Im joining the nvidia camp :p

[Maximilian]

Hows it compared to ATI? Personally with my last card it was pretty dire... to fix numerous problems in games, some old, some not so old (2003ish) i would have to go into the control panel and screw with settings, then change them back whenever i wasent playing that specific game with the problem so no other games would have problems, sucked. Wasent like that with my 9800! Things simply work with this 9800 pro im on right now.

So whats nvidia got? Similar settings like catalyst AI, HQAA, etc etc? Whats the replacement for catalyst control center?

 

[smthmlk]

nvidia's drivers are alright. nothing to write home about, and usually nothing to get red in the face over (for both windows and linux). that's my opinion of them having used nvidia cards for many years. Compared to ATI, they're probably about on par with each other. I've had a few weird issues in some big titles with ati's drivers, but eventually they get resolved. I fvcking hate CCC and nvidia's new control panel, however, nvidia still lets you use the old one--a huge plus IMO.

And yeah, the 9800pro was a great a card. Still love mine

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: Soviet
Hows it compared to ATI? Personally with my last card it was pretty dire... to fix numerous problems in games, some old, some not so old (2003ish) i would have to go into the control panel and screw with settings, then change them back whenever i wasent playing that specific game with the problem so no other games would have problems, sucked. Wasent like that with my 9800! Things simply work with this 9800 pro im on right now.

So whats nvidia got? Similar settings like catalyst AI, HQAA, etc etc? Whats the replacement for catalyst control center?

First off, you have a X1900XT. You should be very fsck'n happey with it. I have no idea why your not. You can technically rub it in my face that you cand do AA+HDR on Oblivion.
If you don't like CCC, then use ATI Tray Tools. It's a quick and easy way to change settings. You shouldn't really have to change settings anyway, so whats going on???

Now answer your questions for the hell of it (you better not ditch that X1900XT, it's a great card):
No Cat AI. Just really bad optimizations. I guess technically, Cat AI=Quality on Nvidia, but Quality on Nvidia hardware just looks like sh!t. So make sure to run in on HQ mode.

I don't find myself going in the CP that often.
Thats what Profiles are for. They let me configure it once for a program to the settings that I like, then I can just forget about it.

There is no HQAF for Nvidia. This is why ATI has better IQ, their HQAF, which forces non-angle dependent AF, Nvidia doesn't have this (hopefully they will with G80).

Also, no FP16HDR+AA with Nvidia.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Well you get the old CP or the new CP (similiar to CCC but still not as slow or memory hogging)

You get simple OCing tool from coolbits (in the old CP). Plus digital vibrance and other things.
You get tons of AA options. You get the option to use MSAA or SSAA. You also can apply Transparecy AA which is similiar to Adaptive AA but better. NV also allows you to go over to 16xAA. (2x 4x 8x 16x)

There are others, but im sure theres zero IQ (maybe 1%) difference between HQ and Q. Only the shimmering gets reduced.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Well you get the old CP or the new CP (similiar to CCC but still not as slow or memory hogging)

You get simple OCing tool from coolbits (in the old CP). Plus digital vibrance and other things.
You get tons of AA options. You get the option to use MSAA or SSAA. You also can apply Transparecy AA which is similiar to Adaptive AA but better. NV also allows you to go over to 16xAA. (2x 4x 8x 16x)

There are others, but im sure theres zero IQ (maybe 1%) difference between HQ and Q. Only the shimmering gets reduced.

There's a dramatic difference between Q and HQ in my experience, both in the IQ, and in the FPS hit you take stepping up There's also effectively no difference in FPS between Q, P and HP in terms of FPS, so don't bother thinking you're getting a middle ground with P or Q.

 

[BFG10K]

The new control panel sucks but the drivers rock.

 

[Stumps]

meh...much the same as ATI's drivers, no real issues with either, although ATI's IQ is a lot better

 

[hmorphone]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster


There are others, but im sure theres zero IQ (maybe 1%) difference between HQ and Q. Only the shimmering gets reduced.

That doesn't seem consistent with what others are reporting. The consensus seems to be that Nvidia's default Q mode is subpar, but it's slower HQ mode is quite good. On the other hand, consensus does support Nvidia as having the best AA. It also supports ATI as the best AF. ATI has the least shimmering, but both company's cards can shimmer. The edge goes to neither company in current control panels, most prefer other options like the old Nvidia control panel or ATI tray tools. Nvidia has the best availible 3rd party OCing/tweaking programs, both companies have good CP type substitutes availible.Though many would give the edge to Nvidia in drivers, I feel both companies have a few too many issues. The forum has quite a number of people experiencing troubles with newer drivers and having to revert back to older versions to correct their problem (both companies.)

