Which, which, which?`

[voodood]

I am in the process of building a new system for my son (8 years old and a HUGE Mech fan). I've started with an ABIT KT7 mainboard, Duron 800 and 128 MB RAM. The sound card will likely be the X-Gamer.

Now I've been a BIG supporter of GLIDE and the Voodoo since Diamond put our the Monster. But for $250 and ALOT of bad press, I in a quandry regarding the Voodoo 5500. I have a Voodoo3 in my other system and I love it, but I really want to come up the curve a bit with this machine.

I've read ALOT about the GeForce and it certainly gets many accolades in this forum. Likely I would go with the 32 MB GTS, I consider the 64 MB overkill in this instance. Unless, you guys really think the MX version is enuf.

But what about the V5500? Is it really high priced OLD technology? I've heard that the GeForce has compatibility problems with VIA chipsets. Is that also true of the KT133 chipset? Do I "lose" anything if I run the old Glide games on the GeForce? My "gut" feeling is no, but of course HE will notice the smallest difference so I just want to be prepared for the shots across my bow! LOL!

I don't want to start a flame war...Nvidia vs. Voodoo. Just some HONEST feedback.

Thanks.

 

[Comp10]

Well first of all I would suggest that you consider getting a Radeon over a Geforce should you decide to go that route. I could give a little speech on why I think that, but I will just sum it up by saying that the Radeon has better 2D quality, DVD support, and future support for DirectX 8. Now back more to your question, I wouldn't touch the V5500 unless you really really like to play your old glide games. I am not aware of any major games in the future which will be based on glide, so investing in a good glide card might not be the best idea. As for what you lose by using a Geforce/Radeon on glide games over a Voodoo, I think depends on the game. Playing tribes (originaly a glide based game, adapted to run under OpenGL) using my Radeon gives pretty poor performance, slightly slower than my old Voodoo 3 video card running under glide. It's still playable, but it can get quite choppy at times. Before making any final decisions you might wan't to play some of your favorite glide games in D3D or OpenGL mode using your Voodo0 3 and see if it is still playable. If its still playable, then you can safely assume that any new Geforce/Radeon you buy will have at least that performance, if not better.

 

[StickHead]

I would go MX. More than ample for your needs. I can play Dues EX flawless in 1024x768 in 32-bit color. A lot of people like their Radeons, but I think the MX is a better deal.

 

[voodood]

Ok, let's get into it.

All prices approximate. And let's not split hairs. If you can find one REAL cheap, you can find the other.

Radeon 32MB DDR - $170

GeForce2 MX - $150

GeForce2 GTS - $220

Suggestions? And why? I'm trying to take into account lifespan (if I drop $200+ the card has to be ADEQUATE for at least 18-24 months). 3d capability? Which is valued over 2d performance, this IS gonna be a gaming machine. And finally DVD? Doesn't have to be great, but it shouldn't run like it's coming over a 56K modem either.

Personally, I'm leaning toward the Radeon. BUT, honestly when I hear "Great 2d", I still feel that that implies "so-so 3D". Glide WAS the king of 3D, this has to be at minimum as pleasing to the eye as that has always been. And I'm not criticising Radeon or Nvidia, I'm simply saying that Glide NEVER disappointed on 3d.

 

[john433i]

I've seen and heard that the Radeon has better 3d quality as well as 2d quality over the GeForce2.

 

[Comp10]

Here are the basic reasons why I believe your best choice would be a Radeon 32mb DDR. First of all the 2D quality of the Radeon is extremely good, only being beaten slightly by the Matrox G400 in quality (which is considered to have the best 2D quality of any video card). However, in addition to 2D quality the Radeon is also very fast in 3D, especialy 32 bit color. The 32mb Radeon will be much faster than a Geforce MX when using 32 bit color, but slower than the Geforce 2 GTS. But when you factor in the extra cost of a Geforce 2 GTS, I do not think the slightly faster performance is worth it. But also keep in mind that the Geforce's are faster in 16 bit color, but with most new games supporting 32 bit color that shouldn't be much of an issue any more. As for DVD quality, the Radeon is without a doubt the best of any card in that area. Also the Radeon will be able to support new features of DirectX 8 when it is released which the Geforces will not be able to. And the finaly, I have yet to hear anyone regret switching from a Geforce to a Radeon, which tells you alot about the Radeon. As for glide, its basicly gone and I have not noticed any different between the quality of glide and the newer Direct3D/OpenGL. You will not be disapointed by the 3D quality of a Radeon. One last note, it's rumored that ATI is phasing out the 32mb DDR version of the Radeon in favor of the cheaper SDR version, so you might want to act fast if the 32mb DDR card is the one you decide to get.

