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Gig
Southern Spirit
Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 3226
Location: NFG Headquarters |
ATI Radeon 8500 for me, I've used them since my first computer and I've never been sorry. I have absolutely no reason to start experimenting with other card makers.
_________________
''Perhaps I'm old and tired but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.''--Slartibartfast |
Mon Apr 29, 2002 3:09 pm |
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Cam
Guest
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quote:
Originally posted by Gorath
The card to buy is a GeForce4 Ti-4200 when itīs available. Should cost 200$ or less, because itīs positioned against the ATI Radeon 8500LE, and is faster than a GeForce3 Ti-500. A GeForce3 card is only an option if itīs a lot cheaper than 200$.
All GeForce3 Ti, GeForce4 Ti and Radeon 8500 cards should be fast enough to handle the water f/x.
A test: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1608
The Ti-4200 is definitely the way to go. Some may be tempted by the GeForce MX cards, but stay the hell away from them. Bad news, slow as hell, no pixel shading (means no pretty water), no environment bump-mapping, and they lack basic DirectX 8 functionality - which means some games may not work with them at all.
Hang out for the Ti4200. |
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Mon Apr 29, 2002 3:41 pm |
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Guest
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quote:
I don't know about ATI cards, since I have never owned one. I'm an NVidia guy all the way. And I have not noticed anything even remotely approaching a 30 - 65% performance hit for anisotropic filtering.
Then you're like the only person in the world that doesn't notice it, because in every review and on any forum discussing AF you'll see the evidence looking straight at ya.
quote:
I am playing Dungeon Siege right now with level 8 anis filtering and I notice perhaps a 2 FPS drop from turning it on, if that.
DS is an isometric game, AF doesn't work on iso games because there is no "blur" effect for objects far away.
quote:
Then again, perhaps on another application, like Morrowind, I would notice it. Anis filtering isn't one that needs to be turned on, anyhow.
For Morrowind it'll be wonderous because it will add extra detail to the landscape by making all the objects appear sharper.
quote:
Using anis over trilinear is only noticeable in scenes where the landscape and objects in the world extend from immediately in front of you projecting back deep into the background. (Like in Morrowind-- with the view distance set out a ways.) Even so, Trilinear filtering is nearly as good and won't provide as much of a hit.
It's very noticable in games that aren't action packed and moving at 3000 fps. There are lots of articles and screenshots showing the full benefit of AF, and once you play with it and see it at true potential, you won't go back.
quote:
What really makes a diff to image quality is antialiasing. If you've got the horses, even 2x AA makes a huge difference. Gone are the "jaggies" that mar the images, so that everything looks, well, more real.
FSAA just blurs objects to the point of making them look "real". Many Radeon users play with 16X AF and 2X FSAA for the ultimate visual quality gaming experience. They only suffer a performance hit through Smoothvision.
FSAA is only good for people that play in low resolutions. 
AF is good all the time for 3D gaming.  |
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Mon Apr 29, 2002 3:44 pm |
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Guest888
Guest
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I was intrigued by your post about AF and FSAA, so I went back and tested my card to be sure, using a game that isn't isometric-- Quake 3 and Alice.
I had texture compression on, FSAA off, and noticed virtually no performance hit at all using 800 x 600, which is what I usually play at. I guess it depends on the game. 97 FPS for on with max AF, and 104 with trilinear filtering only. I am just not seeing where they come up with 30-65% performance. In games where you don't need a very high frame rate, then this hit (if it exists) won't matter. Visually, I noticed a diff with AF even in Alice, as things in the background look much better with it on.
I don't agree with your analysis of FSAA, though. Even if I am at 1600x1200, I notice a HUGE difference when FSAA is on or off. Blurring away those "jaggies" (which are still there even if the res is high-- they just aren't as pronounced) really makes the scene look sharp and much less like a crappy computer graphic. |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 1:15 am |
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Guest
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But the Ge Force 4 4200 is on sale Snoekie!!
Go to http://www.pricewatch.com Click on Multimedia then Click on Video Cards and Look at the bottom for Ge Force 4 4200 and its $169 (Click on it for a listing of stores that carry it so far. |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 1:24 am |
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IncendiaryLemon
Guest
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ATI antriscopic filtering is less exacting than the NVIDIA filtering. The ATI antriscopic hits only selected parts of the screen mostly the middle leaving -especially if the object is at a sharp angle - the periphry untouched. Thus its faster than the NVIDIA filter.
The reason I stick with NVIDIA is the tasty driver support |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 3:27 am |
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Aramas
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 25 Apr 2002
Posts: 38
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Actually there are a lot of differences between the Radeon and the GF4, so it's difficult to compare them directly. In general, the GF4's are faster and the Radeon looks better. NVidia has horrible AA that seriously blurs the textures, but the Radeon shipped with a hardware AA problem that probably won't be fixed until the next version. Even with the AA not working as intended it still looks a lot better (crisper textures) than the NVidia version, albeit with a higher performance hit.
