C
Conor
Went from Geforce 4 Ti4200 to a 9800 AIW. The only time I've regrettedGT-Force said:
it is when I've wanted to give Linux another go. I've dabbled a bit in
Linux and with nVidia cards its a breeze. ATI support for Linux is a
joke.
it is when I've wanted to give Linux another go. I've dabbled a bit in
Linux and with nVidia cards its a breeze. ATI support for Linux is a
joke.
P
Philburg2
Every day I regret giving up my TI4400 for a 9700Pro. The DX9 support is
nice, but driver issues and some weird screen refresh issue have hurt my ATI
experience.
nice, but driver issues and some weird screen refresh issue have hurt my ATI
experience.
A
Andrew
The 4.4 drivers work with every game/demo I play and refreshforce
sorts out the OpenGL 60fps issue.
S
Scotter
IMHO (in my humble opinion):
(4) nVidia generation 4 (like the Ti4200) series were superior to ATi cards
of the same gen.
(5) ATi cards of generation 5 (especially 9600-9800) were superior to
similar priced nVidia cards of same gen (FX5700-5900 etc)
(6) nVidia cards of generation 6 (FX6800, etc) are superior to similar
priced ATi cards of same gen (X800, etc)
Now "superior" is a subjective term, heh. This "generation 6" of ATi cards,
are horsepower monsters. But as far as technology goes, they are slightly
behind nVidia in the Shader Model 3, DirectX 9.0c, and 32bit precision. In
some applications (Half Life 2, supposedly, for one) you may get a FEW
frames per second more out of your ATi card of this generation than
comparable nVidia BUT there are also just as many (maybe more) games out
there where the 6800 series is faster. And I'm talking about EXISTING GAMES.
One reviewer described the latest ATi cards as "souped up 9800's". So yeah,
for existing games, ATi and nVidia's latest are neck and neck with frames
per second and image quality. But if you want to buy a card right now that
will be usable further into the future, go with nVidia just because they put
a bit more foreward-thinking technology into this generation.
But if you are in no hurry, then wait because maybe ATi will leapfrog nVidia
again, as they both seem to be doing lately.
(4) nVidia generation 4 (like the Ti4200) series were superior to ATi cards
of the same gen.
(5) ATi cards of generation 5 (especially 9600-9800) were superior to
similar priced nVidia cards of same gen (FX5700-5900 etc)
(6) nVidia cards of generation 6 (FX6800, etc) are superior to similar
priced ATi cards of same gen (X800, etc)
Now "superior" is a subjective term, heh. This "generation 6" of ATi cards,
are horsepower monsters. But as far as technology goes, they are slightly
behind nVidia in the Shader Model 3, DirectX 9.0c, and 32bit precision. In
some applications (Half Life 2, supposedly, for one) you may get a FEW
frames per second more out of your ATi card of this generation than
comparable nVidia BUT there are also just as many (maybe more) games out
there where the 6800 series is faster. And I'm talking about EXISTING GAMES.
One reviewer described the latest ATi cards as "souped up 9800's". So yeah,
for existing games, ATi and nVidia's latest are neck and neck with frames
per second and image quality. But if you want to buy a card right now that
will be usable further into the future, go with nVidia just because they put
a bit more foreward-thinking technology into this generation.
But if you are in no hurry, then wait because maybe ATi will leapfrog nVidia
again, as they both seem to be doing lately.
B
Ben C
I'm just going from nVidia to ATI now, having been an nVidia kid for the
last couple of years. The experience has not been good so far, but I am
hopeful that all will turn out well in the end. Here's my Top 4 of things
to watch out for, all of which are missing from the instruction manual:
1 - The ATI 9800 Pro (and probably any similarly powerful card) is a power
hog. You'll need a big Power Supply Unit to get it to work, especially if
you have a handful of peripherals such as more than one hard drive or CD/DVD
drive. I'm upgrading my PSU from 300W to 450W and hoping this fixes it.
This is just a theory though - you won't get a message telling you about
this if you lack enough juice and you'll certainly find nothing in the
manual on this.
2 - The installation instructions are seriously deficient. Perhaps they
were written by someone in a hurry. There is NOTHING said at all about
power, despite the fact that the PSU must be at least 350W, and especially
given that there is a power socket on the card which needs to be plugged in!
You just have to work it out for yourself.
3 - If you get any error messages during the install, good luck! They can
be extremely cryptic, and ATI's support pleads total ignorance about them.
