Nvidia to ATI Experience

[foxnews]

I just built c2d system and have some instereting experience that I'd like to share with those who is still deciding between Nvidia and ATI.

Well, my goal was to build a VALUE and quiet system with casual gaming and DVD watching. I got a nice overclocked E6300. I first bought 7600GS due to Nvidia reputation, low cost, lower power usage, and quiet. The first 2 weeks of usage, I was not very happy. Watching DVD is not impressive at all, in fact horrable. I can't play game at max revolution (WideScreen 1680x1050). I then realized that I did not do enough research.


After reading until I got exhausted, I came to understand that ATI is the king of DVD (encoding/decoding). Nvidia is better with gaming, general speaking. In order to have a decent DVD playback, you have to spent $30 for Nvidia decoder (PureVideo software).
ATI can play DVD well with any genetic Decoder.

I went back to shopping again at newegg. Searched for any ATI within the price range (<$150). Then Radeon x850 XP came up with a low price. I did more research and more reading (my eyes hurt).


Long story short, I bought X850 XT PE (which is cheaper than x850 XT oddly) and was so happy with DVD playback quality. I can played the same game (above) at max resolution.
WoW this is a exellent value card.


One negative thing about ATI. more than a year ago, this card costed $500. with this kind of money, why would an ATI engineer put a piece of junk heatsink cooler on this monster. It is so loud and annoying.


well, Back to more reading and shopping at newegg, I bought Artic cooler 5 which will suppose to fix the noice and high temp with x850 xt.


Overall, this is a happy transition from Nvida to ATI which met the criteria of low cost, quiet, and performance.

 

[Mr. Stryker]

X850XT (PE too) FTW

I had a X850XT before, and I gotta say it was the best AGP card I ever hard, I assume you got the PCI-E one, but overall for the price (120) it's the best card. Glad you made that move! The video card doesn't use up that much power anyway for today's PSUs. I watched a lot of DVDs on it and the picture was filled with clarity and did beautifully.

 

[ScourggeFX]

Welcome to the club. Hope you have great gaming times ahead. I'm seriously torn between getting the X1950XTX of waiting for the R600. Yeah, I know. El cheapo Asrock MB. Nevertheless, its rock solid.

 

[foxnews]

I got the x850 XT PE for $120. the regular x850 XT cost $124. go figure.

the PE had no review at all at newegg but the XT got alot of review.

by the way, I am using my 5-year old 350W Antec Power supply to feed this moster and my overclocked E6300.

does reaching the PS limit have any regative impact on any computer component? Using some online PS usage calculator, I am very close to the limit (350W), assuming that all component power usage max out at the same time, which rarely happen.

 

[Dan_D]

I just built c2d system and have some instereting experience that I'd like to share with those who is still deciding between Nvidia and ATI.

After reading until I got exhausted, I came to understand that ATI is the king of DVD (encoding/decoding). Nvidia is better with gaming, general speaking. In order to have a decent DVD playback, you have to spent $30 for Nvidia decoder (PureVideo software).
ATI can play DVD well with any genetic Decoder.

Both cards need the software and codecs to work properly. I don't even know if the Avivo codec works on the X800 series, but I do know that it isn't free on the x1k series either. So where is the advantage?

Apparently, you did not do enough research before making your purchases, and you didn't setup your card correctly.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2551

Additionally, futher research would have shown you that BFG cards come with the codecs and the nV DVD software and that the Purevideo and Avivo codecs are generally comparable. Additionally, the X850XT isn't capable of H.24 hardware acceleration if I recall correctly. The Geforce 7 series is.

I've owned a number of nVidia and ATi cards over the years. I've owned both Geforce 6 and 7 series cards, and ATi's X800 series and now their X1950XTX from the x1k series.

I've found BOTH quite capable of DVD playback with a generic codec. Purevideo and Avivo will work better of course, but your problem isn't a result of something nVidia did wrong or didn't design well. As far as gaming goes, the 7600GS and the X850XT-PE can't run any of the newer games at MAX resolution and details. Even at 1600x1050, both cards would choke playing FEAR, Prey and some of the newer titles.

