ati vs nv IQ

[CaiNaM]

oops! hit "enter" key too soon

i don't get all this huffing and puffing.. neither my 6800gt or 7800gs exhibit excessive shimmering in WoW (tho aa/af is all messed up in the latest whql driver in daoc).

finally got everything installed on the x1800xt i picked up (along with dfi lanparty ut nf4), and am playing WoW, and frankly.. it's really only subtly better on the ati, to almost worse in another area - the screen seems.. jittery.. hard to explain, but its not smooth (cod2 however runs smooth as glass w/ max settings).

perhaps i am not correctly overriding game settings with driver (cat 6.3) settings? have hi qual selected.. how should aa be setup with in ccc & WoW?

also.. CCC shows 80-90c when running WoW. is this normal? the fan isn't in "noisy" mode; it's barely audible in my rig which is pretty quiet anyways as cpu is watercooled..

 

[Wreckage]

I don't get "shimmering" in WoW using a 6800. If you do a search on ATI and shimmering, you will find that ATI cards shimmer while running WoW. This may be the "jitter" you are seeing.

 

[yacoub]

It appears both ATI and NVidia cards have texture crawling issues in certain situations and both seem to be related to LOD settings:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33845168&page=6

At least that's the best conclusion I can come to after reading through that thread.

 

[nitromullet]

They both shimmer a bit in WoW from my experience. As far as temp goes, my X1800XT would go into "howl" mode from time to time while playing WoW.

I have question for you CaiNaM... Are you playing Horde? I ask because in WoW, I occasionally noticed what I would call "rendering errors" with my X1800XT and I was curious if you saw these also...

One is in the Cleft of Shadow - the roof top on one of the huts/tents "flickers"
Another is in the Barrens. There is a tent almost opposite of Camp Taurajo (sp?) on the Gold Road that also exhibits flicker. If you can easily get to these spots, check em out.

 

[xtknight]

Shimmering in general is much ado about nothing, IMO. There might be worse problems with WoW, but I'm not sure.

 

[TheRyuu]

n00b question, when you refer to shimmering, what are you talking about (making sure it's the right thing , and the thing i'm thinking of).

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
n00b question, when you refer to shimmering, what are you talking about (making sure it's the right thing , and the thing i'm thinking of).

It looks a little like a mirage on cobblestone or desert walkways in WoW. It only happens when you are in motion though.

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: wizboy11
n00b question, when you refer to shimmering, what are you talking about (making sure it's the right thing , and the thing i'm thinking of).

It looks a little like a mirage on cobblestone or desert walkways in WoW. It only happens when you are in motion though.

???
Like when everthing tears like when it's not using vsync?
Still don't get it.

 

[moonboy403]

like when a certain spots glows while you're in motion

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
They both shimmer a bit in WoW from my experience. As far as temp goes, my X1800XT would go into "howl" mode from time to time while playing WoW.

you know... it's hit like 88c and hasn't gone into "howl" mode yet. is thta temp normal?

also started artifacting like crazy in CoD (no overclock). i can put up a screenie if anyone interested or might have an explanation.

I have question for you CaiNaM... Are you playing Horde? I ask because in WoW, I occasionally noticed what I would call "rendering errors" with my X1800XT and I was curious if you saw these also...

One is in the Cleft of Shadow - the roof top on one of the huts/tents "flickers"
Another is in the Barrens. There is a tent almost opposite of Camp Taurajo (sp?) on the Gold Road that also exhibits flicker. If you can easily get to these spots, check em out.

playing alliance, tho i do have a lvl 36 horde. haven't played him w/ 1800 yet.. have a 27 tauren hunter in or around barrens somewhere, will ck it out.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
n00b question, when you refer to shimmering, what are you talking about (making sure it's the right thing , and the thing i'm thinking of).

well, i believe it usually refers to mipmap transitions? usually refers to a faintly visible line that's kind of boxed around you and follows you wherever you go... that's not the effect i'm noticing in WoW tho.. it's kind of al over... hard to describe.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: nitromullet
They both shimmer a bit in WoW from my experience. As far as temp goes, my X1800XT would go into "howl" mode from time to time while playing WoW.

you know... it's hit like 88c and hasn't gone into "howl" mode yet. is thta temp normal?

also started artifacting like crazy in CoD (no overclock). i can put up a screenie if anyone interested or might have an explanation.