 

[Compellor]

Comp10:

You forgot to mention the poor driver support from ATI. Let's be honest: Sure, the card may work fine with the current set of drivers (which are based off the old Rage 128 drivers), but, what about the future? It's new hardware using outdated Rage 128 drivers... What's new, ATI? Oh, DirectX 8 support is currently hardware supported with the Radeon, but not with the current set of drivers. It's all "hype" at this point in time...


voodood:

Get a Geforce 2 GTS if GAMING is the primary thing you will use the machine for. Nvidia has excellent driver support and frequently updates their drivers. It'll be a year or more before games will take full advantage of DirectX 8. My Geforce 2 GTS runs fine on my ABIT KT7, which is using the VIA KT133 chipset. It also has no problems running games. Rock solid...stable...safe. This card will be better than a Voodoo 5 -- in the long run.

 

[Comp10]

Compellor:

I don't want to start another war over the Radeon vs Geforce, but how can you claim that ATI has poor driver support? Out of the box the Radeon drivers are far better than the Geforce drivers were when it first came out. Also, ATI has already updated the drivers twice, with the next major release being planned around the time DirectX 8 comes out. In addition I have yet to play a single game which has any driver issues with the Radeon. So perhaps ATI used to have crappy driver support, but we can't always judge a company by its past performance. So far ATI's driver support has been extremely good, and there is no reason to assume that it shouldn't stay that way.

 

[BFG10K]

Now I've been a BIG supporter of GLIDE and the Voodoo since Diamond put our the Monster.

Are you a big supporter of Glide now? Do you still play a lot of old legacy Glide games? If you do you might want to consider a Voodoo 4. Even though the V4 is even worse than the V5, for someone who heavily plays Glide games and doesn't like the V5, it might be just the ticket for them. Plus it is much cheaper than the V5.

Think of it as the Voodoo 3 that should have been. You will get support for the things that other manufacturers have had in their previous generation of cards (ie 32 bit colour, large textures). I'm also sure it will be as reliable and stable as the Voodoo 3 was. But keep in mind the V4 isn't very future proof and games like Quake 3 and UT already tax this card.

If you don't care about Glide you have a very tough choice to make between the Radeon and the GF2. You may as well use the GF2 rather than the GF2 MX in your decision because your 800 MHz CPU is a decent speed.

The GF2 will give you raw framerates with good 3D image quality and very good DVD quality. Also nVidia's OpenGL driver is second to none so games like Quake 3 will fly with it. Some of nVidia's boards suffer from 2D image quality image issues but these are mainly limited to cheaper versions, so if you stick to good manufactures like Asus and Hercules you hould be fine. Sharky also mentioned that Elsa had very good 2D quality.

The Radeon is the most feature rich board. It has excellent 2D image quality (better than the GF2) and excellent gaming abilities, especially in 32 bit colour and high resolution situations. It's not quite as fast as a GF2 but it is still very good. Plus it has Hyper-Z to combat memory bandwidth restrictions and its DVD quality is slightly better than nVidia's.

So there you have it. I myself was caught in the predicament of getting a Radeon or a GF2 MX but the decision was made easier for me because I wasn't able to get hold of a Radeon. As soon as I get my GF2 MX I will put up a review of it.

 

[pen^2]

um... your prices are a bit off. do you live in canada? here we get gts's for ~170 and sometimes you can get em near 150. mx's go for around ~120 and normally 100. JFYI.

