2d quality - Radeon 8500 -vs- GF3 (My Findings)

[tlemmon]

Just wanted to post a quick message.

After going through 4 GF3 cards, 1 Matrox g550 and now playing with the Radeon 8500 I must say that the Radeon seems to have the best 2d quality (to me atleast) out of the roundup. The GF3's simply suck! I tried 1280x1024 @ 85hz and it was un-beleivably blurry!! It made my brain hurt!! The Matrox was good, but it has no features to speak of! I haven't had a chance to test out the 3d performance of this Radeon yet, but if it does ok then I am keeping it! Unless nVidia can make a card with excellent 2d (haven't yet!!) then I am not likely to buy one of their cards again!

This is just my opinion... so please, remember that!


-t

 

[MustangSVT]

thanx for the input...

what geforce are u using?

this is just my input but lot o ppl buy geforce3 cause of speed i guess.. i did try geforce 2 pro on my system and it did give about 18% boost but the image quality did go down little bit. the way some textures blur when its far away. but i didnt know all the tweaks for geforce like my radeon so it could be the reason.

anyway with Geforce 3 ti200 64mb that can be had for $99 ... even i am tempted to get one.

 

[joe4324]

Make sure you had all the options enabled. I hate it when people go it looks all blurry!, and come to find out they had it set to billinear filtering and Aniscopic filtering was off.

 

[AA0]

when you start enabling all the options, then the GFs loses all its performance advantages. Whats the point of even buying one if you need to enable all the options, which will just make the card slower than its competitors.

 

[tlemmon]

The GF's I tried were:

Hercules Prophet III
Asus 8200 Deluxe
Visiontek
Asus 8200 Deluxe ti500

Also Matrox g550...

I do tend to get alot of texture tearing and artifacting in Star Trek: Elite Forces (based on Q3 engine) with this Radeon 8500. I dont care for that at all, but I can probably live with it for good 2d! I just hope they pull their heads out and make some decent drivers!!! (maybe they need to hire the folks from nVidia huh?) lol

If you do decide to get the ti200, make sure the place you get it from has a liberal return policy (no restocking fee, 14/30 day return, etc..)



-t

 

[Rand]

VisionTek usually has very decent 2D image quality, they tend to be among the best you can find in nVidia boards in 2D. It's disappointing you found their GF3 so poor in that respect.
Asus... they make extremely good cards IMHO, but their one downfall is they consistently have among the worst 2D you can get in an nVidia graphics board so no suprise there.
Hercules also tends to be rather sub-par in that respect, though not as poor as Asus.

You may want to give Elsa a try, their 2D is usually excellent... but if VisionTek wasnt adequate for you I doubt Elsa would be either.
LeadTek isnt too bad but again they usually tend to fall below VisionTek.
The only other brand I can think of that consistently has pretty decent 2D image quality is Gainward, and they may be worth a try also.

 

[Ausone]

<< The GF's I tried were:
Hercules Prophet III
Asus 8200 Deluxe
Visiontek
Asus 8200 Deluxe ti500 >>



IMHO, there is a significant difference in 2D IQ among those four GF3 cards. I don't know about HPIII, but Asus' cards are notorious for poor 2D IQ whereas Visiontek has the better 2D IQ. In fact, I have a Visiontek GF2U but its 2D image is at least not blurry at 1280x1024@85Hz, although the overall image quality is probably not good as Radeon 8500 or Matrox G400/450/550. My monitor is Sony G420S.

So I'm wondering if your basis of comparison is Asus or Visiontek. Of course it is possible that you happened to get a bad Visiontek, though.

Also, I'm really curious to know in what respect you find Radeon 8500's 2D IQ is better than that of Matrox 550. I'm not denying your impression, nor even doubting it. But I doubt most people agree to it, even if they agree that R8500 has definitely better 2D IQ than most of GF3 cards.
So there seems to be something you put emphasis on that others don't in evaluating 2D IQ. Again, it is possible that particular cards you happened to have had such image quality that everyone would agree to your verdict as far as those particular cards are concerned. At any rate, it will make your statement better understood by everyone else if you could expound a bit more about your idea of image quality and how Radeon and Matrox differ in terms of that.

 

[AA0]

I've upgraded from rage chips, to a 8500 and the 2d quality difference is very noticeable. Its been a while since I've had my matrox dualhead card, but the 8500 very well could be better. I've compared the rage128 and the matrox dualhead when it came out, and the matrox was better, but I don't think it was this much better, but its just a guess.

