inselaffe on 30/9/2009 at 19:09
Was considering buying an nvidia card if i ever got a new pc - since my friend told me it can do physics stuff (dunno if ati can) but after reading this i don't think i will:
(
http://blogs.amd.com/play/2009/09/11/ati-catalyst-99-driver-everything-you-want-to-know-and-why-you-should-care/#comment-1630)
I never realised the way it's meant to be played stuff was quite this bad, or is it only in recent years?
From reading responses it seems like extra work was done to include anti aliasing by nvidia but i would imagine the truth is somewhere in the middle of what the two companies say.
Hopefully things won't go back to the old days of "if you have a 3dfx card, this game will have a lot more features". That kind of thing is not good for anyone.
mothra on 30/9/2009 at 19:38
cry moar ATI. it's just the typical back-and-forth between those 2 companies. ATI was guily of faking benchmarks as well (or having nvida give less info on their exclusive titles). I don't care which company is worse, all I care for is which card performs best and in my experience Nvidia drivers were always better than ATI's. or my pc just hates ATI (or it's another conspiracy of intel-nvidia against AMD-ATI). In the end, prize/stability will always count more than fancy physx or sli features. but even there nvidia seems to have better cards, the multi-way SLI for example will let me buy a new Nvidia card in the future and use my old 8800gts for physx alone even though I will have different cards.
I expect the vga wars getting uglier before they get better, comes with the bad economic situation. capitalismn at its best.
DaBeast on 30/9/2009 at 21:33
If you don't mind rediculous driver issues (such as bugs popping up that were "fixed" several versions ago) and being mocked by the moderator at ATI's own suport forum, then go ATI. The 5XXX series DX11 cards are supposedly pretty nice, but I suspect Nvidia's next series will eat them, for a significantly larger cost.
If you don't mind the extra cost get an nvidia. PhysX is only beneficial in games that utilise it extensively I think, such as Mirrors Edge, where the difference is actually shocking.
(I have a 4870X2 and I've nothing but regret, though it is pretty powerful, I'd have preferred a GTX 295)
Ostriig on 30/9/2009 at 22:00
I only read that post that your link carried to, but I think you may be barking up the wrong tree even if it is true. nVidia's initiatives may be of an ill nature, but I think you'd have more of a bone to pick with the developer or publisher who'd accept this sort of preferential and unfair conditions rather than nVidia themselves.
And, of course, given that this is a statement by AMD/ATI regarding their prime competitor, I'd take it with a grain of salt.
Quote Posted by mothra
In the end, prize/stability will always count more than fancy physx or sli features.
Quote Posted by DaBeast
PhysX is only beneficial in games that utilise it extensively I think, such as Mirrors Edge, where the difference is actually shocking.
I'd expect that such games will pop up more and more, though. Ever since nVidia acquired Ageia's PhysX and integrated it as standard into the video cards, the playerbase hardware infrastructure has effectively become large enough to warrant usage and I wouldn't be surprised to see ever more developers try to take advantage of it.
That said, I'm also with nVidia on the driver issue. Sure, they cock up every now and then, as they have with the latest one fucking up forced AA
yet again, but they put out new iterations quite often and they're usually reliable. Granted, my only experience with ATI on the matter has been the 2400XT in my laptop, but I've been less than happy with the drivers for that one and with all the complaints here and there on forums, I'm not really inclined to believe it's an isolated case.
Phatose on 30/9/2009 at 22:15
So, a game publisher asks nVidia and Ati for drivers and code to enable a type of selective AA on their game. nVidia gives it to them, Ati doesn't. It works for nVidia, it doesn't for Ati.
This doesn't seem surprising or questionable to me.
Now, if Ati had been saying "We offered them code and all, and they told us to shove it.", that would've been one thing. That's not what it sounds like though.
CCCToad on 30/9/2009 at 22:50
can't you just buy a stand alone PhysX card?
Ostriig on 30/9/2009 at 23:02
Do they still make discrete PhysX cards? I was under the impression that they were discontinued since Ageia got taken over, with the functionality being completely integrated into nVidia's graphics cards. As for having it separate, I think Bikerdude mentioned in Tech that you could plug an nVidia graphics card into a standard PCI-E slot and have it set to work exclusively on PhysX processing, so I'm guessing you could still do that with a low-end nVidia while having an ATI as the standard graphics processor. Depends on how the driver and toggle is set up I suppose.
june gloom on 30/9/2009 at 23:49
oh god not another dan knott post i thought you were dead
inselaffe on 1/10/2009 at 02:55
I wished you were.
Koki on 1/10/2009 at 05:58
He was. He got better though.
Quote Posted by mothra
I don't care which company is worse, all I care for is which card performs best and in my experience Nvidia drivers were always slightly less utterly fucked.
Fixed
