Global Conflict

I just had to return a DAAW (died after a week) ATI 9800 Pro and just wondered if the Nvidia 6600GT is a better if not equal buy, my budget covers both cards but nothing higher. I was just going to get another 9800 Pro cause I always wanted to have one but got to looking at some of the newer stuff that was coming out.

Opinions if you have any on this subject would be greatfully appreciated.

Thank you

Smudge.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=3

I have done a bit of research via google and the majority, and I mean majority as in 100% of people on other forums say you should go with the 6600GT. If I were you Id just save up and get a new x800 or something but I know it can be hard to wait, just make sure you dont do something stupid, I remember my first pc, instead of waiting a week to get a Ti4200 in, I went and blew my money on an MX440

BF has always run better on nVidia cards for some reason. For example on BF:V my 9600XT barely squeeks out 30 fps while many people with less expensive and lower benchmarking nVidia cards get 70-80 fps.

So for BF definitely go with nVidia over ATI.

On a personal note ATI customer service is horrible (at least my experiences with it have been). They are slow to react to consumer reported problems (though complaints from manufacturers seem to get taken care of with in weeks) and make some of the buggiest software around. Uninstalling a ATI card can take hours if you don't want to leave stray files all over the place and their multi-media center (for all-in-wonders and TV tuner cards) is a joke. The last paragraph is just my opinion of course but I would go with the 6600GT.

I agree with you on the poor customer support, but I have an x800 xt platinum and so far have been very pleased with the drivers, except catalyst 5.3 but thats gone now, I dont know about you but I only use Omega Drivers unless they become horribly out of date.

beeing the tech-n00b I can only tell you that My MSI RX800 Pro is working fine with the help of wizard Night S who told me how to configurate BF.

Yeah, all that talk about how Ati drivers and whatnot sucks ... kids, I've been on both sides of the river and let me tell you, there aint much difference. Some driver versions will always be sucky while others will shine. Seen that with Nvidia and with Ati.

BUT, that doesn't change that 6600GT>R9800.

I wasn't actually refering to the drivers themselves, but the ATI control panel, installers, etc. The drivers for the most part work fine. Now that I have a 1280x720 display this is the first time I have ever had game crash problems due to driver issues with ATI. All of my games crash or fail to load on that display even though they run fine on my regular monitor. I've tried all sorts of things to get them to work including editing my video.con files and creating a custom monitor driver using powerstrip. If anyone has any suggestions for me I'd be happy to try them, but since none of my games work I'm thinking it must be a video driver issue.

...it's been 4 days since I contacted ATI about it. Hopefully they'll reply to me soon.

Dude, that's definitelly the first time that I've hear about a display making a game crash. I'm not even sure if that's technically possible.
But even if it is, then it's quite definitelly not ATI's fault but whoevermadeyourdisplay's fault.

Did you seriously clean your pc from old drivers before installing the new ones? Use this -> http://www.drivercleaner.net/dc.htm, reboot, install your drivers, see what happens.

Besides, 1280x720? Er ... sure? Is that widescreen? If so, it could be that your games crash cos they can't make your screen accomodate to their needed resolutions. I mean, I can't think of any game that would support 1280x720. But maybe re-installing your games AFTER you clean installed the drivers might help...

There's no way the display is making the games crash. All it does it display the information it is sent. The problem is that the drivers are not supporting the resolution properly. At least that is my opinion of what is happening since dxdiag is clean and it happens with all games. Perhaps it is a video card settings issue but either way ATI is the one who should support it.

Yes the display is widescreen. HL2, CS:Source, TOCA2, Doom3 and many other games have 1280x720 in their options. BF required me to edit my video.con file to do it but I know of other people that play at this rez with no problem. If you want more information on gaming in widescreen check out these sites:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdis ... forumid=94

http://www.tigerdave.com/wgl/

So did you try cleaning your rig with drivercleaner and then re-install the video drivers from scratch?

P.S.: As written in one of your links, BF needs a 800*600 rez for the menu. Did you test wether your display can do that (e.g. by selecting 800*600 for desktop)?

That comparison is really funny if you ask me...

I realize its a dollar for dollar comparison of sorts but why didnt they just test my ATI All in Wonder Pro thats 11 years old and say the Nvidea beats it hands down...

The 9800 is a year or more old... it should be slow as shite by now.... the fact that the price is still high for the 9800 pro shows that there is still demand.... demand creates price....

Frankly I have been on both sides of the puddle... I had 3 Nvideas before my recent turn back to ATI.... I have no frame rate troubles heck its always maxed at 99 for BF and with AA and AF on its smooth and nice to look at.. in fact I recently tried playing on a friends machine with AA off and I felt like I was back in the stone ages......

Truthfully..... both manufacturers are pushing the envelope.... I hope they get More competitive... so much so that in the next couple years you'll plug it directly into your temples and play the game... Just lets hope that they both fix their driver issues before that happens.....

Yeah, the BF menu shows up fine. I can actually play for 5-10 minutes before it locks-up. I did completely clean my HD of everything ATI (including the registry). I didn't use drivercleaner but I accomplished the same thing. Probably would have been much easier to use that program.

I've looked into it being a heat issue too but that is not the problem.

Well but if you can play for some time then it can hardly be a driver issue for if it were, you would most probably not be able to play at all.
What still puzzles me though is that you say you can play fine when using a different screen. Quite weird.

Tubes, the 9800 aint slow. I'm still playing with a 9700 and even that one aint too slow for most of the current games. I just have to get along without or only 2x AA. But 2xAA at 1280*1024 is still very smooth.
Friend of mine is just thinking about the same thing, getting a 9800 Pro or a 6600. Both come at about the same price and the performance is very similar, 6600 just outperformes slightly.

Has anyone got a clue wether it's possible to run a 6600 with passive cooling only (like with those big heatpiped cooler blocks)? I know the 9800 Pro runs too hot for that.

http://www.tigerdave.com/wgl/

^There is a site for widescreen gaming with bf1942 on it, it says something about not selecting a profile and making video.con readonly and something about making sure you have an 800x600 mennu.

Why would you want to run a 6600 with heat sinks.

Well, noise reduction. He's building a livingroom media PC that should still be good enough to play 3D games. I'm running my 9700 with those huge heatsinks and an 80 vent at 5V. Clost to no noise and the card never even get's warm.