Widescreen Gaming Forum

With all the talk about bad performance numbers for gaming I've been holding off getting Vista. It was interesting to see this commentary about the problem....

http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2007/02/10/not_enjoying_the_view/1.html

Many people blame Microsoft, saying Vista was not ready, or Vista was late, or Vista was this or that. ........Vista code has been stable and available as a public beta since before my GX2 card was even out. Supposedly, SLI is being marketed as the bleeding edge of game technology - so why on Earth would it not be supported in the bleeding edge of operating systems?

Great read, have to wonder about the top end hardware manufacturers letting down the avid PC Gamer?

nice read with a very interesting discussion forum following it. its nice to see the blame going where it belongs and nicer still to see that an article such as that which publicly calls out third party manufacturers led to immediate change (Nvidia).

just the same though--regardless of where the blame belongs, the result is the same: for a large percentage of serious gamers the operating system is a dud.

The replies on the forum made it to 5 pages really quickly! Its a shame that it turned into a Nvidia bashing forum when really all the peripheral manufacturers should be held accountable.

However, I'm hoping that Nvidia's quick response to the commentary is a good sign for solid performing drivers. The DX10 patch for COH is supposed to come out in March and I'm sure some DX10 games shortly thereafter. Although a system crash spurred me to buy my 8800 card, I would love to see the glory of DX10 :shock: :shock:

Yeah, I stopped reading after the bashing started. Personally I run nVidia and try to stick with it, but this bashing and brand loyalty fanboi stuff is what ruins alot of forums. It's also why I am no longer a member of many of them. It's why I came here. People here are low key, have their head screwed on straight, and understand that not everything we want will come out when we want it. If you go for the cutting edge you have to expect bugs and issues.

I suspect Vista will be a great OS and it's like everything esle. It takes time to iron out bugs. You can't blame the OS or any of the other software developers. They are not gonna commit until they are sure Vista will be a hit, so they aren't gonna develop software for it until they see people are gonna buy it. I think they now know it's the next generation. In about a year this will all smooth out. It's the same thing with every new OS. :)

just for reference, Ati/ AMD have WHQL drivers for vista.

you have Crossfire for Vista too, OpenGL on 64 bit version is lacking.

you also have Blu Ray/ HD-DVD playback on vista too.

and OpenGL works.

why cant nV get SLI working? Microsofts fault? or the same reason they pull support for each chipset when i new one is out?

call me a fanboy, but im sick of people bashing ATi's drivers when they do a hell of a lot more work than nVidia do

They are not gonna commit until they are sure Vista will be a hit, so they aren't gonna develop software for it until they see people are gonna buy it.

Of course people are gonna buy Vista - everyone who buys an off-the-shelf or Dell PC will be getting Vista as standard... it costs more to have XP now, if the places even allow the option! One of my (non-techie) friends just bought a new HP PC, and it has Vista; he's warbling on about how wonderful it is. Then again, he doesn't play games...

Enthusiasts might not flock to Vista in droves - which makes nVidia's reasoning with respect to drivers for the 8800 at the expense of older cards stupid in the extreme because it will be mostly only be enthusiasts who are willing to blow $600 (x2 for SLI) on a GPU...

nVidia's drivers have taken a step back since the introduction of the 90 series. The two biggest plus points for me were the Fixed Aspect Ratio Scaling and (easy) Custom Resolution Addition that ATi didn't have. Now both of those features are broken, nVidia and ATi are on a level playing field with drivers. Especially since ATi have sorted out the (RAM usage) horror of the Catalyst Control Centre with Cat 7.1...

[quote]They are not gonna commit until they are sure Vista will be a hit, so they aren't gonna develop software for it until they see people are gonna buy it.

Of course people are gonna buy Vista - everyone who buys an off-the-shelf or Dell PC will be getting Vista as standard... it costs more to have XP now, if the places even allow the option! One of my (non-techie) friends just bought a new HP PC, and it has Vista; he's warbling on about how wonderful it is. Then again, he doesn't play games...

