions for the color beams (which must take the base's spinning into effect) was the time-consuming process. But that still didn't explain why they couldn't precalculate those representations.

Overall, it was very disappointing that a translucent, flickering, jiggling wireframe image in a $20,000+ 3d globe couldn't even animate at the 12hz that is the minimum for a human operator to percieve it as motion.

I agree with your point though- it's incorrect to label any existing mass market game as possessing "3d graphics"- they all use 2d output images, which incidently are created by a model of a 3d world to varying fidelity. (Some products can validly claim to have 3d gameplay)

Granted, there are only 8 colors available at high resolution, but it points out the fact that 3D graphics cards and monitors have a long way to go yet.

Having tried an assortment of 3d output devices, it's true that they have a way to go- but much more importantly, software has a long way to go before it'll be able to take advantage of that hardware. Existing popular software for data manipulation doesn't even take full advantage of NVidia-style 3d accelerator cards yet.

Re:Will the Real Perspecta 3D please Stand Up?

[EnderWiggin99]

Well, perhaps they should use a bunch of banks of Super-Duper Happy-Eyez 9800+++ ATI graphics cards with some type of high-speed bus (HT?) to connect the hosts. Should give better results and be cheaper than building such a system from scratch.

GASP!!! My GOD! Textured polygons? >30 fps? Wow! What a hell of an intriguing concept!

$.02CDN...Don't laugh, it's going up in value as logic ferments. :)

I don't trust ATI since the 3d Rage Pro

[Vicegrip]

I've never had good experience with ATI. My last card from them was the horrendous 3d rage pro-- their drivers were hit and miss all the time and you had to wait what seemed eons for support of a new version of Windows.

Nvidia has always had rock solid drivers in my experience; and, for a while now, they've supported Linux with kick butt 3d drivers-- something ATI still can't to do.

I don't care what new shiny wonder ATI can render faster; their Windows drivers always disapointed me and they still don't support 3d on Linux. End of story. I'm sticking with nvidia when I upgrade-- it will be my fourth nvidia purchase. Treat your customers well(good drivers) and they come back for more.

Re:Another hardware comparo. ZZZZZZZZZZ

[KilerCris]

Then go find a time machine and travel to six months from now if it bothers you so much.

Who needs it?

[TxdoHawk]

I picked up an Albatron Geforce Ti4200 for $149 off of NewEgg when I built my current rig, and It's eaten everything I've thrown at it for breakfast. I couldn't be happier.

Then again, I don't feel the need to run things at 34128794x478447848 resolution with 12xFSAA and make my eyes bleed.

When will people learn that buying top-of-the-line hardware just isn't nessecary anymore, and that you pay through the nose for it? By the time games stop running smoothly on my current rig, I can go and buy another 3d card for $150-200, mabye upgrade my processor a bit, and everything'll once again run fine and dandy. Contrast that to the person who has to always have the best, and you're talking huge amounts of money in the long run.

Re:Who needs it?

[Zed2K]

And its my money. I'll spend it as I wish. Just because you don't want to run in super crazy hires doesn't mean that someone else doesn't (or shouldn't).

Re:Who needs it?

[Zelig321]

By the time games stop running smoothly on my current rig, I can go and buy another 3d card for $150-200, mabye upgrade my processor a bit, and everything'll once again run fine and dandy.

You do realize that you are allowed to buy hardware at those lower prices because a lot of consumers do buy the new stuff that keeps coming out, don't you?

If the majority of people would wait like you do, then hardware wouldn't be marketed as this (fast) pace, and in turn, you would end up paying the same price as everybody else for pretty much the same hardware as everybody else (less models, less choices, everything leveled out).

