Anything bad about the Geforce 4?

[chechi]

I am talking about the best one. The Ti4600? Is that it? Anyways, is there going to be anything bad about it? I heard Jon Carmack or whatever his name is was putting it down. Can anybody comment? Thanks

 

[colonel]

I just read john Carmark about the 4mx family, HE said "dont buy this stuff if you plan to play Doom" and He add" Nvidia made a big mess with this new line of cards"

 

[chechi]

I take it the mx cards are the cheaper ones? And what does he mean they screwed up? I can basically get a the top geforce4 card for $20. But if there was something wrong with it, then I will stick with my geforce 3.

 

[Hender]

Take a look at some of the reviews of the Geforce4, and you'll see that the Geforce3 will do you much better than a Geforce4 MX or any flavor. The Geforce4 isn't really a true Geforce4 like the Ti models, meaning it's not the new chip (it is a new chip, but a different, stripped down one than the Geforce4). I think this will come around and bite nVidia in the butt later.

Personally, if I even pick up a Geforce4, it'll be the Ti4200, and not for a long time. I'm using an OC'd Geforce2 Pro that's up to Ultra levels, and I don't have a problem in any game I play (yet).

 

[colonel]

to read the whole thing just go to Planetwolfenstein.com is really a nice article about what 's going on, and shows how this guy is Free of the marketing wrap around nvidia and ati. IMO I will buy in the future the Ti2400 but I have my doubts little fan for cooling the chip, I hope Elsa be around by then.

 

[chechi]

Yeah, but I am talking about the top Geforce 4 , the Ti-4600. Thats not better than the Geforce 3? Its a different chip?

 

[Rand]

<< Yeah, but I am talking about the top Geforce 4 , the Ti-4600. Thats not better than the Geforce 3? Its a different chip? >>



It's still based around the same core architecture as the GeForce3 was and is little more then a modified GF3 at higher clockspeeds.
It's most certainly superior to the GF3.



<< Anyways, is there going to be anything bad about it? >>



Well it's certainly not perfect in every way, but there is nothing "wrong" with it per-say.
It's clearly better then the GeForce3, and there is nothing the GF3 offers that the GF4 does not besides n-patches support which was stripped out of the GF4.

 

[ss284]

Also, Ive been told the TV out it still piss poor like its always been for Nvidia cards. Major turnoff..

-Steve

 

[chechi]

The tv out on my geforce 3 is great. I dont know what people are complaining about.

 

[ss284]

My guess is that you are using TV tool to display to TV?
Without TV tool geforces have a hardtime displaying a full desktop output to tv without black borders. and TV tool doesnt support dualhead nor is it free.

-Steve

 

[chechi]

Whats a tv tool? All I use is the cable going from the card to the back of the tv.

 

[ss284]

I'm guessing you have black borders around your TV-output then. If not, please tell me your secret.

-Steve

 

[Brian23]

Ok, since no-one else cleared this up, here's the order of the "good-ness" of the cards:

GeForce4 Ti 4600
GeForce4 Ti 4400
GeForce4 Ti 4200
GeForce3 Ti 500
GeForce3
GeForce3 Ti 200
GeForce4 MX 460
GeForce4 MX 440
GeForce2 ULTRA
GeForce2 PRO
GeForce2 GTS
GeForce2 MX 400
GeForce2 MX 200
...

 

[Soccerman]

I don't think they bothered to add Pixel Shader 1.4 support either, probably to prevent developers from using it as much, and therefor ATi's advantage there would be reduced..

at least that's my conspiracy theory as to why they didn't add it..

 

[BD231]

The GF4 MX should never have been created. It's pretty much a frikin GF2, and the GF2 GTS could pump out a better frame rate.

 

[imgod2u]

Ok, first of all, the TV-Out and all of that output is strictly up to the Manufacturers, namely, Asus or Elsa or Leadtek or Gainward. I don't know why people are generalizing "nVidia's TV-Out sucks". Some manufacturers like Asus may not have spectacular TV-Out while Leadtek offers high resolution 1024x768 TV-Out that is comparable to HDTV.

 

[jcmkk]

I think the only thing bad about the Ti 4600 is the price. I understand that it is the price you have to pay for the best, but I still think it sucks. I wouldn't, however, if I had the money to buy one. I guess I'll just have to settle for a Ti4200

 

[Mem]

This is what John Carmack said,



<< On the topic of current Nvidia cards:

Do not buy a GeForce4-MX for Doom.