 

[Marvelous]

7600GS and the X850XT-PE can't run any of the newer games at MAX resolution and details. Even at 1600x1050, both cards would choke playing FEAR, Prey and some of the newer titles.

Sure you can run max settings on 850xt.. I run everything max with 8x aniso 1440x900 resolution... 7600GS can do max settings as well long as you lower resolutions...

If you call 60fps choppy on FEAR than yeah it's choppy.. I haven't tried 1680x1050 but I think it will do 40fps easy...

 

[foxnews]

Both cards need the software and codecs to work properly. I don't even know if the Avivo codec works on the X800 series, but I do know that it isn't free on the x1k series either. So where is the advantage?

Apparently, you did not do enough research before making your purchases, and you didn't setup your card correctly.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2551

Additionally, futher research would have shown you that BFG cards come with the codecs and the nV DVD software and that the Purevideo and Avivo codecs are generally comparable. Additionally, the X850XT isn't capable of H.24 hardware acceleration if I recall correctly. The Geforce 7 series is.

I've owned a number of nVidia and ATi cards over the years. I've owned both Geforce 6 and 7 series cards, and ATi's X800 series and now their X1950XTX from the x1k series.

I've found BOTH quite capable of DVD playback with a generic codec. Purevideo and Avivo will work better of course, but your problem isn't a result of something nVidia did wrong or didn't design well. As far as gaming goes, the 7600GS and the X850XT-PE can't run any of the newer games at MAX resolution and details. Even at 1600x1050, both cards would choke playing FEAR, Prey and some of the newer titles.

Here is my research: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1916967,00.asp

out of the box Nvidia is horrable. it is ok until I set up PureVideo trial version of course. ATI works with any decoder outthere with good quallity.

 

[Marvelous]

Here is my research: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1916967,00.asp

out of the box Nvidia is horrable. it is ok until I set up PureVideo trial version of course. ATI works with any decoder outthere with good quallity.

That's not the same cards... 850xt doesn't have H.264 acceleration and is a generation behind 1800xt... But it's true ATI cards use less CPU to decode movies...

 

[foxnews]

what happens if a graphic card dosn't have H.264 acceleration support?

does it mean that CPU + software decoder has to do the work? if you have a fast cpu this won't matter?

 

[Mr. Stryker]

And the thought of you running this (E6300, X850XT) on a 5 year old Antec 350W makes me shudder. Lol

 

[foxnews]

And the thought of you running this (E6300, X850XT) on a 5 year old Antec 350W makes me shudder. Lol

It was a high quality 350 PS comparing to 400 - 500w PS unknown brand. I just bought a case with 420w PS which I did not even use. I used my old Antec instead.

 

[Silus]

Sure you can run max settings on 850xt.. I run everything max with 8x aniso 1440x900 resolution... 7600GS can do max settings as well long as you lower resolutions...

If you call 60fps choppy on FEAR than yeah it's choppy.. I haven't tried 1680x1050 but I think it will do 40fps easy...

Really ? You must be refering to MAX 60 fps and not AVG fps, because 60-70 fps is the average of a X1900 XT 256
or a 7950 GT in FEAR @ 1280x960 (which is lower than the resolution you're talking about)
And when you say "everything max", you must not have AA on, otherwise you're saying that a x850 XT, will run games as good as a X1900 XT 256 or a 7950 GT, which doesn't make much sense.
I highly doubt you'll get 40 fps @ 1680x1050 too...

 

[magoo]

So instead of purchasing the pure-video from nVidia, you bought a last generation card from ATI and spent even more money for a cooler????? Huh????

All I have is nVidia products, so I cant comment, but I've never felt the video quality to be lacking one little bit.

 

[Silus]

So instead of purchasing the pure-video from nVidia, you bought a last generation card from ATI and spent even more money for a cooler????? Huh????

All I have is nVidia products, so I cant comment, but I've never felt the video quality to be lacking one little bit.

Neither have I. Regarding PureVideo, I read some articles about it and all of them were quite impressed with it.

