What's better? GeForce 2 Ultra or the new ATI Radeon?

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RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
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Weyoun:

<< this is just in reply to RoboTech's lack of vision when it comes to getting the full list of t&amp;l games http://www.nvidia.com/products.nsf/xformlight_titles.html >>

oh gawd, have you bothered to look at that list? That is a list of just about every OpenGL game out there. Just because there is &quot;support&quot; for a game doesn't mean it's going to make much of a difference. I mean, lemme tell ya, T&amp;L makes my &quot;Ultimate Bass Fishing&quot; game SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much more realistic. <rolls eyes> Take another look at those titles, and you'll see that, from what I could tell, at least half of them haven't been released yet. So again, how does T&amp;L make a difference in my life? MDK2 and Evolva. Wow. I don't even like Evolva. <-- what's with these ghey smilies anyway? The older ones were cooler....

rstokc:

<< A good comparison &quot;urllanetHardware Video Card Shootout &quot; >>

what made that a good comparison? Looks to me like it should've been renamed &quot;PlanetHardware 3-game Benchmarking shootout&quot;



<< Most people prefer the GF2 over the V5 if the V5 was better overall more people would buy it. >>

well, an innocently idealistic statement like that makes me remember that you're a kid. *Most* people haven't used both cards (yourself included) to do anything more than benchmark a few games.

Weyoun:

<< sorry to ask, but why is the lack of a second TMU the greatest downfall of the V5? >>

2 reasons: doesn't allow for single-pass multitexturing+trilinear filtering (at the same time), and if it had a 2nd pair of TMU's, the texel fillrate would be double what it is now, and the 5500 would be a very nice blend of fillrate/bandwidth limitation.

BFG:

<< I lost a grand total of just under 3 fps zipping the slider to -0.75. Poor me. 130 fps to 127, whatever will I do with such a horrid framerate?
Well given 3dfx are slower than everyone else to begin with, I wouldn't throw away those 3 fps which such reckless abandon
>>

What kind of a sillyass comment is that? It's not a dick-measuring contest, is it? Is 127 fps a playable framerate for Quake3, yes or no?



<< wrong. UT is a perfect example.
UT is an poor example of anything.
>>


You know BFG, there are people who play that game. you might be surprised. Soem of us use our cards to do more than just benchmark. Now then, my POINT, oh sharp-headed one, is that UT is an example where you can see that a good &quot;average&quot; framerate does NOT equate to a good &quot;minimum&quot; framerate. The GTS was a good example of that. Under D3d, I found that the card had a pretty close &quot;average&quot; framerate, yet it's minimum framerate was much lower than the 5500 (And it's maximum framerate was much higher, obviously)



<< for $500, the GF Ultra better drop to it's knees and blow me.
Hmmm... that's one feature nVidia doesn't have. That's what the V5 6000 is for. I have been told that's what the wall outlet requirement is for.
>>

WHOO-HOOO!!!! See, and all you peeps are busting on 3dfx for that thing. HA!!



<< By capping do you mean something like say... turning on VSYNC? And then checking to see which card has the most fluctuations? I believe that is what my whole post was about!!! >>

yes, read that afterward. Unfortunately, I don't want to try and enable 125 Hz Vsync @ 1024x768 on my monitor.

fodd3r:



<< ut is an okay benchmark --though the game sucks, .... it's basically the only one which shows the frame rate under dx and still support the much of the current feature set. >>

er...UT is a poor benchmark for anything other than games that use the Unreal engine. It's feature set is about, what, 2-3 years old now, since it's the same engine as Unreal? And the game kicks ass, but you're right, that *is* another thread.



<< or such as mdk way to geforce centric to matter >>

it matters to peeps who play MDK2, and it's not &quot;geforce centric&quot;, it's an OpenGL game, and nvidia has the best OGL ICD going.



<< And what about the crusher banchmarks? Are they to low weighted as well?
yes they are, because they have a few &quot;trouble&quot; spots, but largely consist of easier frames. a better demo would a be one that's edited such that the demo only consists of &quot;trouble&quot; spots.[/b]
>>

well, you have the start of a good point here. In Quake2, we had the crusher.dm2 and the massive1.dm2 that were great benchmarks. They were constant action, constant stress, and gave you an idea of just how low your framerate would dip. There hasn't been a demo for Quake3 which became the &quot;de facto&quot; standard like crusher.dm2.

