Videocard talk: GeForce4 fleet- Ti flagship, MX, etc

[Simplex]

Most games I play are using the Quake3 TA engine, and with my current GeForce2 MX 400 16 meg card, I can run 1024 resolution with medium graphics (out of 6 settings, I put on 2.)

 

I want to know which card of the GeForce4 line is a best buy.

 

Are the Ti series any good? Damned expensive.

 

If I cant afford the aforementioned, should I consider the GeForce4 MX 440? Im told its improvement over the GeForce3 Ti top line isnt that much, by some. Some others say it is a great value deal and a godo upgrade for the Quake3 engine games, such as JO.

 

I wanna be able to play JO with high graphics, and resolution at 1024 or higher. I have a PIII 733 with 256 or more ram.

 

 

 

<------ wtf is that

[TUS_Tomcat]

Dont get a GF 4 MX.

 

Trust me, either get a GF 4 TI xxxx

 

 

or, go for a GF3 Ti 200 or 500 if you;ve got the bucks, but then you cna buy a TI 4400 or 4200 GF4 as well

 

Dont go for the MX GF 4 tho... They aint go tall that fancy DirectX 8 stuff... Marketing ply naming them Geforce 4s

 

Geforce 3 TI 200 is better

 

 

 

 

OR, you could get a Radeon 8500

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: I own none of these cards, i have a GF 2 GTS 32 mb.

 

If any card you buy cause of this post screws up your sys, dont blame me, i only post what i have read in various sources

[SaberPro]

Originally posted by Simplex

Most games I play are using the Quake3 TA engine, and with my current GeForce2 MX 400 16 meg card, I can run 1024 resolution with medium graphics (out of 6 settings, I put on 2.)

 

I want to know which card of the GeForce4 line is a best buy.

 

Are the Ti series any good? Damned expensive.

 

If I cant afford the aforementioned, should I consider the GeForce4 MX 440? Im told its improvement over the GeForce3 Ti top line isnt that much, by some. Some others say it is a great value deal and a godo upgrade for the Quake3 engine games, such as JO.

 

I wanna be able to play JO with high graphics, and resolution at 1024 or higher. I have a PIII 733 with 256 or more ram.

 

 

 

<------ wtf is that

 

MX <-- NVidia Economic class graphic cards (they are good, not as good as the Ti)

 

Ti <-- NVidia Top class graphic cards (Best in the industry, Ti4600)

 

JO won't require a Geforce3 nor Geforce 4. Remember its requirements: between Elite Force and Return to Castle Wolfenstein

 

Minimum: 100% OpenGL supported 16MB graphic card

[digl]

Welcome Simplex

 

I don't recommend you a GF4, the Ti isn't worth 400 bucks, and the MXs aren't as good as they want them to appear, by calling them GF4

I will change my vid card soon, and I'm still undecided between a GF3Ti 500 and a Radeon 8500

[Shark747]

I read an article somewhere that the GF4 MX wont support the full features of upcoming games like Doom 3. I own a Radeon 8500 right now. Good card, had a few driver issues and a couple game probs but it runs like a dream now. I'm sure it's even better now that they doubled the RAM.

[digl]

check this

http://www.gamespy.com/hardware/march02/rad8500vsgf4/

 

http://www.gamespy.com/hardware/february02/geforce4

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q1/020304/index.html

 

I don't have the source from this, read it on a forum

U2 or UT2, I'm not sure

Unreal Performance Test 2002 (Build 848)

640 x 480 x 32 (Performance in fps - Higher is better)

 

ATI Radeon 8500 80.5

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 78.9

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce3 66.7

 

 

ATI Radeon 7500 64.3

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 57.1

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra 53.1

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti 200 49.2

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 Pro 44.4

 

 

ATI Radeon DDR 40.5

 

 

ST Micro Kyro II 39.1

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400 28.3

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce DDR 28.3

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 26.4

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce 256 24.2

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 200 13.0

Unreal Performance Test 2002 (Build 848)

800 x 600 x 32 (Performance in fps - Higher is better)

 

ATI Radeon 8500 73.1

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 64.0

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce3 54.5

 

 