I tried googling one ('SEVERE - Zero display service error'), and it seems a
common error that nobody understands. Lots of people get it, but I have not
found a single explanation as to what it means and how to avoid it. The
error has been knocking around with ATI's drivers for at least 18 months, so
the lack of resolution is very disappointing.
4 - General opinion seems to be that the drivers are buggy and unreliable.
If the latest version doesn't work, Google for the previous version. If
that doesn't work, Google again for the version before that. If that
doesn't work, I've been told to try some Omega drivers for the card.
As you can tell, I'm a bit frustrated by the gap between reality and hype
here. Maybe I've just been unlucky. Maybe my card is actually broken. If
it doesn't work by this time next week, I'm going back to nVidia...
last couple of years. The experience has not been good so far, but I am
hopeful that all will turn out well in the end. Here's my Top 4 of things
to watch out for, all of which are missing from the instruction manual:
1 - The ATI 9800 Pro (and probably any similarly powerful card) is a power
hog. You'll need a big Power Supply Unit to get it to work, especially if
you have a handful of peripherals such as more than one hard drive or CD/DVD
drive. I'm upgrading my PSU from 300W to 450W and hoping this fixes it.
This is just a theory though - you won't get a message telling you about
this if you lack enough juice and you'll certainly find nothing in the
manual on this.
2 - The installation instructions are seriously deficient. Perhaps they
were written by someone in a hurry. There is NOTHING said at all about
power, despite the fact that the PSU must be at least 350W, and especially
given that there is a power socket on the card which needs to be plugged in!
You just have to work it out for yourself.
3 - If you get any error messages during the install, good luck! They can
be extremely cryptic, and ATI's support pleads total ignorance about them.
I tried googling one ('SEVERE - Zero display service error'), and it seems a
common error that nobody understands. Lots of people get it, but I have not
found a single explanation as to what it means and how to avoid it. The
error has been knocking around with ATI's drivers for at least 18 months, so
the lack of resolution is very disappointing.
4 - General opinion seems to be that the drivers are buggy and unreliable.
If the latest version doesn't work, Google for the previous version. If
that doesn't work, Google again for the version before that. If that
doesn't work, I've been told to try some Omega drivers for the card.
As you can tell, I'm a bit frustrated by the gap between reality and hype
here. Maybe I've just been unlucky. Maybe my card is actually broken. If
it doesn't work by this time next week, I'm going back to nVidia...
C
Conor
1) No it isn't. I'm running a 9800 AIW on a Shuttle 200W PSU. It
previously ran on a 350W PSU on a PC with 7 fans, 1GB RAM, XP3200,
2HDDs, 2 optical drives and neon lighting with a Coolermaster Aero 7
HSF.
2) Sorry but everything is like that. nVIDIA tell you because their
latest gen cards are stupidly power hungry.
3) Situation normal for most hardware.
4) Situation normal since Win95 for most hardware.
C
Craig
Going from a Ti4200 to a 9800xt should have made a big difference.
Something is definitely wrong with your setup, regardless of your cpu.
Something is definitely wrong with your setup, regardless of your cpu.
T
Tim
Inglo said:
You also don't have to pay off the second company just to get it out of your
life.
J
Justin Baker
GT-Force said:
I recently replaced the Radeon 9500 Pro in my main PC with a GeForce 6800.
Performance in games is good, but I have had to use beta drivers to achieve
this, the 61.77 drivers on nVidia's site wouldn't even work with all of
their tech demos, on my PC at least. Fine with the later betas. I have
also had issues with explorer hanging since I installed this card. My last
nVidia card was a GeForce 3 Ti200, which was superb - I had no driver issues
with that. Since my first 'modern' ATI card, the original All In Wonder
Radeon, my experience only is that ATI drivers have improved greatly, while
I've not been so impressed with how nVidia are doing on that front right
now.
No flames please, just my experience... And I'm not intending to get rid of
the 6800 any time soon. It's a good card, just not quite as reliable with
current drivers than the 9500 Pro.
JB
E
EmDzei
GT-Force said:
This could be nice troll. ;-)
OK. I went from Club 3D ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB to this new Gainward
GeForce 6800 GT 256 MB Golden Sample. Believe or not but not so huge
differents on FPS in UT2004. My computer is P4 2.8 GHz and I have 1 GB
dual channel memery.
I had problems with ATI. Huge problems. But I find whatta do to get
work. After tree month!! You had to disable Fast Write on display
settings. OpenGL was poor and DirectX9 some weird bugs on UT2004. Worms
3D crashed if I used Fast Write on blimp view. UT2004 crashed: I got
black screen, went back to Windows Desktop, wait about 10 sec. and back
to game; if Smart something was enabled. But after this
bug-flashing-error I was dead man - of course.