Enthusiasts might not flock to Vista in droves - which makes nVidia's reasoning with respect to drivers for the 8800 at the expense of older cards stupid in the extreme because it will be mostly only be enthusiasts who are willing to blow $600 (x2 for SLI) on a GPU...

nVidia's drivers have taken a step back since the introduction of the 90 series. The two biggest plus points for me were the Fixed Aspect Ratio Scaling and (easy) Custom Resolution Addition that ATi didn't have. Now both of those features are broken, nVidia and ATi are on a level playing field with drivers. Especially since ATi have sorted out the (RAM usage) horror of the Catalyst Control Centre with Cat 7.1...

you hit the nail on the head. ATi fix stuff with drivers. nVidia break stuff :lol:

Actually I've had more trouble with ATi drivers than any other issue...especially when I was benchmarking. They'd get corrupted every single run where my nVidia drivers would stay stable as a rock and not get corrupted.

I got higher benchmarking scores with nVidia accross the board. None of ATi drivers have ran on my Simulators. On two of them they wouldn't work at all...CTD's as soon as pie screen stopped loading right before the actual simulation opened. I also had alot of the infamous BSOD's.

One of the other problems I noticed on the hardware end was ATi's GPU's have always ran hot. They are massive in size and retain heat badly. They have not gotten into the level of miniatuzation that nVidia has to date. I had a pretty hopped up card with a Rage Fury Pro 3D. That was back in those days. I also got caught up in the All-In-Wonder fiasco. I;ve played with a few crossfire setups on freind's machines also.

Basically the things I have been insterested in nVidia has given me the full package. I've gotten maximum FPS. Good stable drivers. Excellent quality, and cool running GPU's that can clock to insanely high levels. My current 6800GT can go 475/1200 for short bursts during benchmarking. Of course I have modded the cooling somewhat. Before the mods it would do 450/1180. It has stock clocks of 350/1000 for reference. It runs at 46C idle and only gets to 58 for short hard bursts in benchmarks, and will sometimes get to 53 C in actual gaming.

ATi's latest offerings have gotten better, but I don't think they have gotten the performance crown yet. They were close when they released the first cross-fire setups (coded 520R), but the 7800GTX SLi setups still were holding the highest marks.

I suspect the next generation 9000 (?) series cards will still hold the titles. I look for more pixel pipes, even larger amounts of memory, and a next generation GPU. nVidia has pretty much cornered the market on the memory end. The IC's they are using will clock to mad levels.

Drivers are an issue that can be worked on and improved, but once the hardware is developed and made that's pretty much what we have to live with for 6 months. Especially with heat. I can mod cards, but the heat is what ultimately limits max clocks. I still belive nVidia has the crown on the hardware end. I'm certain nVidia will support SLi in Vista, but it's gonna take time.

There's no reason to race to Vista. It just came out. There are security holes. There will be bugs. It's like that with every operating system. It always will be. Personally I'll wait for full support before jumping on it.

On the fixed aspect ratio scaling issue, that is only with certain combinations of monitors/drivers/ and cards. Not all setups are affected. It's not really a driver issue. I belive 7900 and 8800 cards are the only ones affected, and here again is where getting the bleeding edge results in soime issues. That's just the luck of the draw when you get top shelf stuff as soon as it comes out. It's the same with Vista.

Actually I've had more trouble with ATi drivers than any other issue...especially when I was benchmarking. They'd get corrupted every single run where my nVidia drivers would stay stable as a rock and not get corrupted.

I got higher benchmarking scores with nVidia accross the board. None of ATi drivers have ran on my Simulators. On two of them they wouldn't work at all...CTD's as soon as pie screen stopped loading right before the actual simulation opened. I also had alot of the infamous BSOD's.

One of the other problems I noticed on the hardware end was ATi's GPU's have always ran hot. They are massive in size and retain heat badly. They have not gotten into the level of miniatuzation that nVidia has to date. I had a pretty hopped up card with a Rage Fury Pro 3D. That was back in those days. I also got caught up in the All-In-Wonder fiasco. I;ve played with a few crossfire setups on freind's machines also.

Basically the things I have been insterested in nVidia has given me the full package. I've gotten maximum FPS. Good stable drivers. Excellent quality, and cool running GPU's that can clock to insanely high levels. My current 6800GT can go 475/1200 for short bursts during benchmarking. Of course I have modded the cooling somewhat. Before the mods it would do 450/1180. It has stock clocks of 350/1000 for reference. It runs at 46C idle and only gets to 58 for short hard bursts in benchmarks, and will sometimes get to 53 C in actual gaming.

ATi's latest offerings have gotten better, but I don't think they have gotten the performance crown yet. They were close when they released the first cross-fire setups (coded 520R), but the 7800GTX SLi setups still were holding the highest marks.