ATI Radeon 7500 47.9

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 41.3

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra 40.6

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti 200 37.1

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 Pro 34.9

 

 

ATI Radeon DDR 34.2

 

 

ST Micro Kyro II 30.5

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400 22.2

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce DDR 20.5

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 18.9

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce 256 18.3

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 200 11.0

[RichyBoy]

Personally I'd go for the ATI Radeon 8500. I bought one last November, and it gave my 800mhz Athlon a whole new lease of life when I replaced my old GeForce II MX with it. AFAIK, it's still a good bit cheaper than the GeForce 3 Ti's, and has out performed them in just about every benchmark test I've ever seen (including the Ti 500). A couple of recent articles even compare it favourably to the GeForce 4 cards (non MX), which are of course vastly more expensive. While it doesn't have the same super-fast clock speeds, it still outperforms those cards in some tests apparently, due to superior texture managment or something. I think http://www.rage3d.com has some articles on the matter if you want to look into it more.

 

If you do decide to go for the ATI card, just bear in mind a few things. Firstly, as Shark747 said, ATI's drivers can be quite buggy unless you are using WinXP, but only cause major problems with overclocking etc. With a bit of luck, they'll get their act together in that respect before long though, and you can get loads of programs to tweak your display with anyway. It's also worth bearing in mind that unlike the GeForce 3 Ti's, the ATI card is 100% DirectX 8.1 compliant (GeForce 3 Ti's are designed for DirectX 8.0a).

 

Secondly, don't forget that a new graphics card can only improve your performance as far as your other system components will allow. It's all very well having a kick ass gfx card, but it won't matter if your system is straining to keep up.

 

In conclusion, get a Radeon 8500 - faster card, for less money. If your budget can stretch a little further, consider going for the 128MB version. Although it won't make much difference with current games, it should really prove to be a good investment when games like Doom 3 hit the shelves. Also, if you do decide to get one, make sure you get one "Built By ATI" and not "Powered By ATI". The latter type are made by other manufacturers using the ATI chipset, and tend to have lower clock/memory speeds.

Finally, if you really want to give that system a good kick up the ass, get a faster processor with the money you saved by buying the 8500 instead of those overpriced nVidia cards .

[digl]

here is a "powered by" with higher speeds

http://www.unitech-na.com/html/8500exp.htm

 

RichyBoy one of the links I posted compares it to the GF4Ti4600

the main difference is when using AA at high res

" it gave my 800mhz Athlon a whole new lease of life" I have an 800mhz Athlon TB with a Geforce DDR

 

Is the board limited by the processor? I'll probably have the R8500 for a long time if I buy it, and may upgrade to an XP 2000+ someday...

 

Is the 128mb version available? how much is it?

 

I think I could get that one If It costs something like the Ti500 does

 

would the 128mb increase the performance when using AA?

[RichyBoy]

Woah! Questions! Questions! Too many questions! Still, I'll have a go at answering as best I can...

 

"RichyBoy one of the links I posted compares it to the GF4Ti4600

the main difference is when using AA at high res"

 

True, if your referring to the fact that the GF4 card is faster with AA on. I do recall hearing though that the AA (or Smoothvision TM as ATI calls it ) looks better on the Radeon than the nVidia cards, but I haven't seen AA on the GF4 for myself, so I really couldn't say. It would make sense though, that if it is higher quality it results in a higher perfomance hit.

 

When I said it compares favourably I didn't actually mean it's any faster for running games than a GF4, I just meant that when you consider the comparitive costs of the cards and the performance differences, the Radeon 8500 seems to be a much more sensible and wallet friendly choice .

 

"I have an 800mhz Athlon TB with a Geforce DDR"

 

Well, I guess you should get a pretty good performance boost as well then. I remember that when I changed cards my 3dMark2001 score jumped from ~2200 to the mid 4000's if that's any help. I think the 64MB helped to a great extent, as I was getting problems with some high detail texture games such as Max Payne on my GF2MX.

 

"Is the board limited by the processor?"

 

Well yes, to a certain extent. If you look at 3DMark2001 score comparisons online, you can more than double your score by upgrading your processor.

