Graphics cards

[Tex -USMC- 0]

I was looking at benchmarks for the 9700 and they looked really good. I would do a search in the OFP troubleshooting forum for '9700' and make a decision from there.

I have a 9700 Pro-no problems, highly reccomended

[toadlife 3]

One question for you Tex. Have you ever owned an Ati Rage Fury Maxx, or any Rage 128 based card? If you have, then you would understand why some of us are very skeptical of anything made by ATI.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

One question for you Tex. Have you ever owned an Ati Rage Fury Maxx, or any Rage 128 based card?  If you have, then you would understand why some of us are very skeptical of anything made by ATI.

Nope. Pre-Radeon I was all nVidia, all the way back to the Riva 128

[BoonieRat 0]

I owned an ATi rage 128pro AGP card (and an onboard/intergrated one as well, also 2xGf2MX's, Gf2pro, Gf3Ti500) and never had a problem with it. I played Halflife, Kingpin, Hidden & Dangerous, Deltaforce, and I don't know how many other games on it, like I said, without problem. ATi driver support has come a very long way since then. They used to be piss poor at releasing updates, but those days are gone. Get with the program! Evaluate them on there present day performance and support, not a 5year old product (which was faster than the 'then current' 3DFX card ) Healthy scepticism is good, but 5year old doubts is paranoia ...

I'd of stayed with nVidia if they had'nt 'dropped the ball' so badly with the FX, I was considering a 'budget' Ti4#00 card, but instead of dropping the price(to Å100 & less) to encourage buyers they released a BS~4800 AGP 8x POS, and bumped the price UP!!(to Å150+!). Their forward planners need lining up against a wall! . Ati on the other hand dropped the price of the 9700 to below Å200 (mine was 9700 'Gold' for Å170, 3+ months ago) while their 9500 range was on par with the Ti4#00's anyway(price & performance! plus could be modded to a 9700) and mopped up the game enthusiast market!. nVidia were still leading in the big OEM market when I last saw, but then again (judging on their recent f##kups) they could of lost that by now with ATi pumping out their rebadged 8500's as Radion 9000/9100's ...

Quote[/b] ]I value reliability over syntehtic benchmarks. Yes, the radeon smokes my 'slow' Ti4800SE in Aquamark (whatever the hell that is), but I've never had a green screen, broken textures, or one of those 'cannot map pbo' errors. Who needs DX9 anyway? halflife2 will run just fine on my geforce.

I value reliability as well. The 9700 delivers it with flying colours. DX9 will be wanted for hardware processing in DX9 games, any card that has to do it by software is loosing precious FPS before it even steps up to the blocks!. I agree that DX9 is NOT a reason in itself to upgrade. But if you're buying a new card anyway, you'd be a moron NOT to take advantage of the new hardware processes...

[OFP Fan 0]

I have a geforce fx 5600 256mb and has boosted speed in everything

[GoOB 0]

Personally I'd get the 9700pro all over again. If I was on the same budget as I was at the time of my first purchase. Personally ATI has impressed me far more than Nvidia. But fortunatley I won't have to buy a new card until next summer. Then I'll probably get a 9800XTpro. Or perhaps something like the 9900 (I hear they are releasing it next summer around july)

All in all, go ATI

[Cloney 0]

I'm looking into a Ti4800 to replace my GF3Ti500. Especially since they are going for about $160 now. *drool*

[Guest ####]

I have an Asus V9520/TD which is a GF Fx 5200/ 128mb. Paid only 180 Canadian pesos and now I enjoy ofp more than ever. I think it is the higher end cards that have the mem map probs. I would recommend this card to anyone.

[toadlife 3]

Quote[/b] ]I owned an ATi rage 128pro AGP card (and an onboard/intergrated one as well, also 2xGf2MX's, Gf2pro, Gf3Ti500) and never had a problem with it. I played Halflife, Kingpin, Hidden & Dangerous, Deltaforce, and I don't know how many other games on it, like I said, without problem.

