AMD & NV image quality comparison

[amenx]

Lower LoD is nothing new with nvidia though.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...as-ati-5870-af-filtering-broken.49106/page-11

And the color difference is also there.

http://pokde.net/pokde-blog/nvidia-gtx-titan-vs-amd-r9-290x-image-quality-comparison/


https://community.amd.com/thread/183563

That last link is hilarious. Small 5 post thread with zero objectivity and 'intelligent' insight:

"NVIDIA uses alot of compression techniques. If you notice on their newer cards, they reserve a half a gig leaving you 3.5 gig. This is reserved so they can store compressed textures and colors. After all the compression the end result is a washed out/blurry look."

:biggrin:

 

[desprado]

Lower LoD is nothing new with nvidia though.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...as-ati-5870-af-filtering-broken.49106/page-11

And the color difference is also there.

http://pokde.net/pokde-blog/nvidia-gtx-titan-vs-amd-r9-290x-image-quality-comparison/


https://community.amd.com/thread/183563

Seriously?Did look at previous post of this topic?

 

[stahlhart]

Get this thread back on topic now.
-- stahlhart

 

[parvadomus]

I remember the old NV FX cards, man that was horrible. Maybe they havent still learnt what quality means.

 

[amenx]

I remember the old NV FX cards, man that was horrible. Maybe they havent still learnt what quality means.

Most of the arguments on Nvidia IQ in following years even to this day probably stem from the FX days. All it takes is for one or 2 individuals to post something odd re the IQ and you'll have a 1000 people jumping on it in the hope of spreading it far and wide across the net.. and even if or when debunked that does little to stop them.. even if they've never owned an Nvidia card.

 

[gamervivek]

That last link is hilarious. Small 5 post thread with zero objectivity and 'intelligent' insight:

"NVIDIA uses alot of compression techniques. If you notice on their newer cards, they reserve a half a gig leaving you 3.5 gig. This is reserved so they can store compressed textures and colors. After all the compression the end result is a washed out/blurry look."

:biggrin:

I posted it because of the first post of the guy who went to nvidia from AMD. Something similar here,

http://www.overclock.net/t/1462291/amd-vs-nvidia-image-quality

Seriously?Did look at previous post of this topic?

Seriously, which one would you have me look at? It jives with the guy on this forum who went to nvidia from AMD.

 

[Gregster1970]

Most of the arguments on Nvidia IQ in following years even to this day probably stem from the FX days. All it takes is for one or 2 individuals to post something odd re the IQ and you'll have a 1000 people jumping on it in the hope of spreading it far and wide across the net.. and even if or when debunked that does little to stop them.. even if they've never owned an Nvidia card.

This is basically what has happened. I would bet money that AMD have tested this and would have been all over it if there was something up but with my testing being off, people have jumped on it as "This is the way it is" when I did the test. There is many others who have tested this on OcUK and not found the same as me, so clearly something up my end. If I was to clean install my windows, that would sort it.

Anyways, all video's since the BF4 have been with the NCP on "Prefer max quality" and this has shown to match AMD's IQ, so nothing to see here....

 

[Jacky60]

This situation is kind of ridiculous.

Brent over at HardOCP is discussing the matter. And his comments leave a lot to be desired about their reviews.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1867421&page=5
Starts on post #77


Some choice quotes, which I preface with his first quote:




Then the kicker for me.



What is the point of Apples to Apples comparisons if the picture does not look exactly the same or even as close as they can get? I want to say that this one case from OCUK can be the outlier and I want to give Brent the benefit of the doubt, and his reviews are trustworthy. But this really needs more investigation.

I do agree, lots of reviews are just graphs and words, no real comparative pictures, or diving into impacts of different settings.

I noticed it immediately when playing GTA5 and what troubles me is that I can't understand why review sites haven't. I wear glasses and I'm not young but it was glaringly obvious when playing GTA5. It looked like I was watching a PS4 version on a friends TV when running default settings on 980ti SLI compared to 295x2 quadfire. Both frame rates were well above 60 fps but the level of detail on Nvidia dropped off a cliff beyond a few feet from the camera. Even now 980ti doesn't look as good compared to the 295x2 quadfire.