So, in Worms 3D: disable Fast Write
In UT2004: disable Fast Write, use DirectX8 and enable trilinear
filtering on games settings
--> no probs.
This 6800 is so new for me that I cannot say nothing bad - yet. Only it
is very noisy when using both fans on full speed. This is now like a
nuclear power station or something. =)
L
Les
James_ said:
Eh?
What the **** are you on about with font problems? Fonts look no different
to my 9700Pro using my 6800GT
PS I am using a dell P991 monitor
L
Les
Ben C said:
L
Les
1. bollox. lots of people (including me) were (and stil are) running fine onBen C said:
decent PSUs. Althiugh I think it is reccomended ON THE BOX to have a 350W
PSU, I am sure my Herc 9700Pro suggested this.
2. see 1
3. bollox again, first I heard of this and had ATI 9700Pro for 18months, I
also frequented rage3d forums during this time.
4.this smells like hmm... bullshit. why google for previous drivers when
they are freely available from ATI's homepage.
PS my graphics card history has been ati rage3d to 3dfx banshee to geforce
256 to geforece 256 ddr to gf 3 ti200 tot gf 4 ti 4200 to ATI 9700Pro to
6800GT. I will use an ATI again if they beat nvidia on £ to performance.
G
Geoff
GT-Force said:
ati's drivers for linux and such arn't supposed to be that good
for now it's not really an issue for me, it may be in the future though
ati are (currently) cheaper than nvidia (better value for money, well def at
the mid/high end, 9800 pro)
S
Scotter
I went from a 5950 ultra to a 6800 GT OC.
I made sure to use drivercleaner after removing the old drivers.
Installed the 61.76 drivers and things were doing great.
Jumped to the 66.81 drivers and things still great.
Did some overclocking just to see what kind of 3dMark05 score I could get.
Got up to just above 5000.
Dropped back to 370/1000 and runs flawlessly in Doom3, Unreal Tournament
2004, Dawn of War, FarCry Demo, and a tree demo I found from a link on
nVidia's site.
Rock hard stability so far. Whew!
I made sure to use drivercleaner after removing the old drivers.
Installed the 61.76 drivers and things were doing great.
Jumped to the 66.81 drivers and things still great.
Did some overclocking just to see what kind of 3dMark05 score I could get.
Got up to just above 5000.
Dropped back to 370/1000 and runs flawlessly in Doom3, Unreal Tournament
2004, Dawn of War, FarCry Demo, and a tree demo I found from a link on
nVidia's site.
Rock hard stability so far. Whew!
P
Pete D
Justin Baker ntlworld.com> said:
Have you tried the 66.81 drivers?
B
Ben C
Les said:
How childish can you be? Your experience doesn't match mine, but that
doesn't make it 'bollox'. I stand by every word:
1 - There is no mention of a minimum PSU or anything like that on the box of
my Sapphire 9800 Pro (256MB). Perhaps your box is different!
2 - Ditto
3 - Just because you haven't heard of it... Google the phrase yourself and
you'll see that this problem is persistent and widespread.
4 - Googling old drivers is the fastest way to find them, not just with ATI,
but generally. Just because they are also on ATI's site doesn't mean it's
the easiest way to get them. Why is your thinking so rigid?!
Seriously, my experience of using a high-end ATI card is not good. I guess
from your post that you disagree. That doesn't make my post 'bollox' at
all. Perhaps the world is not as black-and-white as you like to think...
G
GT-Force
Hello again to all who replied,
I appreciate your time you spent writing your replies.
I did not write my perspective, not to affect any of yours. Here it goes:
When I bought my GeForce2 GTS, it was quite newly released. Drivers were
immature and I had quite a lot of problems with it. Though, hardware was
good, but not as good as advertised by nVidia, e.g., I never got to use "The
pixel shader" on that card, since the version was almost never supported by
any games. Yet, I always was happy with the nVidia's driver support, they
worked hard to fix the issues, ASAP. They had nice features for the time,
and their interface looked good, and was easy to use. In fact, I still have
this card, on my old machine, which now belongs to my wife
Then, when it was time to get a new computer, after deep research, I decided
to buy ATI 9700 Pro. Again, the hardware was the best of its time, but
unfortunately, it was hampered by its drivers (does this remind you
something? Like my experience with the previous card? ). The difference
was that, when I got this card, it has already been few months since the
release, I did not get it ASAP as my previous card. The drivers were still
immature, and what is worse, I found that so was the hardware! ATI had three
revisions of the card, and I had received the earliest build, and I was
having serious problems with it. I had to send it back to ATI, by paying
$400 more, even though it was credited back to me once they received my old
card. Not everbody can pay $400 extra, just like that!