With my Rage Fury Maxx, I played Halfife, HIdden and DAngerous, and X-PLane. MY 16MB Voodoo3 3000 based card outperformed the Dual processor/64MB Rage furry maxx in open GL and equaled it's performance in Direct3d. The whole reason I bought the rage fury maxx in the first place was because of it's glowing reviews. IN the benchmarks it kicked ass, but when I got it home it just another ati card with flaky drivers. In X-PLane the Rage Fury Maxx displayed torn textures and sometimes textures were missing. To top things off, the card would never run in Windows 2000 due to a hardware design flaw. Ati claimed that they didn't bother to design it to work with 2000 since it was designed for home use and 'no one uses win2k for gaming anyway'. I ended up selling the card to a friend for 10 bucks, after warning him that the dual processors and 64mb of memory would serve as nothing but eye candy if he used it with Win2k/XP.

Quote[/b] ]

ATi driver support has come a very long way since then. They used to be piss poor at releasing updates, but those days are gone. Get with the program! Evaluate them on there present day performance and support, not a 5year old product (which was faster than the 'then current' 3DFX card ) Healthy scepticism is good, but 5year old doubts is paranoia ...

The fact that they still need to release driver updates to fix numerous game compatibility issues tells me that the quality of their driver has in fact not improved at all. The only thing that has improved is the speed at which they release new drivers. I guess they must have doubled the amount of monkeys on their drive team.

Quote[/b] ]I'd of stayed with nVidia if they had'nt 'dropped the ball' so badly with the FX, I was considering a 'budget' Ti4#00 card, but instead of dropping the price(to Å100 & less) to encourage buyers they released a BS~4800 AGP 8x POS, and bumped the price UP!!(to Å150+!). Their forward planners need lining up against a wall! . Ati on the other hand dropped the price of the 9700 to below Å200 (mine was 9700 'Gold' for Å170, 3+ months ago)

PLease tell me where you buy hardware, because I want in. The lowest price I can find for any 9700 pro with AGP8x is $249.00 (that's ~210 Euros). while the lowest price I found for any ti4800 was $161 (~136 Euros).

Quote[/b] ]

I value reliability as well. The 9700 delivers it with flying colours. DX9 will be wanted for hardware processing in DX9 games, any card that has to do it by software is loosing precious FPS before it even steps up to the blocks!. I agree that DX9 is NOT a reason in itself to upgrade. But if you're buying a new card anyway, you'd be a moron NOT to take advantage of the new hardware processes...

Thanks for insinuating that I and every other ti4800 owner are morons. The fact is that Ati cards are not as reliable, in terms of driver quality as the Geforce4 series.

A quote from a hardware site regarding the 9700 pro (their review gave the card high marks, but this quote was posted after the review was done):

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-130-12.htm

Quote[/b] ]A note from the Editor in Chief

I had been using the Radeon 9700 Pro for a while now, and have come across something that most people won't have noticed in short term testing: Driver Compatibility.

One thing I have noticed with the Radeon 9700, was that every time a new game came out, there would be some minor problems with the current driver set. You usually have to wait a week or two for a new driver set to be released, then you get full use of the game. Some games even package beta drivers, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to play at all!

Currently, the biggest "new" games out right now are Splinter Cell and Freelancer. Both were released after the 3.1 driver release. I have both games.

In Freelancer, there is a known issue with the hardware mouse cursor. To be able to play the game, you must turn mouse acceleration down one notch in your control panel.

In Splinter Cell, there seems to be an issue with the lighting when AA is enabled.

These are both known issues, and will be fixed with a new driver release; something ATI owners have had to deal with the entire time they'd been using ATI products. ATI is getting better at releasing new drivers on a timely basis, but is that good enough?

[BoonieRat 0]

Quote[/b] ]Thanks for insinuating that I and every other ti4800 owner are morons

I'm not insinuating anything. If you brought it before DX9 came out that is . If you buy a DX8 card NOW, when you can get faster DX9 cards for the same price range then yes, you're a moron ...

I got my 9700Gold(basicly an overclocked 9700) from Aria.co.uk 3 or 4 months ago. I don't know how much Pro's go for...

Quote[/b] ]The fact that they still need to release driver updates to fix numerous game compatibility issues tells me that the quality of their driver has in fact not improved at all. The only thing that has improved is the speed at which they release new drivers. I guess they must have doubled the amount of monkeys on their drive team.

The overall quality was no different than any other manu's, ALL drivers had issues. It was the fact that ATi were slow (or did'nt even bother!) releasing new drivers/fixes that was an issue. But as you've said, they have improved the speed of support...

Quote[/b] ]The fact is that Ati cards are not as reliable, in terms of driver quality as the Geforce4 series.

