Radeon 5870 is a monster

[CarRepairer]

I have my 120Ghz LCD screen and dual GTX 8800. I run most of the games that I play (not really a gamer) at highest quality and reasonable fps. ALL of those which involve 3D, use the nvidia 3D vision.

Well you're a lucky one then I guess. Most people get headaches from those shutter glasses (some sooner some later). I tried them with my GeForce 256 back then and got nasty headaches after 10-15 minutes. Good thing I didn't have to buy a special monitor for that (and even today I wouldn't buy a sucky TN-LCD just for the 3D effect)...

CRT screens always gave me headache on the shutter glasses, and the LCD displays were just too slow. The current 120Ghz LCD + shutters suit me well enough to play for 2-3 hours at least (I just dont play longer) without a sign of a headache.

If you got a Zalman Trimon, you won't need active shutter glasses (uses cheap passive polarized glasses) and you would get nvidia driver support to play all the same games as 3d vision AND play spring with it as I made a widget to play spring in 3D that works with it!

[Tribulex]

If nvidia have a similarly priced card, and was only rated at half the performance, I'd still buy the nvidia.

That's just silly.
I have ATI right now and the only thing that works badly with it is Spring.

Im convinced thats the only thing you use a gfx card for...

[Caydr]

What is with you people whoring up the Zalman 3D display? Why doesn't IZ3D get any love? All the reviews I've read like theirs better.

For the cost of a special monitor and a powerful enough NV video card, I can have a 5870 and 3 monitors. That might not be more immersive than 3D but it gives you a wider view of the game, allowing you to actually play better. Having 3 monitors gives you benefits outside of gaming as well, and regular monitors aren't specialty items that you'll take flak about trying to send back for a dead pixel.

I have used shutter glasses in the past and I have no doubt they greatly improve the immersiveness, I'm not writing it off, but especially as an individual who spends most of his time on a computer not gaming, I think ATI's deal is better.

It's curious you use compare Nvidia 3D to Imax 3D, since you're getting the 3D but not the Imax.

I owned an ATI All In Wonder 9600. I will never own another ATI product.

6 years ago you bought a budget TV tuner from ATI, what does that have to do with the topic at hand? Do you recall what kind of price NV was gouging its customers for with the 260/280 series until ATI put their shit in its place? Or how about now, when NV has made their drivers detect if you have ATI hardware as your main display and aren't allowing people to use PhysX? Yeah, ATI are real dicks.

[CarRepairer]

What is with you people whoring up the Zalman 3D display? Why doesn't IZ3D get any love? All the reviews I've read like theirs better.

The iz3d suffers from crosstalk. And it will most likely never, ever work with Spring.

Did I mention I wrote a lua widget that works with the Trimon? In lua? Yes I did.

[Caydr]

Wow, you know how to write lua widgets in lua? I can only write them in cob

[Caydr]

Nvidia's partners forcefully discontinuing the 200 series?
http://vr-zone.com/articles/-rumour-nvi ... l?doc=7851

[Master-Athmos]

Yeah - it's a pretty hot rumor right now and if true it'd be quite something. But maybe someone just wanted to take a ride on the wave of bad NVIDIA news: Their chipset sector is pretty much dead now and the new Low-End GT220 cards are a total flop (although being built in 40nm they're worse than ATI's 55nm models being around for a year together with buggy drivers)...

[Caydr]

It makes very good sense though, there can't possibly be any profitability there. Especially with the 57xx series just launched at $100-$150 and having the power of a 4870 and running at like 9 watts idle. If I was anything but a disgusting enthusiast who'd only buy the highest-end, and if I didn't already own a 4890, I'd be buying one of those this second.

If ATI can keep up this momentum and launch the 2 GB and 2x versions of their cards before NV even gets their first ones out, it's going to finally be a level playing field between the two, finanancially speaking.

ATI/AMD have always been the underdog, but with them now sharing resources and both having cutting-edge 40nm tech, they can take the price/performance crown from both Intel and NV simultaneously. Lower costs for hardware all-around, and Windows 7 coming later this month, the PC might finally be relevant again in the eyes of many. Hopefully some of those eyes will belong to developers...

[Neddie]

They still need to provide software which is at all competitive, but otherwise I agree.

I can already design a high end gaming machine for 70% of the cost of Intel/Nvidia if I use AMD/ATI.

[Caydr]

What specifically about ATI software binds thy panties so? Not trying to be argumentative, but I think there's a lot of only half-considered hate for ATI because of previous driver problems. Pxtl illustrated this nicely by saying money is irrelevant to any discussion because he once had an ATI card 6 years ago and wasn't impressed.

They're a much bigger, more experienced company now. I'm not saying their drivers are immaculate bundles of joy but they're a far cry from the destruction of all humanity that people have been led to believe they are.

ATI's had their shit together pretty well since Vista was released. There have been bumps along the way but - well, ok, I recently posted my Steam list. Every game on there works flawlessly, despite my card being aggressively overclocked.

If by software support you're referring to things like CUDA and PhysX, both of these have failed to gain any significant industry support. PhysX will give you a nice boost to your Vantage score and give Batman a prettier cape, but that's the extent of it. Because it's not an industry standard, it can't be used for anything gameplay-related. CUDA on the other hand goes unused except for extremely niche software, and OpenCL and MS's DirectCompute via DX11 are poised to make it irrelevant altogether.