Bottom line is:
GF4: Faster, better compatibility
Radeon 8500: Looks better in 3d, 2d, DVD and with AA.
If you're a twitch gamer that wants to sqeeze every last FPS out of Q3 or CS, then get a GF4. If you use your system for more than games (Photoshop, 3DSMax, AutoCad, DVD, etc.) then the Radeon is better, and the games will look better but with lower fps.
Additionally, the Radeon 8500 is currently the only card that fully supports DX8.1, and so is probably more future proof than the GF4 (which is just a supercharged GF3)
The GF4MX is of course, only a supercharged GF2! Still a fast card for the money, but only DX7 compatible.
On a side note, Dungeon Seige really gives no indication at all of video performance, since it's probably the most cpu intensive game released to date. Even an Athlon 2000XP would probably choke before the video card. |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 3:28 am |
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Llama
High Emperor
Joined: 11 Oct 2001
Posts: 509
Location: Earth |
I'm not going to argue with you, the G4 takes a huge hit and there are two screenshots to prove it. You can see the G4 take ~50% performance hit with max AF on at 1280x1024x32 max details on Quake3.
~30 fps lost on that high of a resolution for the ATi card
~90 fps lost on that same resolution for the highest quality G4 Ti card on the market.
nVidia sucks at AF :/ |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 3:56 am |
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IncendiaryLemon
Guest
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http://www.digit-life.com/articles/digest3d/itogi-video-q3ani.html
"On some differently angled surfaces, with angles not equal to 90 degrees, RADEON 8500 simply does not render anisotropy. Look at screenshots, taken in Serious Sam while viewer was turning relative to a wall"
I wish ATI would get solid talent down for their driver crew - I'd really consider them - however i'll always remember those shady cards they put out for so many years. (shudders) the rage series and such... |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 5:30 am |
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Llama
High Emperor
Joined: 11 Oct 2001
Posts: 509
Location: Earth |
I don't see anything wrong with their drivers, of course I can understand the concept that 3dmark scores don't mean everything, and that anything over 60fps looks the same because the eye can't tell the difference.
On high performance games (comanche and such) the crop of cards are all within the same field of play. The simple fact that a Radeon 8500LE clocked at 250/250 can run Comanche at 32.2fps and a big powerhouse GeForce4 Ti 4600 clocked at 300/650 can only pass that "little" card up by 7 fps at 39.6fps is just sad. People slam ATi cards because they don't score 1000000000000000000 on 3dmark tests but they fail to realize, given the massive speed difference between the G4 and 8500 the cards perform nearly identical when it comes down to it.
But whatever, been having this debate for too long now, I'm done. |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 1:36 pm |
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Zerbus
Village Dweller
Joined: 28 Apr 2002
Posts: 9
Location: Italy |
I (tried to) read all your posts about the newest video cards, but I really hope that my p3-866 with GeForce 2 Mx and 512 Mb Ram will be enough to enjoy the game... If not, and if the game is worth the expense, I'll ask you all how to improve my sistem.
My actual problem is the release date here in italy: June!! 
Bye, Zerbus |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 3:51 pm |
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silverleaf
Guest
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hello,
i am want to upgrade my videocard for morrowind - as everybody else, those water screenshots are sooo nice - which card is better?
geforce4 ti 4200 64 mb or geforce4 ti 4200 128 mb? what's the difference?
my system 1.4GHZ pentium, 512mb and geforce2 so far.
thanks. |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 7:01 pm |
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Snoekie
Baron of the Court
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 335
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
quote:
Originally posted by Guest
But the GeForce 4 4200 is on sale Snoekie!! Go to www.pricewatch.com
If only I would live in the US then I would run to a store and get me one of those straight away
But since I live in Europe and it's not for sale here at the moment, I have no other choice then to either wait (not going to happen. I want the pretty water) or to buy a Geforce 2 Ti 200.
It will be the latter  |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 8:19 pm |
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sphinxlet
Guest
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Just wanted to add about the Geforce3 ti200...I too needed to upgrade my card for Morrowind. I found a Visiontek, unopened retail (not white box) at ebay for $125(that was the 'buy now' price, I didn't bid on it). Point being you can try places like ebay, ubid, and half.com. You might get lucky. |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 9:47 pm |
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guest
Guest
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Something to remember about the amazing water effects in MW is that they require pixel shading. If you are shopping for a card specifically for this game, you should remember that. Some of the low price gf4 cards, (the MX line I think) don't fully support pixel shading. Check out the rpgdot preview #1 to see the difference it makes. |
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Tue Apr 30, 2002 10:13 pm |
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