ATI or NVIDIA?

[NEON DEON]

Originally Posted by doggydoggo

I've been a die hard ATI fan since I owned my first PC. I'm ready to switch to the Dark Side. I upgraded my card to an ATI 9800 specifically for SH4, and the trouble I had to even get the card and it's drivers working properly was a living nightmare. Fortunately, I stumbled across some wonderful folks who adapted ATI's current drivers with the original Catalyst software. Worked like a charm! Then I had to struggle with getting the game to run and changing some settings. It was more work than it should have been, so my next rig is gonna try Nvidia. When you charge a couple hundred bucks for a bloody video card, I expect it to work... at least within 30 minutes! :rotfl:

I am a bit confused.

You bought 4 year old technology and put brand new drivers on it?

[doggydoggo]

I only paid $50 for my 9800. My point was that decent video cards these days can be $150 to $200. If I spent that much cash on a card, I would want it to be stable and work properly.

Secondly, I understand that game settings need to be altered for performance from time to time, but when you have to go into system setings and dumb everything down just for the thing to be stable, that I have a problem with.

Originally Posted by NEON DEON

You bought 4 year old technology and put brand new drivers on it?

Maybe I mispoke. I'm using the latest drivers for this particular card, which have been modified to be more stable.

I have been reading however that some folks have been using Omega drivers. I have not heard of this before. Maybe I'll try those and see if it fixes a few isues I have been having. My crew does not seem to understand that when rigged for red, one is supposed to be bathed in the warm red glow.

[Antrodemus]

Originally Posted by doggydoggo

I only paid $50 for my 9800. My point was that decent video cards these days can be $150 to $200.

Of course, but any video card can only behave as stable as the system its plugged into.

Originally Posted by doggydoggo

If I spent that much cash on a card, I would want it to be stable and work properly.

??? I don't understand... have you bought a card at that price, and it hasn't been "stable"?

Originally Posted by doggydoggo

Secondly, I understand that game settings need to be altered for performance from time to time, but when you have to go into system setings and dumb everything down just for the thing to be stable, that I have a problem with.

??? What did you have to change at "system level"? If you're talking about having to drop the detail levels to get it to run smoothly on the 9800, you shouldn't be too surprised... it's 4 year old card after all.

[DeerHunter UK]

I've got an ATI Radeon X850 with 2 gig of system ram and the game runs ok. Unfortunately my CPU (AMD 2600+) lets the side down and the game does bottleneck and slowdown as a result.