 

[CyberJunk]

i bought a X800xl agp card like a year and a half ago and its still going strong
i recently got a ws lcd playing games at 1680x1050 no problems
with everything on AA AF
I play BF2 WOW HL2 HL2 episode one CS S Sin
bottom line i can play most of my games at that res no problem
its not choppy studdery or slow in any way
its pretty smooth iam waiting for the new DX10 cards and then maybe i will build a new system but iam not really impressed all that much with performance right now of the new hardware going around . Plus there is only a handful of games out right now
that can make my system crawl with everything maxed
like oblivion company of heroes other than that i don't get any slow downs or anything
i dunno i mean you can see my system specs below

 

[firewolf]

Really ? You must be refering to MAX 60 fps and not AVG fps, because 60-70 fps is the average of a X1900 XT 256
or a 7950 GT in FEAR @ 1280x960 (which is lower than the resolution you're talking about)
And when you say "everything max", you must not have AA on, otherwise you're saying that a x850 XT, will run games as good as a X1900 XT 256 or a 7950 GT, which doesn't make much sense.
I highly doubt you'll get 40 fps @ 1680x1050 too...

He probably turned on pixel doubling thinking that's at the max

 

[Marvelous]

Really ? You must be refering to MAX 60 fps and not AVG fps, because 60-70 fps is the average of a X1900 XT 256
or a 7950 GT in FEAR @ 1280x960 (which is lower than the resolution you're talking about)
And when you say "everything max", you must not have AA on, otherwise you're saying that a x850 XT, will run games as good as a X1900 XT 256 or a 7950 GT, which doesn't make much sense.
I highly doubt you'll get 40 fps @ 1680x1050 too...

No I'm talking about average... I get near 60fps 57fps to be exact on a Pentium D 3.6ghz with x850xt 1440x900... Everything maxxed 8x AF and No AA of course.. But with a Conroe I'm thinking you can get 60fps easily... AA on FPS is waste of bandwidth... Doesn't make that much of difference as visual quality goes...

 

[Marvelous]

He probably turned on pixel doubling thinking that's at the max

Yeah that's it.. I know it's hard for you to believe but I have x850xt and you don't... So who is talking smack out of thin air who isn't? If you want screen shots put your money where your mouth is...

 

[blink hi]

Everything maxxed 8x AF and No AA of course..

Any other settings that aren't actually maxed even though you keep claiming everything is maxed?

 

[Marvelous]

Any other settings that aren't actually maxed even though you keep claiming everything is maxed?

What are you talking about? AA is an option so is Aniso filtering... The correct way to benchmark to get pure speed is without AA and AF.. Also I didn't even mention AA on my prior post... The other poster did...

 

[Dan_D]

Here is my research: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1916967,00.asp

out of the box Nvidia is horrable. it is ok until I set up PureVideo trial version of course. ATI works with any decoder outthere with good quallity.

1 website? That's your research? Clearly you have missed the hundreds of Purevideo reviews out there that really found the technology to be quite good.

Really ? You must be refering to MAX 60 fps and not AVG fps, because 60-70 fps is the average of a X1900 XT 256
or a 7950 GT in FEAR @ 1280x960 (which is lower than the resolution you're talking about)
And when you say "everything max", you must not have AA on, otherwise you're saying that a x850 XT, will run games as good as a X1900 XT 256 or a 7950 GT, which doesn't make much sense.
I highly doubt you'll get 40 fps @ 1680x1050 too...

Well I had 2 6800GT's overclocked past Ultra speeds, and I never got that type of performance in FEAR. We all know that the SLI setup was far faster than the lone X850XT-PE in almost every game too.

Plus, I've watched DVD's and HD content as well on my 6800's, my 6600's, my x800's my x700, 7800's, 7900's, and I've got an X1950XTX now, but I haven't watched anything on it yet.

None of those cards did DVD playback, or any media content playback badly. The 6800's were the worst because of the high CPU usage, but it wasn't BAD. In fact it looked fine, you just couldn't do much else with the system. All the cards I have had other than those worked perfectly with low CPU usage.

