[Fireskull]

Every tech site I frequent, including AnandTech, Tom's Hardware, and Engadget, have all announced the specs and the names for nVidia's newest cards, quoted from nVidia themselves. They are, for a fact, the GTX480 and GTX470. I suspect that the even cheaper (lol) versions will be the GTX460 and then GTS450, etc. This is purely speculative on my part, though. As for laptops, well, we've already got "GT300M" parts, but they are all just slightly overclocked GT200M parts, which are in turn underclocked, die-shrunk G92/G94 parts. Again, that is a fact, not speculation.

While I agree that ATi has had some driver issues in the past, they are shaping up nicely now. IL-2 has its quirks, yes, but I personally wouldn't let that stop me from buying the best deal on the market.

Good day, Axial

Nice stuff, that for me rehashes the same information. Go to YouTube, better yet, go to the nVidia website and check the issues. As I see NVIDIA executives on public internet webcasts give statements, ask questions, and make promises, I tend to believe them over you. I don't intend to sound mean-its just logical.

The most important things that I have to say which is relevant to this topic for everyone's benefit, is this:

ATI driver problems are current issues with late model ATI graphic cards Here is another verifiable point where you are wrong, Axial. Again, I don't intend to be mean-just state the real facts.

Important for everyone: For more information on this, anyone can go to my tech help Sticky topic called "PC Technical Relationship to IL-2: This info helps everyone" at the top of this Forum. Go to my subtopic called " ATI Enhancements ". Look in the "ATI Trouble-shooting" area. Follow the links which deal with ATI issues and you will have ALL THE PROOF THAT YOU NEED! :wink:

This is quite relevant to AKA_Mountain, perhaps because he would like to avoid the long hassle that some ATI users have in eliminating blocky text and other strange anomalies produced by ATI drivers. Everybody can benefit from these facts, Axial, my friend.

[Axial]

It's not my information, it's actually from nVidia. They don't put half the news related to them and their hardware on their own website (so believing nVidia is not always the logical choice), but rather it filters down through tech journals like I mentioned, who often actually talk to the nVidia representatives. As for rebadged laptops, I learned all that while searching for a rig for myself. Sites like notebookcheck.de break open and examine the chips, and you can see in the serial numbers, architecture arrangements, etc. what they really are. It's actually common knowledge these days that nVidia has been rebranding chips to make them sell better next to the current flagships.

i.e.

9800GT = 8800GT (clock for clock, actually)

GTS250 = 9800GTX+

GT210 = 9400

GT130M = 9600M GT

GTX360M = overclocked GTX260M

GTX280M = underclocked, die-shrunk 8800 GTS

The list actually carries on quite a ways. You don't research and follow computer hardware for six years and not learn something along the way. :wink:

As for the drivers, there are problems with the recent nVidia ones too, such as causing your card to overheat and flat-out fry itself. Point is, every vendor is going to have its issues. I said they will improve drivers with time, and that is what counts. ATi had driver issues on release of the HD4000 line as well, and they were pulled up to snuff fairly quickly. I'm assuming the issues you are taking with ATi's current (actually, past now) drivers are the "grey-screen" and "large cursor" bugs, as well as the bad support IL-2 has inherently for ATi, ja? It is relevant, I agree, but if he's going to spend money on a top-dollar card, then he should also know that of the GTX480s and 470s have faulty cores, run hot, and are generally not worth the money that nVidia will command for them. If he wants premium performance all-around, ATi is still the best option. If he just wants IL-2 performance, then he'd be better off purchasing an older nVidia card. Be warned though that production of true GT200 chips (GTX260, GTX275, GTX280, GTX285, and GTX295) has been shut down for awhile now, so those are becoming harder to come by. The only reason the even older G92 and G94 parts are still around are because that's what most OEMs use when they include discrete nVidia graphics in the systems they offer, including all nVidia-based laptops.

