Nvidia or Ati wich one is the best?

[soniclink2]

the christmas holidays are near and i'm thinking of buying a new graphic card to play on 1964, other emulators and new pc games

i know that i'm probably getting out of the 1964 forum, please forgive me, it's just that i want to make a good decision to have all this range of playing games

i also know that a geforce fx is good for n64 games like zelda64 on 1964, but is terrible on chankast, i don´t know if ati works for both, because nvidia has been my favorite

[CF2]

nVidia's 6xxx series is excellent in value and quality. My GeForce 6800 handles emulation fine. ATi's X8xx series is also supposed to be decent, but I don't know from experience. The newer series' (GeForce 7xxx/Radeon X1K) aren't quite as cheap, but I think nVidia is winning right now...

[revl8er]

I only use nVidia, but I hear that ati's are just as good. It all comes down to how much you are willing to spend on a gfx card.

[_sniper_]

Dont get the FX series, they were a horrible flop and you would just be wasting money on them.

Nvidia right now just blew apart the video card market with there new 7800GTX 512mb, that carding hitting 10k on 3dmark05 at stock!! They also hold the midrange market right now, with the 6600GT-6800GS line up. ATI's 1kx series fall short of Nvidia's cards in almost all benchmarks. So they dont have much to offer. Except one lone card, namely the Sapphire x800GTO2. Which by some crazy streak of luck, Sapphire desided to use the r480 core on it. Also known as the core of the X850XT PE. So, because of that, it can be unlocked from the strock 12 pipelines to 16 (that of the X850XT PE) and OCed. Sofar atleast, it has had a 100% reported success rate at unlocking.

Unlocking Guide
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles//overclocking/vidcard/127/1
The Card
http://www.us.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=16631&vpn=102-A47487-10-AT&manufacture=SAPPHIRE
That puney little stock fan just wont do for OCing (So throw on a new fan)
http://www.us.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=14424&vpn=AVC-AT5-R2&manufacture=Arctic%20Cooling

But if thats a bit out of your price range, the card you should get, would have to be the 6800 vanilla, or the 6600GT. The AGP 6800 vanilla (the PCI-E version physically ONLY has 12 pipes) with some luck, can be unlocked from 12 pipes to 16 but does not exactly have a 100% succes rate. As these cards are usualy locked for a reason (bad pipes). And it will not gain much peformance. So dont expect what seems to be a 6800 to GT mod. Because the ram is only 128mb of DDR1. Not 256mb of GDDR3 like that 6800GT has.

Unlocking guide
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_6800_unlocking/

Both the 6600GT and 6800 vanilla have about the same perfomance (@stock). And will actualy PLAY real games unlike an FX card. The information is all here, so the choice is up to you! :D

[ScottJC]

Imho neigher is better, they are both excellent.

[rcgamer]

the connect3d x800gto can be unlocked to xt with 16 pipes. it is really good value as well http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814142052
from the benches ive seen the xt outperforms or at least keeps up with all but the latest cards(nv 7xxxx and ati 1xxx series). I just bought this myself should be getting it tuesday or wednesday. ill let you know if it is any good with n64 emus. though im sure it will be.

[arnalion]

nVIDIA have the fastest card now with their new 7800GTX 512MB.

[bugmenot-emut]

For 1964 use a Geforce, my ATI runs at 10~40 fps with rice's plugins, compared to jabos where i get a constant 60, so it depends what you want to use it for really.

-pie

[soniclink2]

well. i need it to play on 1964, chankast (i know there's a bug on nvidia cards for sonic adventure 2) and pc games (i.e. need for speed underground, pixel shader games)

can someone compare those cards? i've seen in the market the ati 9600 and the geforce fx 5200 i do´n't know the other ones, and also what's that about the open ports? that confuse me

[Clements]

I use both ATi and NVIDIA, and both are excellent emulation-wise.

[cloudscapes]

Both are excellent, you can't go wrong with either.

However, ATI has a slight performance advantage for DirectX applications, and Nvidia one on OpenGL.

Image quality wise (AA and AF filtering) the crown goes to ATI.

[gandalf]

the best image quality goes to ATI (better AF quality and the best AA)

both companies are good for emulation

[soniclink2]

Both are excellent, you can't go wrong with either.

