GeForce FX 5950...

[Emeritus]

I received my GeForce FX 5950 not too long ago. So far, I have to say I am impressed. Pretty everything I have thrown at it, has looked and ran great. But, I was really impressed last night, when I decided to play around. I have been playing NFS:UG, and loving it. The graphics are great and of course its racing! I went into the display settings, and decided to turn on everything, antialiasing and antistropic filtering to the max. I loaded NFS:UG, and I expected it to be a bit boggy, but I figured I was doing it just to see how good it looked. Well, guess what, i haven't turned anything down yet. The game ran flawlessly with evrything turned on and set to the max settings. I was so shocked at this, that I tried a few other games. They all ran great.

The board I got is a Leadtek WinFast A380 Ultra TDH MyVIVO. So, if anyone is considering a 5950, I definitely give it a 2 thumbs up!!!

 

[chaos945]

Thats good to hear, I've been thinking about getting either that or a Radeon 9800. But its still in the air.

 

[Taurus]

finally some positive nvidia feedback around here on a new card. what drivers are you using?

 

[Sazar]

the cards themselves are not bad for dx7/8 and ogl products which is most of what we do use today

its their lngevity that has been in question

btw.. congrats on the purchase...

 

[Emeritus]

I am using the Official 53.03s from Nvidia and they are working great!!!

I have to say I am one of the lucky ones. I have never had a problem with the Nvidia hardware or drivers ever!

 

[MJS]

NNNOOOOO....

not this conversation again

I made a forum post a few weeks ago because I really couldn't decide on an FX5950 or a Radeon 9800XT! I was stressed for ages trying to figure out which one to buy, but I eventually went for the Radeon 9800XT because it was common sense really. The Radeon 9800XT isn't supposedly as good with OpenGL as the FX5950, but many games tests show that the 9800XT gets better scores than the 5950 when the resolution is higher and with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering and of course, the image quality of the Radeon is far superior to the FX5950 and not to mention double texture pipelines of the 9800XT (I will try not to get too technical) and number of other things that make the FX5950 kiss the silicone feet of the 9800XT.
The FX5950 is still a great card though and is only beaten for fps by the 9800XT, but is still beaten by the 9700pro in DX9 based games.

Please, do not get me going about graphics cards because I will never stop

I have nothing against nvidia owners because I currently own an nvidia now and even though it's a crap card, it have never had probs with drivers or anything. But at the present time, the obvious choice of top-end card is the Radeon 9800XT, look at any benchmarks and tests in websites.

 

[Emeritus]

Why did you bother posting here? If all you wanted to do is slam the fact, that I like the 5950, you can go elsewhere. I have no opinion on the Radeon series, as I have only ever owned older ATi products. I am very happy with the choice I made, and I don't appreciate, a biased idiot coming in here and spouting. Notice, that I did not say anything about any other card.

 

[LeeJend]

Actually, at the rate the "full DX9 game" releases are going that "longevity" argument is getting kinda thin. I just realised it's almost a year since the great nvidia/radeon DX9 argument started. Let me list the number of released games impacted:

1
.
.
.

Umm, none? At this rate we'll be well into the replacement cycle for our current boards before we have any real games to worry about.

 

[MJS]

Just had to make the point of the 9800XT being so great.. because I can't wait to install mine. I respect the fact that you actually have an FX5950 and I do think they are great cards, so I had to make the point that if the FX5950 is an amazing card, then the 9800XT must be even more amazing, thats all!

It's just because I have a 9800XT in my house, but I am not allowed to install untill December 25th because it is a christmas present, so I can't stop talking about it because I am excited!

If I had the chance to test the FX5950, I would definately take it, but as I am not a millionaire with money to just buy both and compare, I have to rely on the benchmarks and reviews and sadly the FX5950 doesn't live up to the 9800XT in these tests.

