Image Quality - Nvidia vs. ATI

[requiem1]

I have heard people saying the ATI has better image quality...but from I remember in the past...from researching on different video cards at the time..I thought Nvidia came on top. I remember reading and seeing pictures of Nvidia and ATI on Half-life...and how the Nvidia card had less fragments on the chain fences and how the trees seemed to be clearer...maybe I am mistaken...anyone want to enlighten me...and show be some proof?

Explain: http://www.firingsquad.com/har...own_august06/page4.asp

Side Note: Nvidia usually has better drivers right?

PS: I have an eVGA 8800GT Superclocked ($249+$15 = $264) coming in soon, but i am thinking of canceling order if 3870 is significantly better for price/performance and image quality. However, I think I got a good deal on the 8800GT. Also, I do not care about power usage or temp as much...I care about what quality I can play and see the game.

 

[Therk]

According to reviews the 5xxx through to 7xxx series ATI was ahead, then the 8800s came and they seem to be about even now.

Even though most reviews seem to point out that they look similar, in my opinion ATI cards still produce MUCH better image quality. I've got a 9600XT in my secondary PC and a 6800GS in my daily. The 9600XT produces MUCH more vibrant colors and they just seem to 'pop' and really look great. I've also noticed that the AF on the 9600XT is of much higher quality than the 6800GS. The colors that the 6800GS produces seem very plain and uninteresting. Digital vibrance does make it a little better but its still nowhere near to the 9600XT. I also noticed the same difference between PS3 and Xbox360 graphics. The colors that the 360 displayed seemed leaps and bounds better than the murky **** from the PS3.

 

[Skunkwourk]

In my opinion, ATI has better image quality. Not sure if it has anything to do with their past, developing AIW cards. However, I find Nvidia driver support much better, and to some extent more stable. For gaming, I go Nvidia, for everything else, dvds, pictures, etc, I find ATI to be a better choice. The only ATI card I preferred for gaming was the 9700 Pro (but lets face is the FX series was garbage)

 

[AzN]

It depends on the video card. ATI had better image quality for the longest time but starting with geforce 8 Nvidia has better image quality. ATI just can't beat Nvidia's CSAA or crisp looking AF but AF difference is really subjective to eye of the beholder. Nvidia has natural looking colors as well while ATI has that red hue look.

With the new 8800gt. Nvidia also added better transparancy AA support. Their multi-sampling looks just as good as Super-Sampling.

Supposedly ATI also fixed their image quality with the new x3000 series. Only time will tell.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: Therk
According to reviews the 5xxx through to 7xxx series ATI was ahead, then the 8800s came and they seem to be about even now.

Even though most reviews seem to point out that they look similar, in my opinion ATI cards still produce MUCH better image quality. I've got a 9600XT in my secondary PC and a 6800GS in my daily. The 9600XT produces MUCH more vibrant colors and they just seem to 'pop' and really look great. I've also noticed that the AF on the 9600XT is of much higher quality than the 6800GS. The colors that the 6800GS produces seem very plain and uninteresting. Digital vibrance does make it a little better but its still nowhere near to the 9600XT. I also noticed the same difference between PS3 and Xbox360 graphics. The colors that the 360 displayed seemed leaps and bounds better than the murky **** from the PS3.

Its called "digital vibrance". You take this up a notch with the nVIDIA card, and there you have the similiar look/feel to what ATi has on default. Its just a colour setting that differs in the control panel between ATi and nVIDIA.

As of now, nVIDIA has the IQ crown. They got loads of AA modes that can suit alot of different tastes, e.g CSAA, xS hybrid modes (for super sampling goodness), normal AA, TRAA and their AF algorithm is near perfect.

 

[will889]

Exactly - my 7950GT has as good or better IQ from my previous X800XL it's just that it needed a bit of control panel color tweaking.

 

[AzN]

x800xl vs 7950gt. That is like 2 generations behind. Of course 7950gt is going to look better.

 

[alcoholbob]

Why? If they are rendering the same thing, it should look identical unless one has a hardware limitation or intentionally designed cheat. I'd like to believe displaying colors is something that video cards have managed to do correctly for some time now, so a 3rd party software that no one has optimized for (in return, nor optimized for a particular GPU) should look the same regardless of hardware.

 

[firewolfsm]

I always thought nVidia should up the default digital vibrance, most people are too retarded to find it and fix it themselves. I like it at 20%

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
Why? If they are rendering the same thing, it should look identical unless one has a hardware limitation or intentionally designed cheat. I'd like to believe displaying colors is something that video cards have managed to do correctly for some time now, so a 3rd party software that no one has optimized for (in return, nor optimized for a particular GPU) should look the same regardless of hardware.