 

[Jacky60]

After playing with the NCP settings Jacky60 was finally pleased with the overall IQ on Nvidia, there is really something going on when swapping AMD for Nvidia, it not just Gregster.

I won't say and didn't say pleased because I'm not but I am satisfied that IQ is now acceptable in Arma 3 and acceptable in GTA5 with 980ti. The real difference for me is simply greater view distance in Arma 3 as I spend far more time playing that than anything else. If I had to choose image quality at the same fps with the same smoothness I'd choose AMD every time BUT in Arma 3 my gaming experience is better because it's smoother, looks broadly as good and I can see the enemy further away with 980ti SLI, maybe Nvidia driver team spent more time there, maybe its the architecture or extra ram. For GTA 5 AMD still looks a little better even after NVCP adjustments but I play that 10% of the time I play Arma 3, tbh everything looks pretty good on either cards but when you get used to a certain level of quality a drop from that becomes pretty obvious. GTA5 still looks gorgeous on 980ti SLI btw.

 

[lopri]

There is a subtle difference between the vendors. Both in 2D and 3D. I would not call it quality difference but if you have used both vendors' products for a long time you might be able to tell which screen is rendered by which vender's products. I have been using AMD and NV's products side by side for 10+ years on same monitors, and I can tell them apart rather easily. It is very subjective and rather difficult to explain so I do not try to convince others on this point.


Heck, even the BIOS screens are rendered differently between AMD cards and NV cards.

 

[amenx]

I noticed it immediately when playing GTA5 and what troubles me is that I can't understand why review sites haven't. I wear glasses and I'm not young but it was glaringly obvious when playing GTA5. It looked like I was watching a PS4 version on a friends TV when running default settings on 980ti SLI compared to 295x2 quadfire. Both frame rates were well above 60 fps but the level of detail on Nvidia dropped off a cliff beyond a few feet from the camera. Even now 980ti doesn't look as good compared to the 295x2 quadfire.

Just curious, is this what you're seeing in GTA 5?

http://imgur.com/a/eJlan

 

[Stuka87]

I am curious how much closer the 980Ti and the Fury would be if the nVidia control panel was set so that the AF matched what AMD used out of the box.

Their (NV) stock AF setting makes most things look horrible when left at default.

 

[amenx]

This is basically what has happened. I would bet money that AMD have tested this and would have been all over it if there was something up but with my testing being off, people have jumped on it as "This is the way it is" when I did the test. There is many others who have tested this on OcUK and not found the same as me, so clearly something up my end. If I was to clean install my windows, that would sort it.

Anyways, all video's since the BF4 have been with the NCP on "Prefer max quality" and this has shown to match AMD's IQ, so nothing to see here....

Cheers for the work you put into it and for getting to the bottom of it. Personally I think some of Nvidias defaults (in the manage 3d settings tab) do work in many games when on "application controlled" but not always. Hence why I always opt for AFx16 and high quality texture filtering. And I agree, if it was something as big as made out, there are a lot of capable sites and reviewers who are very familiar with the hardware and would love nothing more than making a big story out of it. But nothing. Nevertheless I would love to see more rigorous testing by reputable sites/reviewers just to serve as proper reference points whenever the topic arises. And if something comes up, great! Let the GPU makers deal with the fallout. I for one would ditch Nvidia in a heartbeat if there was something to it. IQ to me is more important than FPS.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Their (NV) stock AF setting makes most things look horrible when left at default.

Default is "application controlled", I'd imagine amd does the same.

The slight optimisations don't make it look "horrible", on my system it looks the same as all the optimisations off.

 

[Jacky60]

Just curious, is this what you're seeing in GTA 5?

http://imgur.com/a/eJlan

Not really it was the drop in LOD a few metres from the camera that had me annoyed with vehicles in the middle distance appearing blurred. This is now largely rectified.