 

Another good example is Medal Of Honour: Allied Assault. The card itself is more than capable of running the game at full detail, but due to the heavy use of AI in the game etc, the game crawls on a slow processor. The single player demo runs like a snail on dope on my system because it can't handle all the other requirements. While the frame rate itself is fine, I get loads of stuttering due to my slow hard drive etc (and probably also because my processor fan is on it's last legs ).

 

Again, I didn't mean to imply that the card suffers greatly from a slow processor, it's just that as games become more complex, it's only natural that the video will bottleneck as the system chokes on all the other data it has to handle. To paraphrase/misquote some guy I can't remember, it's like buying a top-of-the-range ferrari engine and sticking it in a 20 year old mini metro .

 

"Is the 128mb version available? how much is it?"

 

AFAIK it's not yet available (in the UK at least). I seem to recall press releases suggesting the retail price will be ~$200 (the same as the 64MB when it was released).

 

"would the 128mb increase the performance when using AA?"

 

I'm no expert, but I would guess so yes. I do know for a fact that the amount of memory on the card affects the maximum resolution you can run at with AA on.

 

"here is a "powered by" with higher speeds."

 

Yes, you are indeed correct. I simply made a point of being careful about what you are buying as there was a lot of confusion when the R8500 was released. The ATI card was clocked at 275/275 for GPU/memory clocks (550 for the memory really as it's DDR RAM, and nVidia seems to count this as doubling the clock speed of the memory in their GF3 Ti specifications lists ). However, OEM cards using the chipset were released at clock speeds of 250/250, which wasn't mentioned properly, resulting in a lot of annoyed customers. Due to this, ATI introduced the "Built By ATI" and "Powered by ATI" distinctions. By all means, get the OEM card as long as you know exactly what you're getting .

 

As a few final points, although I did mention the GF4/8500 comparisons as a point of interest, I take such comparisons with a pinch of salt. The 8500 was released to compete with the GF3 Ti 500 - plain and simple. They were released at the same time, and the the 8500 was faster and cheaper. There was a debacle regarding the 8500 and "optimised Quake 3 drivers" which were allegedly made so that the card would run better in benchmarks. The drivers contained a "bug" that meant all textures in Q3 games were mipmapped, decreasing the visual quality but increasing the FPS. However, this has now been fixed and the 8500 still tops the Ti 500 in all the benchmarks that I've seen - OpenGl and Direct3D. ATI has another chip in development at the moment, which I suspect will be their GF4 killer. The fact that the 8500 isn't all that much slower and is a fraction of the cost is just a bonus .

 

Finally, I feel that I should mention again that if you haven't got XP, ATI's drivers are buggy as hell. Only minor glitches in gfx really, and most are due to overclocking anyway, but it's still worth bearing in mind. Mind you, while nVidia are the undisputed kings of drivers at the moment, they've been quite shaky in the past. There was quite a serious hardware/software bug in the GF2 range relating to compressed textures, most noticable in Q3. Simply put, the cards didn't handle the compression of transparent textures properly, so any transparent textures in the game such as the sky looked really awful. The problem was fixed by turning S3TC off, but this created problems in some of the games larger levels which required more than 32MB of video memory for the textures. http://www.geforcefaq.com has more info on the problem (in addition to a long list of other problematic games) as well as a link to a detailed article on the matter.

 

 

So there you have it. Your choice. Personally I think that while the GF4 is undoubtedly faster, it's not fast enough to merit the hefty price tag attached to it. As for the GF4MX's, Carmack himself has said not to get one of those if you want to play Doom 3 well, as they're basically GF3's with some extra features, but none of the memory bandwidth/hardware improvments that the main GF4 cards offer (incidentally, he said the 8500's were fine, apart from some driver issues which should be fixed by now). Hope this info helps!!

 

P.S. I know this post is a little thin on hard evdence in the form of links to articles. I haven't got time right now, but I'll do a little research later and get back to ya, K

[Shark747]

Ok now that I'm home from work hopefully I can add a bit to the wealth of info RichyBoy left ya... first of all, if you are thinking about the 8500 check out www.rage3d.com like he said, it's a great site and the forums are helpful if you can wade through all the BS. You get the typical Nvidia is evil and ATI for life garbage. One thing to watch out for in those forums is people blame the card for every little problem they have when 90% of the time they messed up installing it or they tweak their system too much and dont like it when something doesnt work right. I have no loyalty to either company whatsoever, I bought the 8500 because I felt it was the better deal.