I think its a lot of BS having to try 4 different brands of cards just to get decent 2d quality, nvidia should force quality control on cards when they sell the chips.

 

[BFG10K]

when you start enabling all the options, then the GFs loses all its performance advantages.

So does every other card on the market. What's your point?

Besides, enabling something like trilinear filtering or a high LOD value barely affects the FPS scores at all.

 

[Soccerman]

BFG, you should ignore that statement entirely (and the one he was responding to, about people finding out they were running Bilinear and no Anisotropic). first, they're SUPPOSED to be talking about 2D quality, second, do u really take everyone here that seriously that u have to respond to them? come on!

So does every other card on the market. What's your point?

it can be argued that the performance hit on the 8500 series when enabling all of these types of options (LOD lowering, Anisotropic enabling + increasing, etc) options is lower. I've heard it stated a few times, though as always, no big websites have published tests as far as I know.

 

[lsd]

IF you want a gf3 card for 2d get a canpous spectra.
But of course you're going to say you tried that one too.....

 

[AA0]

my point is you often have to decrease a GF3s performance to get it to look the same as a Radeon 8500, and when you set both to high detail, the hit on the 8500 is much much lower.

 

[Rand]

<< IF you want a gf3 card for 2d get a canpous spectra.
But of course you're going to say you tried that one too..... >>



Why would he say he tried that one too?
He already stated the cards he's tested and that wasnt among them.
Unless your trying to imply he's made this post in an attempt to make nVidia look bad...?
I certainly don't see any reason why he would lie either.... he hasnt given any indication that he's lying to make nVidia look bad. It's fairly well known that some nVidia boards to have sub-par 2D image quality... and two of the nvidia boards he tested are fairly reknowned for their somewhat lacking 2D visual quality so those are to be expected.

The Canopus Spectra is damn hard to get in the US though, and it's price is also extremely high compared to almost any other GF3 card.

 

[snow patrol]

Well having just upgraded from a Radeon DDR to a Leadtek Geforce 3 TDH, I'm glad to say that 1600X1200 still looks great on my 19" monitor. I chose this leadtek specifically because I heard it had superior 2d quality to other GF3's.

 

[mulciber]

...

 

[damocles]

Nvidia definitely seems to be improving there image quality- or at the very least encouraging the card manufacturers to do so. My new GF 2 Ti has pretty good 2D, much better than my MX or GTS.

 

[tlemmon]

<<

<<
Also, I'm really curious to know in what respect you find Radeon 8500's 2D IQ is better than that of Matrox 550. I'm not denying your impression, nor even doubting it. But I doubt most people agree to it, even if they agree that R8500 has definitely better 2D IQ than most of GF3 cards.
So there seems to be something you put emphasis on that others don't in evaluating 2D IQ. Again, it is possible that particular cards you happened to have had such image quality that everyone would agree to your verdict as far as those particular cards are concerned. At any rate, it will make your statement better understood by everyone else if you could expound a bit more about your idea of image quality and how Radeon and Matrox differ in terms of that. >>




Ausone: When I was comparing the 2d IQ I was looking for the sharpest text at higher resolutions/refresh rates. Since going above 75hz on any of these cards (GF3's) produced blur, I decided it was not worth the PCB it was made on! Since I do not play games all the time, I decided to get a card with excellent 2d. Its 3d features were a second consideration.

The difference between the Matrox and the Radeon were not major. As I stated the Matrox was good, just doesn't have any features to make it worth buying. I did like the Matrox though. If I only needed 2d, I would buy it over the Radeon because its about $100 cheaper. Color depth/reproduction and 2d speed were never a consideration.. Just text/image sharpness. It is entirely possibly that I received an awesome Radeon and a marginal Matrox though.... I did find the Matrox drivers a bit flakey with artifacts showing up in the oddest places.

Rand: I may end up trying a Gainward or Leadtek card. Depends on how things turn out with the Radeon.

LSD: Just for you... "I tried that one too...." Feel better? lol I personally think nVidia has the best 3d performer out there. I have not had any problems what so ever playing games with one of these. I just think the 2d I get from them sucks rocks! I wouldn't mind paying more if I could get damn good 2d... I will check into getting one of the Canopus Spectra cards. Thanks for the heads up.


Thanks for the replies!!!


-t