GF3 -> GF4 : Big diff?

[granny]

Currently got a GF3 64mb running on an athlon 1800+/512mb ddr system and finding myself in need of some serious framerate increases in certain games (Morrowind, AC2 beta).

Is whacking a GF4 4200i 128mb in there instead of the GF3 gonna make much difference? What I'm interested in is bringing the 5-10 fps, high res, high detail settings in games up to a more playable rate.

 

[.Cask]

I've got a Ti4400 (only 1.3gHz athlon tho) and I get really low framerates in some areas of AC2. Mostly it isn't too bad though, just try and struggle through when it gets a bit sluggish.

From a penny pinching point of view I'd say don't bother upgrading now, and wait till the next batch of cards. Then you could use the money you've saved to get a top of the range card.

I bet the Ti4200 would give you a decent performance increase but not sure if it would be £120 worth.

 

[Testin da Cable]

I'd scrape for a 4400 grans. should give you the largest gain imo.

 

[granny]

Do you mean 4600 tdc? They're damn expensive :/ £200 and upwards which is just taking the piss really, I'm fed up of spending such huge amounts on video cards

 

[Testin da Cable]

nah mate, there's a ti4400 model too. sort of a go between uber power and price aware iirc. check it out

 

[Embattle]

You can pick up the Radeon 9700 for £275.

 

[Xavier]

Wait for NV31 just after Christmas. NV30 featureset with Ti4400 prices

/drooling

 

[granny]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
nah mate, there's a ti4400 model too. sort of a go between uber power and price aware iirc. check it out

Ahh righto, I'll have a hunt for one

Originally posted by Embattle You can pick up the Radeon 9700 for £275.

Er lol, no thanks That's stupidly overpriced for a card with such an appalling drivers track record, no chance.

Originally posted by Xavier Wait for NV31 just after Christmas. NV30 featureset with Ti4400 prices

Yeah that sounds great but I want something now and I have a feeling NV31's are gonna be even more overpriced than GF4's are now :/

 

[Embattle]

ATIs drivers are a lot better and I seriously doubt any one will be able to get hold of a NV31 "just after Christmas".

 

[Will]

No one ever believes me when I say this, but the only driver issues I've had with ATi have been with beta releases causing glitches in the more obscure games. And with 3rd party drivers available too, performance is impressive with the hardware.

I'm pretty certain a lot of the complaints people have now with Ati are the same as the other issues I hear time and again. AMD with Via (don't most people have these?), Soundblaster cards (see before). They had problems in the past, and people instantly blame any problems they are having on them, rather than bother to diagnose and resolve the fault.

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by Itcheh
No one ever believes me when I say this, but the only driver issues I've had with ATi have been with beta releases causing glitches in the more obscure games. And with 3rd party drivers available too, performance is impressive with the hardware.

To quote directly from the ATI techies recently on Rage3D.com forums:

The following games have known issues with the Radeon 9700 and current (Catalyst 2.3) drivers:

The Thing
Mafia
Battlefield 1942
Neverwinter Nights
Dark Ages of Camelot
Unreal Tournament 2003

from the playtesting I've done with our 9700s the first two are unplayable but crash unpredictably, BF1942 is nerfed, NWN crawls along, DAoC is probably the best- crashing whenever you start a fight and thus getting you killed as it LD's and UT just throws up lots of lighting bugs making some maps look like a freakish disco.

A bit more than "glitches in the more obscure games", no?

 

[Gravity]

dont bother with a ti4400 as they are being phased out in the autumn line-up for nvidia due to the ti4200 being quite stable when clocked up to ti4400 rates

if you can wait a little bit longer the new versions of the ti4200 will also support 8x agp (if your mobo supports it)

 

[Will]

I told you no-one ever believed me. *shrugs* I can only speak from my own experiences. Though I have to say that was kind of expected, the 7500 and 8500 are mature products now. The 9700 is still what I regard as bleeding edge.

 

[Insane]

I have to agree with Itcheh on that remark.

