Author Topic: nVidia vs ATI (Read 8495 times)

Grey Ninja · « **on:** May 24, 2003, 01:02:52 PM »

It's unlikely that anyone else here really cares about the nVidia/ATI feud, but I am personally enjoying the hell out of it. I haven't liked nVidia much ever since they bought out my beloved 3dfx... and I am really liking how much ATI is wasting nVidia right now.

http://www.megagames.com/news/html/hardware/dawnatiflingofficial.shtml

nVidia's own Dawn demo seems to have been beaten by ATI... coupled with the recent announcement that nVidia was found cheating at 3DMark 2003, I think that it's safe to say that nVidia's stranglehold on the graphics chip market is officially over. nVidia can whine about 3DMark not being a "valid" benchmark all they want, but when their own demo apps run better on ATI cards, it's time to admit defeat.

Welcome the new champion, ATI.

PIAC · « **Reply #1 on:** May 24, 2003, 01:53:46 PM »

i wanted a Raedon 9800 for my machine, just it costs more than my machine in total

so i have a pretty basic 128mb geforce4, but hey, who ever makes my graphics look better ill go with. but thats pretty funny about the demo running better on ATI hehehe

Grey Ninja · « **Reply #2 on:** May 24, 2003, 01:56:28 PM »

Yeah, I actually chose a GeForce3 over a Radeon 8500 for the same reason. It just costed WAY less for the nVidia card. But I still support ATI with my words, even though I can't support them with my dollar.

manunited4eva22 · « **Reply #3 on:** May 24, 2003, 03:25:10 PM »

I have been waiting to pick up a 9700Pro, but they never have really dropped in price, so I will be waiting a while longer until I get one...sigh.

Gamefreak · « **Reply #4 on:** May 24, 2003, 06:03:04 PM »

Well my Geforce4 Ti 4400 works perfectly.
There is no need to get a card more powerful that a Geforce4 Ti or Radeon 9500...Unless you plan on running all the newest games at 1600x1200x32 with everything turned all the way up at 60 fps...except, not even the newest cards can do that. If you want to run the newest and best looking games at 60 fps, even on the best cards you can't really go above 1024x768, depending on the game's coding. I have to play GTA3 at 1024x768 because it was ported so poorly it is a system hog. But at least Vice City is much better in that sense for the PC.

BrianSLA · « **Reply #5 on:** May 24, 2003, 06:48:55 PM »

Nvidia vs ATI....... it comes and goes. Nvidia lost this generation but I seriously don't count them out. One goes up, one goes down. It is all good for the PC Gamer / consumer. I am seriously considering upgrading and getting a mega power rig BUT I am fighting temptation until winter to upgrade. If I buy today the best I can get is 3 gig....... I wonder how powerful CPUs will be by December?

Smithy · « **Reply #6 on:** May 24, 2003, 06:56:38 PM »

I have had a lack of respect for nVidia ever since they were caught cheating on 3DMark 2003 scores.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/news/news_6028894.html
http://198.3.92.62/3dmark03_audit_report.pdf

Uncle Rich AiAi · « **Reply #7 on:** May 25, 2003, 12:37:03 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Grey Ninja
It's unlikely that anyone else here really cares about the nVidia/ATI feud, but I am personally enjoying the hell out of it. I haven't liked nVidia much ever since they bought out my beloved 3dfx... and I am really liking how much ATI is wasting nVidia right now.

Same here. I see nVidia as the MS of the GPU war.

One reason I don't like nVidia is that a lot of people thought it was their lastest card that was powering the DOOM III demo ast E3 last year, when it was in fact, ATi's lastest card at the time. Heck, even my PC Gamer mag. got it wrong a few issues back.

As for 3DMark, who cares? Why are some people obsessed by benchmark scores? They are not the be-all-and-end-all of graphical performance.

Gamefreak · « **Reply #8 on:** May 25, 2003, 06:44:10 AM »

BTW, the only reason ATI ever came up with a good card (Radeon 9700) was because they bought ArtX, the same small graphics card company that made the N64 and Gamecube graphics cards. ArtX made the Radeon 9700, and it just happened to be the first Radeon that didn't suck bigtime...

Also, notice how Nvidia vs. ATI translates into Microsoft (Nvidia) vs. Nintendo (ATI).

In fact, the reason ATI bought ArtX in the first place was because they wanted to cash in on the console business. ArtX was already developing the Flipper chip for Nintendo. When MS signed with Nvidia, ATI knew they had to do something fast, so they bought ArtX and started the whole partnership with Nintendo. The Radeon 9700 was only a side-effect of that - and freaking lucky one for ATI. I know they're thanking their lucky stars over at ATI right now.

And I remember MS fanboys jumping up and down when they heard Nvidia would be making the Xbox graphics card.

