Ritteri&Bubbles
Disabled
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2001
- Location
- New England
Ok, after having the 8500 up and running somewhat stable for over a week now. I think I can post and UNBIASED account between this product and the Geforce3/Ti500 and 2 Ultra cards.
To make it short and sweet, the overall BEST BANG FOR THE BUCK category goes to the:
GeForce 2 Ultra
The best card regardless of price currently:
GeForce3 Ti500
The card with the most "features" that will not be able to be properly implemented(hence driver "problems")because of software problems AND improper hardware implementation:
Radeon 8500
This is coming from not just me, but my highschool friend who works for Sierra, and a grafx designer from VALVE.
After numerous phone calls and chats concerning getting the Radeon up and running as smooth as possible, they both agreed that the Radeon, though having some great new potential features in the hardware chipset. Will probably never be realized in the 8500, due to pipelines,RAM, and current GPU. They feel that the pipelines between the chipset componenets are bottlenecking the features potential(like smoothshader etc)and hurt the cards ability. The feeling is that also having a quad 32 bit(of which are not all being used as some are hardware and instruction specific) pipeline in past,current,and near future games is one problem and that dual 64 bit pipelines are currently the better way to go and can be used to much better advantage. A few people also feel that some of the hardware implemented into the chipset was done as an "afterthought" to the current card. And that quite a few of the "highlights" of the card's potential will never be used in the cards lifetime by current software programmers. They feel this card is being marketed as a "window into the future", though that future seems to be about 2-3 years away at the closest, and by this time, there will be cards out obviously that can implement the hardware correctly.
As for current games, Mike from Sierra told me that the best bang for the buck is the GeForce2 Ultra. He says that if you do have a bit of a budget, then snag up this card, as it is a ROCKETSHIP! And this card will be current still for another 18-24 months at least in terms of performance on upcoming games. The GeForce3 series will probably extend this potential another 6-12 months too.
As far as 2d and DVD goes, Mike at Sierra, and a few people from Valve agree that the ATI's 2d and DVD palyback is TOP NOTCH. But also state that Nvidia's DVD and 2d playback has been slowly improved with each generation of card, and that its pretty much ipossible to tell the difference between a 3 series and 8500 card now. But to add to this, people should stick with certain cards that have been balanced for great 2d/3d performance as some(Like the Gainward cards)cards colors will be off because of oc'ed/different RAM and cores, along with different quality components used on the actual cards themselves, so pay attention in this area if 2d is a big factor in your decision.
As for 3d,FPS,stability amd PROGRAMMING, the NVIDIA product is king. Hardware is well layed out, and easy for software programmers to use and implement. Nvidia basically releases hardware cards that are able to be implemented right away, and make sure features added in will make sense to the cards actual lifespan. This is thinking that ATI is going to have to begin to gear themselves towards. As told, Nvidia could easily release a new generation card that would look insane on paper, but know that lots of the features would go wasted or unused along with driver issues, so why release it? Its smart thinking, and this is why they are in the position they are in today. Mike states that 2 years down the road the Nvidia product will still be superior to the ATI product, just from a software programmers point alone. Yeah it may only have a 6 point T&L function vs. a 12 point from ATI(this is an exaple statement only)but software programmers see no need in using a 12 point for anytime within the next 2-3 years, so why add it?
Also people may have noticed but the ATI 8500 has some issues with alot of older games, this was a point brought up to me. The GeForce series card is not only excellent with translating todays games, but yesterday's as well.
So of the games where I had artifacts on using XP,Windows 2k Prof.,and 98 SE:
NFSIII: (triangles popping up,lines and color issues)
Starcraft color artifacts)
Homeworld: (lines and freezes)
Unreal: (random crashes,triangles)
NFL BLITZ: (odd textures popping up,odd colors,fps slowdowns in certain cases)
Halflifecrashes)
NHL 2002fps slowdown,BAD, crashes)
NHL 2001: (same probs)
Red factionred and green lines,triangle pop ups)
These are just a few of the games listed. Some games did run great without any hitches(motor city online,Max payne etc)and all games got similiar results with different op systems. Card was swapped out too to make sure the card itself wasnt defective along with a program to verify that potential. My system was run at stable settings only(Abit KG7 mobo, 1.024 gig ECC Registered RAM, RAID 0, AND SCSI hd setup, NO OVERCLOCKING, Athlon xp and T-bird preocessor, and a concurrent P3/4 setup too, again NO OCing)
The ultra and Ti series went though most games without 1 single hitch(1 0r 2 driver swaps were done, but at least the problem could be correct easily enough)and ran all benchmarks without any hitches.
So in conclusion, if your a gamer, or games are a big part of your attire, then the Best bang currently is am Ultra2 or 3Ti200.
If cost is no object and you want the best in games,DVD,s2,stability, then the Ti500 does everything as close to perfection as possible.
If your looking for great dvd, and 2d at a budget with ok 3d gaming then the 8500 may be a good choice in a few more months, but the 3 ti200/or 2 ultra may still be a better value as the 2d and dvd is no slouch by any means amd the 3d gaming is superior. All for around $150-250 I believe.
