Re: Getting a new video card
 

The Albratron 5700 Ultra is right now available for below 200$ and is probably one of the best at this level.

But still I would wait. In 3 months the whole thing looks different.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Stay away from Powercolour! I've had friends burned by them very recently! Some cards come with fast Ram, some come with slooooooww ass Ram.

Also their cards tend to crap out in 1/2 the time that the retail version do! If you're getting an ATI card from a 3rd party get it from Sapphire! They use really really nice Ram on their high-end cards!

Re: Getting a new video card
 

You know I just heard that same story. Apparently their are two different memory configurations. The L shaped arrangement is the best. The memory arranged straight across the top is the bad ram setup.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Ive upped my price range. How about a 9600 XT or a 9600 AIW?

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Just wait! Right now there is too much movement in prices.
They will get a lot cheaper alltogether within the next 3 months.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

3 months.pffft. Thats too long. Anyways.I've made a FINAL decision.Im getting the ATI 9800 Pro.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Well, if you wanna loose more money than you need.
Right now cards lose more value (in percentage) than a mercedes benz during the same timespan.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

a 9800 pro is about 150 above your price range.... what was the whole point of this post? i got mine for $280 and i heard thats pretty low.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

9600 AIW is rather excessively pointless if you don't use your PC to watch TV. I'd go for the 9600XT, personally. Not that there's anything wrong with the AIW; I'd just never make full use of it's features. I think that the AIW might also be a little less desirable for gaming, but I'm not sure on that.

Addendum, re Mazz: ATI-built Radeon 9800 Pro's are down to under $250 for the full retail version now. It's fairly recent, too. Makes me wonder if ATI is perhaps gearing up to release a new flagship core... it's about time for one.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

I think that it's more of a "we can sell our high-end cards that much cheaper than Nvidia".

ATI sort of has Nvidia over a barrell with their faster and cheaper cards. I think that they're trying to move that much more of their high-end AGP cards so that people who only buy one every 2 years with get a 9800 and skip the next generation of cards all together (a generation that Nvidia might dominate). This way a person will "hop" from ATI card - to ATI card without needing to rest on an Nvidia one.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

i got my card 2 months ago so i expected it to come down in price since then.

i have 512 mb of ram, and the FH loading song goes by twice before i usually finish loading the map. is this normal for anyone else with 512?

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Could very well be. As is, a person with a 9800 Pro could easily skip the next generation of video cards without so much as a hiccup.
Also, I've noticed that ATI has been pushing the PCI Express standard a lot lately, and from what I've been able to tell, that standard should hit the market in the next couple of months. Possibly some connection there, as well...

Mazz~ Yeah, I think this last price drop happened within the last week, based on a couple discussions I've had with retailers. Not that I'm complaining, or anything...

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Same here, only way to speed that up is to have a 10,000 RMP or SCSI hard disk and Uber fast DDR2 ram. Other than that, I don't really see how you're gonna speed up the loading time.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

You can speed up your loading times by buying more RAM, if your mobo supports it. It's worth it. Go up to 1024 MB RAM, and you will see a marked improvement in your load times.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Also alot of people have hard drives with 2mb of cache and I have been hearing that upgrading to a 7200rpm drive with 8mb of cache is quite noticeably faster.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

I have plugged in 1.5 Gb of memory and i am always the first in a map, in FH or Ravenshield or any other online game.

But lately i am not the only one anymore. I guess 1 Gb of memory or 1.5 Gb does not make a diffrence.

Memory is relative cheap, certainly DDR memory. In AMD systems one should take care though that faster clockrates in memory are not always better. If you have a 133 or 166 FSB CPU, you will be faster with 333 Mhz clocked memory then 400 Mhz clocked memeory. Has something to do with sychronisation losses. Only a 200 Mhz FSB clocked CPU ( up to now only the AMD 3200+ ) benefits from 400 Mhz memory. Other AMD CPU's are considerably faster with 333 hz clocked memory, and are slowed down by 400 Mhz memory !

In harddisks i only saw performace diffrences in rotation speed, 7200 tpm is always much faster on finding the data and transferring it the 5400 tpm. Also, the new Serial ATA disks are MUCH faster then ATA disks, if your mobo supports it.

