A much more important war...

[nitelite33]

Who do you see leading the way into the next graphic evolution?

While both Nvidia and ATI are working hard on their second generation DX9 cards, it looks like ATI has the early lead with the Radeon brand.

Nvidia seems to be falling into the same trap that destroyed one-time powerhouse 3DFX... Miss ship dates... Fail to improve current solutions... Deteriorating press relations...

The long promised and much delayed G-Force FX card (NV30) seems to be taking a bath on the test reviews, benching poorly against an ATI card that is almost a year older.

But will ATI be able to deliver the killing blow to Nvidia while they are down?
How down is Nvidia really anyhow?
Has ATI solved their nagging driver issues?
What video card would George Bush buy?
Did sexygirl buy a video card while she was in Canada at a good price rather then the crazy UK markups?

Come on people!

EDIT: I personally think Nvidia is going to comback hardcore this fall with the NV32/35...

/wave to Carmack

 

[lobito]

I've got 5 matrox cards, and they've always worked fine for me.

I've got ONE Nvidia 32mb card, and it was the reason I couldn't install XP on my system. When I took it out, and put in a Matrox card, all of a sudden XP installed fine. XP still doesn't like my new Nvidia card.

 

[nitelite33]

Hehe I really only added the Matrox choice as a joke ;D

Matrox is great at what they do (multi monitor support, professional 3D imaging), but they haven’t really gone after the 3D gaming enthusiast market for some time now.

Last summer, they tried to bridge both the enthusiast and professional worlds with the Parhelia-512, but didn’t really end up serving either audience fully imo…

Right now, for pure gaming power its ATI or Nvidia pretty much ;D

EDIT: You don't even want to see the Parhelia's MadOnion scores...

 

[marksgirl]

Just stopping by to *crunch* on nitelite!

 

[sexy-girl]

nope she bought one at a crazy uk price

but i did sell my old nvidia one for a good price and bought ati 9700pro ... the drivers have been pretty much fine although was a few bumps when it first came out

anyway i love my graphics card and i will stick with it for a while it think ... i do think graphics companys exaggerate the need to upgrade ... my sister has a geforce 2 and that still runs all the games i can just bit lower detail


anyway i vote for ati but i did hear another company was going to come up with a good one but i forget who it was


hehe this is such a geeky thread

 

[ozraven]

hehe this is such a geeky thread

Yup, but I love my Nvidia GeForce Mx420.....

<--------- Geek and PC vandal

 

[Arc da Rat]

I have not used either card ...

I still have a Voodoo 5 5500 card ...

 

[Mad_Jack_Rabbit]

For the most part, the winner will be the one which ships the most in pre built systems. IE, you buy a DELL you get NVIDIA (or used to.) While customers have the option to change the card for extra money, most customers only want to know 1) can I play games on it? 2) can I type letters on it? 3) can I use it for the net? 4) Are you sure I can get on the internet with it? 5) Where is the on switch? 6) And you really are sure that I can get on the net with it? 7) Does it come with any games?

They aren't really interested about what is inside it, especially the graphics. Most of them go away happy with Intel intergrated graphics chip and happily point out that this has the advantage of them NOT needing to get a graphics card!

Of course, there is always the possobility that some unknown company comes up with something radically new and powerful that blows the competition away.

 

[Draco]

Check out how they rate on TomsHardware (the guru's of testing/benchmarking)

ATI's rule the roost at the mo...NVidia is playing catch up.

Now...3DFX didn't fade out, they were bought out by NVidia....and promptly closed down...which is a damn shame...as for many years, the Voodoo range ruled the lot.

I still know of people running 12 meg Voodoo II, and one of my hard-core Quake fans still swears by his "Twin Voodoo II's SLI setup....

Now, the XP problem....sounds very strange, as XP has a huge driver database for older cards. I even got a Matrox Mystique to run under XP, and thats like 6-8 years old.

If it dont run first time up, dont dispair. Go and get the drivers from the appropiate site or from NVidia (reference drivers) and it should go. I have a geforce 2 MX440 thats runs fine on XP, plus an old 32 mb TNT 2 (the precursor to the geforce) which works perfect in XP.

www.nvidia.com/drivers

 

[Mad_Jack_Rabbit]

I downloaded new drivers for my Geforce card. It seems to work a little better but to be honest, I can't really tell. But what did impress me is that the drivers came with a whole bunch of nifty utilities.

No idea what they do but I get a cool looking dialog box up with lots of technical looking options.

 

[sexy-girl]

these pics are from a demo for the new ati card coming out but they work on my card too

seeing it moving is pretty breathtaking and keep in mind you can move the camera around too

 

[sexy-girl]

more chimp

 

[Draco]

Now the importance of up-to-date drivers cant be understated.
Theres no point to spending hard earned cash on a good graphics card (or sound card for that matter) then relying on Windows native drivers (built in to the OS), they just dont enable the features the card requires. The only way to go is to keep up with the driver releases from your card manufacturer. Dont rely on Windows update to tell you there are new drivers available either....MS is way behind the 8-ball when it comes to driver support.

I check Nvidia's site at least once a month for the drivers for my GF2 MX440. Then once the drivers are installed, they need fine tuning for high performance. Right out of the box, a few things need to be disabled.

(Disclaimer: ) I'm talking only Nvidia drivers here.

Anyone who wants the setting and the REG file to enable the Custom settings for NVidia drivers...feel free to PM me or email me at kurgzcomp@yahoo.co.nz

Draco (A+/Net+ Certified Technician)

 

[sexy-girl]

cute

 

[nitelite33]

I think I'm going to go with the Radeon 9800Pro 256 when it ships this summer...

Mmmm 256megs of DDR goodness =)

 

[nitelite33]

I just decided my perfect fantasy...

Naked women working on their towers!!!

Getting all sweaty while they solder their own custom towers and come up with unique cooling solutions...

IS THIS GEEKY? )))

 

[Guest]

I've got ATI 3D RAGE II.