There is a problem with Nvidia cards and lack of backward compatibility with some older games. ATI is much better, but I am still not sure if there is a path forward in any of the DX-10 cards. For details, read on....
Players of Thief 2 and System Shock 2 have long been plagued with poor rendering in Nvidia cards. Discussion of this may be found in this thread at the Nvidia forums. A summary of the current status is given in this post. This same problem has occurred with many other older games as well, including Aliens vs. Predator. Nvidia has fixed a few of these issues, but many older games such as Thief are still rendered badly.
The basic problem is that Nvidia introduced new algorithms in Direct3D for recent DX versions (9 and 10) and apparently omitted code that worked for older DX versions (e.g., 6 and 7). The result is a broken dithering algorithm such that darker textures were rendered with a very limited solid color palette, resulting in crappy colors and severe banding. Some examples are shown in the above referenced thread.
Now Nvidia's latest drivers 169.xx seem to have broken many previously working games including Doom 3. There is a lot of grumbling on the Nvidia forums. Lack of technical support and lack of response by Nvidia are major issues.
In the meanwhile, ATI has largely maintained backward compatibility with older games in their video cards up through the x1950 series. One problem with ATI and Thief 2 has been that ATI cards have had very poor rendering of fog. This fog problem has been solved this month with ATI's newest drivers (7.11 or later). So now, for the first time, ATI is clearly better than Nvidia on all counts for playing older games like Thief.
DX-10 cards in general, both Nvidia 8xxx series and ATI HD series, have introduced additional rendering problems when used with Windows XP. There is a question whether either ATI or Nvidia have a path forward that includes older games. Do we need to keep older computers on hand, or can we upgrade and still play our older games?
The main thing I am trying to find out in this thread is this: does anyone here have experience with ATI HD 3xxx cards and 7.11 or later drivers playing older games like Thief 2 or Aliens vs Predators, especially under Windows XP? We are looking for data to determine whether there is a good path forward with ATI. XP is preferred by most Thief players, but Vista information will also be useful.
Thanks for your input. And, please be advised that there is more to buying a video card than all the hype about latest and greatest features.
Players of Thief 2 and System Shock 2 have long been plagued with poor rendering in Nvidia cards. Discussion of this may be found in this thread at the Nvidia forums. A summary of the current status is given in this post. This same problem has occurred with many other older games as well, including Aliens vs. Predator. Nvidia has fixed a few of these issues, but many older games such as Thief are still rendered badly.
The basic problem is that Nvidia introduced new algorithms in Direct3D for recent DX versions (9 and 10) and apparently omitted code that worked for older DX versions (e.g., 6 and 7). The result is a broken dithering algorithm such that darker textures were rendered with a very limited solid color palette, resulting in crappy colors and severe banding. Some examples are shown in the above referenced thread.
Now Nvidia's latest drivers 169.xx seem to have broken many previously working games including Doom 3. There is a lot of grumbling on the Nvidia forums. Lack of technical support and lack of response by Nvidia are major issues.
In the meanwhile, ATI has largely maintained backward compatibility with older games in their video cards up through the x1950 series. One problem with ATI and Thief 2 has been that ATI cards have had very poor rendering of fog. This fog problem has been solved this month with ATI's newest drivers (7.11 or later). So now, for the first time, ATI is clearly better than Nvidia on all counts for playing older games like Thief.
DX-10 cards in general, both Nvidia 8xxx series and ATI HD series, have introduced additional rendering problems when used with Windows XP. There is a question whether either ATI or Nvidia have a path forward that includes older games. Do we need to keep older computers on hand, or can we upgrade and still play our older games?
The main thing I am trying to find out in this thread is this: does anyone here have experience with ATI HD 3xxx cards and 7.11 or later drivers playing older games like Thief 2 or Aliens vs Predators, especially under Windows XP? We are looking for data to determine whether there is a good path forward with ATI. XP is preferred by most Thief players, but Vista information will also be useful.
Thanks for your input. And, please be advised that there is more to buying a video card than all the hype about latest and greatest features.
Facebook
Twitter