Originally posted by: VIAN
Well I'm not an average gamer... and I'm not happy with 4XAA on my FX5900... 4XAA looks much better on my friend's 9800 Pro.
ATI's 2xAA is killer. I don't even need 4xAA because I see very little difference, nevermind 6x. ATI's 2xAA is just as good if not better than Nvidia's 4xAA. I know it's definitely much better than Nvidia's 2xAA. This is not also speaking with performance in mind. It looks that good.
In the beginning in my 5900s life, I used Nvidia's 8xAF. For some reason I could see the mip-maps all the way in the back - no trilinear there. That annoyed me very much, so I turned it off. Later, I found that 4xAF was just perfect and I couldn't see the mip-maps - looked like trilinear there. This is similar to ATI's 4x. I still tout that ATI's AF is better because 8x didn't have the non-trilinear mip-maps and ATI also supports 16x, which may be needed in some games where Nvidia failed. Nvidia does, however, provide less texture aliasing with their AF.
for the most part that mipmap 'banding' problem doesn't really exist, or at the least is considerably less pronounced since the 52.xx series of drivers. it's simply amazing how carried away some people get with small advantages...
i ran across this article which thought this was a pretty fair review on dx9 capabilites. unfortunately the performance #'s are rather skewed as it compares a stock 5900nu to a 9800pro, but, having both cards i know the ati will usually be faster running DX9 apps anyway (for me, farcry runs about 15% faster on avg with both cards oc'd to their max). at any rate, we're talking image quality here, and i think this revew was pretty objective:
With anisotropic filtering enabled, there are still virtually no differences between the two cards rendering. We know from past experience that ATi cards don't give the full level of aniso to particular angles, but it doesn't affect the filtering quality on the screenshot shown here, nor indeed was it obvious at all during playing the game. The same goes for any 'brilinear' optimisations that may be occuring in nVidia's drivers. Click below to take a look for yourself.
With AA enabled, ATi's superior antialiasing implementation comes into play. Although in general the image quality is pretty close in the screenshot provided, there are areas where the ATi boards image is noticably better - Pay particular attention to the area directly underneath the spoiler, and the bottom of the roof section of the marquee.
Finally, we can see how the image looks with both AA and AF enabled. Again, all of the points made previously ring true - The images are pretty close in quality, but ATi's AA method gives it the slight edge.
Conclusion
When all is said and done, this is a game that anybody with a high-end DirectX 9 card can enjoy to the fullest. However, it must be said that ATi owners will no doubt end up with the bigger grin on their faces, experiencing both substantially better performance [ note: a "substantial" difference is to be expected on a stock 5900nu compared to a 9800pro - even more so w/ a DX9 title] and marginally better image quality with AA turned on.
full text/images
again, this isn't a matter of pimping one card over another.. i've always said the 9800pro was the better card. the point however is for the most part it's "marginally better", and back when the 5900nu could be had for well over $100+
less than a 9800pro, it was a better value imo, especially given the fact most all of those cards overclocked at ultra speeds, and in some cases even greater. these days, with the price differential quite a bit less and the 5900xt/se replacing the 5900nu, it's not quite as clear cut, however my opinion would still be the same (even moreso, as drivers have improved performance) if the price disparity were still significant.
i would also still maintain that one is no more "futureproof" than the other, as regardless of which camp you want to rally behind, it's pretty apparent that these cards will barely be average compared to the upcoming cards we'll see this spring. if you have a 5900 or better, you have a decent card and shouldn't be envious of those who have a 9700pro or better; the grass is not that much greener. if speculation holds true, it's the nv40/r420 cards that should make you envious
what i find so funny is that a few outspoken ati "fans" always act so smug and play this into a huge thing; for some reason it just doesn't seem to be enough that thier card is "better", it has to be significantly better, when it really isn't.
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