I got a Radeon8500, only had ever one problem with it. the fog problem in GTA3 when the catalyst drivers were released, but a patch was released not long afterwards to fix that, other than the specified problem, i've had very little problems with my card.

funny how nobody beats Nvidia around for releasing dodgy drivers, specific the recent 41.xx drivers that they released on their websites that everybody has had problems with, which they commenced to pull from the website and re-release the older versions for "compatibility reasons"

only other point is, what fool in their right mind would play DAOC anyhow!!!

 

[PR.]

41.xx drivers have been fine.

I just installed them on my Gf2go with a slightly modified nv4_disp.inf file and it seems much faster and reliable than the previous driver 29.63.

My desktop machine is still running the original 41.xx drivers and I have seen no problem with them either.

I would never buy an ATI card...*

* I may purchase the ATI 9000M with a new laptop as it is the first mobile Gfx card to include Pixel Shaders...

 

[Will]

Well, I can now say I've tried both ATi And Nvidia cards, and both companies have made questionable decisions in their driver writing. I tend to get hold of the Omega drivers to sort these problems out. The tweaked ATi drivers give better fps in games, but benchmark slightly lower, so ATi are obviously tweaking for those benchmarking scores. The tweaked Nvidia drivers are more stable and have far far better image quality, Nvidia seem to reduce the texture detail when objects are at a distance more than is polite.

Nothing is black and white in the game.

 

[throdgrain]

I had a GF3 ti 200, and now have a GF4 4400. For the record, there are many things I see on the 4 that I didn't on the 3. Particularly smoke and explosion effects on games like RtCW and Operation Flashpoint. The latter very noticably , in fact.

 

[bodhi]

In the 5 years I've been using ATi products I have only had one driver problem, and it was that significant I can't for the life of me remember what it was. I do remember it was with meh Rage Fury and I think it was with 5 month old drivers but I can't be sure.

Neither company is perfect drivers wise, but the fact is, the fastest video card you can buy, and will be able to buy for the next 4 months at least, is made by ATi. Perhaps its time to ignore driver folklore, listen to the many happy ATi owners and revel in DX9 loveliness.

 

[Will]

There are no DX9 games. So the reveling is on hold for a while.

 

[Insane]

revel in the Knowledge that you have a DX9 card while everybody else is running those simplistic DX8.1 cards that were soooo.... last year

 

[bodhi]

Originally posted by Itcheh
There are no DX9 games. So the reveling is on hold for a while.

There will be tech demos tho. And while not that interactive, they will be full of loveliness which could provoke a minor revel surely.

 

[Embattle]

Yes just like the nVidia ones did...all 1 minute of it

 

[legendario]

What's this?

Bodhi in sensible post shocker?

So you're human after all



<disclaimer> That was not an insult and in no way meant to cause offence </disclaimer>

I have to cover my back these days

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by Insane

funny how nobody beats Nvidia around for releasing dodgy drivers, specific the recent 41.xx drivers that they released on their websites that everybody has had problems with, which they commenced to pull from the website and re-release the older versions for "compatibility reasons"

I take it by that you're referring to the Detonator 40 series drivers which are clearly labelled BETA? The same which are currently WHQL candidates? My point is that ATIs WHQL drivers still don't work with a lot of games - and now they've introduced three further specs and GPUs based on the same architecture which will have the same inherent bugs... rather than sort their acts out on their historical weakpoint - the software to back them up.

We're talking about a product here which market fullstream as the 'next big thing' for streaming media - yet there's only one media player which supports it and the revision is so old already it can't play some of the newer streams.

ATI really do need to get their act sorted on software - something the company themselves ackowledge. They may have the 8500's working but they've been out for over a year - personally I'd expect a fix within 4 weeks but over 8 weeks down the line after some of these bugs arose and they're still not on the ATI schedule for being fix0red.

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by bodhi
but the fact is, the fastest video card you can buy, and will be able to buy for the next 4 months at least, is made by ATi.

little do you know

 

[bodhi]

Judging by your previous prophecies, I shall stand by my original statement.