ATI & nVidia musings.

[Plester]

i don't favor one over the other, and i am very happy for ati being current top dog - it's the best thing we consumers could ever hope for. i've owned vid cards made by rendition, nvidia, 3dfx and ati. i run a single pc and it is the family rig used by all, including my 4 year old son. because of the kid, whatever card is in the rig must be able to play old favorites like monster truck madness 2, nfs 3, lego island, etc., as well as serving up some nice visuals/speed for some light Q3A action, and finally capable of giving a glimpse of the latest and greatest. bottom line i don't need nor want the bleeding edge, just something that works across the board.

here begins my little play at controversy. i've owned both a radeon and a radeon 8500 and no matter how many driver sets i tried and all manner of hijinx in the d3d settings tab, the older d3d games either have massive texture screw-ups (mtm2) or incessant lockups (nfs3, lego). i realize that many of the folks around here are more demanding gamers and couldn't give a rat's a$$ about this old stuff, but i think it is a drag that they can't make robust drivers. nvidia never disappoints in this respect, the games work - period. again i don't favor the 600lb gorilla (although nvidia is starting to look like a gorilla with a serious eating disorder), but i think ati will never achieve true success until they serve up the support that the old 3d kings of the hill did (3dfx RIP).

not to say i wouldn't love to throw a 9700 pro in for a spin.

 

[TheCorm]

I have always been an Nvidia buff myself and I have just built a system with the first ATI card I have ever used (other than old barebones systems with old Rage II's etc in them), I must say, it wasn't a great experience.

It was the Radeon 9000, I went for it because it was marginally more than the GF4 MX440 but offered DX8 and better performence, by a long way in some benchmarks.

But I have had troubles with it including having to reinstall windows xp a few times, lockups, game crashes. I am sure that this is not the rule but these kind of events really throw you off when you encounter them for the first time.

I have a GF4 MX440 in my system because I am not a hardcore gamer and I found it absolutely flawless when upgrading from my old GF2 MX.

Corm

 

[Moishe]

I hate driver problems myself. I think ATi can make good drivers, but not at first try.
I always liked 3DFX because their drivers were pretty good, NVidia has been the same way for the most part. ATi will lose if it can't make stable quality drivers.

I can't imagine reinstalling my OS a few times for a vid card... this comment really makes me think twice about getting an R9xxx. I'm not a reinstall freak, I'll do it, but I like a good stable setup that I can leave for 6mths.

 

[Sunner]

I've been an nVidia user since the TNT2 Ultra.
Mostly, I've stuck with them cause IMO since the TNT2 and later, they've just worked, and while I don't mind messing with stuff, I wanna mess with it for a decent reason.
That's how I got into Linux way back, it didn't work very well at first, but that's cause I didn't know how it worked, I read some, tried some, and as I preogressed, it worked better and better.

Last time I tried an ATi card was when I borrowed a Rage128 Pro from my old work, it had a load of problems, but I blame those on ATi rather than my own lacking knowledge, and IMO that's messing with stuff for the wrong reason, which turned me away from them.

These days it seems like they've really improved, but now they've priced themselves way out of my boxes, for some reason ATi cards are damn expensive in Sweden, while nVidia cards are fairly reasonably priced, otherwise I'd be happy to try them out again.
But in the end, I'd love to see ATi and nVidia in a 50/50 market share position(well in the relatively high end, there will of course always be Intel, VIA, SiS, etc in the low end), much the same way I'd love to see AMD/Intel in a 50/50 position.

 

[308nato]

My kids use the old PIII box with the tried and true VooDoo3 3000. Tonka Joe and Barbie look/run great. I have to keep the same issues in mind as you with the little peoples stuff. BTW, I still think the 2D on my V3 3000 rules all. I still play Unreal on this box. Glides only shining moment i guess.