Anyway, I received the new version, and the problem was still there!!!
Later, I found that it was due to FastWrites (as someone wrote into one of
the replies here). The problem is that, at the time ATI either did not know
this and/or they did not made this information easily available. So, my
major problem was gone, but the minor "stuttering" issue was still here (and
it still is in some games) for which I also spent considerable amount of
time.
Another problem I have with ATI is that they DO NOT SUPPORT CONSUMER STEREO
3D, AT ALL!!! Maybe not many people care about this, but I do.
Yes, ATI hardware is good, their hardware engineers are apparently beating
on nVidia, but the driver team needs to learn A LOT from nVidia.
ATI started the Catalyst Crew program and are supposedly trying to make
their software and drivers better, but they just can not seem to make it
work. They get lost in features like Catalyst Control Center, which is just
a joke, since it introduced more bugs and frustration than ease, and like
shader effects which no one uses, instead of fixing what is broken, and
providing features that people can actually use.
So far, it may sound like I am beating on ATI's driver team, HOWEVER, I
started hearing similar issues with the new nVidia cards and drivers. So I
wanted ask people, who has taken the plunge already, for their experiences.
I am planning to get a 6800 GT, since it looks like maybe it is not the best
performer, but it is the best-bang-for-the-buck-card currently available.
Yet, I do not want to go through the same frustration that I went especially
with ATI.
I know that buying a newly released hardware is, and always will be, a
little crap-shoot, but I am just trying to to the best I can to avoid
problems, as much as I can. Oh, one last point, I am not a technically
challenged user who knows not a thing about computers; I am referred to as
quite a 'geek' or 'computer wiz' by the people around me. I am using PCs
since 8086 days, and assembling hardware and installing OSs and software on
machines since 80486 days. PCs are my major 'hobby' and I think I am quite
good at it, too. So, please (this is especially for the disrespectful
youngsters who has nothing else to do but to surf the NGs to write BS) do
not bother sending insulting replies implying that I had problems, because I
did not know how to avoid or fix them, ok?
Thanks everyone.
There it is, my experiences with nVidia and ATI.
Take care, live well...
GT
I appreciate your time you spent writing your replies.
I did not write my perspective, not to affect any of yours. Here it goes:
When I bought my GeForce2 GTS, it was quite newly released. Drivers were
immature and I had quite a lot of problems with it. Though, hardware was
good, but not as good as advertised by nVidia, e.g., I never got to use "The
pixel shader" on that card, since the version was almost never supported by
any games. Yet, I always was happy with the nVidia's driver support, they
worked hard to fix the issues, ASAP. They had nice features for the time,
and their interface looked good, and was easy to use. In fact, I still have
this card, on my old machine, which now belongs to my wife
Then, when it was time to get a new computer, after deep research, I decided
to buy ATI 9700 Pro. Again, the hardware was the best of its time, but
unfortunately, it was hampered by its drivers (does this remind you
something? Like my experience with the previous card?
). The differencewas that, when I got this card, it has already been few months since the
release, I did not get it ASAP as my previous card. The drivers were still
immature, and what is worse, I found that so was the hardware! ATI had three
revisions of the card, and I had received the earliest build, and I was
having serious problems with it. I had to send it back to ATI, by paying
$400 more, even though it was credited back to me once they received my old
card. Not everbody can pay $400 extra, just like that!
Anyway, I received the new version, and the problem was still there!!!
Later, I found that it was due to FastWrites (as someone wrote into one of
the replies here). The problem is that, at the time ATI either did not know
this and/or they did not made this information easily available. So, my
major problem was gone, but the minor "stuttering" issue was still here (and
it still is in some games) for which I also spent considerable amount of
time.
Another problem I have with ATI is that they DO NOT SUPPORT CONSUMER STEREO
3D, AT ALL!!! Maybe not many people care about this, but I do.
Yes, ATI hardware is good, their hardware engineers are apparently beating
on nVidia, but the driver team needs to learn A LOT from nVidia.