When I had both the 5500 and the GTS, I recorded a demo of myself on q3t4 (the harshest map in Vanilla Q3, overall, for graphics cards) fighting 10 bots. It was a race to 50 frags, and of course, I had god mode and all weapons. It was a constant fight. There were no areas in the demo where the framerate climbed noticeably on either card.

When I benchmarked both cards on it, the 5500 and the GTS were less than 3 fps apart at 960 and 1024, about 4 fps @ 1152, and (memory serves) about 6 or 7 fps @ 1600x1200. Relatively minor, and that was a pretty darn good representation of the *worst* case scenario. When I added my &quot;visual config tweeks&quot;, neither the 5500 nor the GTS dropped below about 50 fps. Those tests were done with TC *enabled* on the GTS, BTW.



<< will the geforces crawl?
of course they will!
>>

dude, you're drunk. The only time the 32MB GTS &quot;crawled&quot; was when I had 1024x768xSHQ on quaver with TC off. The 64MB GTS never &quot;crawled&quot;.


 

RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
2,034
0
0
oh damn, that was book 1, here's some more for Ben:



<< A vastly superior D3D bench is Evolva, it supprots far more advanced features then UT and is fillrate intensive, not CPU bound(not nearly as much anyway). >>

I will agree, that Evolva is a very nice benchmark. Of course, the fact that it has SEVERAL of the GTS's trumpted features sure doesn't hurt, does it? <g> I like the way the Dot3 looks, but the game is GHEY!!!!! egads.....those are some CHEESY weapon effects. The world looks phenominal tho.



<< Driver optimizations are far more important with fluctuating FPS then overdraw. Overdraw remains rather linear in the majority of games >>

quite debatable. Stick 10 guys on the screen blowing each other up, and guess what, that's a whole helluva lot of overdraw, and that's the LAST situation where you want to lag (or you'll be looking at that ugly-ass, TC-enabled sky, hehehe....)



<< The Radeon is the best gaming board out >>

the Radeon is the best 32-bit gaming board. However, it's 16-bit bites royally (it's uglier than I thought ti would be - one of my LAN buddies got one - egads! But boy that 32-bit looks AWESOME!) 32-bit is still too slow for me and my needs.

Dean:

<< I have an ATI Radeon 64meg ddr loaded on my machine....i can play any game i want at any resolution and color depth i want to and its smooth as silk and looks incredible....people can throw all these damn benchmarks in your face all they want. Those idiots will never enjoy their machines because they'll only chase higher numbers after higher numbers.... nvidia cards are just fine, so is the voodoo 5-5500...buy the card you like and stop listening to these lame ass benchmark drones!! >>

EXACTLY!!!! If you live and die by the benchmarks, you'll never be able to have fun playing, because you'll spend all your time &quot;tweeking&quot; to get more (usually barely noticeable) performance. Check out the knuckleheads on the madonion board sometime. 500 driver installs/uninstalls/reinstalls on a weekly basis. Hey, whatever you're into.



<< If you want to talk benchmarks...you always seem to use quake3 benches. But it seems most hardcore gamers seem to like playing UT more. So since UT is the most favorable FPS out there right now i guess the Voodoo 5-5500 is the fastest card for enthusiasts >>

actually, the Radeon beats the 5500 in 32-bit under D3d. Just wanna make sure we have all our facts straight <laff>
 

RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
2,034
0
0
BFG:

(on subject of &quot;crusher&quot;-type benchmarks)


<< You are just lucky I spent the last 1/2 hour looking for Quaver benchmarks but couldn't find any. >>



actually, people have totally lost sight of what the quaver benchmark measures. It is NOT a &quot;crusher&quot; benchmark with constant stress on the graphics subsystem. It is a *texture-intensive* demo, which can be used to show the usefulness of texture compression. With TC enabled, I get about 10 fps more in demo001 (a wussy benchmark) and quaver on both the GTS and the 5500 @ 1024x32 bit. With it disabled, THAT'S when the framerates drop.

Just FYI:

in quaver with TC disabled, the 5500 doesn't drop as low as the 32mb GTS did, but the 64MB GTS never dropped below ~35 fps.



<< The Radeon doesn't have true tiling. >>

it doesn't need to. Tile-based cards are NOT required for HSR and deferred rendering. With the hype that the Kyro created (well, the little bit that it created - has anyone actually seen one in real life?), peeps seem to have gotten deferred rendering and tile-based rendering mixed up.

