It's possible that the jaggiez issue was fixed as of the 9800, but I doubt it. Everyone in my corp who has an ATI card is reporting the problem. I know it's not just me. The spontaneous combustion was admittedly not *entirely* ATI's fault. It turned out to have be ultimately caused by the wiring in the house not being properly grounded, but I'm still pretty sure video cards are not supposed to burn up as a result.
I tend to agree that on sheer FPS performance, it's likely to be ATI, but at this point, most modern hardware will drive 1280x1024 (native lcd resolution) at at least 60 FPS at max or near max settings regardless of whether it's ATI or nvidia. Given that, and my problems with ATI, the decision is easy for me. If you never have to call tech support, hey, great. But if you have a problem with your card, know that ATI is not your friend. And it's not just the one support person. I have talked to at least 10 seperate ATI tech support people over the course of the life of my two ATI cards. ATI tech support is based entirely on their database of support issues which appears to be the same as what's on their website. All fine and good if you happen to have a really common issue, but I can fix really common issues quite capably myself, thankyouverymuch. Actually knowledge of the products themselves seems to be reserved to their last tier of tech support people, and they're about on par with most other companies's first tier in my experience. I'm not really impressed. Jaggies can be seen on an old screenshot from my 9700 before it went up in flames. http://www.purblind.net/jaggies.jpg As for drivers, not entirely sure what you mean. The installer for the nVidia drivers is at least 100x times better than ATI's. The drivers themselves seem to be pretty comparable. What's wrong with them exactly? On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 13:03:13 -0800, HoundDawg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Bob Aman > > > > There's a few problems with ATI though. For instance, I have a 6800 > > now because my old 9700 Pro card decided to spontaneously combust > > taking half my computer with it. ATI's tech support put me on hold > > for 45 minutes on a long distance call to Canada because they have no > > 1-800 number, and then told me that because it was an "act of God" it > > wasn't covered by warranty and thusly, I would have to pay $75 to get > > the card "refurbished." As if the scorched thing could be.... > > Sorry to hear about your problems with your ATI card. I've been pro-Nvidia > for years until last year. Their latest cards (5800/5900 at the time) and > drivers were the worst I've seen ever. Their cards took up 2 PCI slots and > ran nearly 10 degrees hotter than the ATI card I have now (9800 pro). Due > to the problems with NVidia, I switched to ATI's 9800 Pro and haven't had > any issues since. > > I've played EVE, PlanetSide, FarCry, Call of Duty, BF1942, WarCraft III, > Rise of Nations, EverQuest II, Guild Wars, SW Battlefront, HL1, quite a few > others, and now HL2. I have not experienced any of these "jaggiez" issues, > nor have had any other problems while playing many various games with gfx > setting to high/max. For HL2, I even upgraded my drivers to the latest > released ones and had no problems. > > Either the 9700 had a serious flaw, or yours was an isolated incident and > you just happen to get the wrong support people on the phone. Sometime this > next year, I'll be testing the latest gfx card from both NVidia and ATI, and > making my own analysis on which is the better card. My guess is that it'll > probably be ATI for a few more years to come. > > - HoundDawg > > > > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please > visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders > > -- Bob Aman http://www.rapidcanvas.com _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