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: wizboy11

Originally posted by: Soviet
Hows it compared to ATI? Personally with my last card it was pretty dire... to fix numerous problems in games, some old, some not so old (2003ish) i would have to go into the control panel and screw with settings, then change them back whenever i wasent playing that specific game with the problem so no other games would have problems, sucked. Wasent like that with my 9800! Things simply work with this 9800 pro im on right now.

So whats nvidia got? Similar settings like catalyst AI, HQAA, etc etc? Whats the replacement for catalyst control center?

First off, you have a X1900XT. You should be very fsck'n happey with it. I have no idea why your not. You can technically rub it in my face that you cand do AA+HDR on Oblivion.
If you don't like CCC, then use ATI Tray Tools. It's a quick and easy way to change settings. You shouldn't really have to change settings anyway, so whats going on???

Now answer your questions for the hell of it (you better not ditch that X1900XT, it's a great card):
No Cat AI. Just really bad optimizations. I guess technically, Cat AI=Quality on Nvidia, but Quality on Nvidia hardware just looks like sh!t. So make sure to run in on HQ mode.

I don't find myself going in the CP that often.
Thats what Profiles are for. They let me configure it once for a program to the settings that I like, then I can just forget about it.

There is no HQAF for Nvidia. This is why ATI has better IQ, their HQAF, which forces non-angle dependent AF, Nvidia doesn't have this (hopefully they will with G80).

Also, no FP16HDR+AA with Nvidia.

Cause it broke for no apparent reason, and ati drivers have given me crap with slightly older games since day 1. I wasent expecting simcity 4 to choke on this card, wasest expecting chronicles of riddick to crash semi-regularly, wasent expecting to have to screw with settings in CCC to make doom 3 look normal. Never mind actually getting far older games to run normally. Basically, it failed to impress me as much as my 9800 pro did and then just literally failed altogether.

Maybe the card was dying and thats why half of these problems occurred? Maybe not? I dont care im going to nvidia anyways, i value efficiency and silence.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Soviet

Originally posted by: wizboy11

Originally posted by: Soviet
Hows it compared to ATI? Personally with my last card it was pretty dire... to fix numerous problems in games, some old, some not so old (2003ish) i would have to go into the control panel and screw with settings, then change them back whenever i wasent playing that specific game with the problem so no other games would have problems, sucked. Wasent like that with my 9800! Things simply work with this 9800 pro im on right now.

So whats nvidia got? Similar settings like catalyst AI, HQAA, etc etc? Whats the replacement for catalyst control center?

First off, you have a X1900XT. You should be very fsck'n happey with it. I have no idea why your not. You can technically rub it in my face that you cand do AA+HDR on Oblivion.
If you don't like CCC, then use ATI Tray Tools. It's a quick and easy way to change settings. You shouldn't really have to change settings anyway, so whats going on???

Now answer your questions for the hell of it (you better not ditch that X1900XT, it's a great card):
No Cat AI. Just really bad optimizations. I guess technically, Cat AI=Quality on Nvidia, but Quality on Nvidia hardware just looks like sh!t. So make sure to run in on HQ mode.

I don't find myself going in the CP that often.
Thats what Profiles are for. They let me configure it once for a program to the settings that I like, then I can just forget about it.

There is no HQAF for Nvidia. This is why ATI has better IQ, their HQAF, which forces non-angle dependent AF, Nvidia doesn't have this (hopefully they will with G80).

Also, no FP16HDR+AA with Nvidia.

Cause it broke for no apparent reason, and ati drivers have given me crap with slightly older games since day 1. I wasent expecting simcity 4 to choke on this card, wasest expecting chronicles of riddick to crash semi-regularly, wasent expecting to have to screw with settings in CCC to make doom 3 look normal. Never mind actually getting far older games to run normally. Basically, it failed to impress me as much as my 9800 pro did and then just literally failed altogether.

Maybe the card was dying and thats why half of these problems occurred? Maybe not? I dont care im going to nvidia anyways, i value efficiency and silence.

Simcity4 is almost totally CPU/RAM subsystem bound. It didn't make my 6600GT work at all (temps didn't budge).