Any other settings that aren't actually maxed even though you keep claiming everything is maxed?

Agreed. The term "maxed" needs to be clearly defined. If you take the Pepsi challenge with an X850XT-PE and a newer high end card, you will find that they perform very different under "maxed" settings.

No I'm talking about average... I get near 60fps 57fps to be exact on a Pentium D 3.6ghz with x850xt 1440x900... Everything maxxed 8x AF and No AA of course.. But with a Conroe I'm thinking you can get 60fps easily... AA on FPS is waste of bandwidth... Doesn't make that much of difference as visual quality goes...

Some games you don't need it as much as others. Doom 3 and even Quake 4 to an extent look pretty good without it. FEAR on the other hand looks like CRAP without AA and AF.

I wouldn't say that it is a waste of bandwidth since FPS games are quite popular and have the most need for it out of the standard game types.

What are you talking about? AA is an option so is Aniso filtering... The correct way to benchmark to get pure speed is without AA and AF.. Also I didn't even mention AA on my prior post... The other poster did...

No. The correct way to benchmark is to take two like products and set all the settings on your test system as close as is technically possible. To really evaluate a card you need to address all of it's capabilities in comparison to another. This includes AA and AF performance. Once AA and AF are enabled, the CPU is less of a concern, and the video card does most of the work. Therefore, the correct way to find the real "speed" of a card is under the most strenuous conditions.

He probably turned on pixel doubling thinking that's at the max

If you don't know what the feature actually does, Pixel Doubling sounds like a good feature.

i bought a X800xl agp card like a year and a half ago and its still going strong
i recently got a ws lcd playing games at 1680x1050 no problems
with everything on AA AF
I play BF2 WOW HL2 HL2 episode one CS S Sin
bottom line i can play most of my games at that res no problem
its not choppy studdery or slow in any way
its pretty smooth iam waiting for the new DX10 cards and then maybe i will build a new system but iam not really impressed all that much with performance right now of the new hardware going around . Plus there is only a handful of games out right now
that can make my system crawl with everything maxed
like oblivion company of heroes other than that i don't get any slow downs or anything
i dunno i mean you can see my system specs below

If you are happy with your machine's performance, I think that's great. Really only you need to be happy with your computer. Though I can't see how you aren't impressed by the new hardware of today. The X1800XT is twice as powerful as your video card. The X1900's are even faster. The 7950GX2 is impressive for a single card as well.

Above all, I can't believe you wouldn't be impressed by Core 2 Duo's performance compared to Pentium 4 performance. The difference between the power of a 1.86GHz Allendale CPU is HUGE compared to a any Prescott core CPU. Only the fastest Pentium 4 and Pentium D Extreme CPU's can match it. Hell the Athlon 64's have always out performed their Intel counterparts in games. The babies of the Core 2 Duo family are as powerful as any mid range AMD chip and in some cases the high end ones. Overclocked, or stock higher end Core 2 Duo's wipe the floor with the AMD flagship CPU and all the lesser ones in every category. I don't see how a $316 E6600 whipping the ass of a $1000 FX-62 isn't impressive.

 

[Marvelous]

Agreed. The term "maxed" needs to be clearly defined. If you take the Pepsi challenge with an X850XT-PE and a newer high end card, you will find that they perform very different under "maxed" settings.



Some games you don't need it as much as others. Doom 3 and even Quake 4 to an extent look pretty good without it. FEAR on the other hand looks like CRAP without AA and AF.

I wouldn't say that it is a waste of bandwidth since FPS games are quite popular and have the most need for it out of the standard game types.



No. The correct way to benchmark is to take two like products and set all the settings on your test system as close as is technically possible. To really evaluate a card you need to address all of it's capabilities in comparison to another. This includes AA and AF performance. Once AA and AF are enabled, the CPU is less of a concern, and the video card does most of the work. Therefore, the correct way to find the real "speed" of a card is under the most strenuous conditions.

