real differences between 8500 and ti4200

[spanky]

i'm probably going to rip out my 64mb radeon 8500 this evening and pop in a 128mb ti4200. i've been perfectly happy with the 8500, up until the past two days. for some odd reason, my rig would just crash.... black screen... then a screen with multi-colored vertical lines all across the screen. after i cold boot XP... windows gives me an error that my 8500 drivers (catalyst 2.1) were causing my OS instability. so i uninstalled those drivers and installed the new catalyst 3.0's. same problem. i ran checkdisk... same thing. so that has been pissing me off for the past two days... last nite, i even resorted to using my backup rig :Q i been meaning to replace the 8500 with the ti4200 (i got it on black friday from BB), but have been too lazy to do it. now i have a reason to do the swap. so basically... i know the ti4200 has better 3d performance... i am wondering is it deficient in 2d like the gf3 series? anyone have testimonials to share?

 

[sandorski]

Kinda sounds like you Radeon is dying for some reason. If you'r gonna replace it, why go for an actual upgrade? The 4200 won't be much faster, if it is at all.

 

[AnAndAustin]

At stock speeds the 4200 isn't hugely faster although it certainly is faster, the real beauty is that most 4200 gain a LOT by o/c'ing, 4400 speeds are often attainable. In AA the 4200 is streets ahead and 2xAA or QxAA should always be applied as the perf hit is tiny, however at AF the Radeon is twice as fast though the quality is slightly lower. In terms of image quality the GF4 cards have a huge leap over the GF2/3 and are easily on par with the Radeon cards although precise opinion on this does vary there's no doubting the GF4 cards are signif improved. For dual display the GF4 cards are right up their with ATI now, for DVD playback the Radeons are superior but I doubt very much if you'll notice any actual diff. As for TVout, it is still much better on the Radeons although the GF4's have improved a little and of course offer very cheap VIVO too. ATI have been MUCH better with their drivers recently and I'd say they're now as good and reliable as nVidia drivers (so a fair bit behind 3dfx drivers of old LOL). When changing cards you may find a fresh OS install is necessary, if you do have problems there is a way of fully uninstalling the Radeon drivers but you may find your recent instability is not directly caused by the Radeon and may continue with the GF4. Best of luck and let us know how you get on

 

[spanky]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Kinda sounds like you Radeon is dying for some reason. If you'r gonna replace it, why go for an actual upgrade? The 4200 won't be much faster, if it is at all.

well i got the 4200 for a decent price on black friday, and have been wanting to install it. i've been lazy, but now i have an excuse.. being the 8500 (drivers or hardware) has been giving me some grief. my XP never crashed til two days ago. i sure don't miss win98

 

[spanky]

AnAndAustin: thanx for the info bud installing my 120gb se and the 4200 as i speak.. or should i say, type

 

[pillage2001]

Originally posted by: spankyOO7
AnAndAustin: thanx for the info bud installing my 120gb se and the 4200 as i speak.. or should i say, type

 

[spanky]

ok this is suck! i pulled out the 8500 along with the seagate hd which the OS was running on. i plug in the ti4200 and a fresh new 120gb se drive. install the OS, drivers, some apps, and windows updates. now i decide to install CS and see how the new video card handles itself. right in the middle of the install... the pc reboots itself. i'm like.. WTF? then... after posting... the screen goes black and i get a "no signal" display on my monitor. i manually reboot and get the same "no signal" msg. wtf? can it be two video cards are dying within the same week?! i just cracked open the box for the ti4200. and the 8500... always stock speeds... so its not like i fried it. FORK!

 

[sandorski]

Hmm, boot into Safe Mode and check to see if you have the proper Monitor inf installed. You may be trying to run a refresh rate that your monitor can't handle.

 

[rogue1979]

Check your voltages, maybe it is a power supply getting tired.

 

[spanky]

Originally posted by: rogue1979
Check your voltages, maybe it is a power supply getting tired.

it would suck of my psu is going. i paid big bucks for that bad boy. but at any rate... if my psu is dying, i have a 300w antec i can pull from a backup rig. do u think a 300w antec can handle this rig:

xp2000+
epox 8k7a
512mb pc2100
lite-on dvd
lite-on cdrw
120gb wd se
120gb wd
128mb ti4200
sblive

 

[tenoc]

Some people try one upgrade at a time.

That way, they can figure out which one screwed the pooch.

 

[spanky]

Originally posted by: tenoc
Some people try one upgrade at a time.

That way, they can figure out which one screwed the pooch.

the ram is good. the hd is good. it's either the video card, mobo, or psu. i've read somewhere that the bfg ti4200 from BB on black friday have ram issues. so it might be the video card. but then again... there is a possiblity that either the psu or mobo is flakey.. i've had them for a while, so their time might be up.