So take this thread FWIW but i got alot of answers from my own experience,along with opinions from actual game programmers themselves on the actual hardwares abilities.
cheers!
R&B
To make it short and sweet, the overall BEST BANG FOR THE BUCK category goes to the:
GeForce 2 Ultra
The best card regardless of price currently:
GeForce3 Ti500
The card with the most "features" that will not be able to be properly implemented(hence driver "problems")because of software problems AND improper hardware implementation:
Radeon 8500
This is coming from not just me, but my highschool friend who works for Sierra, and a grafx designer from VALVE.
After numerous phone calls and chats concerning getting the Radeon up and running as smooth as possible, they both agreed that the Radeon, though having some great new potential features in the hardware chipset. Will probably never be realized in the 8500, due to pipelines,RAM, and current GPU. They feel that the pipelines between the chipset componenets are bottlenecking the features potential(like smoothshader etc)and hurt the cards ability. The feeling is that also having a quad 32 bit(of which are not all being used as some are hardware and instruction specific) pipeline in past,current,and near future games is one problem and that dual 64 bit pipelines are currently the better way to go and can be used to much better advantage. A few people also feel that some of the hardware implemented into the chipset was done as an "afterthought" to the current card. And that quite a few of the "highlights" of the card's potential will never be used in the cards lifetime by current software programmers. They feel this card is being marketed as a "window into the future", though that future seems to be about 2-3 years away at the closest, and by this time, there will be cards out obviously that can implement the hardware correctly.
As for current games, Mike from Sierra told me that the best bang for the buck is the GeForce2 Ultra. He says that if you do have a bit of a budget, then snag up this card, as it is a ROCKETSHIP! And this card will be current still for another 18-24 months at least in terms of performance on upcoming games. The GeForce3 series will probably extend this potential another 6-12 months too.
As far as 2d and DVD goes, Mike at Sierra, and a few people from Valve agree that the ATI's 2d and DVD palyback is TOP NOTCH. But also state that Nvidia's DVD and 2d playback has been slowly improved with each generation of card, and that its pretty much ipossible to tell the difference between a 3 series and 8500 card now. But to add to this, people should stick with certain cards that have been balanced for great 2d/3d performance as some(Like the Gainward cards)cards colors will be off because of oc'ed/different RAM and cores, along with different quality components used on the actual cards themselves, so pay attention in this area if 2d is a big factor in your decision.
As for 3d,FPS,stability amd PROGRAMMING, the NVIDIA product is king. Hardware is well layed out, and easy for software programmers to use and implement. Nvidia basically releases hardware cards that are able to be implemented right away, and make sure features added in will make sense to the cards actual lifespan. This is thinking that ATI is going to have to begin to gear themselves towards. As told, Nvidia could easily release a new generation card that would look insane on paper, but know that lots of the features would go wasted or unused along with driver issues, so why release it? Its smart thinking, and this is why they are in the position they are in today. Mike states that 2 years down the road the Nvidia product will still be superior to the ATI product, just from a software programmers point alone. Yeah it may only have a 6 point T&L function vs. a 12 point from ATI(this is an exaple statement only)but software programmers see no need in using a 12 point for anytime within the next 2-3 years, so why add it?
Also people may have noticed but the ATI 8500 has some issues with alot of older games, this was a point brought up to me. The GeForce series card is not only excellent with translating todays games, but yesterday's as well.
So of the games where I had artifacts on using XP,Windows 2k Prof.,and 98 SE:
NFSIII: (triangles popping up,lines and color issues)
Starcraft color artifacts)
Homeworld: (lines and freezes)
Unreal: (random crashes,triangles)
NFL BLITZ: (odd textures popping up,odd colors,fps slowdowns in certain cases)
Halflifecrashes)
NHL 2002fps slowdown,BAD, crashes)
NHL 2001: (same probs)
Red factionred and green lines,triangle pop ups)
These are just a few of the games listed. Some games did run great without any hitches(motor city online,Max payne etc)and all games got similiar results with different op systems. Card was swapped out too to make sure the card itself wasnt defective along with a program to verify that potential. My system was run at stable settings only(Abit KG7 mobo, 1.024 gig ECC Registered RAM, RAID 0, AND SCSI hd setup, NO OVERCLOCKING, Athlon xp and T-bird preocessor, and a concurrent P3/4 setup too, again NO OCing)
The ultra and Ti series went though most games without 1 single hitch(1 0r 2 driver swaps were done, but at least the problem could be correct easily enough)and ran all benchmarks without any hitches.
So in conclusion, if your a gamer, or games are a big part of your attire, then the Best bang currently is am Ultra2 or 3Ti200.
If cost is no object and you want the best in games,DVD,s2,stability, then the Ti500 does everything as close to perfection as possible.
If your looking for great dvd, and 2d at a budget with ok 3d gaming then the 8500 may be a good choice in a few more months, but the 3 ti200/or 2 ultra may still be a better value as the 2d and dvd is no slouch by any means amd the 3d gaming is superior. All for around $150-250 I believe.
So take this thread FWIW but i got alot of answers from my own experience,along with opinions from actual game programmers themselves on the actual hardwares abilities.
cheers!
R&B