thoughts on a PC upgrade

[Caliga]

If you're referring to the Arkham Asylum AA debacle, IIRC that was some sort of closed-door sweetheart deal between nvidia and the Arkham Asylum development house (forget which).

[Grey Fox]

I wasn't. It comes from my experience.

[Caliga]

I wasn't. It comes from my experience.

Your experience over, say, the last few months (yes I do know what you do for a living)?  Like I said earlier I'm not concerned about five years ago.

I did have an ATI card in the past (it might have even been with the AMD CPU build) and I don't remember having tons of issues with it.

[DontSayBanana]

I did have an ATI card in the past (it might have even been with the AMD CPU build) and I don't remember having tons of issues with it.

The "problems" with ATI cards are largely overblown, IMO.  It seems like 9 out of 10 "driver issues" are solved simply by moving to the most recent driver version (admittedly, it does end up requiring some bleeding-edge updates once in a while).  Also, I've been seeing a lot more devs catering to the lower-priced ATI group nowadays.  When Star Trek Online started updating their UI, they made a lot of changes that made the game more compatible with ATI cards, for example.

[Grey Fox]

I wasn't. It comes from my experience.

Your experience over, say, the last few months (yes I do know what you do for a living)?  Like I said earlier I'm not concerned about five years ago.

I did have an ATI card in the past (it might have even been with the AMD CPU build) and I don't remember having tons of issues with it.

Not only work experience. How many games have you purchased that sports the ATI logo vs the NVIDIA logo?

[Caliga]

Your point is well taken, I just don't know how often the logo is anything other than a marketing hook (Arkham Asylum aside )

[DontSayBanana]

Your point is well taken, I just don't know how often the logo is anything other than a marketing hook (Arkham Asylum aside )

It is a marketing hook.  Unless you're using the bleeding edge of Direct3D to optimize for ATI cards or the bleeding edge of OpenGL to optimize for nVidia, the difference is negligible.  Both are capable of supporting the bulk of both standards, both use the same incarnations of pixel shaders and the same pixel pipeline architecture.  You're only going to run into catastrophic failures when one requires a complete implementation of either the latest Direct3D or OpenGL versions.

[Caliga]

Well yeah, but I suppose it could have some meaning in that nvidia says to a developer "Here's $1 million if you put our logo in a splash when the app loads AND only QA this app on our hardware."  I think that was part of the whole Arkham Asylum scandal.... supposedly the app locks out AA features if it detects a hardware ID from an ATI device, but if they only tested the game on nvidia hardware they can say some BS like "Well, we failed to test this application with ATI chipsets/drivers so we have no idea how it performs."  In that case if you didn't dig deeper you'd think the developers were just sloppy, as opposed to deliberately neglecting standard hardware QA work because they were bribed to.

[grumbler]

My problem with the two ATI cards I had was that they became so noisy that I had to replace them for that reason alone.  Making bearings that do not wear out in three months or so woulda cost them a coupla pennies per card, but they didn't do so.  An ATI card these days would have to be significantly better than its NVidea equivalent to get me to buy ATI right now.

[Caliga]

Well, that's on the card manufacturer, not AMD/ATI.  But it is indeed the case that this generation of ATI cards is better than the equivalent generation.  If you look at any hardware buying guide right now from a place like Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, etc. they always go with an ATI card except at the ultra high end, and I personally would never spend $400+ on a video card so I couldn't care less how ATI competes with nvidia in that bracket.

[DontSayBanana]

Well, that's on the card manufacturer, not AMD/ATI.  But it is indeed the case that this generation of ATI cards is better than the equivalent generation.  If you look at any hardware buying guide right now from a place like Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, etc. they always go with an ATI card except at the ultra high end, and I personally would never spend $400+ on a video card so I couldn't care less how ATI competes with nvidia in that bracket.

to the bolded part.  Buy a Powercolor or a Sapphire of either flavor and you're probably asking for trouble.

[grumbler]

to the bolded part.  Buy a Powercolor or a Sapphire of either flavor and you're probably asking for trouble.

Good point, both of ya.

[Caliga]

What's wrong with Sapphire and Powercolor?

[DontSayBanana]

What's wrong with Sapphire and Powercolor?

Cheap cards, usually because of cheap components.  Admittedly, the video card in my 2003 Compaq is a Powercolor X1650 Pro, and it's been good to me, but I also tend to use that rig more for 3D modeling than any kind of gaming application.  My Sapphire 9250 SE ran with a heat sink instead of a fan, for pete's sake.

[katmai]

Caliga only a dumb ass buys ATI cards,




so i fully expect you to get one.