What to buy: Geforce256 DDR or Radeon DDR?

[PsychoCrazy]

Come on guys. Can't we all just get along? Taz, I appreciate your input. BW, I appreciate your input. I appreciate everyone's personal experience, whether good or bad. I like the way Santan gave his opinion: "the voodoo 5500 hands down is the best card 'FOR ME.'" I've looked at the ATI website, and yes they do have reports of problems with a handfull of games. But they have workarounds, and the latest drivers seem to have fixed many of the problems. BW, do you know what driver version you were using? It looks like the latest is 4.12.3063. I'm still leaning toward the Radeon after looking through all the reviews I read of the VooDoo 5500 and the Radeon. I don't mind making minor tweaks to change games. And the DVD quality is important to me.

 

[StickHead]

Honestly, Radeon vs. GeForce 256 DDR, the GeForce would be noticablely faster in most games. But the GeForce DDR is getting old so some new games it might have trouble with. Both cards would be fine. However ATI has some pretty piss-poor drivers, and if you are running Windows 2000 or ME it gets worse, but I don't think anything works in ME or 2000.

 

[BW]

Yea and i just put it back in my pc to. I had the radeon in it.When i had the radeon i still recommended the 5500. As for the childish remark i made i did that purposly since sombody thought i was being childish in the first place. Im not a child im 30 yrs old and a father of two. I dont mean to come across as being the way you say but its hard to express in type.Mayby you have the problem if i offended you so much. Im done with this.If you look at some of the threads i have never argued with anybody since ive ben here.

 

[cybercham]

"Honestly, Radeon vs. GeForce 256 DDR, the GeForce would be noticablely faster in most games. "

Sorry but the only card I've seen that's faster than the Radeon is the GTS.

 

[Compellor]

BW:

Like I said, ATi Radeon owners have a problem when you criticize the card. One mention of "poor drivers" and they condemn you for being an "nVidiot" or some other childish, bogus remark. This Taz character kills me. If you can't get the card to work, it MUST be because of your stupidity or inexperience with computer hardware. HAHAHA! Well, I got news for you Taz: we've all had problems with hardware, and not everything works for everybody. The Radeon isn't any less prone to failure than any other card out there, since many people have many different software/hardware configurations. What works for you may be a nightmare for Joe Blow.

 

[PsychoCrazy]

OK guys. I went ahead and purchased the Radeon. It was about $15.00 less than what the V5 would have been. Thanks for all the input. From everything I've read so far, I think the Radeon will suit my particular needs and wants.

 

[SleepyTim]

Stickhead and BW, listen to me. You are greatly exaggerating ATI's drivers. Anybody that says their drivers are "Piss Poor" or "Suck" is either a fanboy of another card, just being silly, or both. The Win2K drivers had problems early on but have improved a lot. And the Win98 drivers were good from day 1, and have even gotten better. Did ATI have some driver problems in the past with their past cards? Yes, but this is not the past. The Win98 drivers for the Radeon are excellent. That's a fact.

What if I was to say the GeForce has "Piss Poor" image quality just because it's not as good as Radeon? It would be an exaggeration of course. Get the point?

BTW I now have a 64MB Radeon in one machine and a ULTRA (complete with the damn rolling lines) in the other, so you can't possibly accuse me of being biased towards either.

No matter what piece of hardware you talk about there will always be a few problems and some people that don't like it. Heck, I have the two most expensive damn gaming cards on the planet and the highest priced one (Ultra) has these damn rolling lines that are driving me crazy. A lot of people have them and there may be a recall of many of the Ultra's. It pisses me off, and it's a flaw that should have been caught, but I'm not going to say the card "Sucks".

Anyway, the guy has bought a Radeon and he should be very happy with it, like 95% of the people who have it. The thread is over now thank goodness. Good luck PsychoCrazy. Getting a new card is exciting, and you should have a lot of fun. I'm not sure of your system specs, but hopefully you have 128MB of system ram.

 

[Varborta]

oh.... I always go for Nvidia but you put geforc256 against the new Radeon DDR

Go for Radeon DDR

 

[Compellor]

SleepyTim and others:

Not to start another argument over ATi's driver support, but here's what Tom's Hardware had to say:



<< Furthermore we cannot report anything positive about the state of the Windows 2000 drivers. Compared with Windows 98 the performance was so bad that we decided against publishing any results under Windows 2000. The driver programmers at ATi have indeed a lot of homework to do.

