ATI or NVIDIA?

[Antrodemus]

People's experiences certainly can vary for sure... I used to avoid ATi for the reasons I've already mentioned, but also because their driver support wasn't great, and I'd read so many reports on gaming forums about glitches and crashes, but since switching to ATi about 9 months ago, I've had virtually no problems whatsoever, using an X850XT, standard ATi drivers and CCC from the ATi site. In fact, the only glitch I've encountered so far is in SHIV, with the Sun-glare issue.

[JSLTIGER]

I swear by my ATI cards...love 'em to death. I don't have a problem with nVidia's cards, I just find that ATI tends to have a performance advantage as well as an image quality advantage.

[NEON DEON]

Originally Posted by Camaero

Chevy or Ford?




Chevy of course. ATI also.

LOL!


HONDA!

[Antrodemus]

Hell YEAH!!!

Honda FTW!

[Capt.LoneRanger]

Originally Posted by melb00m

I would say the exact opposite. There are reasons why so many people with ATI cards use Omega drivers.
I tried ATI twice, and both times I returned the card after a couple days. Had endless VPU recovers and errors.

Now I am back with NVidia, and will stay with them. They certainly have better driver support (especially if you´re also running Linux, which I do), and also pay more money to developers to make their games "NVidia recommended"

You could say the same about lousy drivers for nVidia. Playing IL2 and LOMAC a lot, the latest drivers that fully support all graphics features are 84.21. Even with SH4 you have a HUGE loss in shadows and lighting quality if you use newer drivers. Just been through that, when the new drivers were released. They are faster again, yes, even for my 7800gt, but they even more poorly are able to render shadows, transparency and mipmap-borders. Real pitty.

[Hylander_1314]

I find that my with an AMD processor, the ATI works better, or more stable, where as with an Intel processor, the Nvidia products are better suited to them. This is just my personal observation. I switched over to AMD about 3 years ago, as I liked being able to tweak things which AMD lends itself to readily, where my old Intel set up was a pain to do the same. If Intel has changed that aspect, I may consider an Intel product next time around, and a Nvidia product to go with it, as my next rig will be either SLI, or Crossfire, but I'm still out on the motherboard, and processor, as I may wait for the quadcore to come in price before building the next rig.

What will be the telling issues for me, will be ease of use, and user friendliness for tweaking purposes. As will the differences in video applications between the two makers of them.

ATI had nVidia beat on the picture quality I feel untill the 8800 came along.

If you can not afford the 8800 or newer series then best stick to the lastest ATI offerings for better PQ

ATI's R600 should be best of course, if we can afford the price tag lol

but reckon I will buy another 8800GTX for an SLI system when R600 comes along



Simon

[Hitman]

In my experience -currently using ATI X800PRO 256MB- ATI is a bit like the AMD processors, more temperamental but with more performance and cheaper price. NVidia cards I had in the past were rock-stable and performed well, but I believe ATI has a slightly advantage in performance for the money. I have not had problems with my current card, plugged in a Pentium 4, but I had two AMDs some time ago that were a true nightmare, and I'm not sure if I will ever return to them. So yes, it's a matter of personal experience as hardware combinations are almost infinite nowadays. My 2 cents for you on this topic is: Don't buy a system were more than one part has a tendency to be inestable, i.e. don't combine ATI and AMD together unless you are sure that the exact system you are going to have works well for other guys. A Pentium/NVidia combination will in turn be probably the most stable setup possible, at the expense of performance & quality, that is

[Rotor]

Originally Posted by Hitman

In my experience -currently using ATI X800PRO 256MB- ATI is a bit like the AMD processors, more temperamental but with more performance and cheaper price. NVidia cards I had in the past were rock-stable and performed well, but I believe ATI has a slightly advantage in performance for the money. I have not had problems with my current card, plugged in a Pentium 4, but I had two AMDs some time ago that were a true nightmare, and I'm not sure if I will ever return to them. So yes, it's a matter of personal experience as hardware combinations are almost infinite nowadays. My 2 cents for you on this topic is: Don't buy a system were more than one part has a tendency to be inestable, i.e. don't combine ATI and AMD together unless you are sure that the exact system you are going to have works well for other guys. A Pentium/NVidia combination will in turn be probably the most stable setup possible, at the expense of performance & quality, that is

Thanks Hitman! - You saved my beauty sleep. I have just bought an Ati1300Pro 512mb to my Intel-system...