However, ATI has a slight performance advantage for DirectX applications, and Nvidia one on OpenGL.

Image quality wise (AA and AF filtering) the crown goes to ATI.

but do you know wich model of nvidia or ati would help me with the wide range of pc a emu games? i've seen ati radeon 9600 and fx 5200 on the market, i'm still searching but i want to know of any model to compare and see if matches my budget

[gandalf]

9600PRO/XT 128MB/128-bit (nothing with "SE" or 256MB for this card) it´s an great choice for emulation.

Better choice it´s an Nvidia 6600 128MB/128-bit (no 256 with this card) or an ATI x700 128MB too, both are at the same price

[wangle]

nvidia is the best

[GCFreak]

I agree with all of you. NVIDIA is the best choice. But ATi is good, too. Go for either the 6800GT or the Sapphire X800GTO2, they nearly perform the same.

[arnalion]

The Connect3D X800GTO is also a good choise, it can be unlocked as the X800GTO² but it's not 100% sure you succed with the Connect3D card.

With unlock i mean open the closed pipes.

[PsyMan]

ATi is generaly better for emulation due to the nice driver feautures (ie: overscan which makes games look perfect on TVs). ATi cards also have less power requirements which makes them perfect for laptops and systems with weak PSUs.

Nvidia has better support. You can run many older games with new drivers (this excludes some emulators unfortunately) and there's support for feautures that ATi cards don't have (Pixel Shaders 3.0, 8 bit palleted textures, etc.). Nvidia also offers better support for OSes other than Windows (ie: Linux).

[gandalf]

LOL :lol:

the most power-demand card it´s the x1800XT and 7800GTX not,7800´s have some nice power saving thanks to the mobile parts inside, and it´s the best GPU for Notebooks/laptop wathever ( GeForce go 7800GTX)

9800 needs some nice PSU to work, more than an 6600GT

ATI now supports SM 3.0 and better implemention than NVidia one.

and ATI support AA with HDR, Nvidia not.

for older games, both are good.

for emulation both are fine, but with Direct 64 ATI it´s better (orkin have an 9500)


Support for other OS´es ,Nvidia it´s much better than ATI in this part....ATI have not so good drivers.


At least, ATI and NVidia are great for emulation.

if you chose the correct drivers

[PsyMan]

Well... Crazy Taxi series don't work with ATi's latest drivers. Final Fantasy VII doesn't even run with hardware acceleration and VIII looks really bad even with it (looks better on my GeForce 2 MX than on my ATi X600).

Excluding X1800XT almost every other ATi card needs less power than an Nvidia of the same power range using default clock speeds.

Overscan simulation is not perfect yet (and supported only by Orkin's plugin so far) so an ATi card can be used to use the feauture correctly.

I haven't looked at the feautures of X1800 cards yet... PS 3.0 support is nice (at last) :D

[gandalf]

i´ve got graphics problems in NFS 4 (patched to work in XP) with some Nvidia drivers with my 6600GT and with an FX5200

not an patch problem, because with the 5200, same problems with the same game under win ME.

Some ATI features are nice and some other unnecesary

x1800 support HDR and AA, Nvidia not because of some support for HDR, nvidia uses FP32 and you can only use HDR or AA, ATI uses FP16 and you can use HDR AND AA, obiously with an important hit in performance.

but well....any emulator now uses HDR and SM3.0 :p

[KingVendrSnatch]

Well... Crazy Taxi series don't work with ATi's latest drivers. Final Fantasy VII doesn't even run with hardware acceleration and VIII looks really bad even with it (looks better on my GeForce 2 MX than on my ATi X600).

Excluding X1800XT almost every other ATi card needs less power than an Nvidia of the same power range using default clock speeds.

Overscan simulation is not perfect yet (and supported only by Orkin's plugin so far) so an ATi card can be used to use the feauture correctly.

I haven't looked at the feautures of X1800 cards yet... PS 3.0 support is nice (at last) :D

The PC version of Crazy Taxi runs fine for me and Im using an ATI with the latest drivers.

Unless your talking about the DC version. Then I wouldnt know.

Cheers.