Yes they are!. You're confusing quantity with quality. Just cause nVidia spews out a det a day does'nt mean they're all top knotch. Why make so many if the last one was good?...

ATi were terrible a few years back for support, that's a given. But you should really judge their present cards on their present performance, which is outstanding. Past performance bears no direct relevance to present performance in PC componants. 'PC years' make 'doggy years' look like decades!. It's like saying "I won't buy a new Ford cause the Model~T had poor support!" ...

[shadow 6]

If I play a new game that does not feature the label "Best experienced with Radeon bla-bla" I'd like to play it when I get it, not days or weeks after ATI has released a new driver-set to make my card "compatible" with that game.

The Ge-Force-series might be less for more money, but atleast it works 99.9% of the time in all games  

Quote[/b] ]Past performance bears no direct relevance to present performance in PC componants.

But past of ATI driver-history bears direct relevance to wether I buy ATI-products or not... because they have'nt changed that much

[GoOB 0]

If I play a new game that does not feature the label "Best experienced with Radeon bla-bla" I'd like to play it when I get it, not days or weeks after ATI has released a new driver-set to make my card "compatible" with that game.

Ehem, I remember Rainbpw Six: Raven shield. It did indeed say that it was best experienced with ATI cards. So, I bring it home to my rig to see how they got along (I had a GF2 MX 440 at the time) Something like 20-15 FPS whilst running around doing nothing. And sometimes 10-16 FPS in firefights. Then with my ATI Radeon 9700pro I got like 35 FPS running around and a shocking 4-10 FPS whilst in firefights. And 10 is a bit exxagerated.

But overall I am very pleased with my 9700pro. Now to install the latest driver. I have it on my HD since a few days back but I cant muster up the strength to install it.

[Acecombat 0]

hmm this seems the appropriate place , so i'll ask here.

Can any techie here tell me which GFcard should i buy for my AGP 4x motherboard ? I have a Geforce 4 440MX right now , and i just bought this PC so dont tell me to sell it again and buy a new Mobo which supports AGP 8x and then buy a new GF.

My question is is there a nice 4x GF in the ti series which out runs 440 mx?

[R. Gerschwarzenge 0]

hmm this seems the appropriate place , so i'll ask here.

Can any techie here tell me which GFcard should i buy for my AGP 4x motherboard ? I have a Geforce 4 440MX right now , and i just bought this PC so dont tell me to sell it again and buy a new Mobo which supports AGP 8x and then buy a new GF.

My question is is there a nice 4x GF in the ti series which out runs 440 mx?

The gfx cards are backwards compatible so you can buy an agp 8x card and it will work with your agp 4x motherboard. It just runs in agp 4x mode instead of agp 8x.

[S_Z 0]

ATI is doing a great job releasing stable drivers now. They have a beta program so they can make sure that new drivers are really stable before releasing them to the public. One thing people need to learn is to completely remove every trace of old drivers before installing a new graphic card or new drivers drivers otherwise it can become unstable. I am very pleased with the stability of my 9700Pro!

I think ATI has gone past nVidia when it comes to making drivers now. Sure gf4 drivers are very stable but that architecture is much older than ATIs new R3x0/RV3x0 (9500 and up) architectures. Look at the drivers for the FX cards that use a new architecture, those are not nearly as good as the gf4 drivers.

To toadlife:

I think that guy from “hardcoreware.net†is talking a lot of BS. I have never had to install a “beta†driver to play a new game. That issue he talks about in Splinter Cell is a game issue, not a specific ATI problem. You can’t run Splinter Cell with AA turned on or you will get this lightning issue. NVidia disables AA if you run Splinter Cell and that’s why they don’t seem to have that problem. Also he talks about Cat 3.1…a lot has happened since then.

[toadlife 3]

To toadlife:

I think that guy from “hardcoreware.net†is talking a lot of BS. I have never had to install a “beta†driver to play a new game. That issue he talks about in Splinter Cell is a game issue, not a specific ATI problem. You can’t run Splinter Cell with AA turned on or you will get this lightning issue. NVidia disables AA if you run Splinter Cell and that’s why they don’t seem to have that problem. Also he talks about Cat 3.1…a lot has happened since then.

Wellt he guy from hardcoreware.net gave the card very high marks and recommended it. I don't think he was biased, and being a hardware reviewer, he probably plays a lot more different games the average person.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Can you say "Ford vs. Chevy"?