I'm not saying you are wrong to do this, it's actually pretty wise. What would be even wiser is for you to not to urge everybody to do the same (you'd lose your bargains if everyone would take your advice ;)

ATI and Linux still suck

[go-nix.ca]

Wonderful, they come up with great cards, but their support for Linux still sucks badly. Their current Linux Radeon drivers do not even support XFree86 4.3.0 . Contrary to all this, nVidia has wonderful Linux support, so I'm stuck with a Radeon 9500 in my hand, and a nVidia GeForce2MX in my AGP slot :o(

Re:ATI and Linux still suck

[grolschie]

What's wrong with XF4.2? Or should I say, what does XF4.3 do that 4.2 don't? Does the need for XF 4.3's cursor shadows outweight the performance drop of reverting to a Geforce2?

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[DarkSarin]

You obviously haven't been to their site recently. The new script will auto-update your drivers from the command line with:
nvidia-installer --update.
This is after you run the shell script that auto installs and updates the information. The downside is that they no longer distribute tar or rpm files. The upside is that if you don't have a standard distro, the script downloads the source and compiles it for you.
Unfortunately you still need to hand edit you XF86Config files.

I love the new installer though, and it's got me hooked.

the ultimate pathetic computing power

[Jerf]

Yeah, well, my single firing neuron... no, wait, maybe I don't want to go there.

Ditto.

[antdude]

I would like to abandon NVIDIA and get an ATI video card, but I still need good driver support under Linux. ATI, please do so to get my money for my next video card purchase. :)

Tip...

[antdude]

Any time you do something major with hardwares and/or softwares, use a drive imaging program to make a back up of C: drive or all drivers. I just Ghost my C: drive and store it for later in case something really hose my system partition/drive.

Re:Tip...

[afidel]

I used to do this, but with XP and the system restore points I just make a restore point before installing new hardware and roll back if the drivers f' things up. Of course I still do my weekly backups (good enough for a home machine)

And here...

[Namarrgon]

HardOCP too.

No, only 2 Gbits of DDR SDRAM..

[Namarrgon]

Plug in a cheapo pair of LCD shutter glasses, and it's as 3D as anything else out there. These cards do true 3D calculations (surfaces instead of volumes). It's up to the display system as to what you actually see.

In fact, recent consumer hardware also support 3D voxel textures, and can simulate a voxel system by using multiple parallel surfaces as "slices". And unlike the voxel-only systems of which you speak, they can actually do 32 bit colour & texturing too :-)

IF DOOOM 3 uses DX

[Anonymous Coward]

Than how will itrun on linux. its supposed to run on linux too isn't it?

Re: Radeon vs. NVidia

[AliasMoze]

I see the Radeon 9800 on the shelf. I see the GeForce 5900 on the shelf. They're comparable in speed. Each supports next generation games. But I think the biggest feature, the thing that makes the choice for me, is the size of the box. That's what determines which one I steal.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[John Hurliman]

Forget thinking about decent Linux drivers, they can't even get their Windows drivers straight. I laughed out of my chair when I read the news about ATI becoming a serious competitor with NVidia, and all the kids buying ATI Radeon cards. I've never seen so many driver incompatibility and random glitch/lockup problems at one LAN party in my life.

I'll keep my professionally developed accelerated X driver, thanks.

Back to the hertz

[Bruha]

Well now it's coming down to them spewing out card after card that only nets you 5-10 FPS for each upgrade without any real performance improvements to speak of. 90% of the games played are non-fps dependent other than getting a decent rate so there's no jerkyness in movement or animations.

It's the same deal with the rest of the computer industry. It's time to make products that work better and not require bigger and more expensive iron.

Re:Minor annoyances-Big Bills

[Anonymous Coward]

What ever happened to computer hardware eventually coming down in price? Or atleast staying the same? Seems like every new high-end release and they charge an extra 100 bucks. I guess you gotta keep the fix on for the serious gamers so they can eat their noodles.

who woulda thunk it

[Anonymous Coward]

A video card that doubled the length of your penis. Impressive.

Fastest fanless card wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the fastes card on the market that does not require active cooling? Is it still the Radeon 8700 or is there a faster card available?

No driver version specified?