Grey Ninja · « **Reply #9 on:** May 25, 2003, 02:29:17 PM »

Actually GameFreak, I am of the opinion that Radeon cards were always pretty good. The Radeon 8500 was technically superior to the nVidia cards of the day (GeForce 3), but was hampered by poor drivers. The recent ATI drivers however, have gotten REALLY good. It's really the better driver support that is carrying ATI so far these days I think.

As for the acquisition of ArtX, I realize that was a great step for ATI, but I am not really familiar with the details of that. I would have liked some of the Radeon features to be incorporated into Flipper though, such as a programmable T&L engine.

manunited4eva22 · « **Reply #10 on:** May 26, 2003, 03:49:10 PM »

In all reality, the graphics card industry has been really messed up since ATi entered into strong competition. The last generation high level cards are not dropping. Look at the 9700Pro. It is still a very strong card, but it still at a pretty high price (260+), where as during the Geforce 3 days the geforce was down to the mid range cards (200+ or-) And there really is no mid power cards anymore to be frank. The 9600Pro, and the 5600Ultra, perform on the lower end of the spectrum compared to most cards around today. As for the 9200 and 9000, they both are barely as good as the 8500, thats a generation and a half back. Back when 3DFX and Nvidia were duking it out I picked up a voodoo2 around launnch of the 3 for 225 dollars, to do the same for the 9700Pro during the launching of the 9800Pro would have set me be back another 50 dollars. The fact is that cards are getting more expensive and are getting significantly less returns. Tis a shame.

Grey Ninja · « **Reply #11 on:** May 26, 2003, 04:00:41 PM »

Well, the problem is that the video card evolution is going at a much faster rate than the evolution of video game graphics at the moment. nVidia has a 6 month delay between new cards (or tries to anyways), and 6 months just isn't enough time to really introduce a new demand, and that demand is getting less and less all the time. Therefore, prices increase.

I got my Voodoo3 2000 PCI for $150. I got my GeForce3 Ti200 for $250. I will probably get a Radeon 9500 (mid range card), or a 9700 whenever the price comes down enough to be reasonable. Of course that won't be until the next generation of cards comes out.

manunited4eva22 · « **Reply #12 on:** May 26, 2003, 05:19:17 PM »

The thing that has been getting me lately is all this crap about Direct X 9.1. Why the hell do we need direct X 9.1 when there is barely anyone using Direct X 9? I find it incredibly hard to believe it was that buggy of a release that is already in need of a new generation of hardware to fix the issue. I mean I have read a lot about the NV40 and DirectX9.1 or 10 is being almost demanded. Just seems like a rushed release for something not needed to me. As for the hardware, I wouldn't be as nearly as peeved if there was some insentive for that extra buck. Lets see, the 9800Pro 256MB version performs barely better than its 128MB brother. Obviously this card is not an OpenGL editing card, so why do we need 256MB? Do we need DDR II GDRAM now, to be frank not really. It is still way too high in price, and it is at this point slower than DDR I memory. Maybe next year I can justify the push to DDR II, but on this mid gen cards, not at all. 500 dollars is also pushing the price anyone will pay for a video card. I consider paying more for a video card than a CPU almost a waste. Bah, all this crap is really getting to me lately. What else is down the road, PCI Express. What does that mean, an upgrade of motherboard to Granrsdale or above. Thankfully that is over a year away, but that is still going to impeed on the current market. AGP8X boards weren't even out when the 9700Pro hit, so most people had to wait until the SiS648 and E7205 chipsets hit to really get a quality P4 board that was able to use their new toy. Even now, I can forget to turn on AGP8X and barely notice it in the benchmarks. So what does PCI Express bring to the table? It brings in basically a faster AGP slot, but will force you to upgrade video cards, instead of keeping a slightly dated one. Will this bug me in the future? Probablly not, as I will be buying a new rig about a year after it hits so I will have time to watch the waters before I jump in. The only gripe I really have about all of this is PCI itself is very dated. PCI-X brings in a 64 bit bus, but there isn't much more than networking solutions using it. Sound cards could definately use the extra data rate, just no company is going to support it as long as it is not mainstream.

Alright that concludes my garbelled rant for now.

Grey Ninja · « **Reply #13 on:** May 27, 2003, 01:39:06 PM »

I suppose I can understand your anger. But all this advancement is really neccessary, and is the core of the industry.

Microsoft had to release DirectX 9, as OpenGL was featuring fully programmable pixel shaders and DirectX was lagging behind in the technology. Microsoft of course had to maintain their claim that DirectX was "better" than OpenGL.

ATI put DDR-II on their board, because it did give a small performance gain, and that was what they needed to fully show their superiority to nVidia. It matters little that the board is too expensive to sell. The point is that ATI has the crown right now, and nVidia is sorely defeated.