I suspect the next generation 9000 (?) series cards will still hold the titles. I look for more pixel pipes, even larger amounts of memory, and a next generation GPU. nVidia has pretty much cornered the market on the memory end. The IC's they are using will clock to mad levels.

Drivers are an issue that can be worked on and improved, but once the hardware is developed and made that's pretty much what we have to live with for 6 months. Especially with heat. I can mod cards, but the heat is what ultimately limits max clocks. I still belive nVidia has the crown on the hardware end. I'm certain nVidia will support SLi in Vista, but it's gonna take time.

There's no reason to race to Vista. It just came out. There are security holes. There will be bugs. It's like that with every operating system. It always will be. Personally I'll wait for full support before jumping on it.

On the fixed aspect ratio scaling issue, that is only with certain combinations of monitors/drivers/ and cards. Not all setups are affected. It's not really a driver issue. I belive 7900 and 8800 cards are the only ones affected, and here again is where getting the bleeding edge results in soime issues. That's just the luck of the draw when you get top shelf stuff as soon as it comes out. It's the same with Vista.

i agree with the heat on the ATi cards, why do you think i have water cooling? :lol:

the only thing i can disagree with there is nV drivers and nV memory :P for me at least, the nV drivers have been mostly stable but the nv4disp.dll problem kept striking for a long while. then, when i got my new board (the a8n32sli) it was fine. 1 driver release later then nV pull the plug. you are forced to mess around with the drivers to get the latest stuff. its fine for me as i use dedicated sound card, but its still annoying. and ATi are using GDDR4 as of now with the X1950. they brought stream computing before nV did (and have it working). they just need to sort the heat/ power usage out, their drivers have been fine for me (apart from CCC which is now fixed, aparently :P :P)

I've had mixed luck with both ATi and nVidia drivers - it's why I have no brand loyalty, and little patience for out-and-out fanboys who say 'blah-blah is the shiznitz, all otherz suckzors...' (bad 'leet speak' intended)

In the short term, I've had no problems with ATi's drivers, despite moaning about needing manufacturer hacked (four month old) drivers for my new toy (X1950XTX) because ATi hadn't got newer ones on their site that supported the card. In the long term, my only complaint about them is that their linux support isn't terribly good. Never had an ATi driver make my Windows system BSOD, though.

Now for nVidia...

Let me state for the record that I'm currently running three nV cards and three ATi cards, and owned probably another two of each type. So I'm on an even playing field. :) Despite this, nV's tricks with their latest drivers have been pissing me off. Breaking two features that made their drivers for me, was unforgivable. They don't seem to be able to fix it, either. In the longer term, nVidia have had a history of releasing drivers optimised for one specific thing... having to keep swapping drivers because of a particular game I want to play at the time got old fast. ;)

Interesting that you've had ATi drivers corrupt during benching... I've never had that happen to me with any graphics card driver from either side.

Heat... well, right now the X1950XTX and 8800 are pretty much even. R600 is a completely different kettle of fish, though. I just hope ATi don't head back to the 'jet turbine' type cooler...

...

It's the curse of the early adopter, though, isn't it? :(

...

And right now I don't want to have to get a new PSU for either an 8800 or an R600...

...

And I can't find any CrossFire capable Socket 939 boards anywhere... :cry: the damned things have just vanished... (yes, I was contemplating trying out X1950XTX CrossFire...)

I guess we're seeing a YMMV situation. I like ATi too. I'm definitely not a fanboy. Daggone that crap gets me ill. I'm just like you there. In fact, it's why I don't post on alot of OC'ing forums anymore. They just won't cut that crap out, and everytime something starts getting into the inner workings then people start calling everybody fanboi's and then it's a war again. It gets so old. It's seriously childish. I'm running an nVidia Card, but have an ATi chip in my monitor. hehe No issues with that at all.

I liked that statement about the turbine cooler. That reminds me back about a years or so ago my freind and I fired up one of the X1600XT cards and went :shock: WOW, that's loud. We were laughing. Those were just about a wash with the 7800's.