 

[spanky]

crap, i think my woes are from the PSU. i pulled out the 550w enermax and stuck in a 300w antec... and it appears pretty stable. damn i paid $100 for that enermax about two years ago too... that kinda sucks.

 

[pillage2001]

Originally posted by: spankyOO7
crap, i think my woes are from the PSU. i pulled out the 550w enermax and stuck in a 300w antec... and it appears pretty stable. damn i paid $100 for that enermax about two years ago too... that kinda sucks.

Time to get a bigger PSU.

 

[rogue1979]

I just got done comparing a Gainward Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB @ 300/540 and a retail Radeon 8500 128MB @ 315/301. Playing Unreal Tounament at 1600 x 1200 x 32 16-tap anisotropic all game details max and video card settings max the Radeon averages 125fps with no FSAA. Under the same conditions the GF4 only runs about 105fps. If I turn off anistropic filtering the Geforce4 Ti4200 runs 150fps average. If I lower the video card settings it will average 200fps at 1600 x 1200. But the bottom line is the Geforce has to have the settings maxed to match the Radeon in image quality, and then it is slightly behind. I am keeping the Radeon 8500 for my main system!

By the way, the Radeon 9000 at the same settings averages 95fps, that's pretty damn good for a cheapo. The Catalyst 2.5 seem to be pretty much even with Nvidia driver levels, I am impressed.

 

[spanky]

wow... thats an interesting comparison u got there. but i wonder... at 1600x1200... will enabling AF and/or FSAA make that big a difference?

 

[AnAndAustin]

Don't forget Radeon8500 8xAF (8tap) is not technicly equal to nVidia's 8xAF, there's a lot of disagreement in to what exactly AF should be or look like, but technicly Radeon8500 16xAF (16tap) is equivilent to nVidia's 8xAF (unless things have chenged with the Catalyst drivers). Another point is quality, nVidia's AF is higher quality, the Radeon8500 takes half the hit though so it kind of evens out. As to AA the Rad8500 is super slow, even with 2xAA where nVidia cards only take a very small hit, of course 4xAA does give a big hit and that's partly why nVidia cards look so slow compared to the likes of Rad9500PRO/9700 where max AF and 4xAA are used. Anyway I think it's clear that the GF4TI4200 is still faster than a Radeon8500 although those new Catalysts really are great and the Rad8500's in US & Canada are VERY well priced too. Just thought I'd give a little more background to the 4200 vs 8500 debate!

 

[kitkit201]

taken from futuremark.com formely madonion.com

top list of video cards...
1. ATI RADEON 9700/PRO

2. NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600

3. NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400

4. NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

5. ATI RADEON 8500/LE

6. NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500

7. NVIDIA GeForce3

8. NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200

9. ATI RADEON 9000

10. NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 460

a slight difference, but i would get a 8500 for the price it's going for... wanna sell urs ? lmk
kit

 

[spanky]

i'll tink about it

 

[Tab]

Heh, who needs Direct X9 when you have DX8 technology! Go Radeon 8500! I got one this xmas

 

[BFG10K]

at 1600x1200... will enabling AF and/or FSAA make that big a difference?

Welcome to the world of nVidia, where anisotropic filtering is mainly unusable for the most part because it's so slow. GeForce4 chipsets are plagued by the problem the worst because they have a hardware bug which prevents the second texture unit from functioning while anisotropic filtering is enabled. Even just enabling the 2x setting can halve your framerate on these cards.

This is one of the reasons why I went with ATi - the Radeon 9700 Pro's fast 16x anisotropic filtering looks better than nVidia's 8x anisotropic and the performance hit when using it is extremely minimal. I just leave the anisotropic driver sliders at maximum and all games have superb image quality at a minimal speed loss

 

[AnAndAustin]

As pretty much covered, the GF3 and GF4TI cards are great for 2xAA / QxAA but 4xAA is pretty much unusable (even though it's still faster than 2xAA on a Rad8500/9000). As for AF the GF3 and GF4TI cards take twice the hit of the Rad8500, still hardly unplayabe and most would agree the quality is slightly better on the nVidia cards ... but the Rad8500 taking half the hit easily makes up for this IMHO. Above 1024x768 AA isn't really needed but it is very wise to always run with some AF as it really does signif improve the detail and sharpness of textures (esp the more distant ones). So it is largely swings and roundabouts, plusses and minuses and for all but the Rad9500PRO and up it really does even out, if you want full AF and AA and playable FPS then you have to pay the cash (or patiently wait). So in summary I'd always run with 2xAF and 2xAA on GF3/GF4TI and with 16tap AF and no AA on the Rad8500/9000 cards. That's my take on it anyway!