So you play with soft shadows on FEAR? Since it is an option in FEAR... So in your logic you aren't playing max settings on a 1900xt as well.. The correct way to benchmark anything is with pure speed everything else maxxed out in conditional settings that hinder performance... AF and AA can be manipulate to whatever via drivers.. 6x AA or 8X AA on Nvidia cards... TRAA whatever.... You still aren't playing max settings what the card's available settings.

AA as you know it is really needed on RACING games or Flight sims where jaggies appear on screen constantly... While FPS moves constantly and you rarely notice jaggies but you will defitnitely notice textures so AF is a given on FPS... It's true if you have bandwidth... Why not use it on Jaggies on a FPS... Our goal as a gamer is to get the best experience out of it...

 

[Dan_D]

So you play with soft shadows on FEAR? Since it is an option in FEAR... So in your logic you aren't playing max settings on a 1900xt as well.. The correct way to benchmark anything is with pure speed everything else maxxed out in conditional settings that hinder performance... AF and AA can be manipulate to whatever via drivers.. 6x AA or 8X AA on Nvidia cards... TRAA whatever.... You still aren't playing max settings.

If you force the AA modes you certainly can. No I don't play with soft shadows on, because it doesn't work right with that game. Additionally, as long as you set the cards for their max capabilities, even leaving soft shadows on should be ok for test purposes, as long as everything is as close as possible on both sides. I am not saying that benchmarking without AA and AF isn't valid. It is, but to say it isn't needed or is a waste of bandwidth is wrong. In games like FEAR, you need it to keep the game from looking like crap. Walk up to a hand rail anywhere in the game and turn on AA and turn it off. You'll see a massive difference. You'll never want to be without AA again.

AA as you know it is really needed on RACING games or Flight sims where jaggies appear on screen constantly... While FPS moves constantly and you rarely notice jaggies but you will defitnitely notice textures so AF is a given on FPS... It's true if you have bandwidth... Why not use it on Jaggies on a FPS... Our goal as a gamer is to get the best experience out of it...

Again I disagree. I think AA and AF are needed in every single game today. Some games need it more than others, HL2 and FEAR being two that need it, and Doom 3 and Quake 4 being two that don't look a lot better with it enabled. Still I notice the difference and wouldn't be without my AA and AF.

I also never claimed I played on Max settings. I usually drop the AA to 2x or 4x depending on the individual game in order to keep it running smoother. As far as the resolution goes I run the native resolution of my monitor in all my games. If I can get consistant FPS out of higher settings in a given game, I will use them. The one thing I can't stand is my FPS jumping all over the place. I like things to be constant. If the game was going to only run at 29FPS, I'd rather that be locked in and constant, rather than the game hitting 100FPS and suddenly dropping to 37FPS radomly and just from simple things like turning around.

 

[drizzt81]

i bought a X800xl agp card like a year and a half ago and its still going strong
i recently got a ws lcd playing games at 1680x1050 no problems
with everything on AA AF
I play BF2 WOW HL2 HL2 episode one CS S Sin
bottom line i can play most of my games at that res no problem
its not choppy studdery or slow in any way

Note to self: I must get a new set of eyes, since my 7900GT at 530/810 on a 2.5GHz Opteron with 2GB of RAM cannot run CS:S at 1680x1050 on a full 32 player server without getting choppy. Given than a significantly slower card on a rig with a less powerful CPU can do it "with everything on AA AF", it must be my eyes that are deceiving me.

Anyone know a good place to get a new set of occulars?

 

[Dan_D]

Note to self: I must get a new set of eyes, since my 7900GT at 530/810 on a 2.5GHz Opteron with 2GB of RAM cannot run CS:S at 1680x1050 on a full 32 player server without getting choppy. Given than a significantly slower card on a rig with a less powerful CPU can do it "with everything on AA AF", it must be my eyes that are deceiving me.

Anyone know a good place to get a new set of occulars?

I agree with you, but some people are just not as picky and don't notice the differences that your or I may notice in a given game on two different systems. Some people seem to be immune to the differences AA and AF provide, and some seem to be immune to the visual differences higher resolutions provide, or even the differences seen in FPS.