I really couldnt care which card you brought.. it's your money and I hope that you enjoy your gaming with it. In the end, it doesn't matter what people say in arguments like this... 'o, AMD are crap, you are an idiot because you brought one' and crap like that... I just dont get involved with things like that.... althought it may not seem that way, with my positive comment towards the 9800XT... I will be over all that once I can install the card

 

[Emeritus]

See, thats your problem. This wasn't an argument in the first place. I was just related how happy I am with my card. You are the one that did the slamming. If you had come and said you were happy with the ATi card, that would be great. Instead you came on, slamming NVidia people. That is my problem with your original post. Now knock it off, unless you have something intelligent to say.

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by LeeJend
Actually, at the rate the "full DX9 game" releases are going that "longevity" argument is getting kinda thin. I just realised it's almost a year since the great nvidia/radeon DX9 argument started. Let me list the number of released games impacted:

1
.
.
.

Umm, none? At this rate we'll be well into the replacement cycle for our current boards before we have any real games to worry about.

halo/tomb raider AOD are the only major games out there with dx9 usage.. mainly in the form of ps2.0 leejend...

there are a couple of other games but they masquerade as dx9 while being practically all dx8 with a couple of extra long shaders to show they have bigger weiners

 

[Emeritus]

I have been playing NFS:UG, and the requirements state it needs DirectX 9. Does that necessarily mean that the game is a DX9 game? Regardless though, it still looks great, especially when you turn on light trails and motion blur.

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Emeritus
I have been playing NFS:UG, and the requirements state it needs DirectX 9. Does that necessarily mean that the game is a DX9 game? Regardless though, it still looks great, especially when you turn on light trails and motion blur.

no... it is not required... however since the game is probably being designed with a computer sporting the dx9 api pre-installed... it is probably required to ensure maximum stability...

however... there may well be some dx9 effects in NFS:U... I haven't played it myself yet so I dunno

 

[adamg]

What many people don't realise are the hidden benefits of Nvidia cards, such as faster/better OpenGL support, also much better support for Linux, and that also goes back to the OpenGL thing as all things Linux are OpenGL. Also Ati has yet to make an uncluttered driver window (the nvidia slide out thing is really cool).

I read in APC mag here in Oz that most of the DX9 problems are caused because the FX-series has a 32-bit engine and the DirectX9 standard is 24-bit, so there is the lag of converting 32-bit addresses to 24-bit. Maybe in the future dx will become 32-bit and performance will improve. I am by no means sure of what i am saying though so dont quote me

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by adamg
What many people don't realise are the hidden benefits of Nvidia cards, such as faster/better OpenGL support, also much better support for Linux, and that also goes back to the OpenGL thing as all things Linux are OpenGL. Also Ati has yet to make an uncluttered driver window (the nvidia slide out thing is really cool).

I read in APC mag here in Oz that most of the DX9 problems are caused because the FX-series has a 32-bit engine and the DirectX9 standard is 24-bit, so there is the lag of converting 32-bit addresses to 24-bit. Maybe in the future dx will become 32-bit and performance will improve. I am by no means sure of what i am saying though so dont quote me

the APC people obviously need to send their technical writers back to school

the issue is that the card is doing things in 16bit or 32 bit Floating point.. the FX units were removed in the nv35 and up (it was present in the nv30) so basically it is all float... now nvidias cards are doing everything primarily in fp16 with a sprinkling of fp32 here and there if required (and this is primarily.. thus far... being used in their demos)

IF nv3x products have a problem doing things primarily in fp16 v/s fp24 for atis dx9 components... what makes you think they will be able to do things faster when another api comes out that makes a call for fp32 as the baseline

you cannot fix fubared marchitecture through magic drivers... handcoding for specific applications helps but there are some quirks to be worked out for a universal wrapper...

the better OGL performance is expected and is undoubtedly so due to nvidia cards being used for so long in the title development and also because devs can code for the specific marchitecture as opposed to an api...

