Getting a new video card

[Menzo]

Originally Posted by the_move

There you´ve heard something wrong.

The 32-bit shaders work fine on FX.

It´s the 24-bit shaders. As soon as a game uses them the FX card gets the problems that you mentioned. That´s also the reason for their current performance disadvantage to ATI. In that case they either can run them only by software (since the hardware can not do it) and lose speed significantely. Or they switch back to 16-bit shaders.

As I said, if the the game developers would use 32-bit shaders, ATI would be in disadvantage.

I'm sorry, but you're truly misinformed. If you care to find the truth of the matter I suggest you make a post on the forums at www.beyond3d.com asking people if what you state is the case. It is populated by people far more knowledgeable than myself and if you're polite they'll be sure to help.

[Froggin_Ashole42]

Holy crap,now I deffinitely don't know what card to get.The NVIDIA one's have 32 bit shaders,but have poor performance? And the ATI's don't have them but have good performance with DX9.What the hell.

[Menzo]

If you can wait a couple months Ati and Nvidia will be releasing their next generation chips. Probably around twice as fast as the current generation.

[NoCoolOnesLeft]

If you want a good card that'll play the likes of HL2, DooM and FarCry, get a 9800Pro.
They were all roughly tested and tuned for those games. And as for graphics cards getting old fast...Its true, Ive had my comp for around 7 months and already my 5600 is showing age.

I'd say 9800, Im a total Nvidia fan but even I know when to stop, take a breather, and admit defeat. I myself am considdering purchasing a 9800SE (see off-topic, I need a little help )

[maxfax]

Is there much of a difference between the 9800 SE/PRO/XT? I see that the XT has the best benchmarks, but the cheapest I can get it for is over $600 (CAN). Also, my computer is about 18mo old- a P4, 2.4 with 60G hd and 768 ram with a Radeon 9000Pro- it works ok but gets choppy as hell when the action gets heated. Should I be putting such a high end/expensive card in this computer, or get a cheaper/improved card ( a 9600 XT will be a major improvement at a fraction of the cost of the 9800 XT)?

Any advice?

[C38368]

Originally Posted by Froggin_Ashole42

Holy crap,now I deffinitely don't know what card to get.The NVIDIA one's have 32 bit shaders,but have poor performance? And the ATI's don't have them but have good performance with DX9.What the hell.

BoW hit it right on the head with his previous post. For games, you're best off with either a 9600XT or a 9800Pro/XT. They're simply better at rendering high quality images at speed (if you don't believe that, I can play SWG with my 9600XT, forced 6xAA/16xAF and all in-game graphics set to high, except shadows which are turned off, at about 15-20fps, which is damn good for that engine at those levels).

So allow me to reiterate what BoW said: buy the best card out there today that you can afford. And for gaming, remember that "best" doesn't just mean most impressive numbers; how the final rendered image looks is just as important (if not more so). That is why ATI has come into such prominence lately... their cards deliver a better looking final product.

maxfax~ The 9600XT, as I understand it, is often roughly comparable to the 9800SE. The 9800 Pro is a better card for gaming, and the 9800XT dominates all... at least for another month or so. If you've got a 9800 Pro and BF runs choppy, consider cleaning up your hard drive, optimise Windoze a bit, and perhaps upgrade to 1GB of RAM. I highly doubt that it's a problem with your gfx card.

[Froggin_Ashole42]

Well I found a good buy for a 9800 and a 9800 pro.The 9800 is 194.99 and the 9800 pro is 249.99.

[C38368]

My vote, of course, is for the 9800 Pro. If you're interested (and not already aware of it) you can head over to ATI's website and take advantage of their trade up program if you don't mind sending them one of your old gfx cards. You can nab a 9800 Pro for around $215 that way.

[[TLB]FatFreddiesCat]

Last week I purchased a 5900XT from newegg.com, the gigabite nvidia version for a little under $200. Came with several extra excellent games.
Bought it because of the video lag on BV.
Bought it on Thursday, arrived on Monday.
It installed easily and now I can run with everything on full, runs smooth as ice.
Dunno much about the other cards but that's one man's experience.
Has my reccomendation, well worth the $200.

[nameChanged]

For the money, the 5900XT is the informed choice. Great performance for what you pay in comparison to all other cards & the gigabyte version is probably the best one too. (No I don't work for NVidia & if I had the cash to spare I would buy one now).
Unless you are going to go for an ATi Radeon card, which is whole other ball game. (Note:@ present ATi does not support Linux like Nvidia is as far as effort on drivers - so what? So you don't use Linux for gaming I guess?...).