Buying a graphics card/mainboard: ATI or Nvidia

[xvlun]

Hi Guys, I am currently think about buying a new computer (better: parts), and i would very much like to know if nvidia or ati is better for TA Spring in Terms of stability, bugs and speed (as i suffered from several bugs related to the opensource radeon driver in the past: white surface, rendering issues and slowliness on an old radeon 9000)

And : is it possible to play TA Spring with modern IGPs like the Radeon HD3300 or the Nvidia Geforce 9400 with medium to high resolutions?

[Neddie]

Yes. Nvidia is preferable for drivers and some card quirks.

[tizbac]

I'm not saying that all nvidia will give the problem that i have, but these problems are very serious and are on geforce 8-9
When playing spring the gfx card seems to get permanently corrupted bios and volumetric texture and some shaders will stop to work
plus after that the card will start freezing very very very frequently with a black screen when playing spring or world of warcraft, any other game doesn't cause that damage/freeze.
The damage is permanent and affects also windows and also if you reboot/reset cmos or do what you want
I've only tested gfx cards from "point of view" manufacter so i don't know if other manufacters have same problems.

[Neddie]

I've never encountered that, and I am sure that is a card, not a Spring, issue.

[tizbac]

I know is nvidia problem but happens only with two games...
So buy it at your own risk, i've tried three nvidia cards , the same problems on all them

[Insomniak]

I have an ATI 4850 HD, with the latest drivers, all is working very good, no problem !

ATI is a good investisment for the future, ATI is opening the source code of their cards, they are doing large efforts for linux...

In my opinion, you should take an ATI card.

[==Troy==]

I know is nvidia problem but happens only with two games...
So buy it at your own risk, i've tried three nvidia cards , the same problems on all them

I really find that hard to beleive and its most likely your drivers. You are not giving any clear explanation of the issues you received nor you give a clear description of the cause (not even if it overheats or not). Instead some vague claims with a warning.

@Op.

ATI cards are cheaper and usually use higher-end technologies in them (which becomes less and less of a statement lately). The main problem with ATI cards is POOREST driver support both for linux and windows. They have a car, but they have a drunken driver driving it. That is important especially forl linux, since buying a good ATI card with bad drivers will be equivalent to buying an older Nvidia, for lower price but with the same performance.


Nvidia does still have problems with linux, but they have native support for it at least, and their drivers do not usually suck as much as ATI ones. 8XXX series had problems with overheating, but 9XXX series fixed that. I personally own 1 ATI card and 2 Nvidia cards, 8XXX series and 9XXX series, the only trouble I had with them is Windows Vista, linux runs perfectly without a trouble.

[hoijui]

i had and have a lot of ATIs, and i had problems wiht all of them.
its actually the single biggest problem i hav ewith linux -> ATI cards.
all other problems are really minor compared to this.
and if spring is important for you, it is especially advisable to NOT get an ATI. there are some models that work, its probably 50/50, and you even if it works, it may only do so after trying 3 diferent drivers (and 3 versions per each of them).
also, as a side note, in case you get a cheap notebook or netbook, intel 945 wont run spring under linux either.

[==Troy==]

intel 945 wont run spring under linux either.

Ubuntu EEE. Asus EEE PC 901. 15 FPS runs fine.

[tizbac]

I really find that hard to beleive and its most likely your drivers. You are not giving any clear explanation of the issues you received nor you give a clear description of the cause (not even if it overheats or not). Instead some vague claims with a warning.

I've tried almost any drivers version and changing hardware, the card is not overheating i've tried to check it costantly thorugh ssh while playing, when it freezes it is about at 63-65 C┬░.
I think the problem is related to some texture compression memory leak. I need that blizzard tells me or gives me the sources of rendering system of world of warcraft to be sure.
And it seems to happens only when they're used with detail textures.
The problem is also on windows, but with linux that uses 64 bits , seems to happen faster

[Neddie]

intel 945 wont run spring under linux either.

Ubuntu EEE. Asus EEE PC 901. 15 FPS runs fine.

Confirmed on Asus EEE PC 1000 HE.

[aegis]

I'd recommend the nvidia gts 250

I think the 9400m would probably be able to play spring alright, as the 5200 was able to (lower-end card from four series back) <_<

[xvlun]

well, i plan to get either something like the amd ati 4670 or the nvidia 9600 GSO, both fanless, or an IGP if suitable for that task as i said. i think the more powerful gpus would be a bit of an overkill performance, price, noise and electricity-wise.

still can't decide which one to buy. as i am indeed leaning abit towards ati, are there serous issues with the fglryx driver and spring?

[Pxtl]

On an older machine, I own an ATI 9600 All In Wonder.

I will never own another ATI product. Ever.

[aegis]

nvidia has never failed me at opengl/linux
ati has done so often.

[imbaczek]

ati < 4xxx is shite. everything which was released in the last 12 months is pretty good, though, even driver-wise. read up here, e.g.

[aegis]

the ati 4xxx driver still isn't complete and will cause performance issues vs similar or lesser nvidia cards in certain applications i.e.

[imbaczek]

extreme case of a very synthetic test, you must admit.

[aegis]

no, it's an example of a feature they haven't implemented yet

[clericvash]

ATI HD 4850 works perfectly fine here.