Why does nVidia seem to have so many compatibility issues while 3dfx just sails along?

[ElFenix]

i don't think nvidia is very picky about who buys their chips. as long as a few brand-name board makers have good quality, so nvidia's name isn't dragged down, i don't think they care whether some whitebox vendor uses crappy capacitors.

 

[Adul]

I didn't want to drop that kind of cash on that card for home. I think I will go with a MX card, and a g400 for work.

 

[Warrenton]

My Hercules GF2 32MB starts to blur at 1600X1200@85Hz on my Sony G500. 75 is clear, but flickers.

 

[Adul]

75Hz would give me a headache

 

[Adul]

Great post soccerman.

 

[dawks]

Hmm 2d quality for my hurcules prophet ddr is excellent
I've actually heard over and over, that this card has very poor 2D. Even worse then its predecessor. They probably left as many filters off as they could, simply to lower costs.

honestly, even 85hz is tough for me to handle. I really need 100hz. I guess I have very sensitive eyes.

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

Its this simple. No card even TOUCHES the g400's quality. Thats no bullsh|t. I went into work one day and had this conversation:
"Holy sh|t, that Savage4 really has some beautiful output, never noticed... lines are crisp and colors are out of this world!"
"No, Lee, we swapped in a G400 MAX."
"Oh."

Seriously, its just THAT nice. If they had any actual 3d performance nowadays, I'd run one.

 

[hans007]

i want a g800, if that thing is not total vaporware i'd imagine great 2d, great 3d, woah. what a concept. v5's 2d is pretty good, so is ATIs, but the matrox g400 i used to use was the only card its generation (well i tried a rage fury, a voodoo3 and g400) that could make 1280x1024@60hz tolerable on my old 17" . The lines were perfect, no blur, it was beautiful.

 

[BFG10K]

Not many of us are willing to modify our cards that much to improve 2d image quality

I never said you should modify anything. I was just showing you a link to explain what caused the problem.

 

[quadcells]

I don't see this blur 2D ???? I have Hercules GTS and a IIyma(spelling) 19" monitor res at 1280x1024. Looks great to me, even at the corners.

 

[Mem]

If you look around there are issues with every brand from ATi to Nvidia,most are solved with a driver update,& when it comes to driver updates Nvidia is at the top,I`ve just purchased a MX card on a Via board(btw great 2d image) & being I`m a gamer so far I`ve had zero problems,I wonder how many problems are caused by users not installing software correctly,lets be honest here the speed in which computer technology changes will certainly cause a few problems along the way,& the end of the day some people are better with driver issues then others,same could be said also for video card companies.It`s very easy to blame one company,look at Aureal,Intel,they have all had there share of problems.

 

[Zucchini]

"honestly, even 85hz is tough for me to handle. I really need 100hz. I guess I have very sensitive eyes"

Thats the max for the monitor at that resolution, not the video card. Also the results for this card seem to be varied.. some people got junk, other people have had decent experiences

 

[Adul]

Hows the image quality of geforce 2 MX anywas? Anyone have any problems with it yet? how about compatibility?

 

[Doomguy]

Voodoo's dont show the problem because they're just basically pci cards on an agp bus, so all the via agp problem dont exist.

AGP is VERY useful. Nvidia cards can send MUCH more geometry over the agp bus for to help its T&L engine or just to have a throughput advantage. Once games get more complex the Voodoo 5 will CHOKE because it dosent use agp's features to transfer vertex data.

 

[sandorski]

Doomguy: True about Voodoo5, but AGP will never be widely used that way in games/apps. We'll continue to see more and more ram on vidcards to deal with bandwidth problems. In a few years I predict that AGP will be abandoned.

 

[BFG10K]

I don't see this blur 2D ???? I have Hercules GTS and a IIyma(spelling) 19" monitor res at 1280x1024. Looks great to me, even at the corners.

Yeah the guy in the article said he hadn't heard anything about Hercules' boards having 2D problems. It's probably because they use higher quality components.

