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Killer news: nVidia stops the Gainward GTS 64 MB (220/400) Its too fast!

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No you seem to forget with the new nvidia drivers support OGL s3tc and so does ut ogl rendering - thats it man, striaght comparision.

Metal is a proprietary API becuase it's been performance tweaked for S3's development needs, thats it - and this is VISUAL quality - Metal and OGL are so incredibly similar that it's not even funny.

I guess Glide is OpenGL too then. I mean it uses the same sub systems as 3dfx's OpenGL ICD

No, they don't.

Anyhow thats it, if you don;t want to buy the card, then stick to the NV20/GTS - IMO you'll be missing out, but if you like to think that nVidia is better and always will be - go right ahead. nVidia cards cream the current ATi cards in mere speed, but not in anything esle.

I'll be getting a SideWinder 64 Meg DDR when it comes out, and when the Duel Chip Maxx version comes out I may upgrade to that too - and you can go buy the Nv 20 or whatever they have out.
 
You know, I once thought Trinitron was normal, but I starting to think otherwise.

Try looking for non_METAL screenshots of UT.



Mike
 
Trinitron, no offense, but you don't have a whole lot to stand on supporting ATI. They simply aren't in the same effective market as Nvidia, 3dfx, and matrox. They mostly get their profits from OEM deals, but that segment is dying cause the big boys are filling up the high end with integrated/built in crap filling in everything else. You can see this from ATI's recent earnings or should I say loss. Their stock got hammered. I must say they are probably in a dead end situation.

People seem to have short memories, ATI's hyped offerings have never lived up to expectations. The Rage 128 was supposed to destroy the TNT and the V2, but it came out months late with crippled drivers. Not too far after, the V3s and TNT2s came along and handed the Rage 128 it's ass. The MAXX was also hyped up, proclaiming higher fillrate than a geforce 256. But DDR GF man handles the MAXX, even S3's viper 2 beats the MAXX in many situations. Considering S3's product history (think Virge), it's kind of pitiful that an S3 offering beats the MAXX. And there are no win2k drivers for the MAXX, shutting it out of a substantial market. In the end, ATI's products usually work decently when ATI gets around to making decent drivers, but their products are consistently late and under perform.



 
Actualy Metal is OpenGL, it uses the same sub systems as S3's OpenGL ICD. S3 called it Metal so they could have their own proprietary development API.

Wrong. Metal is a proprietary API, OpenGL is OpenGL. If you are talking about extensions then it is mearly a matter of adding them to your OpenGL drivers, one of OpenGL's strengths. If you consider Metal to be OpenGL then OpenGL on a Voodoo board is Glide-

"I guess Glide is OpenGL too then. I mean it uses the same sub systems as 3dfx's OpenGL ICD

No, they don't"

Yes, OpenGL on 3dfx boards, including the V5 utilizes Glide, it is still based on a wrapper. Don't believe it, do some research or better yet eliminate everything GLide on a 3dfx product and try to run a OpenGL game or application. 3dfx relies on Glide for OpenGL support for all of their boards to date though Rampage is supposed to change this.

Anyhow thats it, if you don;t want to buy the card, then stick to the NV20/GTS - IMO you'll be missing out, but if you like to think that nVidia is better and always will be - go right ahead. nVidia cards cream the current ATi cards in mere speed, but not in anything esle.

Image quality. While 2D is heavily reliant on the particular board that you buy, the top GF/GTS boards easily best every ATi card that I have used to assemble systems up to the Rage128 Pro(no Maxx boards though). 3D image quality is another matter, ATi as of right now holds the lowest position in the consumer market. With S3 gone and 3dfx shipping the V5, ATi has taken over 3dfx's position of lowest image quality.

Not to mention they utilize 16bit Z-Buffer in 32bit color mode which destroys accuracy for anything requiring high levels of precission. ATi is king of consumer level video support, and they have been for a long time, but that is it. Matrox, 3dfx and nVidia all best ATi in nearly every other category as of right now. The Radeon may well change that, but they are the ones that have something to prove as 3dfx did prior to the launch of the V5 5500. You can only let down consumers so many times before they simply expect you to do poorly.

BTW- I tend to DL Detonator drivers within days of them being available(beta, official, whatever), the 5.08 Detonator(first with S3TC support) betas made their way to my HD on March 7 of the year 2000, quite some time after that review on Sharky's was done.
 
Tim Sweeny himself has stated that S3TC is available in Metal ONLY.
So even when running with OpenGL UT wont be able to use it, no matter if the driver supports it or not.
 
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