ATi have had better drivers for years. nVidia are shit. My mom thinks nVidia are shit. I don't question your experience with ATi at all, however no-one else has ever had problems with ATi. ATi release drivers regularly each month, with small improvements each time. nVidia releases dead puppies into streams every 3-6 months, with dozens of shit buggy betas leaked inbetween. nVidia are so crap they have to cheat at 3DMark. I heard they don't wash and fuck goats.

Now that you've read all that you can ignore it because it was all exaggerated fanboy bullshit. At the end of the day both manufacturers have quite reasonable drivers - both have bugs with certain games that can take several releases to fix - but both offer good performance. I wouldn't say either was more buggy than the other, they're both equal in my eyes. The only things that affects my purchase are the performance, features and value, as well as (to a far lesser extent) past experience... for pure speed nVidia wins, however I prefer features like AA/AF/HDR where ATi currently performs better / has more features. If you had a bad experience with ATi then be all means use nVidia, I know I would if the same happened to me - however, for me ATi has been great. Things will change with the next gen though when you move onto unified pipelines with DX10/Vista and I'll re-evaluate things then and I'd be happy to buy an nVidia card without hesitation.

And of course Nvidia has issues at times.. but far fewer. I had more drivers issues in one year with one ATI card than I have had with the last three Nvidia cards (over four years). Sorry but it is fact. Call me what you like...

I disagree completely. I don't dispute the problems you had with ATi (I've had problems in the past too) but to say that nVidia has far fewer issues is dellusional. You only have to look at Tomb Raider - Legends, PureVideo and Vista drivers to see that they have just as many issues. Plus, just to put it in perspective, I've hard more blue screens with nVidia cards that I've ever had with ATi, with some cards refusing to work outright and having to be returned... however, I accept that modern nVidia cards don't have the same problems that earlier ones did and so that has little-to-no effect on my purchase choice.

At the end of the day it's your choice. I don't try and sway people at all, though I'll make a noise if people start throwing out unfair statements about either side. I can't believe I've even written this much. *shrugs*

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Emotinomicon: Emoticons of the Dead

Man, I can just smell the bullshit from here, m00zilla. First it's your 'my old sempron plus 6600OC run Oblivion at high settings, faster than the latest hardware!', and now you have a ferrari laptop (whilst your main desktop is a POS budget throwtogether).

In other words, pull the other one; it has bells on.

Screw you? I'm still waiting for them to fix a driver bug since 5.5 where it makes my x850 XT think it's overheating when it's not.

Well damn....I was wondering why my x850xt kept triggering VPU recover from (apparent) overheating when it wasn't remotely hot enough to.

There were no omega drivers in the 90's.

Did I say that? I didn't even own an ATI card back in the late 90's the reviews and message boards gave me enough warning to stay away.

Nvidia is Still cheating on AF quality even to this day on their new 7900 cards just to win benchmarks.

And you called me a fanboy?

I just posted the truth. But your experience with your cards may have been different... it is possible. Not until the 9700 series was ATI even worth a damn. They had nothing but drivers issues all through the late 90's and only started becoming a challenge for Nvidia when they finally started getting things right more often.

I'll admit they have some great cards, like Nvidia. Which is best is all opinion. My experience with an ATI a few years back proved to me their drivers are still shite. Unless you're trying to tell me I was imagining all those issues.

And of course Nvidia has issues at times.. but far fewer. I had more drivers issues in one year with one ATI card than I have had with the last three Nvidia cards (over four years). Sorry but it is fact. Call me what you like...

This comment was edited on Apr 13, 20:57.

I know they are much better than they used to be back in the late 90's... but when you have to roll back drivers to run a certain game that won't play properly under the last three or four releases... and then reinstall the latest to get another game your playing to work correctly... well that is just total bullshit.

ATi's early drivers (7500-era) were abysmal and would often lead to blue screens. However, things have improved a lot recently. In fact it is nVidia users that I regularly hear having to run different drivers for different games because of different bugs with each release. nVidia used to have the best drivers available but they dropped the ball and have fallen behind - their motherboard drivers are just a disgrace (constant problems with NVLan and SMBus), though I don't claim to know what condition ATi's are in.

They both got their own unique issues. However, there is no question at all that Nvidia is king in the non windows platform world.

Definitely. My experience with ATi and Linux was a complete disaster, with everyone recommending nVidia as the solution.

I don't have any allegiance to ATi or nVidia. I buy whatever is better value / performance at the time of purchase. nVidia have done well with the 7800/7900 series, though not being able to use HDR and AA at the same time is a big negative for me. I don't think the X1xxx cards are that great, though.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Emotinomicon: Emoticons of the Dead

Wow they finally fixed that Dawn of War / x800 issue

Ati has owned Nvidia since the release of the 9700pro. Vastly superior drivers, IQ, FSAA etc. Much better HDR support on the latest cards.

