5900 to 9700 Pro

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
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Impression:
Very nice color PCB. Heatsink design is very smart. The card is so much smaller that it feels incomplete, compared to the BFG 5900.

Installation:
No problems.

Problems:
Halo Demo failed to work. It said had trouble initializing Direct3D, although other DX9 games worked.

Still need to do a little more playing around with it to feel any better experience than Nvidia.

So far, AA is a tad better than Nvidia's.
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
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hu, i wonder what you have wrong with halo. i just played a little today with my xt.
 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
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-vidmode 1024,768,xx

xx=Your referesh rate.
What are you trying to tell me?

Anyone know of a webpage that shows the difference between performance and quality AF, Texture and Mip-map levels.
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
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he means you should add that to the end of the target in your halo shortcut.

for af settings, here. but be aware that ati has compromised their quality af in newer drivers and you need to set it in game or use rtool to get the good stuff in d3d apps. as for texture and mip-map settings, they don't change pefromance much so you might as well leave them cranked.
 

Pete

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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Setting AF via drivers results in minimal difference. Quality means the first texture stage is trilinear and the rest, bilinear. Performance means all are bilinear. If you want full tri, either set AF to app pref in the drivers and enable it via the application, or use something like rTool.

Ben is suggesting you add that to your shortcut to force a specific res and refresh that are in your monitor's range.

What card is it, and how loud's the HSF?
 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
6,575
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BBA. MY generic PS is a silence killer and drowns out all sounds.

I traded my 5900 for this.
 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
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I like the color. Some people say it appears washed out, but I think it's a more natural looking color. I like it better.

Case runs about 4 degrees cooler.

Performance is worse in the games I've played. CoD and Halo and Need for Speed Underground, by barely noticeable dips and also in Painkiller. Although these probably work better on nvidia for their reasons.

AA looks a little better now. Idk why, but it doesn't seem like it was when I first saw it.

Textures are a bit more aliased.
 

CaiNaM

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 2000
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that's because the easily overclocked 5900 is simply faster than the 9700p in many situations..

as for the color, my 9800p while not a huge difference, is less "bright", but which you prefer i guess is more personal preference than anything else. both cards actually have great output.

regardless of which card you have, you shouldn't feel bad about it.. while each has it's own strength/weaknesses in different areas, they're both great cards imo.
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
2,997
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Halo Demo failed to work. It said had trouble initializing Direct3D, although other DX9 games worked.
It sounds like you didn't uninstall your nVidia drivers before swapping the cards.
 

Viper96720

Diamond Member
Jul 15, 2002
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RE: Washed out looking colors. Open registry and search for gamegamma. Change it to all 0's if it's enabled.
 

Conky

Lifer
May 9, 2001
10,709
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5900 to 9700Pro is a lateral move at best. In fact, I think I would take a 5900 over a 9700Pro.



 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
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I don't overclock, or at least, play on overclocked components. Sometimes I might do it just for kicks.

I uninstalled all drivers. I need to reformat, that is the problem, but I lost my windows CD and now I need to buy a new one. Maybe I'll wait for Reloaded to come out.
 

RAutrey

Member
Oct 20, 2002
145
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Vian - Uninstall your ati drivers. Reboot into safemode and run drivercleaner (google for it) to get rid of any trace nvidia stuff. Go ahead and do the same for ATi. Reboot and install the Cats. You should be good to go.

P.S. Don't forget about my heat :)
 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
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I think the performance is good enough to justify not going through all. I will be getting windows soon again i hope.

I've done your heat, check it out.
 

BenSkywalker

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
9,140
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It sounds like you didn't uninstall your nVidia drivers before swapping the cards.

It's an issue with Halo in particular. If the in game refresh rate doesn't match up with what you are using for 3D you will get a D3D initialization error.
 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
6,575
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could it be "refresh force"

They should put resolution and refresh forcing in the drivers. That would be cool.
 

Unrealdude

Member
Feb 22, 2004
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Vian u are fooolish.
R u crazy that u traded ur BFG 5900(with around the max raw power by nvidia, much more than that of this backward technology 9700 pro- released in mid 2002) with a 9700 pro
(open gl 1.3,etc)
 

Jeff7181

Lifer
Aug 21, 2002
18,368
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Originally posted by: VIAN
could it be "refresh force"

They should put resolution and refresh forcing in the drivers. That would be cool.

Did you even try what BenSkywalker suggested? That's what I had to do and it works fine now... well... it works like Halo does anyway, which is hardly "fine." :D
 

McArra

Diamond Member
May 21, 2003
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Originally posted by: Unrealdude
Vian u are fooolish.
R u crazy that u traded ur BFG 5900(with around the max raw power by nvidia, much more than that of this backward technology 9700 pro- released in mid 2002) with a 9700 pro
(open gl 1.3,etc)

9700Pro performs much better than 5900 in DX9 and also performs better with AA/AF enabled. What's your point? That it has been released in 2002 and 5900 in 2003 ????
 

CaiNaM

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 2000
3,718
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i'll give you ps2 shader performance, however owning a 5900, 9700p, and 9800p, it does not perform "better" with aa/af. it might be more efficient, but my 5900 has more raw power.

the 9800p is about the same in most things, but the my 5900 running at 450/950 was a noticeable upgrade over the 9700p.
 

VIAN

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2003
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From the games I've played, the 5900 performed better.

I did try what benskywalker suggested and it worked. much worse performance compared to 5900. Let's just say the 9700 Pro got to a slideshow point and stayed there for a while where the 5900 would only get terrible frame rates and maybe a touch of slideshow. I don't remember what resolution I was running the 5900 at, but I don't think it was 10x7 which seems pretty weird.