 

[Hardware]

for the 2D picture: I a made a short test with a g400 on a sony 21" g400

I cant see any difference!!

Will try the radeon on a iiyama 22" crt next

 

[snow patrol]

No offence Hardware, but no one's going to believe your 'side by side totally fair comparisons'.

 

[Soccerman]

yeah, or the fact that you actually OWNED a G400..

"AGP is VERY useful. Nvidia cards can send MUCH more geometry over the agp bus for to help its T&L engine or just to have a throughput advantage. Once games get more complex the Voodoo 5 will CHOKE because it dosent use agp's features to transfer vertex data."

Doomguy, AGP 4x (66mhzX4=233mhz effective bus speed)is supported by the Voodoo 4/5, however it doesn't take advantage of other features, such as AGP texturing (useless), and Fast Writes (could be somewhat useful in todays games, however with T&L moving data from that whole area anyway, it renders the AGP bus pretty much useless.

you gotta hand it to 3dfx about seeing at least some of this coming (hey, if T&L didn't come out from nVidia, 3dfx might have made their next series card WITH all AGP features, but now I'm not so sure, becuase now AMD is making a totally new bus architecture).

 

[BenSkywalker]

Soccerman-

AGP 4x (66mhzX4=233mhz effective bus speed)is supported by the Voodoo 4/5"

Perhaps the V4, and the V5 6K should, but the V5 5500 only supports AGP1X no matter what 3dfx says. Anyone can test this that wants to, try 3DMark2K's high polygon test. A V3 will trounce a V5 due to the ability to push the information over the AGP bus. Around 4-5million polys max in that test due to only suporting AGP1X.

 

[BFG10K]

Perhaps the V4, and the V5 6K should, but the V5 5500 only supports AGP1X no matter what 3dfx says. Anyone can test this that wants to, try 3DMark2K's high polygon test. A V3 will trounce a V5 due to the ability to push the information over the AGP bus. Around 4-5million polys max in that test due to only suporting AGP1X.

Actually 3dfx doesn't support true AGP at all. All of their boards run on AGP x 1 (including the V5 6000). The reason why the V3 wins is because of better drivers and no multi-CPU overhead.

 

[Dean]

Everyone knocks ATI for their drivers. My new radeon is as solid as a rock, no driver issues whatsoever. I hear its a different story with win2k as the ati drivers are still way inmature though. I got rid of my TNT ultra for 1 reason, it would never stop crashing!! Oh it was still fast enough for me as i basically only play a few games, getting through those games without a crash was the problem. The card was fine when i first bought it, but was nearing the end of its life after alot of hard work. Most of its problems were heat related, i could have extended its life span by supplying more airflow, but why bother?

Everyone here seems to jump on a bandwagon and develope opinions about products they never even used. They hear one rumour and run with it. I'm sure nvidia will work out their "so called" driver problems also, with them its a story of speed right now but they'll move back to a balance of quality and speed.

As for stability issues, my ati runs on my athlon system without a problem, and i bet the geforce2 gts would run on my system without a problem, i'd say 90% of the so called "incompatibilies" are the fault of the end user and the other 10% can be worked around.

 

[Dean]

I believe the biggest problem facing the nvidia cards right now if there is truly hardware incompatabilities is that they also compete against themselves. Alot of different companies sell the same cards. They want the sale and try to make their card appear more attractive. How do they make it more attractive you ask? It comes down to the price point and they lower the price by lowering costs. Bottom line is you get what you pay for!!

I recommend spending that $30 more on a company with a good reputation of build quality over a Saturday Night Special anyday!

 

[xtreme2k]

i dont know why 3dfx will have problem when they adhear closely to the NON-AGP specs

 

[Wingznut]

"Actually 3dfx doesn't support true AGP at all. "

Well, call it whatever you want. But the V5-5500 is just as fast, and in many cases faster, than "true" AGP cards. So the question is... AGP/SchmAGP, who cares?

Correct me if I'm wrong... But since enough memory is located on the card, AGP really isn't necessary or used?