People may like Nvidia over Ati or vice versa thats ok. However to suggest that ATi hardware or drivers have been inferior to Nvidia for the last 3-4 years is nothing but fanboy foolishness.

Yes, fanboy foolishness, as you yourself are spouting. Vastly superior? Owned? LOL. Good one.

They both got their own unique issues. However, there is no question at all that Nvidia is king in the non windows platform world.

There were no omega drivers in the 90's.

Ati has owned Nvidia since the release of the 9700pro. Vastly superior drivers, IQ, FSAA etc. Much better HDR support on the latest cards.

People may like Nvidia over Ati or vice versa thats ok. However to suggest that ATi hardware or drivers have been inferior to Nvidia for the last 3-4 years is nothing but fanboy foolishness.

In fact Ati drivers have been better than Nvidia drivers as a whole for at least the last 3 years. Nvidia is Still cheating on AF quality even to this day on their new 7900 cards just to win benchmarks.

Meanwhile, nvidia is lagging on "officially" releasing drivers and the new Tomb Raider only runs "ok" on my system with the next-generation content enabled.

Note that my meager system is comprised of a 7900GT CO and an Opteron 165 running at 2.4GHz...

Excluding the current driver laziness, I do prefer nViDiA at the moment, but you really cannot go wrong with either one right now.
And that opteron will be going faster once I get my new memory next week.
Off to play a little bit of TR and Oblivion :),
Ray

-----
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=ray_marden
http://www.livejournal.com/users/raymarden/
I love you, mom.

Why do all the fanboy trolls come out whenever a new set of drivers comes out?

BTW, these installed fine and I've never had to "roll back" a set of WHQL drivers to play anything, ever. As a matter of fact, I've never had to "roll back" drivers to play anything regardless of videocard brand. Fanboys FTL.



http://forum.ramanon.com

Sorry fellas, I don't game on a laptop and I don't buy ATI. I bought one ATI card and got so fed up with the bullshit drivers I swore off ATI for life.

I know they are much better than they used to be back in the late 90's... but when you have to roll back drivers to run a certain game that won't play properly under the last three or four releases... and then reinstall the latest to get another game your playing to work correctly... well that is just total bullshit.

I put up with that ATI card for about a year. Jumped through all the hoops... used Omega drivers, you name it. When it came down to upgrading my system I chose the less bullshit option... Nvidia!


Edit: Change from "no bullshit" to "less bullshit"... no shit, really!
This comment was edited on Apr 13, 00:18.

Screw you? I'm still waiting for them to fix a driver bug since 5.5 where it makes my x850 XT think it's overheating when it's not.

all the advantages of a laptop you mention are great but,
if the game you want to play won't run due to drivers or whatever,
then the advantages are moot.

I just installed the driver and I got this "zero display service error". I'm using an ATI Radeon X800. I think the install messed up my webcam drivers so later I've gotta try removing it an re-installing those again....has anybody else gotten the same error message and does it hurt things since it did finish the install?

Ditto with Tom. Laptops are not good for games.

I bought an Acer travelmate 8104 for LAN parties and vacation gaming (X700 mobility).

The thing kicks ass but has stability issues with specific games, all video related.

I've been using omega drivers with some success, but the lack of support from Acer means one thing: when the time comes for me to u/g this unit, I won't be buying another Acer.

I think the Acer's with ATi x1400, duo core, 120GB HDD are around 6lbs. I'm getting my duo core Acer soon whenever newegg gets them back in-stock.

Gaming laptops are too heavy and too hot. I suppose if you can't survive without a laptop you do what you gotta do, but for the money you spent on the laptop you could have probably picked up 2 or 3 desktop machines.

Acer Ferrari is one laptop that was designed for gaming along with others (Alienware that Dell bought into).

Do you really think I want a 600 watt hairdryer on my desk? Im highly mobile and cannot carry around a Toaster that sucks more juice than my fridge freezer and sounds like my vacume cleaner.

Laptops are more Mobile Workstations nowdays. Laptops != gaming machines is so 1990s

My 2.5" 7200 rpm drives outperform on powerusage and data transfer than my 3.5" monsters. They are so 5.25" these days

Time to move on from hugging your bricks.

Ahh I like my electric bill now, 40 watts vs 600 watts and the same performance as my other rig with the lower power consumption and mobility factor. I know what I choose.


This comment was edited on Apr 12, 17:01.

That's what you get for trying to game on a laptop. Laptops are not meant for gaming! Get a real computer!