Nvidia has really made a mess of the naming conventions here. I always
thought it was bad enough that GF2 was just a speed bumped GF1, while GF3 had
significant architectural improvements over GF2. I expected GF4 to be the
speed bumped GF3, but calling the NV17 GF4-MX really sucks.

GF4-MX will still run Doom properly, but it will be using the NV10 codepath
with only two texture units and no vertex shaders. A GF3 or 8500 will be
much better performers. The GF4-MX may still be the card of choice for many
people depending on pricing, especially considering that many games won't use
four textures and vertex programs, but damn, I wish they had named it
something else.

As usual, there will be better cards available from both Nvidia and ATI by the
time we ship the game. >>

 

[PowerYoga]

I don't use TV out so there's nothing i have against that... but the only thing that i hate is the high price... for any1 not made of money i think the (would be) $300+ pricetag for the Ti4600 is very harsh.

 

[Rand]

<< Ok, first of all, the TV-Out and all of that output is strictly up to the Manufacturers, namely, Asus or Elsa or Leadtek or Gainward. I don't know why people are generalizing "nVidia's TV-Out sucks". Some manufacturers like Asus may not have spectacular TV-Out while Leadtek offers high resolution 1024x768 TV-Out that is comparable to HDTV. >>



Part of the TV-Out implementation is resides within the drivers however, and in that respect nVidia truly is poor.
The individual manufacturers choose the chip utilized to provide TV-Out, the driver implementation is still up to nVidia.

 

[FlamingPanther]

Lets see,
No Hardware DVD decoding, only the GF4MX's have that,
No N-patches, and RT-patches(software) have been completely disabled in the Nvidia drivers,
No Integrated TMDS transmitters, only the GF4MX's have that,
So the Dual DVI TI cards you see have external TMDS tranmitters.

Nview is good from what i've seen, but still nowhere near the quality of a Radeon or a Matrox card.
TV-out is still up in the air depending on whose CARD you buy (VisionTek, Asus etc. etc. etc.)
but Like Rand said, nvidia still has stuff screwed up in the drivers.

I think I will wait and see how the 8500XT does against a GF4 TI 4400 and TI 4600
before I make my decision.

But that's just my $0.02

 

[Rankor]

<< Anything bad about the Geforce 4? >>



Only that:

1) One will pay a premium for it (new product), and

2) Count-on-it that in 6 months or sooner ([insert competitor's name here] dependent), there'll be something faster.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

MSRP of the Ti 4600 is $399...
MSRP of the Ti 4400 is $299...
MSRP of the Ti 4200 is $199...

With those prices, there is no doubt in my mind that the 4400/4600 models are going to be pretty much a waste of money. Sure, performance is impressive for those boards, but the GeForce 3s are still pumping out great marks. Hardware has gotten well ahead of software and it will be awhile before we have games that start to challenge the GeForce 3. The Ti 4200 looks to be a killer deal, perhaps much better than the Ti 200 when that GPU made its debut. $199 for a board that can outperform a Ti 500 (which now costs aprox $300-350) even with FSAA on...that is more than enough power for today's games. Otherwise it is my opinion that it doesn't make sense to buy any GeForce 4. I'd wait until the R300 or the NV30 before getting a new board unless a new one was needed promptly...

As far as Doom 3, John has his likes and dislikes with both the GF3 and the 8500. Although he does comment that (in theory) the 8500 is a perfect platform for Doom 3. However, it is nVidia's killer memory architecture that saves the GF3/4...

 

[dannybin1742]

i read the geforce 4mx is nothing more than a geforce 2 with a die shrink (hence faster clock speed) and a new souped up memory controller

 

[Instigator]

IMHO the Ti 4400 will be the card to buy because:

1) it has 128mb DDR like the big brother 4600
2) it is $100 less
3) it performs within 5% of the 4600 (if we are lucky it will overclock to 300/600)

Also, I'm hoping you should be able to get the card in the $250 to $275 range after a couple weeks from its release. What truely impresses me about this card it how it handles FSAA. Dang, the thing runs 1024x768x32 X2 FSAA at the same speed a Geforce 3 Ti500 with no FSAA. The big quesition for me is how good will the 2d image quality be. Hopefully they can get it on par with the V5 5500 or Radeon 8500. I personally can't wait for the reviews on the Gainward Geforce 4 cards. Now back to the question. Here is a list of the bad things about the G4:

1) DX8 Pixel Shader standard is 1.3 and not 1.4
2) it takes a bigger performance hit with Anisotropic Filtering than the ATI Radeon 8500
3) price is still a little steep for me, but I'm willing to pay $250 - $275 for my next video card.

Other than that it looks like an excellent card.