rec.autos.simulators

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rms

 Its a matter of taste, but in N4/NR2002/NR2003 I have always preferred the
look of D3D over OpenGL. So I'd take the performance hit and run D3D even
with my Geforce 3.  I do think that Nvidia is a better choice if you want to
use OpenGL.  I went from that GF3 to an ATI 9700 pro and forgot how much
better ATI's image was in D3D. over the years I have went from a V2 to an
ATI Rage Maxx fury (it had the alternate frame rendering similar to a V5),
and then into the Geforce 2 & 3 cards. I don't have any first hand
experience with the Nvidia FX cards, but I have a couple of friends that
have them, and they were less than thrilled with them. A few big issues are
noise and they take up two slots due to the huge fan and heat sink.
Personally I wouldn't go with an FX card because of those issues myself, but
that's not to say the performance is bad.

One more thing to remember is the current line up of video cards are
monsters no matter what brand. To use them to their full potential you will
need a fast cpu to feed them. I have an AMD xp 2100 and its not enough
power. I have actually gone to running a lower screen res and higher levels
of FSAA and AF.  I actually get a better picture and a better frame rate
than running a higher res and les FSAA/AF.  I think by doing that I'm take
work away from the cpu and putting it on the video card.  So if you still
running a V5 I'd bet you don't have enough system power to really take
advantage of either brand of card at this point.

MadDAWG

 (You do need the cpu horsepower to get the absolute best from it but it
will work fine on a slower cpu.
I have a Barton 2800 and 1 gig of pc3200 ddr 400 and everything looks
awesome.)

Also, I think the 9800 Pro has replaced the 9700 Pro, so finding a 9700 Pro
may prove to be difficult, but the 9800 Pro would be an even better card if
you can swing it.

I have an Athlon XP2400+ running at 2.168 ghz ( app), on an Nforce2 mb (
Asus), and run N2003 most graphics on and maxed, 4x aa and 16x anistropic,
1280x960x32, and easily get 70-100 fps.
I get about the same in F1 Challenge, it runs at about 70-90 fps.
Both of these are with full fields of cars. Graphics  are beautiful.

Imho, today, ATI is the way to go. I used to be a devout Nvidia fan, and
3DfX before that. All that could change in 60 months of course...

--
Don Burnette

Question: I'm running a PIII 933 w/133mhz FSB and 384meg of RAM. Would
upgrading to a "modern" video card like the ATI 9600-9800 or Nvidia FX cards
be a waste of time?

With the older CPU and slower bus/RAM speed I know my system wouldn't be
able to take full advantage of what the card could do, but as you mentioned
MadDAWG, perhaps I could run FSAA and a lower screen res like 1024x768 or
even 800x600?
These days (with my current 64 meg GeForce 2)  I don't dare turn on FSAA as
even older games tend to cause the framerate to choke.

Thanks
Jay J

went from a gf4 ti to a ati radeon 9700.
would say from what i seen the radeon is better.

I did a full system upgrade (except HDDs) and got an MSI Ti-4600 which
has been fantastic.  The only complaint is the older NFS games don't
like it.  I've tried a fix but it didn't work.  The Voodoo5 had a fix
for NFS4 which worked beautifully.

In a nutshell, I love the Ti-4600 but I'm contemplating an ATI when I
upgrade again (which won't be for a while).

    - F50 GT

-Larry

IMO for that system anything over a GF4 is probably a waste. That is unless
you plan to carry it over to another system. In that case I'd go for it.
Maybe one of the lower Radeon/FX cards would be a good match, but if you do
want to carry it over latter it will most likely under powered at that time.
The typical rule of thumb I go with is buy the best you can afford.  Any
option should be better than the GF2.

MadDAWG

-Larry

    Nah, the XT only scores a few fps more than the 9800pro, for
considerably more $.

rms