You ask why? Angle independent aniso wasn't invented on the x800xl nor was transparency AA not to mention sm3.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
I always thought nVidia should up the default digital vibrance, most people are too retarded to find it and fix it themselves. I like it at 20%

I always thought digital vibrance made the colors look so unnatural. 7 series colors are fine. It's the AF that is seriously lacking compared to x1000 series or 8 series.

 

[Slugbait]

As far as MPEG-2 playback is concerned, nVidia was far superior...in the past. See Maximum PC, November 2005, page 31. It was part of the "Ultimate Video Card Showdown".

I don't know which is better now for movie playback. Don't really care tho', since I swore off ATI back in '97...

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
As far as MPEG-2 playback is concerned, nVidia was far superior...in the past. See Maximum PC, November 2005, page 31. It was part of the "Ultimate Video Card Showdown".

I don't know which is better now for movie playback. Don't really care tho', since I swore off ATI back in '97...

That's hard to believe. Firstly though, I'm not gonna trust anything from Maximum PC. But ATI has long been involved in motion video for 3D cards and consumer electronics -Nvidia was so late in even adding MPEG-2 decode that it was almost irrelevant by then for SD. Performance-wise video playback was significantly slower on even 7600GT than the X800XL in absence of DxVA. Nvidia also shat the bed as recently as the 8000 series failing to decode VC-1 completely. The reviews I have read comparing 8000 with 2000 show IQ is close but ATI is ahead.

 

[j0j081]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
[
Its called "digital vibrance". You take this up a notch with the nVIDIA card, and there you have the similiar look/feel to what ATi has on default. Its just a colour setting that differs in the control panel between ATi and nVIDIA.

As of now, nVIDIA has the IQ crown. They got loads of AA modes that can suit alot of different tastes, e.g CSAA, xS hybrid modes (for super sampling goodness), normal AA, TRAA and their AF algorithm is near perfect.

Is there any way to lower ATI's version of digital vibrance? I sold my 7800gs to get money to put towards a PCIe build, I'm using this hd2400pro in the meantime and the colors are a bit too poppin for me. This Samsung lcd has pretty good colors to begin with so I think I need to neutralize them a bit lol.

 

[trajan2050]

Almost all reviews of 8800's give the IQ crown to Nvidia!

 

[Dkcode]

The 8800 series offers matches and in some areas exceeds ATI's past gen offerings. I have never used an 2000 series Radeon to be able to tell the difference however the hardware review sites i have read seem to favour Nvidia's 8 series image quality.

 

[Sylvanas]

I have used both a 8800GTX and my current HD2900 and the IQ is the same in everything, DV is the same as the 'Saturation' slider in the CCC and both look nice, that goes for 3D aswell.

 

[SniperDaws]

my 7600GT has much better image quality in games and video quality compared to this horrible 1800XL AIW, watching Digital TV on this card is like watching a youtube clip, im just glad i only paid £35 for it.

The only reason i use it is because its slightly faster in games.

 

[BFG10K]

nVidia has the best AF and AA as far as the latest generation of GPUs go.

 

[BFG10K]

Side Note: Nvidia usually has better drivers right?

Not in my experience, especially for legacy titles.

 

[Genx87]

Played on many cards on both side of the aisle and dont see much difference. If you can tell the difference you must have eagle eyes or a vivid imagination.

 

[BAMAVOO]

Going from an x1900xtx to a 8800 gts 640, the GTS wins hands down on image quality. In the past ATI was always king on IQ, but not now. I was truly surprised and impressed with the difference. Games play smoother and maps in certain games that used to lag, now play as smooth as butter.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

The Geforce 8 Series takes the IQ and performance crown. ATI had that crown last gen with the x1900 cards.

The x2900xt is really sad for those of us who wanted a performance and IQ race.

 

[lurk3r]

This is purely my opinion, but I've used 7900gt, tried to upgrade to an x1900xtx, went back to the 7900gt that is supposed to be a much lesser card. I liked nothing about the ATI card, performace was noticably worse, tried many different drivers, swapped powersupplies etc. The nvidia card just looks cleaner, sharper, text in the game is easier to read, popup that get forced onto the screen (windows updates, virus updates etc) dont cause the game to crash.

 

[Slugbait]

Just a quick message to whomever registered the handle Pv5670, since you don't have the balls to receive PM replies:

You're a coward. Use your real handle and call me out in the thread, or delete your cookie and go back to rummaging thru MySpace pages. Insulting me via PM is for wusses.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled ATI vs. nVidia thread, already in progress...