Other than that, it sounds like you were enjoying a dying card, which is hardly indicative of ATI cards generally

What did you buy to replace it?

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
The new control panel sucks but the drivers rock.

At least the new control panel is improving with each driver release in the 9x series. If only I had an option to not install the new CP and use the classic menu instead

Still waiting for Toshiba to update the drivers for my Geforce 7900GS GO. The official nvidia drivers will not install even with the modded INF and the XTremeG drivers have issues with the system when I try to use my Dell 2001FP display. So, I am stuck using the 84.00 drivers, not that there is anything wrong with them, but I am sure that the updated drivers are faster.


But yeh, I have never had any problems out of WHQL nvidia drivers (and 90% of their beta drivers) other than that bug where the SLI had been disabled would pop up, but they fixed that.

 

[nitromullet]

If only I had an option to not install the new CP and use the classic menu instead

you do... I think it's under the View menu IIRC... It's called the "classic" control panel.

I don't recommend swtiching back and forth from new to "classic" often though. For some reason it didn't retain some of my settings bewteen them - at least this was the case with an earlier version.

You get simple OCing tool from coolbits (in the old CP).

You get it in the new CP with coolbits as well. The OCing functionality is identical between old and new CP's... The thing I don't get is why NV can't just build OCing directly into the CP with a pop-up disclaimer as opposed to making us edit the registry.

edit... Personally, I liked my X1900XTX a lot more than my 9700 Pro (which had been my last ATI card), as it suffered from way less issues. ATI's actual drivers are pretty damn good now, but the performance of the CCC is ridiculous. Which is a shame IMO because it is actually a decently laid out, easy to use interface. They just need to code it in something other than .Net.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: Soviet

Originally posted by: wizboy11

Originally posted by: Soviet
Hows it compared to ATI? Personally with my last card it was pretty dire... to fix numerous problems in games, some old, some not so old (2003ish) i would have to go into the control panel and screw with settings, then change them back whenever i wasent playing that specific game with the problem so no other games would have problems, sucked. Wasent like that with my 9800! Things simply work with this 9800 pro im on right now.

So whats nvidia got? Similar settings like catalyst AI, HQAA, etc etc? Whats the replacement for catalyst control center?

First off, you have a X1900XT. You should be very fsck'n happey with it. I have no idea why your not. You can technically rub it in my face that you cand do AA+HDR on Oblivion.
If you don't like CCC, then use ATI Tray Tools. It's a quick and easy way to change settings. You shouldn't really have to change settings anyway, so whats going on???

Now answer your questions for the hell of it (you better not ditch that X1900XT, it's a great card):
No Cat AI. Just really bad optimizations. I guess technically, Cat AI=Quality on Nvidia, but Quality on Nvidia hardware just looks like sh!t. So make sure to run in on HQ mode.

I don't find myself going in the CP that often.
Thats what Profiles are for. They let me configure it once for a program to the settings that I like, then I can just forget about it.

There is no HQAF for Nvidia. This is why ATI has better IQ, their HQAF, which forces non-angle dependent AF, Nvidia doesn't have this (hopefully they will with G80).

Also, no FP16HDR+AA with Nvidia.

Cause it broke for no apparent reason, and ati drivers have given me crap with slightly older games since day 1. I wasent expecting simcity 4 to choke on this card, wasest expecting chronicles of riddick to crash semi-regularly, wasent expecting to have to screw with settings in CCC to make doom 3 look normal. Never mind actually getting far older games to run normally. Basically, it failed to impress me as much as my 9800 pro did and then just literally failed altogether.

Maybe the card was dying and thats why half of these problems occurred? Maybe not? I dont care im going to nvidia anyways, i value efficiency and silence.

Simcity4 is almost totally CPU/RAM subsystem bound. It didn't make my 6600GT work at all (temps didn't budge).

Other than that, it sounds like you were enjoying a dying card, which is hardly indicative of ATI cards generally

What did you buy to replace it?

Simcity 4 ran great when using the software renderer, crap using the hardware, so i blamed the card.

Yea ATI dosent suck because my 1 card died for no reason, but im still not gonna buy another ATI card for a while. I always considered jumping to nvidia anyways due to the lessened noise/power consumption. I bought a 7900GTO to replace it. Its a really cheap GTX with slower memory, can usually be flashed to a GTX or overclocked to one if needed. Itll be here tomorrow