If he is happy then that is great. I know a guy who trucks along happily with a 3.06GHz Northwood, 1GB of ram and a Geforce FX5200. I can't even stand UT2004 with a card like that.

My whole purpose for responding in this thread was to inform the orignal poster and anyone reading this that Purevideo is being bashed here and spoken of in an inaccurate manner. The fact is that any video card even an X300 and the 6200 can do acceptable DVD playback. If the original poster's 7600GS couldn't do that, there was something else wrong and it doesn't represent the Geforce series or nVidia products as a whole. He just got a bad one or some weird compatibility issue with his drivers/hardware occured and he made a switch.

 

[Marvelous]

If you force the AA modes you certainly can. No I don't play with soft shadows on, because it doesn't work right with that game. Additionally, as long as you set the cards for their max capabilities, even leaving soft shadows on should be ok for test purposes, as long as everything is as close as possible on both sides. I am not saying that benchmarking without AA and AF isn't valid. It is, but to say it isn't needed or is a waste of bandwidth is wrong. In games like FEAR, you need it to keep the game from looking like crap. Walk up to a hand rail anywhere in the game and turn on AA and turn it off. You'll see a massive difference. You'll never want to be without AA again.

I would agree with that... I didn't say AF or AA is waste of bandwidth.. You said that... I said AA is waste of bandwidth on FPS... What is right or wrong anyways? Can you tell me difference between the 2?

Again I disagree. I think AA and AF are needed in every single game today. Some games need it more than others, HL2 and FEAR being two that need it, and Doom 3 and Quake 4 being two that don't look a lot better with it enabled. Still I notice the difference and wouldn't be without my AA and AF.

I would have to agree with some parts of your statement... That AA is needed on same games especially LOW resolutions, Racing, Flight Sims... But if you have a capable monitor why not run them in higher resolutions where you get more detail than getting rid of your already small jaggies?

 

[blink hi]

But if you have a capable monitor why not run them in higher resolutions where you get more detail than getting rid of your already small jaggies?

That's an expensive if.

 

[Marvelous]

That's an expensive if.

So is your $300+ card just to enable AA on FPS

 

[Dan_D]

I would agree with that... I didn't say AF or AA is waste of bandwidth.. You said that... I said AA is waste of bandwidth on FPS... What is right or wrong anyways? Can you tell me difference between the 2?



I would have to agree with some parts of your statement... That AA is needed on same games especially LOW resolutions, Racing, Flight Sims... But if you have a capable monitor why not run them in higher resolutions where you get more detail than getting rid of your already small jaggies?

No. In post #17 you CLEARLY stated that AA is a waste of bandwidth. I will quote again below.

No I'm talking about average... I get near 60fps 57fps to be exact on a Pentium D 3.6ghz with x850xt 1440x900... Everything maxxed 8x AF and No AA of course.. But with a Conroe I'm thinking you can get 60fps easily... AA on FPS is waste of bandwidth... Doesn't make that much of difference as visual quality goes...

YOU said that. I didn't just say that you said it. AA and AF are not a waste on an FPS game. I don't agree with your statement and I am sure plenty of people would agree with me and disagree with you on that point.

You stated that it doesn't make much of a difference as far as visual quality goes and I disagreed with you. I pointed out examples of it mentioning FEAR and Doom 3. I also stated that it depends on the games as to how pronounced the difference is. I do agree that higher resolution makes the need for AA and AF less pronounced. Even so, if you have the money for a powerful SLI or Crossfire machine, you can probably have a decent sized LCD and have enough GPU processing power to use AA and AF with that monitor, and in doing so increase your visual quality even more.

 

[magoo]

A big-ass LCD makes jaggies more, not less visible.
If I dont AA at least 2x on my 2405 the jaggies will drive me crazy.
I agree that AA is necessary on all games or you are so distracted by the crappy picture you go mad.
Good example GRAW. You cant AA at all due to the programming for the light effects. At times you cant even sight -in on the bad guys because the jaggies are so damn bad.
I also disagree.....I have a 6800GT and now 7900GTX.....the 6800 falls to its knees in most games I play now at the same settings as the 7900GTX.
Im glad you like your x850 but it cant keep up, pure and simple,with the most recent cards.