When i look at that bf1942 engine performance chart i posted myself i see the top nvidia's perform only 12 points less then top ATI cards......while they are half their price !

Here in the Netherlands a ATI 9800 XT 256 mb does a rediculous 440 € But the nvidia card that in the test is almost just as fast cost 250 €

I guess that concludes what i am going for.......12 points out of 212 points does not justify almost twice the price. I am only affraid that the "sudden turn in bf1942 engine" frame rate drop is still there in new nvidia cards...

Re: Getting a new video card
 

To show off my coolness.

Well, I just raised my price range because of payday, if you read one of the earlier posts.Besides,it's sparked some good conversation :).
I was tired when I did the 9800 Pro post, I didn't realize it said $300!
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....oryId=cat01151 Better.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

If the computer game industry switches to 32-bit shaders, the 9800 pro bought now are nothing. And it would be very funny if it happens at the end of this year.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

I think they'd start making 32 bit shaders in cards. Then maybe a year after they'd make the games with those.

Oh, by the way. I just noticed that that link from my most recent post doesn't work.It was a Geforce FX 5700 Ultra.Thoughts?

Re: Getting a new video card
 

I'd say buy from newegg.com

EXCELLENT site if I might add. We ordered parts to build my friends computer (3ghz, 1GB ram, 256mb 9800XT. It's a monster). Well anyways. He ordered the parts and the prices of all the stuff he ordered went down a day or two before his stuff arrived at his house so newegg was like: "Oh here, we will refund you the total amount of money the parts went down." It saved him like 100 bucks. Not many people do that I think :D

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Newegg is top notch for me. I have not heard of anyone having problems with them other then when it was their own fault(didnt enter cc information in correctly and order was canceled.) My computer is completely built from parts I purchased on Newegg. Also my friend owns a networking company and we use NewEgg for the smaller purchases because sometimes we hands down cannot beat their prices with our suppliers. I wish they had Business terms though so we could by on credit.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

I have similar good things to say about NewEgg. I do have business terms with them, and their service to their customers is impeccable. I still recommend the 9800 Pro over all the NVidia cards, cause it's just faster right now. Plus, it is only $212 (on NewEgg!). Good luck with whatever you get!

Re: Getting a new video card
 

NVidia cards already feature 32-bit shader capability, but games don´t use it.
If they did, ATI would be owned by NVidia again.

about the FX 5700, the best one is the Albatron FX5700 Ultra in the price segment of below 200$.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1521

Re: Getting a new video card
 

So.... does the ATI 9800 Pro have the 32 bit shaders? I found a really good buy for an ATi 9800 Pro. Hurry!Answer me ASAP! I'm buying one tommorow!

Thanks.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

What price are you getting it for and where?

Re: Getting a new video card
 

250 from circuit city.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

As I said, NO!

ATI cards only use 24-bit shaders. Lucky that the software engineers (those, who make the games) use them right now.

If the Game developers change to 32-bit, than all ATI cards, which are released and bought now are worthless.

Nvidia, does not have this problem. Their cards are optimized for 32-bit shaders.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

NVIDIA gf fx 5900 xt it is then.(so if an ati played a 32 bit shaded game,it wouldn't work? because I heard that NVIDIA doesn't do DX9 as well as ATI)

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Nvidia cards are slower because they use the 32 bit rendering, while ATI uses simpler 24 bit rendering. More is better in image quality, but not for speed.

You cannot tell the diffrence in image quality btw....so there's nothing wrong with ATI cards now or in the near future.

A lot of confusion went on when nvidia "cheated" in the well known 3Dmark test. Nividia wrote special drivers that recognised the 3Dmark program and would switch to even simpler 16 bit rendering for greater speed. 3Dmark developers discovered it and made it public, dealing nvidia a tremendous negative PR blow. 3Dmark was the leading graphics card benchmark program, having a lot of influence on people and companies that sell copmputer components and systems. 3Dmark was not neutral and favored ATI all along, so one might ask himself if there are not buisiness intersts involved ( ATI probably paid 3Dmark developers to make ATI cards look much better )

This fight and conflict of interests caused influential well known hardware test recource sites like Tomshardware.com to (partly) abandon 3Dmark as their most important benchmark program.