P.S. GTX480 specs and price estimates: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia-gefor.../8635.html.
Faulty cores on new nVIdia chips: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/fermi-g...,9950.html

[Fireskull]

Very useful debate here, for AKA_Mountain and the readers, Axial, thank you.

In regards to your last post, we are actually in agreement on most points. Bear with me as I apply more light to the situation.

1) Benchmarking highest Frames Per Second only reveals part of the bigger picture. For a fact, one graphic card could be about the same in FPS as another and the image quality and stuttering amount could be quite noticeable in difference between the two. This is because hardware must use algorithms with the drivers to render an image. Putting a scene into motion increases the complexity by not just a squared factor. Because we are focused on simulation 3D motion graphics, the complexity is increase by a cube factor. ( Cube = a x b x c, or x to the third power )

Bottom line: Quality is more important, overall, then having hundreds more FPS. In this sense, most of the latest ATI and NVIDIA graphic cards do just fine. The mind only perceives FPS upto about 60, anyway. If ATI has a card that does 275 FPS compared to an NVIDIA with 175 FPS, then that is simply only overkill as far as IL-2. If a guy is only going to use his computer for IL-2 gaming, then the cheapest high performance graphic card should do justice.

2) NVIDIA driver issues have basically been resolved for IL-2. ATI issues exist with their latest drivers as far as IL-2 is concerned.

3) Storm of War will create a whole new league for consideration. I say wait a few months for both NVIDIA next generation DirectX 11 ( This means new graphic card architecture and drivers, Axial :wink: ). No one presently knows how both ATI and NVIDIA DirectX 11 cards will render Storm of War. There could be huge surprises for both ATI and NVIDIA users.

4) Realiable tests on ATI and NVIDIA stock ( not overclocked ) cards show about the same reliablility over the last couple years. Heat failure hysteria was a reaction to overclocking failure. I already posted a topic at AAA recently about the gigantic lawsuit currently engaged against Intel for faking overclocking. ATI had their own lawsuit for faking benchmarks a while back.

Axial, we're in this together. I want to help. You must keep the bigger picture in mind or you will lose objectivity.

By the way, I started a help topic called " Laptops and IL-2 " where I discuss issues which are relevant here. I gave AKA_Mountain the link to the notebookcheck website even before you posted your last reply, because I wanted to share the website that I have been using for years.

Don't believe every overclock test and the claims. These have and can be faked. Quality is more important than FPS when the FPS is more than needed anyway.

[Axial]

I never look at overclocks myself. If a card can't perform up to a level without an overclock then I don't think it should be considered at all for that level. As for stuttering...I've found in my real-world experience that the primary cause of that is lack of RAM...both on the video card and on the system. If you have (on a 32-bit OS), say 1GB system RAM and a video card with 512MB of VRAM, then you only have 512MB left for the actual system to use. This will often cause you to run out of RAM on the system when trying to run at higher resolutions, and thus you get stuttering. The only driver-related stuttering I've ever received has been from an nVidia card using more modern drivers trying to play an old game; I had to revert to ancient drivers to get smooth playability again. I think it's worth it to consider that ATi (1985) has been in this graphics business longer than nVidia (1993), so really the problems IL-2 has with ATi are Maddox Games' fault more so than ATi's. I don't know why they went with OpenGL when they should have known most graphics cards were tooled for DirectX first, and OpenGL second; only workstation cards even in 2003 had OpenGL as the primarily-used rendering API.

So yeah. I guess what I'm saying in a nutshell is that I wouldn't buy a new card for just one game (unless it's Crysis..), hence me ragging on nVidia being a slouch these past 6 months. I don't have any particular brand bias (past three cards have been nVidia, for better or worse), but their behaviour recently from a marketing and consumer standpoint has been sub-par, and you and I both know that nVidia cards typically command a $100-$150 premium over their similar-performing ATi counterparts. That is why I can't justify recommending one of the new nVidia offerings to him, even taking IL-2 into consideration. What it boils down to is whether or not IL-2 is worth $100-$150 to him.

