before i buy a new video card...

i want to buy a new video card soon. i'll probly get one in about a month from now. i'm having trouble deciding between sticking with nvidia or trying an ATI card. at the prices i'm looking at (150 -250) i keep reading that ATI's are better. so i would like to try one out, but i know that the ATI cards are having issues with SL.

so my questions are mainly to all you ATI users out there. what are, and how bad are these issues? do you know if theres gonna be any fixes soon? do you think i should just stick with an nvidia card?

i already paid for SL and i want to keep playing so i sure don't want to ruin it by choosing the wrong card.

thanks for any help

Personally, I will never buy another ATI card again (unless it's in a laptop and I have no choice.)

I have a couple of ATI's laying around my office, none of which was actually in a computer for more than a week, because of all of the various difficulties I had with them. And these difficulties had absolutely nothing to do with SL, because I haven't wasted money on an ATI in well over a year.

Seconded.
IMHO best bang for your buck is an fx5600.

which one do you mean eggy? the ultra or non-ultra?

cuz yeah i've been figuring i might as well stick with nvidia

Currently, SL won't take advantage of the extra memory on the Ultra.

However, the rumor-mill has it that this will be changing at some point. What I don't know is how soon.

If it doesn't change soon, and SL is your main purpose for buying a new 3d card, you'd be better off with the non-ultra. If the change is going to be soon, the Ultra would be well worth the extra money for the performance benefit of the extra memory.

The problem is that the major variable here is something we don't have any information on: When will SL support vid cards w/ more than 64MB of vid memory?

actually my main reason is cuz i'm anticipating HL2 and Doom3 besides i've had my card for almost 2 years now. i think its time to upgrade. but i don't want to ruin my SL experience of course.

i think my top choice ATM is the fx5600 ultra 128mb. it would be nice if SL could take advantage of that extra memory. *wink wink* *nudge nudge*

Yeah, if you're looking at HL2 and Doom3, you definitely want the Ultra for the extra memory.

For that matter, you may want to look around for a 5800 Ultra, or wait until one of them is actually ready for release, and buy a 5900 Ultra. By then the prices should drop, although it'll probably still be more than the $250 you're wanting to pay now.

I have a 5900 Ultra. It's just a shame that I don't really have anything right now that really uses it to its full potential.

I just purchased a GeForce FX 5600 w/256MB under the recommendation of Doug Linden. I asked Richard Linden what he thought of this, and he told me it was a great buy, considering that 1.1 will be taking advantage of the extra memory.

Oh, as many of you know, my prediction for the 1.1 update is September 2nd, 2003 at 6am PST. That happens to be a Tuesday, and since they always double check that the version works on Monday, they love to update on Tuesdays.

yeah i'm probly gonna wait until HL2 comes out and then get the card and the game at the same time. so hopefully the prices drop just a bit.

and James thanks for the heads up i can't wait

I recently went the road less traveled and bought an ati9700 pro, here are the cons to the decision that i have found so far,
1: textures at 1024x1024 get massively corrupted when I get within 6 meters of them,
2: If I set the card to use FSAA and/or ansiotropic filtering and run SL the screen goes black and I have alt f4 out
3: When I rotate (non-physical) my vehicle that has lights on it, everything flashes very bright random colors.
4: If I change my clothes and they get corrupted, they bake the corrupted image and everyone else can see it.

Ok, pros
1: Its alot faster than my Geforce 2 Pro
2: It got the best price/performance ratings on all the sites I checked.
3: The ground looks cooler
4: I can run my draw distance up higher

oh cool i was still hoping to hear from an ati user. geez those problems really make ati look like a bad idea so it looks like i'm right to go with a geforce.

thanks for the input jericho

Yea, I really think a GeForce is your best bet. ATI is *not* good with SL.