Is it safe to get a HD 3870 instead of my 88800GT?

[wherewolf]

Hi guys!

I'm new here to the forum. From Sweden btw.

This is my problem.

Just before christmas, I bought a Gainward 8800GT 512mb.

And since then, I have been wrestling with the infamous AA bug.

I have tried all kinds of drivers. Both Nvidia orginal and various, tweaked ones + a couple of Quadro drivers. For the moment I'm on the 174.16. A great driver by it's own rights. But no cigar, when it comes fixing the AA bug.

I have tried, game profiles, Nhancer, NVTray. Riva Tuner. And all kinds of settings in the NV control panel.

I even mailed Gaiward. Who ansvered pretty fast and wanted screenshots and rig specs. But after that I have'nt heard from them. Even though I mailed them again. It's 2 weeks now, since their ansver. Sigh!

And Now I'm starting to get really tired, as Nvidia does'nt seem to have much interest in fixing this bug it seems. They don't even admit that the bug excists as far as I can find out.

I know there are quite many people sharing my problem too.

Now, I start to really consider selling the 8800GT and get a HD 3870 512mb instead.

But have gone slightly paranoied about new video cards and problems with them. So I hope you will be able to tell me if the HD 3870, is a less troublesome card in this respect, than the GF 8800GT? Or will I just have other problems with the Radeon instead?


I know I will loose some performance. But I don't care. As the Image quality is more important to me when gaming, than like 1000 FPS.

I have patched the games., updated every driver I can think of. I run XP 32 btw. Not at all keen on going Vista for the moment at least.

The rig should be o.k. too.

Psu. Corsair HX 620W
Mobo: Gigabyte DS 4 SLI
Cpu: E6850
3 gig of RAM
Video card: 8800 GT
Raptor SATA hdd's

 

[Tempered81]

What is your bug? You can't use AA?

 

[wherewolf]

Thank's for you ansver!

The AA bug, is like, despite whatever AA setting you try there will be more or less jaggies in the games. But not at all the diffence I had with the previous 7950GT. In some games (Especially EA Sports games it's worse than ever.) The best result I have been able to accive is maybe 90 - 95% working AA in BF 2 and F.E.A.R for ex. I.e you can still see small jaggies at 8X AA and 16X - 16X qs

This by ovverriding the AA in the NV control panel. Using full Transparency AA . And then, set NVTray to the same settings.

There is no difference between 8X AA and 16X, in smoothing out the jaggies. And if you enable 16X AA, there will be no lower fps than with 4X and 8X for ex.
So the AA does'nt seem to have any effect really.

 

[Arkaign]

Topic Title: Is it safe to get a HD 3870 instead of my 88800GT?

Me : Can I have your old 88800GT? That sounds like a crapload of generations in the future! I also want usage of your time traveling machine!

 

[Tempered81]

hehehe,

Well If you have problems with your 8800gt, get a 3870 and feel safer.
??

LOL.

I betcha I could get that 8800gt working. (unless you are talking about the gainward that is not based on Nvidias reference pcb & design) That may very well be a hardware design flaw that cannot be resolved through drivers. Why would you buy that off reference design if you know so much about this bug. Or have you just recently discovered it?

 

[wherewolf]

Lol. Sorry for the typo.

The Gainward 8800GT I have is not the Golden Sample edt. It's the Bliss version, that is standard Nvidia design and speeds.

As I said, I have had this AA problem since before christmas when I bought the card. And have tried tons of drivers and tweaking programmes etc.

Quote# Well If you have problems with your 8800gt, get a 3870 and feel safer.#

So, by this you are telling me the HD 3870 is free from AA problems? What about eventual other issues with the new Radeons?

 

[madh83]

Well, I have a 3850, and the AA works fine. However, it doesn't scale 4:3 properly like my old nvidia card. Chances are you'll run into some other problem with the 3870, although AA will most likely work.

 

[Tempered81]

Im not telling you anything other than agreeing with your worry about switching from an 8800gt that you have now to a 3870.

I would keep the 8800gt because I think that AA issues is easily circumvented.

 

[Hardin]

I'm still not sure what this aa bug is. I've never heard of it before. Correct me if I'm wrong but maybe bf2 just doesn't support aa. I know it's usually better to use the in game aa controls or to enhance it than to override the game settings. If it's only bf2 and Fear that is giving you problems then I think it's just problems with those games. Show us some screenshots.

 

[Extelleron]

I wouldn't abandon your 8800GT so quickly; the HD 3870 is definately a step-down im performance, not major, but in certain situations the 8800GT is a good bit faster.

Could you post screenshots of what you are talking about?

Do you have:

Antialiasing Gamma correction @ On?
Antialiasing Mode @ Override Application?
Antialiasing Setting @ 16xQ?
Antialiasing Transparency @ Supersampling?

Are you sure that anti-aliasing works in the game you are talking about? Certain games do not allow use of antialiasing because of the shader method they use. STALKER and Rainbow Six Vegas are examples of this.

