Can you help me dispel some things?

[Dagis]

I'm trying to decide on a video card (first system) and I'm having trouble deciding. Between ATI's 9800 Pro and nVidia's FX5900 (Ultra or non-Ultra), are there issues with either to know about? I hear whispers of Image Quality being sacrificed with the nvidia cards, I hear a strong rep that ATI has with driver issues. Benchmarks fail to give me perspective, and I hear things one way just to have it countered the next. If I get the 5900, is it worth the extra money to go to the Ultra version? Do I risk issues with an ATI card? Do I rish them with nVidia? This has been the longest and most confusing bit of research I've had to do for my system. Help is greatly appreciated.

Tim McCarthy

 

[Nebor]

As of today, as of Anand's article, they ARE equal. More or less. Either one will make a GREAT card for a current system. There are few things that either one can't handle.

Most definitely DON'T go for the 5900 Ultra. Rather, go for a good brand 5900 that can OC past Ultra speeds. Like a Gainward Golden Sample, or an Abit Siluro. The extra memory on both the 5900 Ultra and the Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb is more or less useless.

Having moved from an nvidia card to an ATI, I have had ZERO problems with drivers, and actually find the drivers for the ATI cards to be much more useful. Nvidia didn't offer me global vsync options, I Had to find a setting for every game...

If I were buying today, I'd buy a 5900. Can be had under $300.

 

[Dagis]

What is vsync? Automatic settings of AA/AF?

 

[GullyFoyle]

vsync is short for Vertical Synchronization. If you have it on, it assures you're not updating the screen image at the same time it is being rendered on the screen.

 

[Dagis]

So this means that my screen won't show a half-drawn image? Is that correct? It's getting a bit late for proper reasoning.

 

[Nebor]

It means that the video card won't send your monitor more frames than it can display. When that happens, your monitor has a virtual "stack of slides" piled up. But the way a monitor works is, it displays from top to bottom, and while this happens VERY quickly, it is possible to see half of one frame and half of another when your FPS exceed your refresh rate. At least that's my take on it.

For the life of me, I still can't figure out why my LCD exhibits vertical tearing w/ vsync off. They said LCDs don't do that...