[Antrodemus]

Well... to continue the "your mileage may vary" theme... My XP64 3700+ system has quite happily co-existed with my XT850 for almost a year, and run just about anything I've thrown at them... BTW, that's a lot of games.

[CaptainHaplo]

Nvidia or ATI? Are you crazy man? What you need is a rocking S3 Virge GPU.

Ok - all joking aside - both card manufacturers are excellent. Driver support has been iffy in cycles for both companies - but they both have been fairly solid as of late.

In reality - the question isnt so much which CHIP - as both make excellent GPU's - but which maker of the BOARD you decide to go with can really be the issue. Some are great chips put on horribly designed boards, or with substandard components on the board mated to them. Thus the horsepower of the chip - regardless of manufacturer - is lost.

If your going to be looking at GPU's - read reviews on CARD models, because 2 identical chips by 2 card makers can have drastically different performance.

I have always been an nvidia guy until my last card - an ATI 9800 Pro. I havent had major issues with the card - other than a cooling fan that died and I rewired another to it! I have built boxes with both - and so far my next card will be an Ati unless price/performance #'s give me a reason to switch.

Best piece of advice - game magazine sites do great hardware reviews....

Good Hunting!
CH

[Redwine]

From an ATI user.....

By an nVidia.

ATI are really bad quality cards. My previous one just switch off sudently, looking it, it was curved as a banano, i change it by my present one.

As lot of problems, games are full of strange giltches. I need to UNDERClock its default settings to avoid the glitches.

To install its drivers is a protocolar procedure. And i never was able to run the original Diver with Control Center...

Luckylly, there are the Omega Drivers...

I just hate my friends when i see them just overwrite their present drivers on an nVidia, without uninstalling anything and always all work fine for them...

This is my last ATI card....

my next will be nVidia...

[Mud]

I drink beer when I wanna get drunk and use nVidia when playing games.
But I agree when people say that there are other ways to get drunk

Mud

[Antrodemus]

Originally Posted by Redwine

ATI are really bad quality cards.

What utter BS...

Originally Posted by Redwine

To install its drivers is a protocolar procedure.

Similarly chock full of bovine you-know-what.

Originally Posted by Redwine

And i never was able to run the original Diver with Control Center...

I'm beginning to get the feeling you had a bum card.

Originally Posted by Redwine

I just hate my friends when i see them just overwrite their present drivers on an nVidia, without uninstalling anything and always all work fine for them...

...as I did with all my nVidia cards, and as I now do with my ATi card.

[GT182]

I just bought SH4 yesterday. Well, after getting the SH4 mods that are out and seeing all the screeshots, I did it and took the plunge. I know, I said I wasn't getting it until the bugs were fixed and the price dropped. I'm bad. :rotfl:

I'm running a 2 year old 'puter with a P4 3.2 CPU. I splurged and bought a nVidia 6800Xtreme 256mb/256bit 8X agp GFX card back in February with the 93.71 drivers, and I'm glad I did.

Graphics Settings are:
All on except Windowed Mode.

Ship 3D Damage 100%
CharacrtersDetail 100%
Particle Density 80%
Terrain Objects Density 80%
Terrain Objects LOD Size 90%
Gamma stock at 50%

Realism at 52%. GOtta have those event cameras on and WO doing the target setup.

Looks as tho everthing is running ok so far. I've only run the Sub School Navagation Training. Not much time for anything else for a few days, except after supper for an hour. House hunting has been taking most of our time these last couple of weeks. But from what I see so far ain't bad at all. Now to get a few mods installed seeing I do have Patch 1.02 in.

The best things I have seen so far is the more realistic looking sailors, and the sub visable sub at periscope depth. Those 2 alone kick a**.