Help me sort this out

[kag]

I haven't really kept myself up to date in the video cards department since a long time... I know comparisons are asked all the time, but none of them take all "current" video cards at the same time.

I get the ATI cards, but NVIDIA has confused the hell out of me.
Radeon 9500 - 9500 Pro
Radeon 9600 - 9600 Pro - 9600 XT
Radeon 9700 - 9700 Pro
Radeon 9800 - 9800 Pro - XT
And what is the deal with (soft?) modding your NP card to a Pro one. Does it really help?

For the NVIDIA cards, the last thing I know is the GF4 4200, 4400, 4600, 4800. I have absolutely no idea which FX are pumped up MX cards and which ones are sucessors to the GF4 Ti.

I'm looking for a ranking from slowest to fastest of both of manufacturers so I can get a general idea... stock speed, so everything stays equal. It would be nice if like you could take the slowest card and give it a speed of 1 and rank the faster cards proportionally to the slowest one.

I have a Barton 2500+ with 512MB of CAS2 PC2700 OCZ RAM running a classic GF3 64MB. Is it realist to play games in FSAA?

Thanks!

 

[Cerb]

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html
There is no end-all be-all. For the ATIs...
9800 XT > 9800 Pro > 9800 = 9700 Pro > 9700 > 9500 Pro = 9600 XT > 9600 Pro > 9600 > 9500
9800SE cards are 9800 GPUs with 4 pipelines disabled. Softmodding is basically turning those extra four on in software, giving you a slightly overclcoked 9500 Pro. Overall, not really worth it *in the United States* when the 9700 Pro can be had for $220. It's too much of a gamble.

No FX cards are pumped up MX...but they might as well be. They do have th full feature set, unlike the MXs, but the 5200 is a complete waste of money.
The 5700 is a bit better than a GF4 Ti 4600. Much better with DX9 games and w/ AA and AF on. About even with the Radeon 9600 Pro. The Ultra is better, closer to a Radeon 9700 (non-pro) or 9600 XT, depending on the game.
Then it basically goes up with the model numbers.
Be aware that NVidia's XT cards are the low-end, not high-end like ATi's.

Is it realist to play games in FSAA?

WTH (edit fro grammar maybe)? With a Radeon 9600 Pro or better, or FX 5700 or better, you can play anything now with AA and AF cranked right on up...but that will quickly change. Hopefully the image quality offered by these great pixel shader programs will offset the lower AA and AF settings needed for decent performance.

 

[kag]

Originally posted by: Cerb

Is it realist to play games in FSAA?

WTH (edit fro grammar maybe)?

Err, it sounded good in french I don't mean realist as in the image quality, I mean is it a crazy idea to think about using a GF3 to play games in FSAA?

Thanks for your reply though... and WTF is AF?

 

[VIAN]

Nvidia is as easy as ATI.

5200 - 5200 Ultra
5600 - 5600 Ultra
5900 - 5900 Ultra
5950 Ultra

AF is anistropic filtering. It sharpens skewed areas in 3d graphics.

I think optimal monitor resolution and refresh rate is a must to use for best picture quality. Vsync off for better response time. If then, you are able to turn on AA/AF, then by all means, by turning AF on first before AA, AF is a much smaller performance hit. - but I personally would rather turn off AA and AF because the performance sacrifice isn't worth it. But that is just my opinion. I used a Ti 4600 before and I don't want to have to have that kind of performance just to make the picture look a little better. I can deal without AA/AF - I want high fps.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: kag

Originally posted by: Cerb

Is it realist to play games in FSAA?

WTH (edit fro grammar maybe)?

Err, it sounded good in french I don't mean realist as in the image quality, I mean is it a crazy idea to think about using a GF3 to play games in FSAA?

Thanks for your reply though... and WTF is AF?

On a GF3, yes.
AF = anisotropic(sp) filtering. It basically uses more texture samples at just the right places to make the image appear to have actual texture to it to some degree, rather than just appearing more flat as it stretches or comes closer to parallel with you.

For decent FPS, I'd rather have AA (quincux, probably 4x for my current card) and 4x AF and the lowest game detail settings than turn them off and use higher detail but with jaggies and fuzzy stretching textures...and this was on a GF4, which takes a big performance hit from them.