I have question for you CaiNaM... Are you playing Horde? I ask because in WoW, I occasionally noticed what I would call "rendering errors" with my X1800XT and I was curious if you saw these also...

One is in the Cleft of Shadow - the roof top on one of the huts/tents "flickers"
Another is in the Barrens. There is a tent almost opposite of Camp Taurajo (sp?) on the Gold Road that also exhibits flicker. If you can easily get to these spots, check em out.

playing alliance, tho i do have a lvl 36 horde. haven't played him w/ 1800 yet.. have a 27 tauren hunter in or around barrens somewhere, will ck it out.

I actually noticed similar issues with the 7900GTX in WoW. I just rolled a new troll rouge and saw the same issue on the Echo Isles. I guess it's just a WoW issue. Not very common, so no biggie. The 80C range is normal for the X1800XT, but you should definitely hear the fan spin up, if you don't that might explain your artifacting... Maybe "howl" mode was a bit of an exaggeration, because it never got up to the really high speed that it does at initial boot, but it does get noticably louder. My X1800XT would alter the fan speed pretty often, and it was particularly noticable in WoW because you do a lot of just walking with not much game noise going on. Of coures when running an instance playing PVP, I wouldn't even notice.

 

[CaiNaM]

you have a 7900gtx? what's your opinion on how they compare to each other overall?

 

[nitromullet]

They both run great. The AF on the X1800XT looks a bit better, but the 7900GTX gives you 8xAA, is much quieter, and I like the SLI motherboard a lot better then I did my CrossFire mobo. That's it in a nutshell.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

I see it also in WoW on my X850XT PE AGP and never thought anything about it really, I havent played a game in my life where the graphics were 100% perfect no matter what card I had.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
They both run great. The AF on the X1800XT looks a bit better, but the 7900GTX gives you 8xAA, is much quieter, and I like the SLI motherboard a lot better then I did my CrossFire mobo. That's it in a nutshell.

yea, that's kind of how i felt about it, but i really wanted the xt just to have something different to play around with. wasn't planning on going dual gpu, however my motherboard support sli...

weird thing tho.. i have a liquid cooled pc, so it's very quiet, and frankly i was a bit afraid of the noise concerns of the XT, but now that i have it running, i really don't notice it (and my box is on my desk, 18" away from my ears... except when my pc boots, lol

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
I see it also in WoW on my X850XT PE AGP and never thought anything about it really, I havent played a game in my life where the graphics were 100% perfect no matter what card I had.

true (saw it on my x800pro), however your 850xtpe doesn't have the HQ AF mode the x1x00 series have. the texture filtering IS better in some cases (only had the card for a day so haven't compared alot of games), but imo nowhere near the difference some ppl on this forum try to convince others of.

 

[Yreka]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

weird thing tho.. i have a liquid cooled pc, so it's very quiet, and frankly i was a bit afraid of the noise concerns of the XT, but now that i have it running, i really don't notice it (and my box is on my desk, 18" away from my ears... except when my pc boots, lol

I had the same result with my 1900 before I put it under water with the CPU.. Its not that the stock HSF is noisy per say, it just has a wierd growl,whine pitch thats annoying. It starts at about %70 fanspeed, below that is perfectly acceptable *for me. Its the 70%-100% that is the problem.

Maybe try ATI Tool, and manually play with the speeds until you get a temp, sound level that you like.

If you decide to go water on your VGA, this guy has been really good for me so far.