'nix support is more far-reaching but is about as bad as ati's when it comes to sheer stability go to some nvidia tech forums and their 'nix section to see

ati's control panel and nvidia's control panel are both fubar... something like matrox's CP or even the new XGI CP would be nice

but to say nvidia's CP is better than ati's is a little redundant... they both serve their purpose and both are equally functional.. snce you brought up the slide-out thing... have you checked out ati's smartshader effects

as it stands the 'hidden benefits' are market speak... good PR..

the cards are fine.. quite excellent really... for todays applications and games... but don't try to make them out to be something they cannot physically be... no magic mushrooms to fix this babies archiectural 'faults'

newer drivers and the automatic shader-replacement algorithms will improve performance as they come out so there are going to be benefits down the road...

 

[Emeritus]

Whichever chipset, and brand you choose, I hope it meets or exceeds your expectations. If it does, great. For me it boils down to real world usage, personally I don't believe in benchmarks really, as there are many factors, that can change, whether for better or worse, the benchmark figures. I would like to hear everyones good experiences with their vid card, whether it be ATi or NVidia. Oh, I did fail to mention, I actually have a radeon card. It is a Radeon 9000 PCI 64MB DDR, from Powercolor. It is actually not a bad card for its limitations as a PCI card. That card will be replaced in my wife's machine with my GeForce ti4600, and I will be using the Radeon in my 3rd machine. By the time I am done, I will have 3 great gaming machines. Talk about in home Lan Party, Woohoo!!!

 

[Erbmaster]

Whoah...bet you wished you'd never started this thread/flame war eh Emeritus?
I also own cards manufactured by both manufacturers.
At the end of the day it's horses for courses.

The latest state of the art GPU isn't essential in anything other
than a latest spec system (i.e. AGPx8 etc), and not always then.

I can run Call Of Duty without any problems in DX8 with an
old nVidia GeForce2-GTS without hiccups...the installer claims I must install DX9.0b Pfft! Go figure!

Gameplay isn't all about GPU's and texture memory, an older specced PC can still cope, 'cos as already mentioned the dependency on DX9 is only there for ATI card owners - not game developers.
When the DX9 standard becomes de facto, it'll be integrated in GPU's right across the board anyhow.

I too will require a new GPU soon, as my card is showing it's age, but that doesn't mean I can't play the latest games, it just means I can't play them at 1600x1280 @100fps etc etc.

Guess ppl could argue i'm jealous, but i'm not! -
That's something those of us with families/mortgages & jobs/taxes etc have to deal with.

We have trouble keeping up with the spoilt people of the world.
Hahaha! - paying anything over £200 for a lump of PCB with a chip on it - a component. Some newer cards are being banded about in the £500 region!. wtf? that's ridiculous.
Wait 6 months, then you pay half the cost...just in time for the industry to catch up.
Who saw who coming?
After all, the depreciation with PC components is the same whichever brand you buy. - It's worse than a car's!

The whole chip alliegance argument is pretty redundant really.

Anyway...that said, i'm happy for you Emeritus, and good luck with your spanking new card.
I'm sure you'll remain happy with your purchase for a long time yet.
As Taurus said (paraphrased)....positive feedback is rare, but nice

 

[LocKStocK]

Blah Blah Blah...
Ever since my 9700 pro burnt to a crisp, I've been using a
GF4 MX440 128mb.
Only cost £50 and runs most modern games, but not very well
Gotta save some cash so I can get an Asus 9800XT
(Half-life 2 coupon YAY!!)

 

[Sazar]

just an fyi... this thread was not started as a spam/flame thread and it will remain free of the same elements as far as can be helped....

please refrain from erroneous and misleading statements to back a particular IHV or other to further your own agenda lads

 

[LeeJend]

Lockstock - the ATI 9700 Pro comes with a 3 year warantee. It hasn't been out for 3 years yet so why haven't you returned it under warantee?

Or did we overclock it a bit too much?