ATI - i want out - what should i buy?

Hey all,

I've really had it with the issues on my ati 9600, I have just seen the game running on a lesser PC with MUCH better video running an nVidia 5600.

What do those of you with non - ati card reccommend for a guy who wants to spend about 150-200 on a decent card - I'd still like to hang in with the other games reasonably well, but i want my SL performance back - this is BULLSH*T performance...

suggestions?

nVidia 6600 is $150-200, but not available in AGP just yet.

well i think i am going to need something agp to replace teh card in teh slot i've got any other suggestions folks?

I've had good luck with this one.

The 6600GT will be coming out real soon (end of November) in AGP and the benchmarks for it are supposedly incredible. It may well be worth waiting a few weeks for it.

I just replaced my Radeon 9500 with a NVidia 5700 LE 256mb - for about 95 bucks. I'm happy with the choice, and there has been a small but noticeable improvement in performance overall.

love my nvidia geforce

I suggest you buy a Robosapien and screw the video card.

My neighbor bought a robosapien, but it seemed far more interested in screwing the toaster rather than his video card.
Then again, my neighbor was off his meds that week...

I haf one too. It farts a lot, when not trying to karate chop my leg.

At the end of August my old monitor went out so I decided not only to replace the monitor but my old computer. Got a nice one. 2.6GHz 1GB ram a nice Nvidia Geforce card with 128MB worth of separate video ram. SL does super . And I replaced my 15 inch generic monitor with a 19 inch Samsung monitor

The people at circuit city put this computer together and they tried to sell me an ATI card, I said I would shop around the store for one and came back with this Geforce card. They were surprised and insisted that the ATI card did better but being the customer I won and they put the Nvidia Geforce card in

i grabbed an nvidia 5700 and I'll pop it in tonight - my days with ATI are drawing to a much welcome close i hope...


I'll report my findings for anyone interested

well holy crap - the new card is a NEW WORLD in SL - i am amazed - a simple fx5700 has changed the way in which i see SL totally!

I hope for those of you with ATI cards still trying to play this - you either have the cash to make a change - or get some sembalnce of support from LL or ATI sometime soon.

You're really missing out.

Got an ATI Radeon 9600 XT. Works perfectly fine. Hell, I don't even have it overclocked at the moment and it works fine. I have perfectly fine graphics, no vid card lag, and no graphics glitches that are video card related. Only thing I get lag due to is my 4 year old processor, an old Pentium 4 1.5 ghz. Luckily I'm able to overclock it to around 2.0 to 2.5 ghz, depending on how my system wants to act that day. But still need a new AMD processor badly...

**Counts down the days until he has enough money to build a new, top of the line system.** Five billion and two... Five billion and one... Five billion...

mark what would your top of the line system consist of? I'm wondering cause i'm dreaming of one, and I've never put a computer together before.

Well currently I'm waiting for all the next line of parts to come out. That's pretty much when I would build. But I'll throw together a quick list when I get the chance tonight.

I had the same card, and I just dont think you realize what you might be missing. I never crashed either, never had card errors - but the framerate was rather awful - which i associated to sim lag all the time, until i tried it with the new card. If you have somehow evaded the problems that so many have reported - i salute you, but maybe you've just not seen whats possible

All I can say is, you wont soon get me into an ATI card again... I have lost the faith

Before anyone ditches their ATI card check out OMEGA drivers...have to google it don't know the address at the moment. These drivers are given the ATI seal of approval and are tweaked out for performance. Made a difference for me...might for you too.

When I started reading this thread I was going to suggest an FX5700 since it seems to provide the most bang for buck. It is significantly faster than the 5600 and its price is falling with all th 6xxx hardware coming out. I think you made a good choice.

pfft.

Robosapien is still more fun.

WEll after reading your comments i still think its up too game management to sort this problem..Not ATI..I have had no issues with any game apart from this one .i have played lineage 2 ,COH ,TSO, world war 2 online ans have had no problems with graphics..So management please fix it.

ageed.

While I can sympathize that ATI may be difficult to develop for - as other developers have reported in designing their games, the point made here is that they DO release software which works with the ATI drivers functioning correctly. There ARE a lot of games that work just fine with ATI card drivers in play as you note. So YES LL, we hear that it's hard, but as my dear old dad used to say - "no one said life was going to be easy", and SecondLife appears to hold that same standard

So what of it LL - we know you're watching - when will ATI support become a priority - you're alienating a HUUUGE customer base - and frankly - i want their L$ in sales

Hehe, Trent, as my old Geometry teacher said, and she always said this quite loudly, so I will type it in caps... Ahem, "NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING!" She always said this in reference to parallel lines, seeing as my class never seemed to understand that on a diagram, two lines that LOOK parallel didn't always mean they WERE parallel.

Now what does this have to do with the thread you ask? Well it has quite a bit to do with it actually. I indeed to have a GeForce card. I have a GeForce TI 4600 if I rememer correctly. Sitting somewhere up on my desk in a bag with my other cards. My brother has a GeForce FX card. Don't know exactly the model but it's an FX card. I've seen pictures from people using nVidia cards and people using ATI cards. Know what I've found? There is no difference! I've even sat my computer down right next to my brothers top of the line (at the time of testing) computer, and I found only one difference. A slight load time difference, his was slightly faster, but that was due to the fact that I have an old 1.5 ghz Intel cpu (haaaaate...) and he had a brand new 2.8 ghz Intel cpu.

In the end, it doesn't really come down to the card (assuming the card is decent in regards to ATI or nVidia) but rather how the person has set up the card. They are different, no doubt, but they can produce the same effect regardless. Besides, a piece of software can only be presented so good, regardless of hardware.

But yes, I have tried both cards. I choose the ATI cards because I feel they have better performance, but it truely is just a matter of personal preference. I choose using (or rather will be using) AMD processors because I feel they are more efficiently overclocked. The Intel indeed does better on heat and stability, but you get a lot less out of overclocking them, at least from what I've seen so far.

Which reminds me, need to upgrade for HL^2! Yoink!

[/rant]

well i have to disagree with you here - i have in my posession 2 identical PCs from my lab - they are the same in every aspect down to the image used to install them - save one thing - the video card. I have an ati 9600 in one, and a 5700fx in the other - and theres a difference my friend. Both running the most recent rev of the driver supplied by the chipset manufacturer(having to use old drivers is just not acceptable practice) and the framerate in the same sim looking at the same thing is less than half that of the 5700 on the ATI.

Set them up any way you like - without AGP graphics acceleration support - your ATI will never match the nvidia with SL in it's current state. Believe me I wish it were so, but it just isn't. My ati will come out of this machine and hopefully i can find a needy friend to donate it to...

Well if that's what you found, then that's what you found. Just like in science, there can be variables we cannot control, resulting in different outcomes. I found there was no difference between the two, and you find that there is a difference. Guess we're just gonna be different.