 

[phantom404]

I noticed a big difference when I turned off tripple buffering while having vsync on. When I did this the shimmering died down alot to hardly noticable. This was when I had my 7800 gtx

 

[Jeff7181]

The shimmering issue exists. Period. If you don't notice it, you don't know what you're looking for. With driver settings at default, and in game options all maxed, fly from Stormwind to Darkshire. Pay close attention to the tree's and how the edges of leaves shimmer. Now force 4X (or 8X) AA in the drivers, 16XAF, High Quality, turn off all optimizations, and set Negative LOD Bias to clamp. Fly from Stormwind to Darkshire again, paying close attention to the leaves again... then tell me the issue doesn't exist.

 

[Madellga]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
The shimmering issue exists. Period. If you don't notice it, you don't know what you're looking for. With driver settings at default, and in game options all maxed, fly from Stormwind to Darkshire. Pay close attention to the tree's and how the edges of leaves shimmer. Now force 4X (or 8X) AA in the drivers, 16XAF, High Quality, turn off all optimizations, and set Negative LOD Bias to clamp. Fly from Stormwind to Darkshire again, paying close attention to the leaves again... then tell me the issue doesn't exist.

Correct 100%.

Even better, use also Supersampling on Transparency Antialiasing. This cures 95% of Nvidias Shimmering.

For ATI, use HQ AF, turn AL OFF. This solves 90% of the shimmering. ATI lacks behind on Transparency.

The X1800/X1900 cards shimmer in different places than Nvidia's 7800/7900.

ATI shimmers more on trees, vegetation, walls. Nvidia more on floor patches.

Neither card is perfect. I tried both and picked Nvidia, for better behaviour (vegetation) and quieter solution. ATI has a high pitch fan noise under load.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
The shimmering issue exists. Period. If you don't notice it, you don't know what you're looking for. With driver settings at default, and in game options all maxed, fly from Stormwind to Darkshire. Pay close attention to the tree's and how the edges of leaves shimmer. Now force 4X (or 8X) AA in the drivers, 16XAF, High Quality, turn off all optimizations, and set Negative LOD Bias to clamp. Fly from Stormwind to Darkshire again, paying close attention to the leaves again... then tell me the issue doesn't exist.

i think that's the point (they exist in both cards to varying degree)? which card are you talking about here?

 

[Madellga]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
They both run great. The AF on the X1800XT looks a bit better, but the 7900GTX gives you 8xAA, is much quieter, and I like the SLI motherboard a lot better then I did my CrossFire mobo. That's it in a nutshell.

Same here.

8xAA is amazing and together with Supersampling on Transparency Antialiasing made me pick the GTX.

Guild Wars shimmering is less evident on the GTX also (in comparison with the X1800/X1900).

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM
also.. CCC shows 80-90c when running WoW. is this normal? the fan isn't in "noisy" mode; it's barely audible in my rig which is pretty quiet anyways as cpu is watercooled..

Think that water cooling is becoming essential for high end computer. (off to read the cooling forum, so as not to buy foolishly)

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
I see it also in WoW on my X850XT PE AGP and never thought anything about it really, I havent played a game in my life where the graphics were 100% perfect no matter what card I had.

true (saw it on my x800pro), however your 850xtpe doesn't have the HQ AF mode the x1x00 series have. the texture filtering IS better in some cases (only had the card for a day so haven't compared alot of games), but imo nowhere near the difference some ppl on this forum try to convince others of.

What kind of monitor do you have? Secondly the HQ AF is better in ALL cases not just some because it's angle independent. Play a game with angles in the terrain like BF2 and you will notice a difference right away. In fact I'll be getting a 7800 or 7900 go for my XPS 2 pretty soon, I'll gladly do an uncompressed FRAPS comparison to highlight the differences. I currently have a 6800 Go Ultra which I could use but that card actually does filtering better than the 7800/7900 cards do.