 

[wherewolf]

Originally posted by: madh83
Well, I have a 3850, and the AA works fine. However, it doesn't scale 4:3 properly like my old nvidia card. Chances are you'll run into some other problem with the 3870, although AA will most likely work.

Hi!

Hmm, then I'm pretty stuck, if the Radeon have other issues? That would make choosing between keeping my 8800GT or getting a Radeon HD 3870? Would be like choosing between plague and cholera it seems.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[wherewolf]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
Im not telling you anything other than agreeing with your worry about switching from an 8800gt that you have now to a 3870.

I would keep the 8800gt because I think that AA issues is easily circumvented.

O.k. I see. I seemed to have missundersood you.

 

[error8]

I believe that you overreact somehow. You won't loose all the "stairs" effect when you enable antialising. The thing is, at least on Nvidia cards, areas that are further tend to loose the picture quality, and AA to. So even when you enable the highest level of AA, somewhere further in the landscape of the game, there will be "jaggies".

 

[wherewolf]

Originally posted by: Hardin
I'm still not sure what this aa bug is. I've never heard of it before. Correct me if I'm wrong but maybe bf2 just doesn't support aa. I know it's usually better to use the in game aa controls or to enhance it than to override the game settings. If it's only bf2 and Fear that is giving you problems then I think it's just problems with those games. Show us some screenshots.

Hi!

Bf 2 supports up to 8X AA. The bug is in BF 2, Tiger Woods 07 and 08, FIFA 08, F.E.A.R, Far Cry for ex.

Maybe if you check out this very long post in the Nvidia forum, you get a better view of what I mean?

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=58863

And I have seen similar posts in other forums about this bug too.

 

[wherewolf]

Originally posted by: Extelleron
I wouldn't abandon your 8800GT so quickly; the HD 3870 is definately a step-down im performance, not major, but in certain situations the 8800GT is a good bit faster.

Could you post screenshots of what you are talking about?

Do you have:

Antialiasing Gamma correction @ On?
Antialiasing Mode @ Override Application?
Antialiasing Setting @ 16xQ?
Antialiasing Transparency @ Supersampling?

Are you sure that anti-aliasing works in the game you are talking about? Certain games do not allow use of antialiasing because of the shader method they use. STALKER and Rainbow Six Vegas are examples of this.

Hi!

Yes to all the settings.

Yes, the AA worked perfectly with my previous 7950GT.

Click the picture one more time after opening it.

This is with 16 AF 8XAA and super sampling Transperency AA.

http://img98.imageshack.us/my....008020811574982rr9.jpg]

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http://img99.imageshack.us/my....008022012553464gz1.jpg]

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http://img99.imageshack.us/my....008022012560562pn6.jpg]

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[Hardin]

Those pictures all look pretty normal to me. Even 16x aa can't get rid of all of the jaggies.

 

[wherewolf]

Originally posted by: error8
I believe that you overreact somehow. You won't loose all the "stairs" effect when you enable antialising. The thing is, at least on Nvidia cards, areas that are further tend to loose the picture quality, and AA to. So even when you enable the highest level of AA, somewhere further in the landscape of the game, there will be "jaggies".

Hi!

Maybe you are correct about me overreacting?

But why are the AA less good for the 8800GT than with the 7950GT then?
Or is it really so, that the 8800GT have such a well defined iq it shows such jaggies more clearly than the 7950GT can?

And why does quite many people with both the 8800GT and the 8800GTS 512mb have this problem?

 

[wherewolf]

Originally posted by: Hardin
Those pictures all look pretty normal to me. Even 16x aa can't get rid of all of the jaggies.

Hmm, Do you really think so? (Feel a bit silly now) Then maybe I have just been over reacting?

Could be due to that I'm very sensitive / care very much about the image quality then lol.

 

[Tempered81]

perhaps g92 & driverset aim to implement AA with higher performance over the gefoce 7 series. One way of doing this is by losing some image quality. if you play the game the way it is intended with 16x AA on a g92 or 7 series - you won't notice a difference except framerates.

I suppose if you stop and angle your player correctly - your fov will show significantly more jaggies on the g92 compared to the geforce 7. I think this will be due to driver optimizations that are aimed at improving overall FPS.

Given Nvidia these days, I don't doubt that what you and error8 just said is true.

 

[Hardin]

Originally posted by: wherewolf

Originally posted by: Hardin
Those pictures all look pretty normal to me. Even 16x aa can't get rid of all of the jaggies.

Hmm, Do you really think so? (Feel a bit silly now) Then maybe I have just been over reacting?

Could be due to that I'm very sensitive / care very much about the image quality then lol.

Yes I think those screenshots actually show how well 16xaa gets rid of jaggies. But everyone has a different opinion about image quality.

 

[wherewolf]

Thanks guys for helping me out! I must confess I whas'nt too happy about the thought of selling my 8800GT really. I love all the horse powers this card have. And the iq.

Just one small question though? Why do I get better aa when using the same AA settings in the control panel + NVTray than just either or?

 

[wherewolf]

Double post.

 

[wherewolf]

triple post.