256MB of Memory onboard does serve a purpose. If someone wants to run a game at an insane resolution, then the extra memory helps out a LOT for sub-pixel antialiasing, Z-buffering, and just regular memory usage.

PCI Express might not be much of an improvement, but everything helps. It's hard to create an arbitrary new standard in this industry, and upgrading what we have is a much more practical way of ensuring that new standards will be available in the marketplace. I agree that the PCI Express should have been given a more substantial upgrade, but every little bit helps. PCI isn't aging very well, and I for one welcome the new expansion slot type.

manunited4eva22 · « **Reply #14 on:** May 27, 2003, 04:37:32 PM »

Well I mean 256MB memory is needed if you are running 1920x1200 with 16xAA and AF but, what game uses that? My point is that most high end cards only have 256MB (Minus the M10), and frankly they are the ones who actually use it. Is 256MB memory justified for a game? When I see significant improvements, I will agree, until then I have 100 dollars for something else.

Grey Ninja · « **Reply #15 on:** May 27, 2003, 06:22:45 PM »

Yeah, you are probably right, but it does mean something when you want to be top dog. When they start sticking in 512MB on a video card, then that's cause for alarm.

That's more memory than my computer has.

Although... back in the day... My Voodoo3 card had a faster processor on it than my CPU, and had half as much memory as my computer had to work with.

We should be used to it by now don't you think?

manunited4eva22 · « **Reply #16 on:** May 28, 2003, 07:49:52 AM »

Well in reality, CPUs have always been slower than GPUs, because they run on different concepts. The GPU doesn't do exact calculations to draw, it uses a table of ready answers to get the approximate value. Also the GPU has just about zero cache, where as the CPUs dye is nearly all cache.

Grey Ninja · « **Reply #17 on:** May 28, 2003, 05:03:20 PM »

Yeah, I know that. It's just that the clock frequency on my video card was like 140 MHz, and my CPU was running at 120 MHz.

manunited4eva22 · « **Reply #18 on:** May 28, 2003, 06:13:58 PM »

Well......damn

Oldskool · « **Reply #19 on:** June 14, 2003, 07:18:35 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Gamefreak

Also, notice how Nvidia vs. ATI translates into Microsoft (Nvidia) vs. Nintendo (ATI).

Wow! I guess I wasen't the only one to notice that! Perhaps ATI purchased ArtX and finished the "FLipper" chip in order to challenge their rivals at Nvidia who created the Xbox's graphics chip, named "XGPU". I hope ATI develops the Graphics chip for GCN's successor. (Drools at thought of Radion-based chip)

Uglydot · « **Reply #20 on:** June 14, 2003, 07:33:05 AM »

I have had some issues with nVidia since they messed with the ATI drivers in linux... I am running a 9000 pro right now and see no real reason to upgrade at this point, though I might in the next few months to a 9500 pro to help out a friend by giving him my card. ATI and nVidia have both beater before, anyone remember quack 3? I also find these insanely powerful cards to be a waste of money.

Matt · « **Reply #21 on:** June 14, 2003, 12:32:09 PM »

nVIDIA's drivers are easier to use and update than ATI's. In addition, nVIDIA drivers provide more features. The new ones adapt to what you are doing, so they perform better. This is why nVIDIA was ACCUSED of cheating on 3DMark 2003. The drivers adapted to the tests. In actuallity, this is not cheating... ATI simply cried foul. If ATI was smart, they'd of just made better adaptive drivers.

Grey Ninja · « **Reply #22 on:** June 14, 2003, 01:42:56 PM »

nVidia cheated. Pure and simple. It's just that they sugarcoated it to say that in the future, they will cheat with every game (I read that as benchmark). And let's not forget that once you went off the rail in 3DMark03, the graphics would corrupt. I don't know about you, but I can live without that "optimization".

As for Quack, that would actually give you a real speedup in the game at the cost of image quality. It's a much more valid cheat than nVidia's.

Uglydot · « **Reply #23 on:** June 16, 2003, 08:51:46 AM »

I could live w/o the 8500s "optimization" of Q3. My fiends GeForce 2 plays Quake 3 flawlessly. Did they really need insane framerates? I am all for their newer chips, but with the driver issues they have had as well as Quack, ATI isn't a little angel.

Grey Ninja · « **Reply #24 on:** June 16, 2003, 01:10:28 PM »

You forgot to mention ATI leaking the Doom III beta.

I know that ATI isn't an angel. Few companies in the industry are. Tom's Hardware ran a good article a while ago about who was screwing who. It was an entertaining read. All I am saying is that I prefer ATI's nonsense to nVidia's, and I am rooting for ATI all the way.

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Author Topic: nVidia vs ATI (Read 8495 times)