They now use games for that, like Unreal2k3 engine, QuakeIII engine and other important engines of games now. Afterall for expensive powerfull 3D cards you want to know how well they run a game, as it is almost their only purpose. Office machines do not need 3D capability at all ( but often have it anyway, there are no more "2D" cards )

Nice to know Tomshardware.com tested the bf1942 engine too, with SW of WWII. I posted that result of almost all cards on the market in bf1942 engine.

HL2 is an interesting case......both companies have already optimalised their drivers to run that game as fast as possible, because when released it will be the newest and most influential game engine there is.

Depending on how you look at it, optimalising drivers for one game engine is "cheating" also.....because other games will not benefit from the speed obtained in that perticular game.

So when in doubt what card to buy, check out how a card does in several games and do not fare blind on a HL2 benchmark or 3Dmark benchmark.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Hold up for a sec, and I'll tell you a tale.

It's about pixel shaders. Specifically, it's about shader version 3.0. All the rumours on the net suggest that ATI won't support this with their upcoming R420 core. nVidia, of course, is making a lot of hype about the fact that their forthcoming core, NV40, will.

What nVidia doesn't tell you is that there are very, very few programs out there right now that even use the 2.0 shaders out there now. Most fall back on the older 1.3 and 1.4 versions.

Even the greatly anticipated titles Doom3 and HL2 won't use 3.0 shaders, due simply to the fact that those titles are going to have to run on the existing base of Ti4xxx and Radeon 9600 series cards.

Make no mistake; 3.0 shaders will matter... eighteen months from now, just in time for R450 and NV45. Simply put, shader 3.0 support doesn't mean squat--it's like having a car that can do 500mph, but doesn't have a steering wheel with which to turn.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Oh,then I should get ATI.I thought they just wouldn't work in the near future,like they wouldn't function on games.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

When the new shader versions find their way into new games and will actually be really used by your card, your card will be well over a year old, and will be too slow and obsolete again, and way surpassed by newer cards.....

So supposed future kewl rendering methods, shader versions blahblahblah will never be usefull for currently sold cards. It has always been that way.

When you want a card now, take the best card there is now.....Buying a card with future technologies that will not find their way into new games for well over 2 years ( that is how long it at least akes to design a new game engine ) is really expensive is a waste of money.

Some 3D technologies were introduced in the past with a lot of publicity, and never even used by game programmers. It takes a lot of time to make your engine use new 3D card technologies, and that will only be done if the effects really cannot be left out, or cannot be achieved in more conventional coding.

Bump mapping was introduced years ago.......and only now there are games that actually use that on a more common scale. When you bought the first real expensive top notch card that featured support for bump mapping, it will be very old, slow and outdated now the technology is really there in games.....

Re: Getting a new video card
 

For functionality's sake, yes. And while I'm no expert, I doubt that they would cease to work entirely, even if every game exclusively used 3.0 shaders; you would simply see a degradation of performance.

For the record, I'd actually like to revise a previous figure: I'd expect to start seeing games seriosuly begin utilising 3.0 shaders within the next 12-18 months. During the interim, however, both ATI and nVidia will likely release two new cores each (the first within the next 6-8 weeks, the second on the eve of 3.0 shaders coming into use--ATI will likely be first, and nVidia will release one simply to "keep up with the Jonses").

Re: Getting a new video card
 

nope
some games wouldn't even play.
try to play deus ex 2 or prince of persia with an mx card. wont work

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Just need to clear up some misinformation in this thread.
The real reason Geforce FX cards rarely use 32 bit shaders is that they run them so slow as to be almost unuseable. Developers are forced to use 16 bit shaders if they want their games to run at a decent speed on FXs.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

nVidia's MX variants? Those are based on the GeForce2...

Menzo~ Do you happen to know why nVidia's 32-bit shaders are so slow? Is it due to poor design on their part, or a lack of codification or something else entirely?

Re: Getting a new video card
 

Apparently it's the chip design that makes them slow at FP32.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

hey guys who care about a new card in one year it will be old an crappy ;)

Re: Getting a new video card
 

well if you dont it will be 2 years old and twice as crappy wont it

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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 ;) )

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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?

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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.

Re: Getting a new video card
 

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?...).