Wich card is the king of the hill (nv40 or R420)

[Nite_Hawk]

No not really nvidia drivers for linux really do pretty much suck and wont even compile on the current 2.6 kernel. Ati's drivers under linux are very comparable. This is comming from somebody using linux for 7 or so years now not some noob who just cant figure out how to compile things under linux.

Now instelation is a whole different story but for me mandrake provides rpm's of both so it is very easy for either card. accept as mentioned that nvidia does not work properly with the new kernels.

Given that you are saying:

...nvidia's drivers for linux really do pretty much suck...

and

...ATI's drivers under linux are very comparable...

Pretty much tells the story of ATI's drivers for linux.

I'm personally of the opinion that nVidia's drivers for linux actually are quite a bit better than ATIs. Here's a post from the cairo mailing list recently on freedesktop.org:

Programmatic surfaces requires GL_ARB_fragment_program extension and
anti-aliasing requires GL_ARB_multi_sample extension. I'm pretty sure
that none of those are supported on radeon 9000 cards, Sorry.

But it's great that the other stuff works on your radeon 9000. Compared
with NVIDIA's drivers ATI's drivers are very unstable. We're having a
lot of trouble with them (memory leaks, random crashes...). NVIDIA's
drivers work great, especially with geforce FX cards as they support
both GL_ARB_fragment_program and GL_ARB_multi_sample.

http://freedesktop.org/pipermail/cairo/2004-March/001010.html

Nite_Hawk

 

[webmedic]

um thats when they run it still doesn't tell you about how a fair number of things simply crash back to the desktop and complain about missing extensions for the nvidia drivers. For me it doesn't matter so much I run linux as my daily work horse and as servers. I dont play 3d games on it so it's no issue to me. The issues are still there. If it''s not one thing it's another. Untill both companies start provideing proper open source drivers that can be compiled properly without missing shared libs that no linux vender has it's rather worthles to say one is better than hte other.

The truth is if you want good 3d for now dont use linux.

 

[THe_KELRaTH]

I'll wait to see if there's any performance advantages for the 6800 using PS 3.0 rendering path before coming to any conclusions.
If there is then it will likely effect quite a number of current and future games (games based around the Unreal Warfare engine for instance).

There are also alot of existing games where SSAA / Mix would be desirable and there has been no mention in reviews how either new cards handle low framerates (gameplay smoothness).

 

[Atomahawk]

That's exactly why they held off on 3.0, they know what the developers are working on right now and what will be shipping in the near future not 18 months from now.

I dont' buy that for one second. There were no developers working on PS2.0 when they released the R9700. And i doubt that the R9700 series won't run all SM2.0 games released this year so i don't see how the X800 will help those developers. It'll help the consumers though but that's another issue.

You may not buy that but what other explanation would you believe if that's what ATI is saying? If more devolopers are working on PS 2.0 games than PS 3.0 what would be the smarter course of action? Both in an ideal world but it's not an ideal world, right. It's a business decision based on what ATI knows and feels is the right course of action at this stage of the game. If they have a faster card running on PS 2.0 you don't think this will benifit both developers and consumers alike? I would find that kind off odd, but that's ok it's your opinion.

There may not have been any developers useing PS 2.0 at the time the 9700 came out, but whats important to note is ATI knew, just like Nvidia and ATI know PS 3.0 is going to be a factor in the future. They gamble everytime standards change, will it be implemented is it worth building a new card can we get more out of our curent cards should we aim for the next standard, ATI's decisions have paid them very well wouldn't you say? The past 2 years has been ATI's, based on exactly those kinds of business decisions. I'm going to say I believe them for now,

 

[Killua]

Here's my opinion... pretty neutral here... so no flaming please!

X800 is (most of the time) faster than 6800 in ps2.0 and below, but it's important for developers who wants to test and program ps3.0 apps, and games, and also for those who prefer 'future-proof' cards.

X800 image quality is higher than 6800, but 6800 compatiblity with most games cause less fustrations for non-geeks.

 

[Stryyder]

Double post sorry

 

[Stryyder]

X800 image quality is higher than 6800, but 6800 compatiblity with most games cause less fustrations for non-geeks.

What is the basis of your frustration opinion??

 

[Bjorn]

You may not buy that but what other explanation would you believe if that's what ATI is saying?

It's simple imo. The R420 doesn't support SM3.0 and Ati need to have some explanation for that. Saying that most games released this year will be PS2.0 is not wrong and is what i would say if i were them also. But i don't buy that they had the developers best interest in mind when deciding to drop SM3.0 support.

 

[Killua]

X800 image quality is higher than 6800, but 6800 compatiblity with most games cause less fustrations for non-geeks.

What is the basis of your frustration opinion??

Here:
ATI: http://rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=59
NVIDIA: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=26

 

[AlphaWolf]

I dont' buy that for one second. There were no developers working on PS2.0 games (as in, that would be released the same year) when they released the R9700. And i doubt that the R9700 series won't run all SM2.0 games released this year so i don't see how the X800 will help those developers. It'll help the consumers though but that's another issue.

If I am not mistaken TR:AoD was released within a year of the r300.

I am not sure that any of the ps3 features that devs are tacking on to games in their final year of development will be all that revolutionary. Crytek stated as much with what they are doing with Far Cry.