[MrJones]

In the extremetech review, the version of the drivers used were not specified.
What kind of review is that?
ohh, wait, is this some of those comercial /. posts?
ahh, now I understand why anandtech.com or tomshardware.com links were not in the original post. ;-)

Click and learn:
Tomshardware review
Anandtech Review
Nvnews review/news
Review links

Happy with my 9700 Pro

[egoots]

I have used various graphics cards over the years including those made by ATI/Nvidia/Matrox/Pixelorks/Nth/S3/Artist/etc. so I dont have a particular bias one way or the other.

I must admit that I am currently quite pleased with my ATI 9700 Pro. The latest Catalyst 3.2 drivers have been working very well for me under Win XP Pro. I have had NO problems at all!

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[Elbereth]

Oh man. That takes me back. Check out this cutting edge hardware:

Asus P2B-D (dual processor i440BX chipset)
Two 450 MHz Pentium IIIs
Two 128MB PC100 CL2 DIMMs
Tekram DC390U2W (single channel Ultra2 LVD SCSI controller)
Quantum Atlas 10K 9.1GB SCSI drive
Four IBM 4.5GB 7200 RPM Ultra2 LVD SCSI drives in an external SCSI case
Matrox G400 (DirectX 7, 32MB SDR)
Inwin Q500 tower case (250W power supply)

I eventually upgraded the RAM to 512MB, switched the motherboard to an Asus P3C-D (dual processor i820 motherboard that uses RAMBUS RIMMs), bought 256MB of RAMBUS memory (yeah, it was a downgrade, but RAMBUS RAM was way expensive back then), upgraded to an ATI Radeon LE (32MB DDR), and moved the whole thing into a black Antec case (with a fucking huge power supply... 400W or something).

Now I've got a dual 1.2 GHz Athlon MP system with a 36GB Seagate Cheetah 15k.3 Ultra 320 SCSI drive, a fucking huge 500W power supply, and some other cool stuff that I found on ebay.

Dude, get some 1.2 GHz Athlon MPs cheap at Newegg. They only cost about $50 each now. The motherboards are over $200, and they all suck. You might as well get a Tyan Tiger MPX, which is what I got.

It's a hell of a lot cheaper than an Opteron, and you can't even find any Opteron motherboards yet. I have a feeling the Opteron boards are going to sell for over $400, because that's how much the good P4 Xeon boards go for.

Don't go for an Opteron unless you wanna debug the first generation of a brand new CPU architecture. I'd stick with Xeons and Athlon MPs. Buy an Opteron next year.

And try to avoid investing too much money in an Athlon MP system, since AMD isn't really too fond of the Athlon MP any more. I think it's dead. Too bad. The chips were a bit cheaper than a Xeon, even if the motherboards sucked.

Original?

[keller]

Like the parent poster here. That was a new one. Very intelligent!

OT

[keller]

Could I please mod people's .sigs?

Why don't you do this in your journal? Make up your own moderation scheme, and let other people comment on the sig and/or the moderation?

I hear you!

[gottabeme]

I hear you!!! I used an Xpert@Play (Rage Pro) with Windows 2000, and ATI simply ignored the problems with the drivers even after many reports. The problem was twofold: in one driver version all full-screen DirectX apps would only run at 60 Hz, in the other version bold fonts were displayed with horribly jagged edges. Reported it to ATI at least three times. Were the drivers ever fixed? Nope. Did they ever finish up their beta driver and release it as a non-beta driver? Nope. They just dropped it and ignored it.

nVidia works. nVidia's drivers work. nVidia doesn't leave their customers out to dry. 'nuff said.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[afidel]

Why go with dual MP's at 1.2Ghz when you will get more speed for almost all apps and more memory badwidth out of a modern XP. An Athlon XP 2100+ will be about the same average cpu performance as two MP 1.2Ghz's and will cost the same, you can use DDR400 ram with it, and a SiS746 based board will run you around $65.

Hmmm...