[PsyMan]

See? ATi's drivers are a mess. Crazy Taxi 3 doesn't work here (neither did with older 5.xx series drivers). :P
I don't say that Nvidia's drivers do not have problems... Just not as many as the ATi ones.

[KingVendrSnatch]

Just FYI I tested Crazy Taxi 3 and it worked fine as well..Its crazy..

Cheers.

[compres]

Saying ATI drivers are worse than nVidia's at the moment is just FUDing, those drivers have been perfect for me for more than 2 years now:

Radeons: 7200, 9800, and now x800

On all my games on the pc and all 3d accelerated software like emulators.

I have to agree though Linux support sucks, maybe I go with nVidia next time, just for this lone reason. Other than that they are flawless drivers IMHO(they are updating them monthly).

As for nVidia, they are faster in current games, but I wouldn't bet on new releases, as ATI's shader 3.0 implementation is far superior.

The only thing going on for ATI ATM is image quality, its a lot better than nVidia.

[BlueFalcon7]

if you read up the n64 and gamecube's graphics cards are by ATI so i would say ATI is better for emulation, however from what i have seen and heard, ATI is better than NVIDIA but ATI is more expensive and not that much better than NVIDIA and you get more for your money with NVIDIA

[gandalf]

not by ATI, ATI buyed the company that´s created the GPU for the GC.

and both companies have expensive and cheaps graphics cards.

the most expensive card it´s from nvidia now, the 7800GTX 512MB edition, the performance it´s great but the price it´s insane

stop saying that, both have great and bad cards....

[Solar]

overall the x1800 is only very VERY slightly better than the 7800, but the 7800 is over £100 cheaper, so its much better value for money
the 512 7800 isnt that much better at all, but it is better and way too pricey and will soon come down another £100 when ATI release the 512 x1800, which is what is going to keep nvidia in the lead (but it will prolly change when Nvidia start mass producing the ps3 gfx chip, its going to slow them down a bit thats for sure)

i could go into more detail as to why each one is what it is but after reading through this thread a half of you wouldnt understand properley what the other half and me actualy "really" know about these cards :p

[GCFreak]

Personally, I would go for NVIDIA. NVIDIA has SLi, While ATi hasn't inplemented (is that how you spell it?) it yet. I'm not saying ATi is dumb, but NVIDIA been using SM3.0 from GeForce 6, while ATi just installed it on they're graphics cards now. So naturally, Shader performance is better on NVIDIA-based Video cards.

[gandalf]

more lol :D

shader model 3 in both companies are bad implemented.
Nvidia choiced the "Slow method" for SM3 (bad), and ATI choiced the "Faster Method" (nice), but ATI misses an non necesary DX9.0c feature, i don´t remember the name now.

But the SM3 from Nvidia still it´s BAD implemented, worse than ATI.

and SM3 it´s not really necesary for games atm.

naturally, Linux/Open GL support is better with nvidia cards and drivers :P

[Duffman]

Personally, I would go for NVIDIA. NVIDIA has SLi, While ATi hasn't inplemented (is that how you spell it?) it yet. I'm not saying ATi is dumb, but NVIDIA been using SM3.0 from GeForce 6, while ATi just installed it on they're graphics cards now. So naturally, Shader performance is better on NVIDIA-based Video cards.
ATi has Crossfire which is the same thing as SLi and does an even better job at it as well.

[gamerk316]

My old comp (1.6GHZ) runs with a NVIDIA 5500 (256MB), and i've never had a single problem with it.

I'll never buy an ati card; every time i buy a new game, the readme file contains a list of what doesn't work with ati cards...

[gandalf]

lol

what games?

:rolleyes:

those games that said "the way it´s meant to be player"?

[gandalf]

lol

what games?

:rolleyes:

those games that said "the way it´s meant to be player"?

[soniclink2]

sorry for posting so late now i have a list of models from markets, and i need you to help me select the good ones

the games that i want to play are beside others: sonic adventure 2 dc, need for speed underground, lego star wars (don't have pixel shader), zelda oot n64....

here's the list of graphic cards:

- msi 9250 ati 128 mb tv out
- msi fx5200-td-128mb tv out
- msi fx5500-td-128mb tv out
- msi ati radeon 95500 256mb tv out
- ati radeon nx6200-256mb pci-e