That said nv40 is certainly more of a boon to developers than X800. X800 is much more consumer friendly product.

 

[Bjorn]

If I am not mistaken TR:AoD was released within a year of the r300.

I'm guessing that we'll see games supporting SM3.0 much faster then that though.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

um thats when they run it still doesn't tell you about how a fair number of things simply crash back to the desktop and complain about missing extensions for the nvidia drivers. For me it doesn't matter so much I run linux as my daily work horse and as servers. I dont play 3d games on it so it's no issue to me. The issues are still there. If it''s not one thing it's another. Untill both companies start provideing proper open source drivers that can be compiled properly without missing shared libs that no linux vender has it's rather worthles to say one is better than hte other.

The truth is if you want good 3d for now dont use linux.

Cairo is the next generation display system for X. Eventually the goal is to move all 2D rendering to opengl and do away with the 2D driver situation completely, so this kind of stuff is going to become really important. I'm not saying that nVidia's drivers are perfect or even really particularly "good", but they seem to be in significantly better shape than ATIs at the moment. Just look at the rants on rage3d's linux forums after Alex left.

I really hope that ATI improves things. They claimed things would get better once they moved operations back to HQ, but so far the support seems to have gotten significantly worse.

Nite_Hawk

 

[Stryyder]

X800 image quality is higher than 6800, but 6800 compatiblity with most games cause less fustrations for non-geeks.

What is the basis of your frustration opinion??

Here:
ATI: http://rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=59
NVIDIA: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=26

That has nothing to do with how these two unreleased cards will behave. It can go either way, trust me on that as most of the reviews are saying the x800 cards have more mature drivers than the NV40 counterparts at this point.

 

[101]

It seems to me that the 6800 is really a developers card as it pushes the envelope of features that they want now for the current development of future releases. The 420 seems like more of a consumer card since offers the highest performance at the highest image quality settings for current titles, but would not likely be the desired development platform for a game schedule for release in the fall of '05.

I would be willing to guess that most people that favor the nv solution here are the Joe programmer/developer types. While the ati solution is favored by Joe gamer. Perhaps we are seeing the beginning of a new market segment? Maybe the companies should be specifically making a card that is very forward looking that sacrifices power, convenience, stability or whatever, as well as a gamer oriented card that is targeted for current day performance that sacrifices features and future compatability? It looks like the current "workstation" class cards are maybe not filling this niche properly?

 

[nelg]

Will the rumors of yield problems for Nv have a negative effect on the adoption of SM3.0? Please no flames. I am curious as to wether developers look for a certain installed (near term) base before proceeding with feature implementation. Or, is this just a case where, since it appears to be a simple compile to target for, it will be adopted anyway? Would the work (if any) in making sure there are no performance penalties make developers rethink its adoption until there is a sizable market share of capable hardware?

 

[gb25]

You may not buy that but what other explanation would you believe if that's what ATI is saying?

It's simple imo. The R420 doesn't support SM3.0 and Ati need to have some explanation for that. Saying that most games released this year will be PS2.0 is not wrong and is what i would say if i were them also. But i don't buy that they had the developers best interest in mind when deciding to drop SM3.0 support.

Ati doesn't have to explain anything with regards to SM3.0 support. They chose not to support it, while nvidia chose to support it. Simple as that. It's a decision on what features are more valuable. Obviously nvidia considers SM3.0 more valuable than ati does (at this time). And really, the only way to tell who is right is to wait. You can't really say that ati is wrong for not supporting SM3.0, just like you can't really say that nvidia is right for supporting SM3.0. Only time will tell as to how well SM3.0 is adopted.

 

[Randell]

Here:
ATI: http://rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=59
NVIDIA: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=26

troll on idiot.

NVNews members - 18,592
Raged3D - 51,693

Nvidia owners don't have a main single site to flock too like ATI owners, they spread out over NVnews/3DGPu/Guru of 3D etc

 

[Rugor]

You may not buy that but what other explanation would you believe if that's what ATI is saying?

It's simple imo. The R420 doesn't support SM3.0 and Ati need to have some explanation for that. Saying that most games released this year will be PS2.0 is not wrong and is what i would say if i were them also. But i don't buy that they had the developers best interest in mind when deciding to drop SM3.0 support.

R420 doesn't support SM3.0 and ATI had to have a reason for that. It doesn't need to be explained, but they had to have had some reason for making the choice, good or bad.

My own thought is they made the choice with their shareholders in mind.

NV40 is more developer friendly.
R420 is more OEM friendly.
R420 is more AIB vendor friendly.
R420 is more consumer friendly.

I'm seeing a definite pattern here. ATI chose to support the people who buy their products over developers. They followed the money, and it makes good business sense.

To quote Mr. Spock "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

ATI didn't have the developers' best interest in mind, they had their customers' best interest in mind.

 

[trinibwoy]

ATI didn't have the developers' best interest in mind, they had their customers' best interest in mind.

ATI only had ATI's best interest in mind 8)

I don't know why people adorn these companies with illusions of morality or generosity. ATI is a corporation out to take your money just like any other corporation, not your buddy from down the street.

 

[Randell]

Maybe true, but its winning developers over that got nVidia top in the first place with features on cards earlier than the consumer place were using them.

I'm unsure yet if not supporting SM3.0 now will hurt ATI in the medium term.