[klui]

If both cards perform relatively the same but the nVidia card takes up an extra slot, my vote would go to ATi. I get the sense ATi and nVidia would just continue to one-up the other and continue to produce products at a furious pace. Will they get enough revenue to continue with their new product release. $400, $500... $600... where will it end? Sure they can push the state-of-the art, but if less people can justify buying these expensive parts, does it matter whose product is better?

Re:Hmmm...

[Rothron the Wise]

If both cards perform relatively the same but the nVidia card takes up an extra slot, my vote would go to ATi.

The fact that it takes two slots might annoy people, but in reality, on todays motherboards, with everything but the kitchen sink on them, there are usually far more slots than you need. Also, the first PCI slot is often unusable because it may share resources with the AGP port, and cause stability-problems.

There is no question about the fact that NVidia stumbled with the nv30 and that ATi still holds the performance crown for available hardware. I'm still going to wait for this card for the same reason as many others: My last three cards have been NVidia, and driver stability has been exemplary. ATi is getting better, but it aint there just yet.

The next batch of cards should make things even more exiting. ATi has yet to move to a 0.13 process and could gain a lot from that, and the design of nv30 compared to the nv35 suggest that NVidia has a lot more headroom for improving GPU and memory clockspeeds.

I'm impressed by Carmacks ability to target a spesific level of performance on the hardware that will be available at the time his next engine ships, but this time it seems like NVidia and ATi will exceed even his expectations, with Doom3 being playable even on 1600x1200 with the latest crop of cards, and we might even see the next generation of cards out before Doom3 ships.

Re:Hmmm...

[Zed2K]

The new nvidia card does not take up 2 slots. They did away with the huge fan and cooling system. Article...read...

"The fan is much quieter. The huge leaf-blower cooling solution found on the 5800 Ultra is now history."

Re:Hmmm...

[Zed2K]

I'm going to correct myself, it DOES physically cover the nearest PCI slot, sorry 'bout that.

Does Linux do Direct-X ?

[Taco Cowboy]

Just a very curious question:

Does Linux do Direct-X ?

If Linux doesn't do Direct-X, then ....

How can we know which one runs better under Linux ?

Re:Does Linux do Direct-X ?

[Anonymous Coward]

have you ever heard of winex?

how fast do you need for god's sake??

[pair-a-noyd]

I have a Gef4 Ti4200 ultra/650XP w/128m golden sample from gainward, my pc is 2ghz P4 w/512m ddr.
I use Mandrake 9.1 and KDE 3.1
Q3A UT2k3 runs so freaking insanely fast that I can't see ANY reason to have a faster card... Faster for what reason??
What will I gain from it?? $500 to replace something that I think is fantastic with something that I doubt will show me anything better?? Damn, I mean now it's so fast that you can get motion sickness! And on a BIG monitor (yeah!) it 's extremely excellent.

Oh yeah, I watched the giant trailer for the Matrix reloaded on here and it blows away ANY TV I have ever seen. If I were to get an even bigger monitor I could easily do away with my TV set and never miss it..

I'm looking forward to playing EQ on this box in the near future and that's why I bought this card. Of course by the time I get around to installing EQ and signing up they will up the requirements and I'll be forced to shell out $500 for this monster card just to play a silly game.

As always, I'll end up a day late and a dollar short.
If I wait to afford this card they will advance the games some more, then make a new card for that and the vicious cycle will continue. Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade.
And the snake eats it's tail...

Re:how fast do you need for god's sake??

[Zed2K]

For you, no. But for me hell yeah. I'm still on a Geforce 2 with 64MB of memory on a 800Mhz P3. I'm looking forward to these new cards cause I'm building a new machine at the end of the summer specifically for half life 2 and doom 3.

Re: Radeon vs. NVidia

[pair-a-noyd]

Dude,
grab me one while you are at it..

leave it at the eCafe on 10th and Woodward.
Put it in a brown shopping bag and slide it under the table at the pc on the north wall that has an out of order sign on it. Make sure no one follows you..

I'll square up with you later.

Re: Radeon vs. NVidia

[AliasMoze]

Will do;)

Check out Doom3 scores from Anandtech

[Anonymous Coward]

Here.