Edit: just remembered a little tidbit I read awhile back. nVidia has always had a focus on OpenGL in part because their programmable shaders used to be consistently inferior to those produced by ATi, making it difficult to implement the advanced functions of DirectX on nVidia hardware as opposed to ATi hardware. That's why we have Shader Model 1.1 (nVidia) and Shader Model 1.4 (ATi).

[Fireskull]

Actually, I agree with almost everything that you are conveying, bacially the facts based ones, in the last post by you. The only exception that I take ( maybe a clarification ) is how a user manages settings. This will effect stuttering in the broader scope of RAM. Obvious to you and I is the fact that the RAM challenged system begs to have the user go to performance based settings.



Also, about the cost of the ATI and NVIDIA cards, I will really put this into clear perspective:

The first point here is that the big hassles of dealing with the anomalies of late model ATI cards and drivers make the price savings over NVIDIA to actually be not worth it for many ATI users. Granted, this is a bit easier for the ones who will only be using ATI for IL-2 (unlikely once Storm of War is released), but the ones who will be using ATI for both IL-2 and other games will have a gigantic problem on their hands. This makes the price savings seem to be not worth it for many ATI buyers.

Secondly, NVIDIA users have it much easier with late model NVIDIA cards over ATI anomalies in IL-2. For many, the price is worth not having the headaches and being able to really enjoy the whole thing. The down side is that current NVIDIA cards are not the DirectX 11 that Storm of War will require. However, wait a couple months and the new NVIDIA cards with DirectX 11 will be released.

Third major technical category is the fact that NVIDIA can use the nice nHancer program which boosts image quality, performance, and makes smooth frames possible at higher settings. Granted, this is only for the ambitious one who likes tech stuff. However, the nHancer is free and makes NVIDIA cards perform at levels often competitive with ATI cards, while allowing the NVIDIA user to feel good about his purchase and avoiding ATI anomalies in IL-2.

In the broader picture of things, the average IL-2 user who is only interested in spending a little time on graphics card and related issues will probably be %#@*! off once they hit the anomalies issue with ATI late model cards and drivers.




Please keep in mind that I am essentially recommending ATI or NVIDIA depending on the skills and wishes of the looker:

On the other hand, a guy who likes challenges and learning about the technical issues while he tackles the problems, then any late model card from ATI or NVIDIA will do. The ambitious guy should get an ATI late model card-I recommend, of course with DirectX 11, but keep in mind that there are two ways to solve the anomalies with these cards. One is to use an older driver for IL-2, but this could mess with the rendering of other games both now and in the future. The other is to dig into the dll files, which is also risky in regard to other games. How to do this is covered at the other end of a link in my ATI Enhancements, Trouble-shooting subtopic in the PC Tech Help Sticky at the top of the Forum ( for the benefit of AKA_Mountain and other readers ).

In this sense, the ATI buyer who uses it for IL-2 and other games is getting ripped off big time! See my point? The guy who will only use the ATI card for IL-2 is less "ripped off" and has fewer hassles, but he still must fix the driver anomalie issue.

The absolute best advice that I can offer is to wait a couple months for the newer ATI cards, updated ATI drivers, NVIDIA next line-which is DirectX 11, and if a guy can wait about six months, buy Storm of War and then decide on his graphics card purchase. Yes, I understand that this is asking a lot for the true IL-2 lover who wants everthing NOW (!), but wisdom is calling, too. Of course, the rich guy who can throw the hundreds or thousands of dollars here and there, well frankly, he can do want he wants.

Buyers are supposed to get the value of what they paid, but with ATI late model cards as far as IL-2 is concerned, it's a travesty of "Let the buyer beware".

Nice, civil conversation, and very useful to the readers, Axial-thank you.

[Axial]

Ja, any time! Real pleasure to have a debate online without all the unnecessary sarcasm and personal attacks that usually plague such events.