 

[Tapoer]

I won't say and didn't say pleased because I'm not but I am satisfied that IQ is now acceptable in Arma 3 and acceptable in GTA5 with 980ti. The real difference for me is simply greater view distance in Arma 3 as I spend far more time playing that than anything else. If I had to choose image quality at the same fps with the same smoothness I'd choose AMD every time BUT in Arma 3 my gaming experience is better because it's smoother, looks broadly as good and I can see the enemy further away with 980ti SLI, maybe Nvidia driver team spent more time there, maybe its the architecture or extra ram. For GTA 5 AMD still looks a little better even after NVCP adjustments but I play that 10% of the time I play Arma 3, tbh everything looks pretty good on either cards but when you get used to a certain level of quality a drop from that becomes pretty obvious. GTA5 still looks gorgeous on 980ti SLI btw.

Sorry about that.

Can you please explain the process that you use with the driver cleaner, if you run it in safe mode, etc, just to be sure what you did, maybe Gregster can also tell what he did with DDU.

What Nvidia drivers did you guys installed, etc. It might help identify what causes this problem.

And Gregster, thanks for your time here trying to explain your experience.

 

[Gregster1970]

Here is my run of BF4 with everything completely equal with BF4 on Titan X and Fury X. Feel free to compare image quality.

https://youtu.be/rswpOo7kcSk

 

[monstercameron]

Here is my run of BF4 with everything completely equal with BF4 on Titan X and Fury X. Feel free to compare image quality.

https://youtu.be/rswpOo7kcSk

Well identical IQ

/thread

 

[gamervivek]

Looks fairly similar except for some color differences.
So 25-35% better with a 25% higher clockspeed. How much does mantle change the scenario at 1080p, semiaccurate tested it for a 5% improvement with avg. fps of 137 in dx11.

 

[Gregster1970]

Looks fairly similar except for some color differences.
So 25-35% better with a 25% higher clockspeed. How much does mantle change the scenario at 1080p, semiaccurate tested it for a 5% improvement with avg. fps of 137 in dx11.

Mantle is shocking and falls around 20 fps behind AMD's DX11, let alone the 50 fps behind Nvidia's DX11. They have not optimised the Fury X for Mantle and I don't think they will be doing it either.

Ohhh and there shouldn't be any colour differences, as the secondary monitor (the capture card) is set for the ROG Swift profile on both AMD and Nvidia, so colour should be identical.

 

[gamervivek]

Strange.

http://www.golem.de/news/grafikkart...mantle-schnittstelle-flotter-1507-115005.html

Colors are a bit different, though not as much as before.

 

[hawtdawg]

Most of the arguments on Nvidia IQ in following years even to this day probably stem from the FX days. All it takes is for one or 2 individuals to post something odd re the IQ and you'll have a 1000 people jumping on it in the hope of spreading it far and wide across the net.. and even if or when debunked that does little to stop them.. even if they've never owned an Nvidia card.

You mean sorta like the "omg AMD drivers sux" bs that's spread far and wide that stems from the 8xxx series from 15 years ago?

 

[Keysplayr]

Strange.

http://www.golem.de/news/grafikkart...mantle-schnittstelle-flotter-1507-115005.html

Colors are a bit different, though not as much as before.

Something needs to be there, doesn't it.

 

[Sabrewings]

You mean sorta like the "omg AMD drivers sux" bs that's spread far and wide that stems from the 8xxx series from 15 years ago?

No, more like the terrible DX11 overhead that holds Fury X back at lower resolutions. Plus their slow update cycle.

 

[hawtdawg]

No, more like the terrible DX11 overhead that holds Fury X back at lower resolutions. Plus their slow update cycle.

AMD's beta drivers have been more stable than Nvidia's WHQL releases lately. AMD doesn't pay for some meaningless WHQL label. They actually update about twice as frequently as Nvidia, if not more. On top of that, AMD doesn't stop updating drivers for their year and a half old 750 dollar GPU's just because they released a new architecture and need to make it look as efficient as they possibly can. Either that, or AMD is so good at making GPU's that a 7970 was actually almost as good as a 780 the whole time.