 

[Rigoletto]

Wow I wish I was spoilt like this at 8. I think you will spoil him most with the Radeon. The Voodoo 5 is just for you, you selfish son of a...not really just kidding.

 

[Compellor]

One look at the ATI Radeon Poll shows that 41% find that POOR drivers hurt the Radeon -- an overwhelming majority.

Radeon Poll

Go with the nVidia GeForce 2 GTS. It's the fastest GAMING video card on the market today, and has superior, rock solid drivers.

 

[PeAK]

Engarde...touchee

For those who have been fear-mongered
by ATI's reputation for driver quality...read on.

The Anantech Poll came out roughly in the first
few weeks of the Radeon release and
more or less reflects the past experience
with the Rage128 series of
graphics cards (which are now supported under Win2K and
have now matured into very solid drivers). It was a
case of balancing off all the standard hype of a new card release....should
be done more often and ultimately benefits the end user.

If you believe the poll, would you
also be apt to "fear" version 80/80 of the GeForce drivers
being as stable as 1/80 ? Not likely. The Radeon driver is an
evolution of the Rage128 driver.
There are many internal builds but relatively few releases. Nvidia
just releases their builds more often because the task of
testing all the different cards offered by different
vendors (Asus, Leadtek, MSI, Hercules, Creative, ...etc)
using a GeForce1/2 chipset
is huge. Far easier to have the developer try out changes
to a stock development card and have the "leaked community"
feedback hardware specific implementation issues.

For a more revealing and up-to-date view on the drivers, take a look at
<a target=new href="http://www.rage3d.com/forum/search.cgi?action=simplesearch&amp;StartPoint=1&amp;SearchTerms=driver+stability+&amp;SearchUser=&amp;ForumChoice=13&amp;SearchIn=ALL&amp;SearchDate=ALL&amp;ExactName=no&amp;BooleanAND=YES&amp;Continue=False">27 threads (270 comments) about the two driver
releases</a>. By the time the second one was
released, ATI included VIA's own updated chipset drivers in
the driver release, itself, to sort out problems with
the Athlon based systems. Since then there have
been very few problems. 3rd release due very soon
that will address Sony Trinitron (damm sharp and unjustly criticized)
Monitors and Win2K (hardware restrictive business platform...
use Win95/ME for games performance,video-in/video-out
until Microsoft sorts out how to add feature support in operating
systems without incurring stability tradeoffs).

 

[MRFries]

Hehe, so what you saying compel? The Radeon can only get better?
Yeah, that's what I thought. And what? What's that? The GF2 FASTEST in gaming?! HAHA! OK, in about as many cases as the V3 being faster than GF2 (check out UT results from K2/3 upgrade guide, its hillarious... but true!!) otherwise Radeon 64 edges out GF2 64.
Anyway since it's VERY likely you'll be running the proc at at least 1g (you'd be crazy not too!), I would go for AT LEAST 64mb! And if you like your Glide games so much, that's why 3dfx makes PCI Like my brother said, the V4, V5 are basically V3+s, so you might end up with the same, just FSAA at a price! Of coarse, with the V5, it will end up with about the same fps as V3, but... If you want HDTV, let me suggest AIW Radeon PCI (I wonder if you can SLI Radeons... like a Radeon MAXX) or Hauppage WinTV-HD. So for now I would just pick up a AIW Radeon PCI to use with your V3 (one question, would the v3 then be slowing down the system?) then get the latest and greatest. Plus you might want more Ram (as time goes by).

 

[MRFries]

Oh, I've got a K2+550 and 128mb, and 744-based DCS POS. I love the 744, in fact it has been compaired quite nicely against the SBLive, just hate DCS. I would suggest the you give the Aopen AW744 Pro a try the 744 is basically the same as my 744 card (in fact I use it's dtivers as it's INFINITELY better than DCS or even Yamahas) and Aopen is a great company. BTW the live is greatly considered as more of a professionals card, not an 8-yr. olds (no matter how good he is in Football!!) while the 744-based Fortissimo (and other 744 cards) are better and more intriguing for gaming. Show your son you care what goes through his head, at least try the AW744 Pro you can get it at www.mwave.com for $30. A steal since the hardware's the same as the $50+ Live (but not 5.1), exactly the same as the $50 Fortissimo. I also have Midiland MLI 491 speakers, they're medocre at high volumes, crack at high pitches and really low, but they are just perfect at a decent volume. A steal at $40 at mwave. Oh the 744 has Sensaura an awesome feature, esp. for 4 speakers!!