Geforce FX show some impressive performance. The good news is that even mid-range GeforceFX 5600 Ultra gets respectable framerates (55fps) at 1024x768 resolution.

Re:640 Agent Smiths ought to be enough for anybody

[Jarlsberg]

When will people learn that buying top-of-the-line hardware just isn't nessecary anymore, and that you pay through the nose for it?

I say let them. If nobody bought the latest and the greatest, who would care to develop them? If you don't want to buy the latest cards, fine, I respect that. I rarely do it myself. But I'm happy people are buying them, because this is what is driving the development of even better cards.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[blanne]

The Detonator drivers support TNT and up, Riva has it's own (very old) driver. I know, because I still have a GeForce1 and I think it continously performs admirably well compared to slightly older chips. The GeForce1 was a leap in architecture and performance.
Riva128 was pretty neat in it's own time, once I found out about switching to 16bit desktop color depth in order to get hardware 3D acceleration :)

But being serious...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Or you could buy a 9500Pro or 9700Pro now, depending on your budget, and save a fortune. Either card is still very good in today's market, and certainly the 9700Pro still has more features available than any current game is even near to using. I bought mine too early (start of the year), but now they're cheaper and the most recent Catalyst 3.2 drivers seem to be a significant improvement for both performance and stability on the above cards. I'd take either over a shiny new 9800(Pro) or nVidia kit today.

Wait for real drivers? Heard this all before...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Back at the start of the year, I was deciding between a Radeon 9700 Pro and waiting for the new GeforceFX card to go in my new PC. After doing some homework, I opted for the 9700 Pro, but I was hearing from several boards (including this one, IIRC) that I was being a fool, the nVidia card would be out Any Day Now(TM), the ATI drivers sucked, the hardware would be abandoned, nVidia drivers would get big performance gains later on, etc.

Nearly six months after I started hearing this, we finally (several months late) have that nVidia competitor card. Essentially by their own admission, it is not strong in comparison to ATI's kit.

In those six months, ATI have released updated Catalyst drivers regularly, and now seem to have resolved most of the stability issues. And guess what? Their performance is up considerably with the 3.2 drivers, too.

I dislike lack of service, and if ATI abandon me the moment they move to the next hardware series, they will lose me as a customer for a goodly long time and I will tell everyone I know to avoid them, and why. But I also give credit where it's due, and solid, demonstrable hardware and drivers from ATI will get my money way faster than hypothetical anything from nVidia fans any day.

'Course, I shoulda bought a 9500Pro and O/C'd, but you live and learn. :o)

Re:Yes, but...

[Sesse]

Try this link -- they have later drivers, and they work quite well for me (though nVidia's offerings still are a lot more stable).

/* Steinar */

Yep...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Initial driver/game stability problems were bad with the 9700Pro, but they do seem to have gotten their act together now, particularly the last few weeks now we've got the Catalyst 3.2 drivers. As ever, the usual "buy at least six months late" advice was sound -- so rather than going for a 9800Pro and picking up the inevitable stability and performance issues all over again...

Re:*my* first freakin' PC...

[WegianWarrior]

Easy - I still don't own my first PC

Easier, I still use mine to program and play on. ;

Gameplay Vs. graphics quality

[acomj]

You miss my point.. Some games are still quite playable and fun, even if I can't play them with all the graphics features turned on.

Gameplay quality is way more important to me than graphics quality.

I'm not say graphics are irrelivant, I'm just wondering who spends 500$ on a graphics card, when much cheaper cards provide a good experience.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[minus9]

You can get newer drivers from this site for XFree86 4.3

But you're right ATI really need to get their ass in gear. And still no TV out for a 9700 pro.

Driver problems

[aliens]

It's pretty clear that the ATI drivers released currently have problems with Doom III, considering they're showing off D3 at E3 I bet those numbers jump right up with the next driver release.

When installing any hardware....

[aliens]

I have never had problems installing new anything when I took the proper steps beforehand. I too had problems with ATI's driver when it came to the 7500AIW(I didn't do what I should've), but other experiences were great.

