Indecision 2004

Linux is the kernel, making it into a "usable for morons" (TM Microsoft Windows) is an entirely different kettle of fish...

The very nature of linux, and distributions (plus globalisation/mass
technologisation (i know its not a word..) means Windows is still the
big force) makes "marketing", or even developing it for the "real
world" nigh on impossible, sadly :sad:

ATI have been accused of cheating, and it's failed. They've optimised their rendering techniques, and in some cases it has shown a slight drop in image quality. This can be rectified through the ATI control panel properties. The optimisation has been in placed on the 9600 series for the majority of it's lifespan, and yet no-one has noticed the image quality. Nvidia's "optimisations" on the other hand are painfully obvious, and cannot be turned off. ATI have come forward and made a press statement about their optimisations and have said how to turn it off, if the users want to. Nvidia continue to deny that there's any form of optimisation which reduces image quality. As for their 'leaked' documents, I'm pretty sure that they'll be illegal in the UK. AFAIK, it's illegal to slag off a competing product.

OK one thing which puts ATI in the lead? PRICE/PERFORMANCE. All the way. The 6800 ultra is going to be about ?400, the X800 XT is going to be about ?300-?350. How about the current range of graphics cards? In DX9 games (without Nvidia blocking DX9 effects altogether), the 9600 pro beats the FX5900. A ?100~ card beats Nvidias ?300 card.

The Linux/Windows thing was an analogy.

This can be rectified through the ATI control panel properties. [...] Nvidia's "optimisations" on the other hand [...] cannot be turned off.

What year are you in? The situation is exactly opposite! You can't turn off the new ATI optimisations, and ATI have said that they aren't going to change this. They told reviewers that to make it a fair test, they should set the nvidia drivers to not use any optimisations. Are you aware of this? Do you not see any kind of similarity between this and the so-called cheating that has made you hate nvidia?

Again, please show me a website where you can actually buy the 6800 Ultra or the X800 XT? The cards aren't properly available in america, so I don't really know why you think you can buy them here at all, let alone for these prices you have invented. The few occasions where you have been able to buy a X800 XT, it has been for $500 which is... oh look, the same price the 6800 Ultra has been on the odd occasion that has been available. If you look for 6800 Ultra 256 prices in the UK, you get anywhere from ?300 to ?600! This is because nobody actually has one to sell yet. The exact same is true with the X800 ultra.

You have a good point with the performance of the FX5900. I would never buy that card. But once again you seem to be convinced that the subject is very clear cut, when it just isn't. Look at some reviews, and you will see that... what a supprise, a card %33 percent of the price is not actually as fast! Who would have thought it hey? If you can show me some reviews where the 9600XT is faster than the FX5900U (one notable exception being the early HL2 beta tests done at anandtech, valve have apparently worked on the large difference shown in this particular test), go ahead.

http://www.cclcomputers.biz/acatalog/vga_atis.htm << Bottom of there, ATI X800 Pro, ?300

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/sapphire_ati_graphics_cards.html << Bottom of there, ATI X800 XT, ?350

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/xfx_nvidia_graphics_cards.html << Bottom of there, Nvidia 6800 Ultra, ?400

Prices of the ATI cards have gone up ?50 or so since I last checked, but even so, ?50 and the card's on par/slightly faster.

http://images.sudhian.com/articles/dx9testing/aqua.gif

http://images.sudhian.com/articles/dx9testing/halo.gif

Taken from http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=431 . And yes, 3dmark03 does have the FX5900 pulling ahead, but it's apparently ridiculously easy to cheat at 3dmark.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1715/

"We encourage users to experiment with moving the texture preference slider from "Quality" towards "Performance" ? you will see huge performance gains with no effect on image quality until the very end, and even then, the effect is hardly noticeable. We are confident that we give gamers the best image quality at every performance level." << can turn the 'cheat' off

"whatever the answers to these questions may be, we're still faced with the realization we've been looking at the Radeon 9600 for about a year, and haven't noticed any image quality issues. That further strengthens the notion that a shortcut, optimization, cheat, or whatever you'd like to call it, that only shows up when you scrutinize the screenshots with a microscope isn't really an issue." << it's been on the 9600's for yonks, and no-one noticed any difference.

Unfortuantely I can't show you what the Nvidia's image quality is like with optimisations, because the drivers detect when you're taking a screenshot and renders a full quality screenshot. I'll keep searching though. The closest I can find is this: http://www.driverheaven.net/articles/driverIQ/

KingNic said:
Unfortuantely I can't show you what the Nvidia's image quality is like with optimisations, because the drivers detect when you're taking a screenshot and renders a full quality screenshot.

..

this would suggest, a behind the scenes program running, thus reducing performance. i find it difficult to imagine someone in denial to this level.. i don't doubt you, but i do suspect conspiracy theorists involvement :sad:

Your price links don't mean anything because you are comparing the price of the x800 with the invented price of something you cannot even buy!? It is irrelevant how many sites let you buy the x800 xt, no sites let you buy the 6800 ultra at any price - there is no comparison to make! They don't even know when they will be getting any in stock!! If you look at a market where it has been possible to buy a real card (america), the prices have been the same! There is still no justifcation in saying the x800xt is cheaper than the 6800u. Even if there was, it wouldn't really matter, because hardly anybody actually buys the top end cards anyway. The real battle is when both companies release their mid range cards, or in ATIs case, re-release the existing stuff as mid range.