 

[RobsTV]

No question get the GeForce2 GTS.
&quot;TRUE PRICING&quot;
Geforce2 GTS $150, no rebate hassles.
GeForce2 MX $100, no rebate hassles.
Radeon $150 AFTER 3 months and $50 rebate arrives.

Since you could get a GeForce2 GTS for $170 shipped the
past month, anyone that says over $200 doesn't have a
clue about what is current. The recent price drops now
put the card in the $150 range. PLUS, every single non-
biased hardware review site puts the GeForce2 GTS as
the winner, and the Radeon as runner up. So, are others
that don't even know current prices trying to also say
that every review site is wrong, and we should instead
believe them, even though they have proven to be wrong
by not knowing prices? Strange how they do know current
ATI after rebate prices though, isn't it?

As to your systems compatabilty, mine is:
Abit KT7
Duron 600 @ 935mhz (110*8.5)
Soundblaster Live.
So compatabilty is a mute point with the current
crop of VIA motherboards and graphics cards. Zero
problems or issues. It was a huge relief to finally
upgrade from my 1 1/2 year old V3 3000 AGP. I have
no clue why people say Unreal Tourney plays better
on the V3. The GeForce2 GTS looks much better and
runs much faster then the V3 3000 did using Glide.
Also, 3dmark 2000 numbers of 7430 are not too shabby
with this combo. Old V3 3000 only got around 3200.

 

[hans007]

ATIs card is better in win98, it has much better dvd, and much better 2d. I have a voodoo5 and voodoo4, i'm selling the voodoo5 in order to get money. But they are both good cards, and pretty much any of these cards can run every game out there fine anyways

 

[StickHead]

I will personally never buy another ATI video card based on my experiances with my Rage 128. Lied though their teeth about it's performance and the drivers sucked. nVidia on the other hand has drivers that offer some sort of BENIFIT over the previous version, unlike ATI that releases new drivers just to get their cards to fully function on some systems, that in hand cause systems that ran fine on the old drivers to crash. This is based on my personal experiance, not just because I don't have a Radeon and I'm jellous(yeah right).

 

[hans007]

stick head, i bought the rage128 the month it came out, i cant agree with you more about that. But that was a couple years ago, and well the tnt1 isn't was basically a lie about performance as well with its (125mhz cough 90mhz cough speed, and its &quot;32bit color&quot; that you could play at 10 fps). So i figure every company lies, its called PR. the new radeon still has pretty crummy drivers in win2k. Maybe when radeon 2 comes out and its a polished design with a good driver base, MAYBE big MAYBE i'll buy one.

 

[Compellor]

hans007:

Agreed about the TNT (had a Canopus Spectra 2500 that kicked major ass!) that they originally hyped the rated speed on it -- but, that card worked perfect out of the box (I bought it in September, 1998) with working drivers and a great FULL OpenGL ICD. Hell, BOOT Magazine even gave it a (10) Kick Ass! award. The ATI Rage 128 was plagued with problems for well over a year after it was first released! What is their problem?

RADEON 2??? When? Where? Maybe??? I give credit to ATI for their product innovation, but their driver development sucks.

 

[randomlinh]

StickHead, you can play 1024@32bit for Deus Ex w/o any problems?!!?? Have you gone thru hong kong yet!?!?! what other settings???

Granted, i have a tnt2u and an 800mhz celery, but even at 640 LOW i get problems.

 

[voodood]

Guys, I appreciate all the feedback. Rigoletto, your right, he probably is a &quot;little&quot; bit spoiled, but let's not pretend...I'm gonna play on this machine too!! LOL!