 

[Marvelous]

No. In post #17 you CLEARLY stated that AA is a waste of bandwidth. I will quote again below.

No you said that I said AA and AF is waste of bandwidth!

WOW you must be blind as a bat or just love shoving words in people's mouth...

"AA on FPS is waste of bandwidth"... Anti Aliasing on FIRST PERSON SHOOTERS is waste of bandwidth...

Again I quoted again on post #26 "I said AA is waste of bandwidth on FPS..."

YOU said that. I didn't just say that you said it. AA and AF are not a waste on an FPS game. I don't agree with your statement and I am sure plenty of people would agree with me and disagree with you on that point.

You stated that it doesn't make much of a difference as far as visual quality goes and I disagreed with you. I pointed out examples of it mentioning FEAR and Doom 3. I also stated that it depends on the games as to how pronounced the difference is. I do agree that higher resolution makes the need for AA and AF less pronounced. Even so, if you have the money for a powerful SLI or Crossfire machine, you can probably have a decent sized LCD and have enough GPU processing power to use AA and AF with that monitor, and in doing so increase your visual quality even more.

What are you trying to say? English please Dan... And why are you talking about AF when I said nothing of the sort... I clearly mention on post #22 that AF is a given in games because it clears up textures... As I clearly mention on post #22.. If you have bandwidth why not use it on AA as well if your monitor can't go higher resolutions...

 

[Marvelous]

A big-ass LCD makes jaggies more, not less visible.
If I dont AA at least 2x on my 2405 the jaggies will drive me crazy.
I agree that AA is necessary on all games or you are so distracted by the crappy picture you go mad.
Good example GRAW. You cant AA at all due to the programming for the light effects. At times you cant even sight -in on the bad guys because the jaggies are so damn bad.
I also disagree.....I have a 6800GT and now 7900GTX.....the 6800 falls to its knees in most games I play now at the same settings as the 7900GTX.
Im glad you like your x850 but it cant keep up, pure and simple,with the most recent cards.

What resolution are you running on your monitor?

Guy when did I say my x850 can keep up with cards that cost $300+?

I bought the card because it fits my needs I'm sure yous bought your because it fits your monitor needs... I'm happy for you..

 

[Dan_D]

No you said that I said AA and AF is waste of bandwidth!

WOW you must be blind as a bat or just love shoving words in people's mouth...

"AA on FPS is waste of bandwidth"... Anti Aliasing on FIRST PERSON SHOOTERS is waste of bandwidth...

Again I quoted again on post #26 "I said AA is waste of bandwidth on FPS..."






What are you trying to say? English please Dan... And why are you talking about AF when I said nothing of the sort... I clearly mention on post #22 that AF is a given in games because it clears up textures... As I clearly mention on post #22.. If you have bandwidth why not use it on AA as well if your monitor can't go higher resolutions...

I did say that you said that AA on FPS was a wate of bandwidth because YOU DID. I quoted it from post #17. Go back and read your own post.

Umm, my post talks mainly about AA not AF. I don't know where your going with this.

 

[Marvelous]

I did say that you said that AA on FPS was a wate of bandwidth because YOU DID. I quoted it from post #17. Go back and read your own post.

Umm, my post talks mainly about AA not AF. I don't know where your going with this.

Again I already mentioned in my prior post that I did say AA of FPS is a waste of bandwidith over higher resolutions... If you have bandwidth left over use AA... REREAD my post again...

No your posts constantly point out AA and AF on post #29... I don't know where your going with this either..

 

[Dan_D]

Again I already mentioned in my prior post that I did say AA of FPS is a waste of bandwidith over higher resolutions... If you have bandwidth left over use AA... REREAD my post again...

No your posts constantly point out AA and AF on post #29... I don't know where your going with this either..

There is some kind of communications missunderstanding here. I am not going to worry about it any longer.

I am not sure what you've meant with all of this, and it doesn't seem like my point is being made either.