First download the latest drivers. You can use the ones that came with the card, but why? Uninstall your old drivers, reoot. Don't let windows automatically detect and install new drivers. Run the setup for the drivers, reboot. Run the setup for the control panel, reboot.

If you're installing a new mobo. Reboot into safe mode. Set all chipset specific drivers to "Standard Drivers" (IDE, System Resources). Shutdown, swap mobos, reboot.

Could this be easier? Of course, you should just have to restart the machine presto chango. But that's not how things work. This goes for all hardware, not just ATI, but Nvidia also, unless you're in the mood to troubleshoot.

I loved my GF2, but the price/performance of my 9500Pro with the hacked bios and overclocked is amazing. Plus I'm a big fan of AA/AF.

It's your powersupply

[aliens]

You need a better powersupply. I'd wager big that it's not enough to handle any new card that requires more voltage than it can get from the AGP slot.

Detonator 50.xx driver question.

[MtViewGuy]

I wonder when the Detonator 50.xx driver series are released it will also fix the issue of the boards based on the GeForce FX 5200 and 5600 being dog-slow compared to its ATI competition. The current lower-cost ATI boards that use the R300 GPU (Radeon 9500/9600 series) run rings around its closest competitors.

But for about US$160 or so...

[MtViewGuy]

...You can get a card that WILL run the upcoming "hot" games without undue performance slowdowns, mostly because they can run DirectX 9.x functions in hardware (e.g., ATI Radeon 9500/9600 series).

Games like Doom III, EverQuest II, and a whole host of other long-awaited games that will ship before the end of 2003 are going to need DX9 support; why stay with a graphics card that will cause these new games to bog down quickly in complex scenes because they lack hardware DX9 support?

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[FroMan]

Not exactly true. I am running a Radeon 9000 Pro with X 4.3 with the ati-drivers package in gentoo. Accelerated and everything. I don't seem to be able to find the drivers on ati's site, but they are ou there. If you are really dying to figure it out, I'll do some research. Just post a reply.

Being gone, doesn't mean they were mediocre

[Kjella]

Give me a break. I'll wait until they're $100, by which time all the mediocre games will have disappeared into a much- deserved oblivion while I'll just be ready to tackle the top ten of the bunch.

Some games have a lot of replay value - but other games I find are games that are to be played once, enjoyed, then shelved, particularly single-player games. Not because they're bad, but because playing something where I already know the plot twists and the solutions to puzzles and riddles is boring. Not to mention if I had a kick-ass character and don't want to start all over from wimp after winning the game.

Of course, some games should disappear into oblivion. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, there are good games that end up being "been there, done that".

Kjella

First gen hardware beware

[Anonymous Coward]

Though most people joke about not eating and breaking the bank. When it comes down to it, usually try to avoid first generation hardware.

This is the cardinal rule of technology -- buy the newest and the best, only do it 12 to 18 months later. Works for lots of things -- Games, computers, HDTV, processors, cell phones, OSes, PDAs, and video cards. Heck, even cars.

Even if they release it problem free, there's always some enhancement they overlooked. Trust me, you don't want to blow your cash on something that won't be with you in the next few years...

Re: Radeon vs. NVidia

[Anonymous Coward]

the thing that makes the choice for me, is the size of the box. That's what determines which one I steal.

I used to do this... till I realized that it's only a display box.

Serious gamers vs. Serious spenders

[mattACK]

I consider myself a "serious gamer". I won't be spending outrageous sums of money anytime soon. I only game on consoles.

When I get off of work, the last thing that I want to do is troubleshoot a game for christ's sake. And all of my large expenditures have a great half life (HDTV, 5.1 reciever, etc).