[==Troy==]

If you got a Zalman Trimon, you won't need active shutter glasses (uses cheap passive polarized glasses) and you would get nvidia driver support to play all the same games as 3d vision AND play spring with it as I made a widget to play spring in 3D that works with it!

I dont want to loose 1/2 of the resolution. (last time I checked the zalman used to split the horizontal arrays of pixels for lef/right eye). Atm there are 120Hz LCD displays for a more reasonable cost than zalman, and shutter glasses dont cost that much afterall. But thats off-topic. ATI supports neither of the options.

[Caydr]

NV vs ATI, weighing features, isn't really off topic... if you have anything more to say, please continue.

What I'd like to see from ATI is a unique 3D solution or else compatibility with one of the existing technologies. I would also LOVE to see bezel compensation, and more consistent hardware scaling support.

Bezel compensation is where the game pretends to draw the part of the frame that is "hidden" by the bezel. In essence, it reduces the amount of the game you can see, but makes it much more immersive. For instance, if you have a diagonal object in a game and it crosses the bezels, currently it will approach the bezel on one screen, hit it, and then come out the other screen at exactly the same vertical height, looking very, very poor. Matrox has a "solution" for this, which I described just previous to this.

Sorry it's getting late and I'm going to get less coherent.

As one final word from me regarding 3D support, I'd like to make clear that I am 100% behind NV in this area dn I recognize it as a major shortcoming for ATI. However at the same time, no real, proven 3D display standard has emerged yet. There are lots of "3D Ready" displays but compatibility with actual 3D media is extremely sketchy. I think it will take another 2-3 years before a real, solid standard emerges and is finalized, and then ATI will probably get behind it as well.

HDMI 1.4 supports the transmission of 3D signals but who's to say what they might learn about 3D by the time HDMI 1.5 is ready? What I mean is, hollywood has a lot more say in when 3D will become mainstream and widely supported than ATI does.

edit:

For instance, let's say in 2 years 3D blu-rays start getting released commonly. They use a novel technology which is low-cost and can be applied to existing TV manufacturing techniques. This implementation of 3D will take off and support for it will become widespread quickly, perhaps finally becoming a killer app for blu-ray. More importantly for us, it will mean swiftly decreasing support for all other 3D technologies, such as $600 120hz TN panels, and so on. Also, all the R&D money for those techs will be wasted. I think ATI is just sitting the 3D race out until a winner emerges, which for a company in their traditionally-underdog position, is very appriopriate.

On the other hand, multiple displays have been around for ages and are growing in popularity. ATI has added industry-leading support for this, and I think they made the right investment, if it was between 3D and Eyefinity.

[Neddie]

What specifically about ATI software binds thy panties so? Not trying to be argumentative, but...

It might be helpful if you didn't deride any person who disagrees with you with little jabs like that. It is almost as bad as the rewriting of the past or judicious implicit ad hominem practiced by other people on the board.

I dislike the poor support for Linux, and I dislike the poor OpenGL support. I care not for PhysX or CUDA, nor at this point for 3D support.

Every discussion of hardware brings up all this nostalgia for SGI. I get a little moist around the eyes.

[Regret]

What specifically about ATI software binds thy panties so?

I get a little moist

[Neddie]

You've activated my trap card!

[CarRepairer]

I dont want to loose 1/2 of the resolution. (last time I checked the zalman used to split the horizontal arrays of pixels for lef/right eye).

You're right about that. But I still feel it's the best consumer solution so far as it has the least amount of crosstalk compared to shutterglasses and iz3d.

Atm there are 120Hz LCD displays for a more reasonable cost than zalman, and shutter glasses dont cost that much afterall.

errrrrrrr statement is way off.

3D vision bundle .......$600
Extra glasses .......$150 x (number of extra glasses)

Trimon .......$250
Extra glasses .......$10 x (number of extra glasses)

Extra glasses come in handy if you want to watch movies with friends.

[Pxtl]

@Caydr - my problem with the AIW was that every single aspect of the software was buggy and messy. They never fixed it either - it's still in my old machine, and the firmware and software is still a hellish mess. I also owned a Rage II back in the day, which was another massive disappointment - the chip was good for DirectX 3 games and nothing else. Even OpenGL apps were out of reach - and this was their answer to the Voodoo 2 that had sewn up the market. My 9600 was giving ATI a second chance after having a very good experience with a Riva TNT2.

If it were small bugs, I'd have forgiven them and moved on. But the amount of cock-up present throughout the suite of software that came with it made me seriously doubt that the company can make a quality product. If you owned a Corvair, would you buy another Chevy product in the same decade?

I'm not opposed to the idea that ATI can improve. I'm just noticing that every ATI card I've ever owned has been a colossal screw-up, and every Riva/nVidia/3DFX board I've owned has been fantastic. When I start hearing that their software problems are gone, I'll give them another look... but as long as I keep hearing the same complaints, I'll give them a wide berth.

[Caydr]

I would say you've just had extraordinarily bad luck, but I can respect that you've at least given them a fair shake, albeit in what is in the distant past in terms of computer technology.

What specifically about ATI software binds thy panties so? Not trying to be argumentative, but...

It might be helpful if you didn't deride any person who disagrees with you with little jabs like that.

Only women argue with me, and women aren't real people. So you see, I am being very reasonable.

[AF]

hmmm what is this GF100 line? Has nvidia numbering system gone to pot ro what?

[Master-Athmos]

It's the 9000 series rebranded for OEMs. Nothing new for NVIDIA and their name recycling...