[S_Z 0]

To toadlife:

I think that guy from “hardcoreware.net†is talking a lot of BS. I have never had to install a “beta†driver to play a new game. That issue he talks about in Splinter Cell is a game issue, not a specific ATI problem. You can’t run Splinter Cell with AA turned on or you will get this lightning issue. NVidia disables AA if you run Splinter Cell and that’s why they don’t seem to have that problem. Also he talks about Cat 3.1…a lot has happened since then.

Wellt he guy from hardcoreware.net gave the card very high marks and recommended it. I don't think he was biased, and being a hardware reviewer, he probably plays a lot more different games the average person.

I dont think so, most reviewers use the same old games for every review. Even if I dont buy that many games I do play a lot of different demos.

[toadlife 3]

My question is is there a nice 4x GF in the ti series which out runs 440 mx?

If you're set on a GF card, I would recommend either the ti4800 or a plain old ti4600/4xAGP. If price is a big issue, then the ti4600 will probably be cheaper and will do you just fine. Either one will run circles around your MX card.

[Supah 0]

I got a Geforce FX 5600 128 mb and it runs OFP great. Dont have any of the green screen probs other people would appear to be having With my pc its pretty darn stable. I can run BAS Tonal island with view distance at 2300 no problem even when im flying low and fast in a helicopter.

[Acecombat 0]

My question is is there  a nice 4x GF in the ti series which out runs 440 mx?  

If you're set on a GF card, I would recommend either the ti4800 or a plain old ti4600/4xAGP. If price is a big issue, then the ti4600 will probably be cheaper and will do you just fine. Either one will run circles around your MX card.

Ok i am completely ignorant of the Ati cards do you think i should get that instead? Is there a radeon that will beat a nvidia cars on 4x AGP peformance? Also plz explain what will be the performance boost with a 4x ti4600 against my mx 440 will it be worth it in the end? Or am i better off buying anew mobo for 8x AGP because if its only a 5-7fps upgrade then i better save money for later rather then blowing it for a expensive/unnoticeable change-off.

[toadeater 0]

For a little more than the 9600 Pro, this seems like the best deal out right now:

Radeon 9800

What's so good is that you can mod it into a 9800 Pro which normally costs $50 - 100 more!

Radeon Modding Guide

The 9800SE -> 9800 non-pro seems like a good deal too, since you'll be getting all 8 pipelines instead of just 4 like the 9600.

The key is getting a card with the L shaped memory arrangement, which is a repackaged high-end card. Sapphire and Powercolor are good ones to try this with.

[Mahooney 0]

-----------

PC1 : P3 1000mhz , 512SDR ram , Gainward GF4 ti4200 64mb

PC2 : AthlonXP 3000+ @2.6ghz , 1gb ddr Ram , Hercules Radeon 9800pro

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I installed OFP on PC1 en downloaded much addons and there's already 1 difference, with PC1 I could play with an addonfolder of 1234mb and with PC2 429mb

Than we have the coastlines, (PC2)with Catylist 03.8 they move whole the time and are like razorblades and with the(PC1) Nvidia(Forceware 52.16) all coastlines are smooth and well.

Now, The island Zafana is Impossible to play with PC2, ground textures are knippering whole the time, the sky turns green, ...

Like now, it runs smooth on PC1

For me, playing OFP with a ATI radeon is like hell! bugs, etc...

I don't want to propaganda for Nvidia or not to make ATI black because It can only be on my computer where OFP runs like hell, but it really annoyes(bad spelling ) me.

[General Mcclintock 0]

ATi all the way here, I know what my next card is going to be.

Actually I have to choices, but out of those it had to be ATi with their Radeon 9800 and 9600.

Reason? http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTE5LDI= I guess that official HL2 benchmark speaks more than words.

I also have another card in my rear pocket that I want.

http://www.xgitech.com/products/products_duo.htm

XGI duo or in other words, dual GPU.

For the technical geek, a more close up of this dual GPU baby:

http://www.xgitech.com/products/products_duo_features.htm

The picture has the Heatsink fans removed, so you meet the chip in person, but not undressed.

Let the graphics war begin!

[theavonlady 2]

After all the problems I have seen reported here with ATI cards, I would wait a few more weeks and pick up a soon to be releasedNvidia GeForce FX 5700 Ultra.