I run on XP and have never had any serious problems with the card. The drivers can be picky but usually only if you are daring and use the betas, right now I found a version that runs great on my comp so I'm leaving it at that. Max Payne runs like a dream on my Athlon 850 mhz, graphics cranked and all. Like he said it gave my old processor a new lease on life. The only serious game issue I came across was Comanche 4 and a serious stuttering problem, but it was promptly fix and now that game runs at its full glory. I have some slow down with Medal of Honor but I think its my processor not the card. Smoothvision is cool but I really dont know how many games are being made for it. The card also runs Elite force, Q3 Arena demo and RTCW smooth as silk with cranked up resolution and graphics, figured you'd like to know that since most of us are waiting impatiently for Outcast. As a matter of fact RTCW and Outcast are the reasons I bought the card. That old Voodoo 3000 just wasnt cutting it anymore.

[RichyBoy]

Cheers for adding the extra info Shark747 . With regards to the Smoothvision engine, I don't think games will be specifically made for it like the Truform engine on the card. I think it's just their name for the particular AA engine they've developed - it appears to work with just about every game I've got except the really old ones - like JK !

[digl]

wow force long post!

 

Thanks RichyBoy and Shark747

 

When I said it compares favourably I didn't actually mean it's any faster for running games than a GF4, I just meant that when you consider the comparitive costs of the cards and the performance differences, the Radeon 8500 seems to be a much more sensible and wallet friendly choice

Yes I had understood this, I agree 100%.

 

Im' using Win XP, so I shouldn't have problems.

 

I understand what you say about "powered by", I never intended buying one of those.

 

The 8500 runs all current games as good as the GF3 Ti500, and runs next gen ones (New unreal and quake engines) better, besides It's cheaper and has better quality. If you say the new drivers are working fine, I think I finally decided for the R8500

 

I can add something. Games can be optimized for smoothvision, the devs can select which things are antialiased and which are not, decreasing the performance hit.

[Shark747]

DOH!!!!-----when I said I doubted game developers would implement Smoothvision I meant Truform.....I feel like a boob now. Another bonus with the 8500 is my card came with Counterstrike, so if you dont have it like I did it was nice. I think Half-life is truformed and you can do it by a command line. I THINK its "ati_npatch #" the # corresponds to the amount that the models are truformed. The players look great at the highest level but the guns tend to balloon a bit, quite funny actually. Glad I could help.

[RichyBoy]

Glad our info was of help digl .

 

Just to add some closure to this topic, if you're using WinXP, the latest drivers are apparently nearly completely free of bugs, according to the ATI-philes on the Rage3D forums. The only problem that you may encounter is a refresh rate bug under XP, where all games instantly set the refresh rate to 60mhz when run. Apparently, this is a Microsoft issue that occurs with all gfx cards under XP (again according to Rage3D forum users). Even if it is specific to the Radeon 8500, there are a few programs specifically designed to fix the problem available for download from http://www.rage3d.com . You probably already knew that, but just in case !

 

Shark747: there are some games that support Truform apart from Half-Life atm. RtCW has an option for it under the gfx options menu. I can't really say I noticed a major difference when I enabled it, but perhaps as the models have so many polys anyway, it simply reduces the strain on the GPU when rendering the highest detail models. Also, Serious Sam has the appropriate code in it and relevant options for it with the latest patch, but apperenty none of the models are actually optimised for it as of yet. If you do force the option, you end up with that ballooning effect you mentioned in Counter-Strike. It looks quite funny, but almost suits the game because of it's cartoony style anyway .

 

I agree that more games should take advantage of the Truform feature though - both existing and future. I reckon it has the potential to be by far the best feature of any card yet, and if devs do start using it to it's full advantage, we could see the 8500 catching up even further with those GF4 cards.

[Simplex]

Re: My system specs for reanalyzatin, to get best card.

