Attn: Need to know what to buy? This should help.

PreservedSwine · Jun 19, 2003

txheart said:
I was all set to buy an ATI 9500 pro. I found out it doesn't support windows 98. now i'm back to square 1. can someone recomend a good replacement card that supports win 98 se

It doesn't officially support Win98, but NOTHING does anymore.

Why not?

Because Micrsoft STOPPED certifying drivers for Win 98 last August. That means every product released after Aug. of '02 doesn't "support" Win 98.

However, since WinMe is simply trumped up Win98, and microsot still puts out WHQL drivers for Me, you may rest assured that the R9500Pro will work just fine in Win 98. ATI suggests just using the WinMe drivers

bdw8 · Jun 19, 2003

Get the Omega Drivers for 98se for that 9500pro. I have been impressed with my Omega Drivers.

I will edit with the information given...thanks!

bdw8 · Jun 19, 2003

CrawlerZX said:
he 9800 pro anygame? at viaarena.com they claim this map for jedi knight has such complicated textures that a P4 3.0 ghz and a 9800 will run it at 40fps

i dun know if this is true i don't have jedi knight

Linky?

q149 · Jun 19, 2003

MrMarbles said:
A litte side question but, q149, I noticed you mentioned you tested the L shaped 9500np. Since its not modded, does it matter what kind it is? Dont they all perform the same?

Well, the L-shaped one has a 256 bit memory bus while the black straight-line ones have 128 bit bus. I have never seen them tested against eachother but i would think the L-shaped might outperform.

bdw8 · Jun 19, 2003

q149 said:
Well, the L-shaped one has a 256 bit memory bus while the black straight-line ones have 128 bit bus. I have never seen them tested against eachother but i would think the L-shaped might outperform.

But doesn't the 256 bit mem bus have to be enabled to be effective? You are probably right anyways.

q149 · Jun 19, 2003

The 256 bit bus is built into the card and is always there.. only the non active pipes need to be enabled.

bdw8 · Jun 19, 2003

People:

If you are still unclear as to what to buy (even after reading the first post), feel free to ask. But lets try to keep them contained in one thread...this one. It would be nice to keep all the "What should I buy" posts in one thread.

bdw8 · Jun 19, 2003

q149 said:
The 256 bit bus is built into the card and is always there.. only the non active pipes need to be enabled.

Oh ok. I see. I thought the mod enabled the 4 other pips AND the rest of the bus.

Bman1238 · Jun 19, 2003

posted by bdw8:

Hmmm, not much to say except if you have the money, buy it (eventhough the fx5900 beats it and is at the same price, but if you are an ATi fanboy...).

When you turn on high quality quality setting that are actually in the game (eg. in unreal tournament 2003: level detail, texture detail, trilinnear filtering, character detail, etc), the radeon 9800pro gains up to a 50% performance increase, and better performance at high quality settings is where it counts, right?

bdw8 · Jun 19, 2003

I don't understand. Is something I said wrong? Which part?

Bman1238 · Jun 19, 2003

...eventhough the fx5900 beats it ...

thats the part I was getting at

bdw8 · Jun 19, 2003

Hmm...quoted from Tom's Hardware itself

"Now, the FX 5900 is able to outpace the Radeon 9800 PRO in all relevant benchmarks and can reclaim the performance throne for NVIDIA. The card offers unrivaled FSAA speed combined with very good anisotropic filtering image quality and performance, thanks to the new Detonator FX driver, giving it a comfortable lead over its rival. Only the quality of its ordered-grid FSAA implementation remains inferior to that of ATi's card, a disadvantage it can more than make up for in sheer speed."

But I'll stay open-minded...where did you get your information from?

Just a note, I didn't just make this guide up. I spent quite a bit of time researching things posted on this site, benchmarks from HardOcp.com and Tomshardware.com, and I've gathered other peoples opinions.

Bman1238 · Jun 19, 2003

(eg. in unreal tournament 2003: level detail, texture detail, trilinnear filtering, character detail, etc),

I'm not talking about FSAA or AF, I'm talking about in-game quality settings.

Just a note, I didn't just make this guide up.

I know that you didn't make this guide up, its a good one, I was just adding some extra insight

...where did you get your information from?

I have had eperience with an fx5900u because my friend has one and we've both done benchmarks on them both. and the rest i got from:
http://www.hexus.net/review.php?review=554&page=21

(check max settings, not 4x/8x)

bdw8 · Jun 19, 2003

Bman1238 said:
I'm not talking about FSAA or AF, I'm talking about in-game quality settings.