ATI started the Catalyst Crew program and are supposedly trying to make
their software and drivers better, but they just can not seem to make it
work. They get lost in features like Catalyst Control Center, which is just
a joke, since it introduced more bugs and frustration than ease, and like
shader effects which no one uses, instead of fixing what is broken, and
providing features that people can actually use.
So far, it may sound like I am beating on ATI's driver team, HOWEVER, I
started hearing similar issues with the new nVidia cards and drivers. So I
wanted ask people, who has taken the plunge already, for their experiences.
I am planning to get a 6800 GT, since it looks like maybe it is not the best
performer, but it is the best-bang-for-the-buck-card currently available.
Yet, I do not want to go through the same frustration that I went especially
with ATI.
I know that buying a newly released hardware is, and always will be, a
little crap-shoot, but I am just trying to to the best I can to avoid
problems, as much as I can. Oh, one last point, I am not a technically
challenged user who knows not a thing about computers; I am referred to as
quite a 'geek' or 'computer wiz' by the people around me. I am using PCs
since 8086 days, and assembling hardware and installing OSs and software on
machines since 80486 days. PCs are my major 'hobby' and I think I am quite
good at it, too. So, please (this is especially for the disrespectful
youngsters who has nothing else to do but to surf the NGs to write BS) do
not bother sending insulting replies implying that I had problems, because I
did not know how to avoid or fix them, ok?
Thanks everyone.
There it is, my experiences with nVidia and ATI.
Take care, live well...
GT
S
Scotter
Yeah, Ben, dealing with black & white thinking can be a pain in the ass
because yep, it IS typically quite rigid.
because yep, it IS typically quite rigid.
T
Tony DiMarzio
To put the power (in this case fillrate) of the stock 9800 pro into
perspective for ya - I get, in Counter-Strike, about 200-300fps at
1024x678x32@100hz 2x-AA, 4x-AF.
LOL --> "No, but I expect the fill rate to be high enough to run it at 100
fps +." ---> You must be talking about a different video card.
in the cs console do 'fps_max 100' or whatever you want to be the maximum
and turn off VSync. And, FYI, you CPU is a limiting factor with the 9800pro
and above.
------------------------------------------------------
Windows XP (2600-Professional) w/ SP1
AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64 FX-53, 1MB L2 Cache
ASUS "A8V Deluxe Wi-Fi" K8T800 Pro
VIA Hyperion 4in1 451v
1024mb (2 x (512mb OCZ Platinum EL (2-3-2-5) DDR400/PC3200) Dual Channel)
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Catalyst 4.5) (C-378mhz / M-337.5mhz) OC to
(C-411.75mhz / M-360.00mhz)
SbAudigy 5.1 (PCI-Slot 3)
120gb Western Digital WD1200JB primary/master
60gb IBM 60gxp primary/slave
16x HI-VAL DVDrom (BDV316C) secondary/master
48x/24x/48x plextor (PX-W4824A) secondary/slave
LianLi PC-6070 *Silent* Aluminum Mid-Tower Case | 2x80mm intake fans, 1x80mm
exhaust fan
PowerMax 470watt Aluminum PSU | +3.3V@26A +5V@47A +12V@28A
perspective for ya - I get, in Counter-Strike, about 200-300fps at
1024x678x32@100hz 2x-AA, 4x-AF.
LOL --> "No, but I expect the fill rate to be high enough to run it at 100
fps +." ---> You must be talking about a different video card.
in the cs console do 'fps_max 100' or whatever you want to be the maximum
and turn off VSync. And, FYI, you CPU is a limiting factor with the 9800pro
and above.
------------------------------------------------------
Windows XP (2600-Professional) w/ SP1
AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64 FX-53, 1MB L2 Cache
ASUS "A8V Deluxe Wi-Fi" K8T800 Pro
VIA Hyperion 4in1 451v
1024mb (2 x (512mb OCZ Platinum EL (2-3-2-5) DDR400/PC3200) Dual Channel)
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Catalyst 4.5) (C-378mhz / M-337.5mhz) OC to
(C-411.75mhz / M-360.00mhz)
SbAudigy 5.1 (PCI-Slot 3)
120gb Western Digital WD1200JB primary/master
60gb IBM 60gxp primary/slave
16x HI-VAL DVDrom (BDV316C) secondary/master
48x/24x/48x plextor (PX-W4824A) secondary/slave
LianLi PC-6070 *Silent* Aluminum Mid-Tower Case | 2x80mm intake fans, 1x80mm
exhaust fan
PowerMax 470watt Aluminum PSU | +3.3V@26A +5V@47A +12V@28A