I'm dropping the subject.

I'll leave it at this, I think AA and AF are needed in all of todays games to some extent and the X850XT-PE is a great card and has had lots of staying power but it is getting long in the tooth in that it won't run some of the newest games at ultra high resolutions with massive AA and AF anymore. It simply isn't powerful enough. What was once a high end card is now only equal to midrange cards in power and capabilities.

Is it better than a 7600GS? That is debatale and I certainly think the two are mainly comparable in speed, though the 7600GS can do more in that it is SM3.0 capable and the X850XT-PE is not. So even if their FPS and resolution capabilities are the same, I think the newer card is the better choice. The main point I was making is that the Purevideo works well and if it didn't for the original poster, something else was wrong software or hardware wise. But the ATi card is NOT superior in its ability to handle DVD playback. Even if it were, it isn't so by the amounts mentioned in the post that started this discussion.

 

[Marvelous]

Is it better than a 7600GS? That is debatale and I certainly think the two are mainly comparable in speed, though the 7600GS can do more in that it is SM3.0 capable and the X850XT-PE is not. So even if their FPS and resolution capabilities are the same, I think the newer card is the better choice. The main point I was making is that the Purevideo works well and if it didn't for the original poster, something else was wrong software or hardware wise. But the ATi card is NOT superior in its ability to handle DVD playback. Even if it were, it isn't so by the amounts mentioned in the post that started this discussion.

7600GS compareable in speed with XTPE? Damn I know you the motherboard editor but come on... Get real... Please... XTPE is close matched with 7800GT in speed at least better than 7600GT... Honestly...


http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q4/radeon-x1000/fear.gif

 

[foxnews]

Ok, let me clarify a couple things that some people misunderstood.

Magoo,
by buying x850 XT PE and a AC cooler = $120 + $20 = $140; by buying 7600GT and PureVideo = $130 + $30 = $160. That is a little saving, plus 850XT PE beat 7600GT. that is a double advantages by going with ATI.


Now I never said PureVideo is bad. I just said that Nvidia DVD playback is horrable with any genetic decoder out there, except PureVideo.which cost extra.
ATI DVD playback is excellent with any genetic decoder out there, no extra cost here.


Dan_D,
you said that I has only one website link for my research. No, that is wrong. I just post one as an example. I read many forums and the concensus is that ATI is better with DVD, Period. Nvidia is catching up of course.

regarless of the research, Honestly, I watched the same video using Purevideo and ATI/Nero decoder. I was more impressed with ATI/Nero combo. I can tell the difference. now I assume that I can spend some time with Purevideo to adjust and make it better. The point here is that out of the box, ATI is easier and better in term of DVD, Period.

 

[Frosteh]

Don't really understand the whole point of decoding on the video card until HD movies come into play, I'm not sure exactly what else people are doing to get such bad performance, are they trying to play the latest 3d shooter games while watching a DVD or something?

IMHO anyone thats got CPU troubles decoding todays DVDs should be thinking about upgrading their CPU before the video card, CPU's powerfull enough to decode a DVD are dirt cheap.

 

[Dan_D]

7600GS compareable in speed with XTPE? Damn I know you the motherboard editor but come on... Get real... Please... XTPE is close matched with 7800GT in speed at least better than 7600GT... Honestly...


http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q4/radeon-x1000/fear.gif

Actually, I meant 7800GT. I was thinking 7600GS because it was mentioned earlier. I don't know as much about video cards as Brent does, but I am not a slouch in that department either.

Forgive my typo.

 

[Dan_D]

Dan_D,
you said that I has only one website link for my research. No, that is wrong. I just post one as an example. I read many forums and the concensus is that ATI is better with DVD, Period. Nvidia is catching up of course.

regarless of the research, Honestly, I watched the same video using Purevideo and ATI/Nero decoder. I was more impressed with ATI/Nero combo. I can tell the difference. now I assume that I can spend some time with Purevideo to adjust and make it better. The point here is that out of the box, ATI is easier and better in term of DVD, Period.

Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree, but fair enough.