After all the discussion...the winner (for me anyway) is the GeForce2 GTS. Two reasons...first, more than one person in here and a number of the reviews have said that it is the best gaming card out there right now at that price level (more about that in a minute). Since I don't intend on putting a DVD player in this machine (we don't really watch any DVD movies on the PC), a really fast CD-player is more cost effective and practical for our use, the DVD advantages of the Radeon are really moot. Two, seems from the feedback like there will be little if any in the way of compatibility problems going with the GeForce.

As far as my dedication to Voodoo and Glide. Honestly, it's not that it's wavered, it's just been battered by disappointment. I agree that very few if any games are being written specifically for Glide (which I still consider to be a superior API to Direct3D). I made the mistake of GIVING my old V1000 card to my brother (who lives on the other side of the country), after I bought my V3000. I will likely spring for another $45, or less if I can get one second hand, and by another V1000 and just pop it in (more than enuf slots on that KT7!) for the legacy games.

As far as the price went, I found the Creative Labs Annihilator2 GeForce2 GTS DDR (which is supposedly being discontinued, which is another reason why I went that route) for $208, I know there are cheaper models, but honestly my preference is to go with more notable manufacturers (where have you gone Diamond Mulitimedia!). I also got the Soundblaster X-Gamer (original, not the 5.1) for $66 dollars. Getting both these cards, delivered, for a good bit less than $300, I thought, was pretty good.

With all the good advice (on ALL the components I'm using) I've obtained in this forum, I think this should shape up to be a pretty kick ass machine, for awhile anyway!
________________
FongKai 603 ATX with 250W
Abit KT7 MB
128 MB PC133 SDRAM
Creative Labs Annihilator2 GeForce GTS
Creative Labs Soundblaster X-Gamer
Maxtor ATA-66, 7200 RPM H/D
52X CD-ROM
Princeton Ultra 92 19&quot; Color CRT
Microsoft Natural Elite Keyboard
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer
Microsoft Precision Pro 2 Joystick
Microsoft Gamepad
no modem (he can surf on my machine (under MY direction)...I gotta cut cost somewhere!)

 

[RoboTECH]

I have had in my main gaming rig the following (in order):

1) Guillemot Prophet II 32MB GTS
2) Voodoo 5500
3) Creative Labs 64MB GTS (OEM)
4) Voodoo 5500

You'll notice what ended up in the computer after I tried them all.

This isn't to say that the GTS wasn't an outstanding card. It was. However, the 5500 offered significantly superior 2d quality on my 19&quot; monitor, better game compatibility, and more than enough speed. A few compatibility issues/stability issues swayed my decision, and the 5500 remains in the system to stay. The GTS has been removed for good.

Again, both cards were excellent, I just liked the 5500 better.

The pricing on the GTS cards has dropped rather significantly as of late, however, so that certainly makes for a compelling deal. Good luck with your purchase decision. Assuming the GTS works for you, you'll love it.

 

[pen^2]

for your reference, Creative by and large makes no-frills decent cards, and diamond makes about the worst crap imaginable (dont even bother with driver support, altho reference drivers are only way to go anyway). if you got some more cash to spare, spring for more reputable manufacturers like hercules, asus or elsa (gladiacs reportedly overclock a bit better than annihiliator2s). if you dont really care about the brand name, then i suggest you get one of those OEM reference boards for ~$160 in the Anandtech for sale forum.

 

[MRFries]

So Stick? Probs in Deus? Does it reset on you after a bit? Yeah, me too, it's due to sound probs (think it's Sensaura). I was told to disable 3d sound, but it didn't work for me! What I did is just scaled down to under my desktop size (for me 640x480 since my desks 800x600) and use windowed mode (it's in display) than I play to my hearts content (though I'm only at Battery Park, 2nd mission ;-?). Dun know, just some ideas but whatever works for you.
So, noticed the Muse. Heard it was $10 POS (no offense). Just sayin' maybe it's slowin your system down (if a pci s/c can... dun' know). So check out my last post for my suggestion, it'll not only give you 4 speaker input, but optical DIN to.