Radeon DDR 32Mb or GF2 MX ??????

[alessandro]

I'm thinking to upgrade my system Gfx card until the G800 is out (i'm buying it(G800) on Oct 2001, i don't even touch my PC on Summer holidays).

I'm between Elsa MX(Best 2d quality among GF2MXs),Prophet II and Ati Radeon DDR 32Mb.
GF2 MX's price is £110 and the Radeon's £166.

Any advice for a good performer!!!!


------------------
Athlon Thunderbird 1.1Ghz@1.2~1.3+GHz Socket A 256Kb,Asus A7V dipswitches,GlobalWin FOP32-1 heatsink,GlobalWin 802 Advance ATX Case, 17" Sony Multiscan 200PST,128MB Crucial PC133 CAS=2,Matrox Millenium G400 MAX 32MB 5ns SGRAM,IBM Deskstar 75GXP 15Gb UltraATA/100, Quantum Firebal EL 10.2Gb,Hewlett Packard DeskJet 970Cxi,Sound blaster Live!,Cambridge Soundworks 5.1,Creative PC-DVD 5X,CDR-RW Ricoh MP7040S@MP7060S(Tweaked from 4x--->6x with no problem),Adaptec SCSI 2920C,Diamond SupraExpress 56e PRO,Iomega Zip Drive.

[Admiral]

I'd go for the Creative MX, since it's DDR, and funny thing is, at least here, it's cheaper than any other MX and the Radeon SDR.
It has no heatsink or fan on the chip, although you could compensate that by buying something like this

[alessandro]

Cheaper yes,faster than the other Mx NO(i'm talking about Creative's MX).

You see it has DDR but it's at 64 bit vs the SDR at 128bit of the others.
Look all reviews in the net about this card!

[Oracle]

go for the radeon ive got the 32ddr version and its the best substitute for my g400max (2d wise and high quality 32bit action) that i could find. ITs like a g400 max with a TCL engine,ddr ram and tile based rendering.

buy it now !!!!!


Oracle


------------------
P3 600e @ 660 (6*110)
128mb 100mhz sdram
abit be6-2
Radeon 32ddr (biding time till the g800
voodoo 3 2000 pci (166)
soundblaster 16pci
4.3gb seagate udma 33
15.3 wd udma 66
creative modem blaster 56k ext
win me
ie5
direct x 8.0
4013.71

....................

[This message has been edited by Oracle (edited 22 December 2000).]

[alessandro]

2d quality is for No1 priority that's why i'm looking on Radeon's or ELSA's cards.

[This message has been edited by alessandro (edited 22 December 2000).]

[alessandro]

Oracle,

Can you tell me you 3DMark 2000 score without o/c your Radeon , please.

[Admiral]

F**k, I thought it had 128 bit DDR

You say Gladiac MX vs 32DDR Radeon. If money is no concern, definitely Radeon

[alessandro]

But then again i can find a 32Mb Creative GeForce 2 GTS AGP Graphics at £193incVAT here in Coventry.
Tempting......

[Novdid]

You definetly want to go with the Radeon 32 DDR. It´s very near the GF2 GTS in performance at high resolutions with better imagequality.

[alessandro]

What about the famous ATI drivers.
Any serous problems in win98SE/VIA KT133 system?

[paulcs]

I've been following a couple of threads on the Rage3D forums. The issues with Windows 98/ME and the Radeon's drivers tend not to be chipset-specific. They tend to be game specific. Users are complaining that they never can get a new game to work right out of the box. It's always either a patch or a registry hack, and the hacks seem to differ from game to game.

They claim ATI is working on a unified driver set that *finally* leaves behind the legacy of the Rage 128 drivers. There hasn't been an update in quite some time, although there have been leaks. In fact, Microsoft has released a revision of the 7041 leak. It might slow things down a bit, but it apparently improves image quality and may fix some bugs. If any Radeon users are interested, here's a link:


ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/services/whql/drivers/WinME/disply/A256551.exe

Keep in mind, they appear to be Microsoft certified, but they are not ATI certified. Go figure.

The aging 3056 drivers remain the official set. The Special Purpose (aka beta) drivers ATI has posted are the 3063 set, which are nearly as old as the 3056's. VIA users seem to like them, and they worked for me when I tested them a while ago. Many people are using the leaks, however, so you might want to experiment if you decide to take the Radeon route.

The last time I checked, the Radeon had relatively poor 16-bit 3D output. You don't get much of speed increase by lowering bit depth and the *16-bit* image quality, in my opinion, was just plain lousy. This is a 32-bit gaming board, and the 16-bit setting is a bit pointless. 32-bit image quality and performance were quite good.

I suspect you'll have fewer game issues with the GeForce2 MX. It's relatively low maintenance, which is a plus for many users. It's bandwidth limited, however, and the Radeon is going to be faster at higher resolutions and bit depth. The MX really starts to tank at 1024x768/32-bit, while the Radeon handles it without a problem. The MX is cheaper.

It's kind of an apples and oranges situation. I think the decision should depend on what you are willing tolerate, the games you play, and the settings you like using.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 23 December 2000).]

[alessandro]

For 2 years now i ALWAYS use 1024x768x32bit.
I haven't played in 16bit since my G200.

It's funny but one of the reasons than I upgraded from G200-->G400 was Colin McRae rally performance.
Now Colin 2.0 performance is also one of the reasons for me to ugrade.
(Let's hope they (ATI) release a new driver soon.)
By the way the OpenGL of Ati is any good at all???(3d apliccations,Maya,3DStudio etc)


[This message has been edited by alessandro (edited 23 December 2000).]

[This message has been edited by alessandro (edited 23 December 2000).]

[Helevitia]

I bought a Radeon All-In-Wonder a little while back adn I have been very impressed with this card. I have had very little problems. As a matter of fact, I have had less problems since upgrading from my G400. I know some people may not believe me but that's ok. BTW-I dualboot WinME and Win2k and Win2k is amazingly stable. I don't know if it is the drivers or what but no probs at all. Also, I play several games such as MechWarrior4, SOF, HalfLife/CounterStrike, Prince of Persia, C&C:Tiberian Sun, Mech Commander, Midtown Madness, Motocross Madness 2, etc, etc....you get the point and all of these games work without any problems. Now, to top things off, I also own a Geforce 2 MX and I hate it. It always locks up, causes me problems, blurry as hell, and it says Nvidia on it I bought it for my sons computer so he could play games fast. What else would you buy one for
A couple of other things: The graphics quality is atleast as good as the G400. If one is better than the other, I can't tell and I run @ 1600x1200x32. The last thing is since it is an All-In-Wonder card, it also does several other things and I have no problems with any of those things, I swear! To be honest, as much shit as I've heard about the ATI drivers, I've been more than satisfied with the outcome.

Dave

[paulcs]

I hope I didn't come off too harsh about the Radeon. In my personal experience, once I got it working, it worked well.

I also think Dave's evaluation is accurate and reflects my experience.

However, I do think the Radeon is a software driven board, and the GeForce series is not. I think there are advantages to brute force -- at least for now. I think the GeForce series varies in quality from manufacturer to manufacturer, and I've had particularly good luck with the boards I've gotten my hands on.

I think that the Radeon is a far more complex piece of hardware, and there might always be issues with new games. Part of this could be corrected if ATI would change it's attitude about gaming. They should start sending boards to developers in a timely fashion and they should be more respectful of user feedback. I think their attitude is old fashioned, and it won't work in the current market.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Himself]

One warning about any Creative product, their drivers suck, horribly, pick another vendor for you NVIDIA needs, anybody. Unless you plan on always using the NVIDIA reference drivers, don't bother.