Don't just look at the graphs, you have to read too:

"We've tried to compare like for like thus far. We'll re-run UT2003's benchmarks, but this time we'll set each card to its maximum possible image quality setting. This will yield results that aren't comparable over GPUs, although this should tell us just how they perform when cranked up to their respective maximums. For the ATI cards, this is 6x FSAA and 16x AF. For the NVIDIA cards, this is 8x AA and 8x AF."

They say that its shouldn't be used to compare the GPU, since they are at different AAxAF levels. Go back a page when they are set at the same AAxAF settings (4x & 8x) and the 5900 wins). Thank you for the link though, it does give the 9800pro's performance with 6xAA and 16xAF, which I have not seen yet. I'm sure someone looking to buy a 9800pro would find that useful (gives an idea of how the card will do).

Bman1238 · Jun 19, 2003

Don't just look at the graphs, you have to read too:

I have had experience with both cards and have first handedly seen how they perform: higher fps for the radeon 9800pro in full image quality.

The 9800pro has better performance on full image quality, not just AA and AF, i'm talking about in-game settings that can be set in the game (eg. world detail, character detail, trillinnear filtering, texture detail, shadow detail, etc.).

When compared to each other image quality wise, the 9800pro has better FSAA and AF quality. Even though the fx has 8xs FSAA, it still has more jaggies that the 9800's 6x FSAA. The 16x AF is above the level of the fx's, but the 8x is slightly above it too. I do have justification for this with a program called aniso tester.

When my friend and I did our tests, we used 3dmark 01 and 03, UT2003, Unreal 2, C&C Generals, splinter cell, dawn, chimp, quake 3, hitman 2 and comanche 4. The quality tests were done in both machines side by side and the performance tests were done in my rig (check sig).

Just if anyone was wondering, I am not an ATI fanboy.

schismspeak · Jun 20, 2003

Bman1238 said:
I have had experience with both cards and have first handedly seen how they perform: higher fps for the radeon 9800pro in full image quality.

The 9800pro has better performance on full image quality, not just AA and AF, i'm talking about in-game settings that can be set in the game (eg. world detail, character detail, trillinnear filtering, texture detail, shadow detail, etc.).

When compared to each other image quality wise, the 9800pro has better FSAA and AF quality. Even though the fx has 8xs FSAA, it still has more jaggies that the 9800's 6x FSAA. The 16x AF is above the level of the fx's, but the 8x is slightly above it too. I do have justification for this with a program called aniso tester.

When my friend and I did our tests, we used 3dmark 01 and 03, UT2003, Unreal 2, C&C Generals, splinter cell, dawn, chimp, quake 3, hitman 2 and comanche 4. The quality tests were done in both machines side by side and the performance tests were done in my rig (check sig).

Just if anyone was wondering, I am not an ATI fanboy.

That is exactly what I have been looking for, someone that did testing, with the actual game settings, thankyou sir.

Bman1238 · Jun 20, 2003

np, anytime.

PreservedSwine · Jun 20, 2003

bdw8 said:
Hmm...quoted from Tom's Hardware itself

"Now, the FX 5900 is able to outpace the Radeon 9800 PRO in all relevant benchmarks and can reclaim the performance throne for NVIDIA. The card offers unrivaled FSAA speed combined with very good anisotropic filtering image quality and performance, thanks to the new Detonator FX driver, giving it a comfortable lead over its rival. Only the quality of its ordered-grid FSAA implementation remains inferior to that of ATi's card, a disadvantage it can more than make up for in sheer speed."

But I'll stay open-minded...where did you get your information from?

Just a note, I didn't just make this guide up. I spent quite a bit of time researching things posted on this site, benchmarks from HardOcp.com and Tomshardware.com, and I've gathered other peoples opinions.

Check this out as well

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=fx5900u&page=1

Paints quite a different picture than Tom's, and it uses actual Games.....just a little more info

bdw8 · Jun 20, 2003

I'm not gonna get all defensive because I really have no personal experience with the cards. If Bman1238 has experience, thats great and I'm glad he shared his opinion/observations. I was just pointing the facts from the benchmarks that I saw. Thank you PreservedSwine for sharing that link with us, as that also gives an extra viewpoint on the 9800pro.

Bman1238- Do you have the 3dmark score urls, as that would also give a nice comparison?

Thanks for everyone contributing.

EDIT: PreservedSwine- I did some further reading on that site and that have both of the cards benchmarked at the strange settings of 2xAA and 2xAF then 4xAA and 4xAF. I don't understand the logic behind this? Why not bench the other, more common quality settings like 4xAA and 8xAF.

I would also like to point out how it used Vice City as a benchmark. Its pleasing to see it, as that is a popular game. Its good to see that they use something thats actually played quite a bit. Thanks for that source again.

bdw8 · Jun 20, 2003

I edited the guide. Thanks again for the information. I gave you credit in the guide.

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