However, there can be little debate that despite my revulsion to complex gaming that I'm not serious about it. My last purchase was a second pair of Dreamcast maracas. [/hardcore_geekdom]

Re:orthey could be the same since it's a unified d

[DemENtoR]

Acctualy no, when i first switched to linux with my Geforce 1 GTS, and played qIII in 1024x768 in 16 bit, the game ran about ~5-10fps more (even did timedemo test) and it felt considerably smoother. This was a long time ago, so I can't claim that the preformance is still like this, but i know my experience.

something else is broken

[Anonymous Coward]

My 9500 Pro has been running happily with no crashes and nightly BF1942 for over a month in XP with no reboots. I strongly suspect that you have a bad PSU, or that your card is actually defective. While ATI has produced some shit in the past (and I have avoided them until now), their current Catalyst drivers have been every bit as stable and bug-free for me as Nvidia's across a large range of games-- everything from the rather dated Half-Life to UT2003. I do miss the color saturation slider that Nvidia has, and the handy overclockability.

The 7500 in my laptop blows. But my 9500 Pro is rock-solid. Something is broken in your box.

Re:I really don't have a big choice between the tw

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit! I swear, if I get another random reboot, I'm going to fucking eat the ATI card and go buy a Geforce

*poof*

(goes to the computer hardware store, munching on a rancid ATI card)

Wives also get obsolete

[Dusabre]

Works for wives as well.

Marry the hottest newest 18 year old on her birthday and damn, the next day there's a newer one available.

Don't know which is more perverse, changing wives as they get old for more eye-candy or changing video cards for more eye-candy.

Nethack in full 3D?

[tjwhaynes]

I'm not impressed with the Radeon 9800 Pro. What I really want is the Radeon 9500 ASC [bbspot.com]. The price is steadily coming down. Mmmmm, I can't wait to play Nethack in full 3D :-)

I guess this is what you are really after :-)

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

Anandtech Doom3 Benchmarks

[Stunning Tard]

Anandtech's Doom3 benchmarks show Nvidia has the crown in Doom3 by a fair margin. And probably will for most pixel/vertex shader engines. If you were going to spend $500 on a card I don't know why you'd get the ATI 9800 Pro.

ATI drivers drive me CRAZZZZZY!!!

[mnemotronic]

I've had various ATI cards over the years, and every single one, without exception, had problems. These guys may be leading edge on the hardware, but their software always seems to get short shrift.

and have cocked nitwits like you

[Anonymous Coward]

ensure that Linux stays in the closet...Don't threaten to shoot him, just DO IT :)

Where? Who's archives?

[CaptPungent]

And are we both talking about the FireGL drivers?

Check out their archives for more info.

Ok, WHOSE archives am supposed to check out? I didn't get any hits on Google, and Ati's site is a pain to navigate. Can you provide a bit more info here?

Who told you you could do that?

[JohnnySkidmarks]

I work in a production environment and we have very simple ways of testing out new hardware. -1) Format System: forget about old crappy drivers for your Trident(???) RGB Card 1)Have a SYSTEM backup before doing anything unless you are prepared to reinstall from scratch. 2)Be prepared for anything. There is no way of ATI or NVidia to test their hardware against every type of Motherboard/CPU/Chipset /Service Packed version of Windows out there 3)Start with just the new card so you have less chance of conflicts. 4) Feel free to add the other cards back one at a time. (If you use XP you can make System Restore Points / driver rollbacks as needed along the way to avoid "5 Hours" of Hell. Lastly) Take a deep breath sooner or later card will work or you have to ditch your peice of junk PC dude, because as far as I remember Trident only made PCI video cards and you just stuck your $400 AGP card into a PCI slot.

I meant in the consumer market

[Trepidity]

Yes, I realize that high-end "professional" graphics cards have supported OpenGL well for a while now, and will likely continue to do so into the near future. I was referring to consumer graphics cards; the sorts you get from nVidia, not sgi. Without Carmack, those would be unlikely to be putting much emphasis on OpenGL right now, and so OpenGL would be pretty much confined to non-game users.

Re:Minor annoyances-Big Bills

[mink]

at release time the Geforce 2 Ultra cost $600
This is somewhat lower for the release cost of a "cutting edge" card.