Ben:

<< No disrespect to Ace's, they are a great site, but I'm waiting for Beyond3D's review, they are looking into things that have yet to be covered. >>

agreed thoroughly. Ace's site has posted some pretty funny stuff before. Beyond3d consistently puts out some of the best graphics board reviews, along with Reverend's site.



<< This is why theoretical BS goes out the window and actual proof, by way of benchmarks is used. >>

HEY!!! kinda like that theoretical BS you're always trying to throw into the FSAA discussion!

Gotcha!
 

BenSkywalker

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
9,140
67
91
Robo-

&quot;Of course, the fact that it has SEVERAL of the GTS's trumpted features sure doesn't hurt, does it?&quot;

Wrong thread Robo This is Radeon vs GF2, the Radeon should have the clear edge with its' third texturing unit.

&quot;HEY!!! kinda like that theoretical BS you're always trying to throw into the FSAA discussion!

Gotcha! &quot;


Hehe, got me on that one
 

RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
2,034
0
0


<< &quot;Of course, the fact that it has SEVERAL of the GTS's trumpted features sure doesn't hurt, does it?&quot;

Wrong thread Robo This is Radeon vs GF2, the Radeon should have the clear edge with its' third texturing unit.
>>



does Evolva have 3 textures? I thought it was only 2 (er...dot3..duh..)
 

Doomguy

Platinum Member
May 28, 2000
2,389
1
81
The radeon isnt the fastest 32 bit card. The GF2 is faster in 32bit color with opengl.
 

RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
2,034
0
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&quot;The radeon isnt the fastest 32 bit card. The GF2 is faster in 32bit color with opengl. &quot;

using unstable drivers and $hitty TC it is.
 

fodd3r

Member
Sep 15, 2000
79
0
0
as for my theoretical bs, i wrongly assumed that you ppl would take into account that video cards don't texture every single second. they have to wait for other things to take place. with that taken into account, my theory still stands, all one has to do is remember that 30 to 40 percent of the cpu power or time --whatever you want to call it-- is spent on setting up the scene for the vid card, this doesn't include driver and app overhead which is necessary for the scene. you could probably peg it at a rather generous 50%. basically what this means is that the card is only texturing half the time.

and interms of evolva being geforce centric. it's t&amp;l was birthed on the geforce was it not? wouldn't this mean that it was tuned for it more than it was for the radeon?

also the &quot;real&quot; benifits of the hyper-z will likely be seen when benchmarks using t&amp;l units are conducted. ie. perhaps even evolva and then see the lowest, average and highest framerate. you'll see that the radeon won't starve itself of much needed bandwidth for texturing and transform and lighting. then again ati has onboard cache for the vertex information for their t&amp;l while the nvidia does not. but i'm sure in complex scenes where many of the other features are used that cache will not be sufficient and thus memory bandwidth will need to be allocated to for the operations. however, at which point the hyper-z will really shine --here i am arguing with myself, i should just run a little forum in my head!

yes i know that all this theory doesn't really give a very exact indication for performance, lets face it scientists do do experiments to find out. i just think the ones being conducted at this point are very controled.

btw, i recently rediscovered beyond 3d really nice. too bad they stopped reporting the minimum frame rate under the UT engine.

also, does anyone know if there is a way to have the game log the lowest and highest frame rate under quake3?
 

han888

Golden Member
Apr 7, 2000
1,586
0
0
i like the faster video card so gf2 ultra will be my choice and actually sometimes i am working in my friends computer shop, and the demand for geforce2, geforce ddr, geforce MX is very high, voodoo5?? i can count with my finger the buyer of this video card! radeon? havent yet! nobody buy this stuff yet


conclusion:

high demand mean?? <=== people love it, and like it!
low demand mean?? <==== ................ ( hard to answer )

and then about the geforce driver! i think that is a good service for company, they always release the new driver!
 

Doomguy

Platinum Member
May 28, 2000
2,389
1
81
Robo: Most of the people with problems use via chipsets and the 6.26 seem to fix those problems. LOL Ati's drivers's are such POS. Poor opengl driver, limited game compatibility compared to 3dfx and nvidia and piss poor win2k drivers. I dont even think ati has linux drivers. NVidia cards are the best linux solution, and win2k by far.
 

RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
2,034
0
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Doomguy, I finally agree with something you said. The GTS is the best solution for Win2k and (marginally) Linux. As more games get ported to Linux OGL, the GTS will &quot;age&quot; even better.

We agreed. Wow. It was due to happen.

However, I've spoken with a quite a few BX board owners who are having several issues with the GTS + 6xx as well. It seems that older Abit, Asus mobo's, as well as BX Master mobos <sob> have various issues.

and yeah, ATi needs to work on cross-platform support a bit more.

Hell, 3dfx just needs to get a real damn OGL and they'll be doing just fine. Apparently, a new, *working* OGL ICD will be released within a few weeks. i'll believe it when I see it.
 

han888

Golden Member
Apr 7, 2000
1,586
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it's still better for nvidia to release the driver, even the driver is can work or not on our system but they always release the new one to fix our problem so it's mean they have a good service support to their customer!and we also now there are many type of board so it's does not mean every new driver will suitable on the board we have! i like asus product because of that they have a good service support for their customer nothing is perfect in this world!! i am sure ati, voodoo or another card must have a problem too, just because geforce card is a popular card so we can see clearly this card have too many problem ( because too many people owe this card )we never know about another card, because just a few people use this card
 

RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
2,034
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0


<< it's still better for nvidia to release the driver, even the driver is can work or not on our system but they always release the new one to fix our problem so it's mean they have a good service support to their customer! >>

well, to a certain extent, yes. except that nvidia seems to release drivers with very little testing. Poor AMD owners seem to get nailed in the nuts with each new driver release. Stability is more important than speed, IMHO. Get 10 GeForce owners together and ask them which driver is &quot;best&quot;, and you will get at least 2 or 3 separate answers. Not good.

 

RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
2,034
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hmmm....seems the 6.18 drivers were recently released

just last week, 6.26 was released

now, 6.27 is out.

For you dedicated nvidia fans, please explain to me WHY there have been 2 &quot;upgrades&quot; to the 6.18 drivers, if the 6.18s are so stable?

I mean, what do 6.26 and 6.27 add? New features? Increased performance? Or just stability in some games?
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
2,979
126
I mean, what do 6.26 and 6.27 add? New features? Increased performance? Or just stability in some games?

Or maybe all of the above?

I can't believe that somebody is actually complaining that nVidia have regular driver updates. Still it's a similar statement to Fodd3r's when his problem was that nVidia's boards are too fast.

Alrighty then.
 

RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
2,034
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no, my point is why? this isn't a &quot;regular driver update&quot;

Driver updates do one of 3 things:

1) Add new features
2) Add speed
3) Add stability

Now, if I take a dump 3 times in a day, that's not regular. That's irregularly regular.

The new drivers add no new features, they add no new speed. They are *supposed* to add stability, but if the 6.18's were stable, like some like to claim, then why 2 driver updates within a weeks' timespan? Didn't they get it right the first time (or even close)?

Hell, when someone asks &quot;I have a GeForce, which drivers should I use&quot;, I&quot;m afraid to answer! and I'm a PC Tech! &quot;UHHHH....hell man, I dunno. Just install one and pray&quot;

Instead of &quot;regular&quot; driver updates, why don't they just release one that actually works properly? I'm sure no one would object if they actually would test their drivers before releasing them to the public.
 

Doomguy

Platinum Member
May 28, 2000
2,389
1
81
NVidia has to release new drivers for new motherboards. Since nvidia heavily uses the agp bus and features new chips often dont work with the drivers(kt133). Its not even nvidia's fault. Intel made agp and their chipsets have absolutly no agp problems. Via on the other hand has subpar agp implementations that cause problems(Via 133a user here so i'm not biased.
 

RoboTECH

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2000
2,034
0
0
Doom, users of older BX boards, like BX6r2 and BH6 are complaining. MSI BX Master owners (myself included) have had some strange problems as well, and this is a VERY new mobo.

Via boards are definitely subpar by comparison, no arguments there, but at the same time, these issues aren't present with the 5500 or the Radeon.

compatibility is not a strong suit of nvidia. Never has been.
 

fodd3r

Member
Sep 15, 2000
79
0
0
i'd have to agree with robo. when the geforce came out, the bx was about 18 months old. the bx has been refined and tuned so much, there is no excuse as to why nvidia cards aren't compatible with them.
 
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