ZylonBane on 20/4/2006 at 14:51
Mini-resurrection!
Well, against the advice of others, I recently upgraded to a 6800GS from my old ti4200. I figured a banded sky wouldn't bother me too much, but... oh my god, it is so much worse than that...
Aside from the banded sky (this is TMA I'm talking about here), most transparency effects have an ugly bright greenish tinge, and objects in low light appear posterized. It may be my imagination, but I suspect the lightmap resolution is worse too.
Worse yet, I think this thing doesn't support Windows 98. The site I bought it from said it did, but the CD only came with 2K/XP drivers. Works fine on my 2K partition, but the only way to get it running on my 98 partition was to install vanilla 6800 drivers, which don't work so well in 3D mode (they make the Deus Ex sky look just as bad as the Thief sky!).
So, as much of an nVidia fanboy as I've been over the years, I think it's finally time to jump ship to Radeon. They making any AGP parts in the $200 range these days?
OrbWeaver on 20/4/2006 at 15:27
The ATI equivalent of the 6800GS is the X800 XL (available in AGP). I was going to get one of these before discovering a very good deal on an X850 XT which is much faster.
I don't know much about US pricing but a search on Froogle showed X800 XL AGP models at around $250.
jermi on 20/4/2006 at 21:01
You don't even have to go that high to play Thief. I'm still using a 9600XT and it runs Thief very well with maximum anisotropy and AA settings (1024x768 resolution.) Of course, if you want to play something new as well, 9600XT is no longer enough.
If you do acquire an ATI card, say hello to the wall of fog.
