Slitghly OT: Racesim with ATI

Hi, Looking at the latest X800 I might make a move towards ATI from my GF4 Ti4600. I would like to know from ATI owner if there are known problems, mainly with FSAA with these racesims (My goal is highest resolution with FSAA): GPL Nascar 2003 (I heard of problems with specific resolutions?) F1C and Mods TRD2 (I already read that the game disables FSAA on start on ATI, which is not the case with GF4) LFS RT Info on Mafia would also be nice... Thanks for your inputs.

On Thu, 6 May 2004 08:55:25 -0400, "Claude Leclerc" <benquinAThotmail.com> wrote: >Looking at the latest X800 I might make a move towards ATI from my GF4 >Ti4600. I would like to know from ATI owner if there are known problems, >mainly with FSAA with these racesims (My goal is highest resolution with >FSAA): No problems for me with NR2003, F1C, LFS and RT demos on my 9700 Pro. -- Andrew. To email unscramble [email hidden] & remove spamtrap. Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards, please don't top post. Trim messages to quote only relevant text. Check groups.google.com before asking a question.

Andrew <spamtrap@localhost> wrote in news:[email hidden]:

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> On Thu, 6 May 2004 08:55:25 -0400, "Claude Leclerc" > <benquinAThotmail.com> wrote: > >>Looking at the latest X800 I might make a move towards ATI from my GF4 >>Ti4600. I would like to know from ATI owner if there are known problems, >>mainly with FSAA with these racesims (My goal is highest resolution with >>FSAA): > > No problems for me with NR2003, F1C, LFS and RT demos on my 9700 Pro.

FSAA was supposedly enabled in GPL with the last Driver update. Previously they only did 32bit fsaa or something like that. Now it's possible, but I haven't investigated it yet. F1c works fine, BUT, the newer Nvidia drivers are not compatible with it, so some mod groups are working the display configs to work with those Nvidia problems...I don't know if this will affect ATI users in the future. Remember, Vidcards are only a portion of your fps package. I've lately tried to think of a simple explanation about how a system performs. I'm toying with the following. A video card will determine your maximum fps attainable, A cpu will be responsible for lowering fps. Not a hard rule, but just a generality I'm working on. Any input? dave henrie

On Thu, 06 May 2004 11:21:28 -0500, Dave Henrie <[email hidden]> wrote: >I've lately tried to think of a simple explanation about how a system >performs. I'm toying with the following. > > A video card will determine your maximum fps attainable, > A cpu will be responsible for lowering fps. That is rather simplistic as some games are more CPU intensive than others. The maximum fps is affected by video card fill rate and memory, cpu, system memory, resolution, FSAA/AF settings, monitor (if vsync enabled), etc. In short, its not simple! -- Andrew. To email unscramble [email hidden] & remove spamtrap. Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards, please don't top post. Trim messages to quote only relevant text. Check groups.google.com before asking a question.

>Info on Mafia would also be nice... Some might think that would be dangerous...<g> Eldred -- http://www.umich.edu/~epickett Screamers League IICC League GPLRank -6.0 MoGPL rank +267.80 Ch.Rank +52.58 MoC +741.71 Hist. +82.34 MoH:na N2k3 rank:in progress Slayer Spektera lvl 72 assassin Slayer Spectral_K lvl 38 Necro US East

Claude Leclerc wrote:

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> Hi, > > Looking at the latest X800 I might make a move towards ATI from my GF4 > Ti4600. I would like to know from ATI owner if there are known > problems, mainly with FSAA with these racesims (My goal is highest > resolution with FSAA): > > GPL > Nascar 2003 (I heard of problems with specific resolutions?) > F1C and Mods > TRD2 (I already read that the game disables FSAA on start on ATI, > which is not the case with GF4) > LFS > RT > > Info on Mafia would also be nice... > > Thanks for your inputs.

My 9800 Pro runs N2003, F1C and mods , and NFSU beautifully. -- Don Burnette

As a former Ti4200 user who went to a 9700Pro, I'll try to help out. It was definitely a huge step up for me in IQ - I had a 3dfx Voodoo5, so good FSAA is a must ;). Initial reports on the X800 are *very* positive on the performance at high res w/ FSAA. Note that these comments are for the current gen cards/drivers - who knows what will hold for the X800: "Claude Leclerc" <benquinAThotmail.com> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

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> Hi, > > Looking at the latest X800 I might make a move towards ATI from my GF4 > Ti4600. I would like to know from ATI owner if there are known problems, > mainly with FSAA with these racesims (My goal is highest resolution with > FSAA): > > GPL