 

Pentium III 733

256 megs ram

18 gig hard drive

GeForce 2 MX 400

Windows 98

SoundBlaster Live

48x harddrive

 

I run games with about 25-30 fps, medium graphics or lower usually, 1024/x resolution always. Quake3 TA engine powered games are what Im lookin forward to with more fps, and more graphics, as well as future Doom3, Unreal2, Quake4.

 

Medal Of Honour AA I play with 25-35 fps average. For graphics settings, out of: lowest, low, medium, high, higher, highest, AND low, medium, high, higher. I run in medium. No fog effects, lighting, shadows, etc.

 

Considering my system specs (windows 98), is Radeon 8500 64 meg card still a good choice? Drivers not a problem, or yes? I will not be overclocking it (dont know how, could get friend to perhaps).

 

I want JO to have graphics bumped up all the way, as with MoH and other FPS. Other games are always maxed if Quake3 engine games are (IMO).

 

ATI scares me off a bit, and I've had good luck with my GeForce2 MX pisser so far.

 

SO---- ATI Radeon 8500 64 meg, GeForce4 MX 4400, GeForce3 Ti 500, GeForce4 Ti xxxx.

 

Which is better, for graphics (keeping sys specs in mind) and then for price? I want FPS graphics and FPS galore.

 

--------------------

 

You all seem to point towards ATI Radeon 8500. Making sure though.

[RichyBoy]

As I said, GF4 = fastest card your money can buy, but also by far the most expensive.

 

Forget the GF4 MX cards. They may be OK for current games, but they simply aren't going to be up to the job when games like Doom3 / Unreal 2 come out, because they don't support all the advanced features of Directx 8. All the other cards you've mentioned should.

 

GF3 Ti 500 = reliable, fairly speedy card, but the Radeon 8500 is cheaper and faster.

 

Radeon 8500 = best price/performance ratio by far. It is faster than the entire GF3 range, and is not too shabby when compared with the top range GF4's, so it should be pretty futureproof. A Radeon 8500 w/ 64MB costs around $138, compared to the $400 or whatever it is for nVidia's cash cow. As for ATI scaring you off a bit, nVidia cards have just as many problems with games in terms of gfx glitches etc. To be perfectly honest, I've got Win98 SE, and the only noticable issue I've had is with the menus in "American McGee's Alice" and "Star Trek: Elite Force", with little black lines bisecting the screen. Hardly a major problem, and one I am in the process of resolving anyway .

 

Finally, remember what I said about processors. If you want to run MOH:AA at full detail, it doesn't matter what gfx card you buy as you'll still get slowdown with that processor due to the AI etc. I simply cannot stress that enough. A new gfx card will NOT magically make all your games run at full detail and a million frames per second if the rest of your computer can't handle the other stuff. A GF4 will suffer just as much as an 8500 due to processor bottlenecks.

 

In conclusion, get a Radeon 8500 (or a GF3 Ti500 if you decide you cannot live with a couple of minor gfx glitches in older games). Then, with the money you've saved buying one of those cards instead of a GF4, get a new, faster Athlon motherboard and processor .

 

P.S. If you want more detailed info on how much of a speed increase you'll get, go to http://www.madonion.com and download 3dMark2001. It'll run some gfx tests on your system and then give you a 3dMark score (looking at your config I'd guess yours will be around 2000). You will then have the option to compare your results with other users online, and see graphs comparing the average results for computers with the same processor as you but different gfx cards. There you will be able to see what % increase in speed you will get with different cards. You can also compare the average scores for users with the same gfx card as you but different processors. Hope this helps .

[Simplex]

Okay, between you guys and my friend, I have singled out GeForce4 cards for now. I cant pay $600 Canadian for a GF4 Ti series card, and the MX is no good.

 

ATI ha the small driver issues, but everyone says is better.

The GeForce3 Ti 500 is good as well.

 

So, Im going to decide between the two. I think the ATI will be it...and with the extra $50 or so Im going to get 256 more ram.

 

I will, in summer, get an Athlon processor and motherboard upgrade.

 

PS- what ram is good for computers now? SD, DDR, other?

[RichyBoy]

Currently the best RAM you can get for your money is PC2100 DDR RAM. It probably won't go in your current motherboard, but if you're getting a new one in the summer, I'd wait and get some DDR memory at the same time. It'll probably be cheaper then too .