The ATI drivers may allow you to adjust the image quality optimisations, but they do not allow you to turn them off completely. This has been covered on a bunch of different sites. If you don't believe that it is possible to turn them off in the nvidia drivers, think why ATI themselves would ask reviewers to turn the optimisations off in the nvidia drivers. Half the debate on the current ATI optimisations is centered around not being able to turn them off completely. Pointing out things like different image quality is a good way of promoting ATI. Saying that ATI do everything perfectly and nvidia are nasty cheaters makes you look like a fanatic.

The benchmark images you link show the 5900 losing to the 9600 on some old driver, and winning on a current driver!? I'm sure we could make the ATI card have any arbitrary performance if we made it use a driver version from last year? Balance this against the vast majority of reviews that show the correct market segmentation, and the idea that the 9600 is a faster card than the 5900 for a third of the price looks even more suspect.

And now you have turned the debate to 'ATI has better image quality' - I never said anything against this! Again, this is a valid point you could make to convince people over to ATI, infinitely better than just calling nvidia evil cheaters. Personally I don't think the differences are large enough to have an impact on gaming experience. I have seen dozens of comparison screenshots, and although sometimes they look different, I couldn't have picked a 'winner'. At 60fps running around shotting things, neither could you.

So please, come down of your childish 'ATI rules' high-horse, and accept that there are pros and cons of buying something from either manufacturer. There are differences, and these are what should be discussed, not innaccurate or misinformed accusations and predjudice. Learn what it is to have a balanced opinion.

scary_jeff said:
Learn what it is to have a balanced opinion.

wise words my young padawan.. it took jeff ages to figure out i was only a prick, not a total prick.

basically, i hug the center of the road on this debate.. before my 9000 card, i was strictly an Nvidia fan, cause of bad issues with an ATI Rage Pro card.. i like both cards equally now, with only price being my decision maker.

Right this is my last post in this.

I'm not saying that ATI rules, I'm saying that Nvidia sucks. Every time Nvidia come out with something, ATI beats them. They've lied continuously for the past year/2 years about their drivers. And even when ATI are accused of cheating, they don't deny that the cheats arent there.

I wouldn't be so biased against Nvidia, if it wasn't for the fact that they're cheating and denying it. If they said "yup, we're cheating, sorry about that" then I wouldn't hate them. ATI did it, and they say "yup, we're cheating". The 'leaked' document just took them down to the stupid CS lamers. Given Nvidia's stance over the past 2 years, it'll be a long time before I trust them with anything.

Nvidia used to be my faviroute, but since the GF4s they have slipped so much it's unbelievable. The only advantages that they currently have over ATI is with older cards, such as the GF2 (if i was fitting a budget computer, i'd slap an Nvidia in rather than ATI), and market dominance.

so nic, what you are saying is, you wont use a product cause they lie?

you must run around nude,all but starved, and unbathed, cause every damned thing in life has a lie hooked to it..

look at your gas pumps.. the price is a lie.
look at your automobile, it was built with lies.
look at your food, it was grown with lies
look at your monitor, its opsys.. built on lies

name one thing, besides the saintly ATI that hasn't lied about something

seriously though, i am making fun of your sentence structure, not your idealism.. if you hate Nvidia, who are we to question it.. i for one, cannot walk on water yet, although i am trying to learn.. but i am saintly enuff to cast stones.. and i have a whole freaking bag full just waiting to be hurled :biggrin:

You are free to have your opinions about nvidia lying, but when somebody asks for advice on how to spend their hard saved/earned money, you are doing them an injustice by advising them based on your own pet hates of a particular company.

Orpheus said:
[quote=diablo]
I'm also after a new video card, but not a $500 one :razz: My FX5600 is giving me the s**ts, it overheats even with a custom fan that I installed! It even overheats on games like Diablo 2. Think theres something wrong with it. =/ I'm looking at either a FX5900 or a 9800. Any advise would be helpful.

if it overheats so easily, you might see if you have the voltages set correctly..

i am not positive on this, but i am betting, unless its an auto setting AGP slot, you might need to set a jumper some place.

my 9000 never over heats, even while running power hungry games.. and it has no cooling fan at all..

[/quote]

I checked the bios settings and they seem correct. I aslo used to use another motherboard, and that had the same problem on my old one. I have a copper heatsink on it, with a fan running at about 4500rpm so I doubt thats the problem. The temp of inside my case is normally no more than 30 degrees C so theres no problem there either. The wierd thing is it runs perfect on some games, Max Payne 2 runs excellent, it even runs nice with antialiasing enabled, unlke games like neverwinter nights and vietcong, where I rarely can run the game for more than 30min. I've tried everything I know to fix the problems with no result. I'm pretty sure it's an overheating issue, sinse the video card shuts down when it happens, the monitor goes blank and the standby light goes on, resulting in the need to restart.

You can probably see why I am wanting a new card. :razz:

Try turning your AGP slot down to 4x, I had a similar problem with my 9800.

KingNic said:
Try turning your AGP slot down to 4x, I had a similar problem with my 9800.

Okay, I'll give that a go! :smile:

diablo said:

KingNic said:
Try turning your AGP slot down to 4x, I had a similar problem with my 9800.

Okay, I'll give that a go! :smile:

or if that don't work... return it!