Very good - with the caveat that the latest drivers break FSAA unless you turn off direct mirror rendering (which has a performance hit for some people). I run GPL on 98SE with an older driver set for this reason. There are also menu corruption issues, but none that make the sim unusable. D3D only - the OpenGL renderer seems to only work well w/nVidia cards. > Nascar 2003 (I heard of problems with specific resolutions?) D3D only, again. OpenGL works but is slower. Still very good. I run in XP with Omega's 4.2-based drivers and FSAA is very nice. > F1C and Mods Again, very good in my XP install. I actually turn down the texture quality, but I think that's because the Omega's adjust the mipmap levels for higher quality textures, but that leads to a little texture aliasing in distant objects. I don't crank the Aniso to keep performance up. Oh - and GTR is F-ING AWESOME :)! > TRD2 (I already read that the game disables FSAA on start on ATI, which is > not the case with GF4) Don't have - don't plan to ;) > LFS Very good also - the latest patches have continued to improve performance. > RT Nice last time I ran it, but haven't fired it up in a while. > Info on Mafia would also be nice... Well - Mafia is a performance hog, but the latest patches (which can be hard to find) and the 4.x ATI drivers have made it pretty good. BTW I'm running an AMD XP 2400+ OC'd to 3000+ specs, 512mb RAM, 9700pro OC'd to 350/350 - love that VGA Silencer :) - Audigy2 sound card (recent upgrade from Live!, and worth it!). I really can't see alot of downsides to the ATI cards - the 9800's are a *steal* - much less than what I got my 9700 Pro for. Most of the complaints about drivers can be solved by just using the excellent Omega drivers (*much* cleaner install, built in tweaks, settings launcher, etc.) HTH, Kendt

Thanks for the info. I will check for the specific older version of Catalyst for GPL. My route was close to yours Rendition V1000, Voodoo 5, GF4 Ti4600 and probably a X800 Pro as it becomes availables. Claude "Kendt Eklund" <[email hidden]> a �crit dans le message de news:[email hidden]...

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> As a former Ti4200 user who went to a 9700Pro, I'll try to help out. > It was definitely a huge step up for me in IQ - I had a 3dfx Voodoo5, > so good FSAA is a must ;). Initial reports on the X800 are *very* > positive on the performance at high res w/ FSAA. Note that these > comments are for the current gen cards/drivers - who knows what will > hold for the X800: > > "Claude Leclerc" <benquinAThotmail.com> wrote in message

news:<[email hidden]>...

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> > Hi, > > > > Looking at the latest X800 I might make a move towards ATI from my GF4 > > Ti4600. I would like to know from ATI owner if there are known problems, > > mainly with FSAA with these racesims (My goal is highest resolution with > > FSAA): > > > > GPL > > Very good - with the caveat that the latest drivers break FSAA unless > you turn off direct mirror rendering (which has a performance hit for > some people). I run GPL on 98SE with an older driver set for this > reason. There are also menu corruption issues, but none that make the > sim unusable. D3D only - the OpenGL renderer seems to only work well > w/nVidia cards. > > > Nascar 2003 (I heard of problems with specific resolutions?) > > D3D only, again. OpenGL works but is slower. Still very good. I run > in XP with Omega's 4.2-based drivers and FSAA is very nice. > > > F1C and Mods > > Again, very good in my XP install. I actually turn down the texture > quality, but I think that's because the Omega's adjust the mipmap > levels for higher quality textures, but that leads to a little texture > aliasing in distant objects. I don't crank the Aniso to keep > performance up. > Oh - and GTR is F-ING AWESOME :)! > > > > TRD2 (I already read that the game disables FSAA on start on ATI, which

is

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> > not the case with GF4) > > Don't have - don't plan to ;) > > > LFS > > Very good also - the latest patches have continued to improve > performance. > > > RT > > Nice last time I ran it, but haven't fired it up in a while. > > > Info on Mafia would also be nice... > > Well - Mafia is a performance hog, but the latest patches (which can > be hard to find) and the 4.x ATI drivers have made it pretty good. > > BTW I'm running an AMD XP 2400+ OC'd to 3000+ specs, 512mb RAM, > 9700pro OC'd to 350/350 - love that VGA Silencer :) - Audigy2 sound > card (recent upgrade from Live!, and worth it!). > > I really can't see alot of downsides to the ATI cards - the 9800's are > a *steal* - much less than what I got my 9700 Pro for. Most of the > complaints about drivers can be solved by just using the excellent > Omega drivers (*much* cleaner install, built in tweaks, settings > launcher, etc.) > > HTH, > Kendt