Although the Radeon 64MB has already been available since July we cannot say that the drivers have matured. >>



Here's the link: Attacking the GeForce2 MX: ATi's Radeon 32MB SDRAM

From Anantech's latest video card article:



<< The first, and perhaps most devastating flaw in the Radeon SDR is its poor driver support. As shown in the Windows 2000 driver performance section, ATI gives off the appearance that it could care less about drivers. We know ATI is &quot;working&quot; to alleviate the poor Windows 2000 performance as well as a host of other driver related problems the Radeon series cards have, yet we have yet to see any substantial improvement and therefore can not expect the drivers to get better very fast. >>



The link: Budget Video Card Comparison

Just FYI...

 

[fdiskboy]

Anyone who says that ATI's driver support is good is just being silly.

If you look at their track record (and I'm not JUST talking Radeon), it's pathetic.

And I own a Radeon 32DDR. I have had multiple problems with it, many of which persist. Further, I'll pit my computer &quot;expertise&quot; against most here any day of the week.



BTW, if you feel you must attack someone PERSONALLY because they don't agree with you, normally that means you don't feel your argument is strong enough to stand on its own merits. Just a little logic lesson.

 

[SleepyTim]

Compellor, since you addressed me personally. First of all that article is fairly old. The Win2k drivers have indeed been much improved since then. And like I said, and like everyone has said, the Win98 drivers are excellent and have always been excellent. Period. Of course there will always be some people with some problems. That's just computer hardware in general. BTW, I could go around and find plenty of negative articles about Nvidia and post them if you would like, but why should I? Unlike you, I don't have to try to put down Company-A to make myself feel better about Company-B.

Since I own a Radeon (which you don't) and an ULTRA (which you don't), I have a good perspective on the issue. Even though the ULTRA has a serious and widely reported flaw, I am not going around trying to trash it. I don't recommend that anybody buy an ULTRA right now though, untill the problem is fixed. A lot of people have returned their ULTRA's and are quite upset that Nvidia and the card makers released a card with such a flaw, but I have decided to keep mine and hope they can fix the problem.

But here is the big question Compellor. Why are you going out of your way to knock something in a thread where the guy has already made his purchase and moved on? That really shows you have some personal issues that need to be dealt with, and nothing better to do with your time. That's sad. Perhaps it's because you are a Nvidia fanboy who always tries to post cheap stuff about the other cards. Yes I remember you well Compellor. If you would like to discuss the issues further I can meet you in a live chat forum of your choice. We can talk about video cards, computers in general, life, etc.

But there is no reason to be posting, and addressing me personally, in a thread that has reached a conclusion for the person who started it.

 

[Compellor]

SleepyTim:

&quot;Fairly old?&quot; The Anandtech one was just released today, and Tom's Hardware review was dated October 19! Uh, you need glasses, son!

I was addressing you and the others who regarded ATi's driver support as being &quot;great.&quot; Those are just two of many others that I've come across. ATi's driver support has improved over previous products, but it's still bad -- AND THAT IS A FACT. If you consider pointing out weaknesses in products as &quot;trashing it,&quot; then you don't have a clue. I'm not the only one here who pointed it out.

I could care less if the guy bought a Radeon. I'm glad for him. Did you happen to read my other post here? I recommended a Radeon or a GeForce to the guy, but pointed out that he wouldn't be happy with it 6 months to a year from now, as games get more advanced. What you read into my OPINIONS (which is all they are, like yours) is utter nonsense, since you can't tell me what I can or cannot say on these forums. They're OPINIONS! No what that means??? According to your response, it's like someone saying: &quot;You can't say that, because it may influence another person's buying decision.&quot; He or she doesn't have to believe it -- and there is no need for someone like you to point out someone else's personal opinion as being &quot;negative.&quot; Who the hell are you?

You see, you could say the most negative thing about nVidia's video cards (or any other) and it wouldn't bother me at all. In fact, I welcome it; that's what starts a good conversation or an argument -- however you want to look at it. &quot;Nvidia fanboy?&quot; HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Cheap, at best.

Oh, BTW, know what &quot;FYI&quot; stands for?

 

[Nesta]

Which card is best for Win2K? Voodoo or ATi?

 

[SleepyTim]

Well Compellor, I was referring to Tom's article of course. Over a month is fairly old. And I never said that past driver support was &quot;great&quot; or anything like that. You must be talking about someone else. I simply said that the Win98 drivers for Radeon were great, which they are, and they have been from the beginning. And the updates for the Radeon have been good, and their support seems to be much better with this card. That's all I was saying.

Of course there will always be some systems or people that have problems. That's normal for any piece of hardware.

Let it go man. Be happy.

 

[GoSharks]

the ati card isn't as good in win2k when compared to win9x, but i'm not sure if the difference is any between the v5 and radeon in 2k.