Ati & Nvidia

[Gwalyn]

What is everyone's thoughts regarding the anouncment of new video card lineups from both companys in the next month?

[Qwikshot]

I can't afford it...

[Airhog]

I dont have any thoughts, I hardly follow new video cards, way to expensive. I usually buy cards that are 1 or 2 generation older.

[Dutch]

I love being on the cutting edge of video card technology. It's a hobby of mine. However, I'm waiting for the NVidia FX to blow other people away before I make the grab.

I purchased the Voodoo5 5500 for a good chunk of money back in the day and was shocked to find out that Voodoo went under a couple of months after the launch.

The Voodoo 5 card was way behind production, too expensive to produce, too complicated to produce, and while it was a fine card, I'm not interested in going through that again.

So I will wait and see if DX9 compatable cards blow people away or they go, "wow..." I'll wait before I buy, call it .400 studios patience.

[Gwalyn]

thats pretty funny.

Now here is a question for you. What do you think it would take for ATI to gain ground in the mainstream audience? Nvidia's stranglehold on the mainstream market is pretty impressive.

[Mota]

I think ATI has gained a lot of ground with the 9700. It was actually faster than the Nvidia product.

I personally use the Radeon 8500 and am very happy with it. It plays OOTP5, FOF4 and Everquest fine so I'm good. :)

[ice4277]

I have an 8500 too, and its not bad, plus it was a lot cheaper than nvidia's comparable product. And the 9700 kicks some major ass also.

[Darkiller]

NVIDIA does not comment on this :-)

[sterlingice]

I have a Radeon 7500 AIW and I love it. Also, with the Radeon 9000, they can gain some ground since it's cheap but fast. Them 9700 being faster than the new Nvidia card was a big blow to Nvidia. That said, I wouldn't start writing their obituary just yet.

SI

[astralhaze]

The Radeon 9700 is actually faster than the GForce FX according to the early benchmark tests. From what I have read, the 9700 is even faster than the next ATI card. I agree that it is far too early to write Nvidia's obituary, but they have been dealt some serious blows recently.

[cartman]

It's a little strange the situtaion. Dutch touched upon it a little in his post. Most of the comments now between ATI and nVidia are eerily similar to the comments from a few years ago between nVidia and 3Dfx. I too bought the Voodoo5 5500 card and was very happy with it.

That being said, I was a huge Glide fan, and still prefer it to DirectX. But nothing really supports it anymore. A lot of people were unhappy with how nVidia bought 3Dfx, and then shitcanned all support and driver releases. But at the time, there wasn't really another viable option out there besided nVidia.

But now that everything is based on DirectX, speed is what matters. If nVidia had put Glide support into their products, and kept up the development, they might have retained 3Dfx's customer base, and had a differentiator to ATI.

[The_herd]

Benchmarks are unreliable, ATI makes its cards to detect Quake III and other things used for benchmarks. It will detect the game or program and turn visuals down a little in order for it to get a better benchmark score.

A computer gaming magazine did an article on this and showed some screen shots of it, the visuals in Quake III got noticabley worse.

Thats the problem I've always had with ATI is they want to produce the fastest video cards and sacrifice quality in order to do so. I don't know anyone who can tell the difference between 125fps and 145fps. Thier drivers are also usually kinda sloppy, with nVidia, you know your gonna get high quality drivers.

[astralhaze]

Well, just on personal experience, I have the All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro and it is ungodly. Whether the FX will be better I don't know, but the early reports are not good. It's release has been pushed back and pushed back and the reviews have not been favorable.