I had that nv4disp.dll on one set of drivers one time. i do have to come clean about that. I don't think my particular system and setup liked those drivers. I was mostly running WHQL drivers at that time though as I was benching alot. On the gaming end I would reload different drivers that were optimized for gaming though, but would put back the WHQL's as the benches won't be ranked unless you follow the rules at the ORB. Obviously they can't let people go hacking on drivers becasue that could bypass the benchmarking program and you could dial in about any score you wanted. hehe

There isn't a thing wrong with an ATi. If you're planning on a Intel rig an Asus board with an Intel chipset should fully support crossfire. At least last time I checked it had full support. PSU's if you need dual PCI-e's you can use an adapater/splitter from a molex. I don't know if it's power you are concerned with or the connectors or what. If you have 520 watts, power shouldn't be an issue if you have at least 30 amps on the 12v rail, and that's assuming mild to medium OC'ing. Lots of good choices there.

The 939 boards are probably coming to the end of their life cycle. Everything AMD is AM2. There is also Conroe, and those things run extremely well too. If you are planning on Vista and wanting to future proof, those might be options, although that is more money. There is lots of good stuff out there. The best part right now for people looking for a full upgrade (mobo, CPU, ram, and video) is that RAM is dirt cheap right now.

PM me and let me know what you've got in mind and I can ask around and talk with my freinds. I've got alot of freinds that do some pretty extreme stuff. They really keep up with the very latest. I've got 3 freinds close by that run ATi and two others that run nVidia, and know guys that run AMD and Intel or both. I've messed a little with many different systems.

Off topic a bit:

Do you guys think its even worth while to install vista on a P4 2.4ghz w/ 512 megs of ram and onboard video? I'm working my way through the download of vista ultimate now and don't want that crap on my gaming rig, but am very curious about it.

I have a laptop that goes to school with me every day, but sees no duties other then word processing and web browsing, so I figured I'd play with vista on there... see what its about. Before I bother starting from scratch on it, I'm wondering, does it even make sense to check it out w/o the Aero effects?

ahh! crap, just realize I may have to get the 32bit version for that kit.

I guess we're seeing a YMMV situation.

As with so much in computing. ;) Hey, I've seen the same spec PC's next to each other and one had driver issues the other didn't. (Although that turned out to be the way Windows assigns IRQs etc when it installs... :lol:)

I liked that statement about the turbine cooler. That reminds me back about a years or so ago my friend and I fired up one of the X1600XT cards and went :shock: WOW, that's loud. We were laughing. Those were just about a wash with the 7800's.

I was thinking more back to the X800XTPE (honestly, what's with all the letters?!) X1800XT and X1900XTX type cards. The X1950XTX (thank God!) has a much better and quieter cooler on it. As far as I knew, the X1600 wasn't a dual slot?

The 939 boards are probably coming to the end of their life cycle. Everything AMD is AM2. There is also Conroe, and those things run extremely well too. If you are planning on Vista and wanting to future proof, those might be options, although that is more money. There is lots of good stuff out there. The best part right now for people looking for a full upgrade (mobo, CPU, ram, and video) is that RAM is dirt cheap right now.

I know 939 is effectively dead. But the fact remains that I have a 939 Opteron chip that I don't want to waste (despite it being a bad stepping and therefore overclocking badly - I was quite proud of getting a 30% OC on it using air cooling given how badly most of them seemed to do...) and a graphics card and RAM that I also don't want to waste, as I quite like them. ;) I can still find the A8N32-SLI Deluxe (the board I use at the moment) online, but CrossFire 939 boards are either MIA or hideously expensive. :(

PM me and let me know what you've got in mind and I can ask around and talk with my friends. I've got a lot of friends that do some pretty extreme stuff. They really keep up with the very latest. I've got 3 friends close by that run ATi and two others that run nVidia, and know guys that run AMD and Intel or both. I've messed a little with many different systems.

Cool.

Off topic a bit:

Do you guys think its even worth while to install vista on a P4 2.4ghz w/ 512 megs of ram and onboard video? I'm working my way through the download of vista ultimate now and don't want that crap on my gaming rig, but am very curious about it.

I have a laptop that goes to school with me every day, but sees no duties other then word processing and web browsing, so I figured I'd play with vista on there... see what its about. Before I bother starting from scratch on it, I'm wondering, does it even make sense to check it out w/o the Aero effects?

ahh! crap, just realize I may have to get the 32bit version for that kit.

The whole attraction of Vista for me was Aero. Without that, it's like a slightly-more-secure-but-more-annoying Windows XP. :)