Not enjoying the view

Your argument has no base when you consider that GeForce 8 is a fantastic DirectX 9 performer under Windows XP and there are no DirectX 10 games out. You'd be an idiot to buy an X1950 XTX over an 8800 GTS today.

DirectX 10 specification is so strict that cards are going to perform in DX10. Also, who's the company pushing DirectX 10 games into our hands this year? It's not ATI, it's Nvidia, so if anyone's hardware is going to work, it'll be Nvidia's.

Also, as a gamer, I see no point in upgrading to Vista until DirectX 10 games roll up. I'm sticking to XP until DX10 games get here - my copy of Vista is sitting on my side until that time.

Nvidia knows there are issues with their drivers and we called them for it too in this article. They have put their hands up to acknowledge that this is the case, too. ATI has done the same - it's OpenGL driver is complete bollocks as far as I'm concerned. Talking to both rather extensively, they're working on the problems they know they've both got with their current drivers under Vista. Neither is willing to stand 100% behind it's drivers and admit that they're "perfect" today, but ATI definitely has the better drivers today.

You missed my point about X1000 - how late was that and how pissed off were X1800 owners when X1900 turned up three months later at exactly the same price point?

Also, you don't need to tell me all the Nvidia hardware you own as justification for your preferences for ATI hardware. We've got the message, you're beginning to sound like a broken record.

 

Are you going to tell me people are buying the 8800 because of its DX9 performance? Maybe to get 350 fps average instead of 200? Let it be 175 instead of 100, if you prefer. Most of these people probably already have an X1950XT (or a comparable NVidia card).

At the current point of time, this card is as useful as a button on the cheek.

The point is that the 8800 is meant to be used with DX10, and it fails to comply, because of lack of drivers and games (the latter being the more severe and harder to cure one).

It is your arguments that do not have a real base.

Defending NVidia no friggin matter what. Tsk.

Did you want to say 'intensively', 'expansively' or maybe 'excessively'? Because 'extensive' is the opposite of 'intensive', and I doubt you wanted to say that.

 

You've still not answered my question, maybe you missed it - I'll add some bold type for good measure:

You missed my point about X1000 - how late was that and how pissed off were X1800 owners when X1900 turned up three months later at exactly the same price point?

I'm defending Nvidia? I'm giving you a balanced view of the situation as I see it having spent a lot of time talking to people from both companies. We were clearly defending Nvidia in this article too, weren't we?

ex·ten·sive /ɪkˈstɛnsɪv/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ik-sten-siv] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1. of great extent; wide; broad: an extensive area.
2. covering or extending over a great area: extensive travels.
3. far-reaching; comprehensive; thorough: extensive knowledge.
4. lengthy: an extensive journey.
5. great in amount, number, or degree: an extensive fortune; extensive political influence.
6. of or having extension: Space is extensive, time durational.
7. noting or pertaining to a system of agriculture involving the use or cultivation of large areas of land with a minimum of labor and expense (opposed to intensive).

 

That's kinda irrelevent though. You could just as easily be told by an Nvidia person when ATi release their next thing that "Nvidia's hardware will come in time and I bet it will beat ATi's" - of course it will, it's being released half a year later. It always strikes me as a fairly good indicator of fanboyism when people insist that you wait a few months before comparing one companies product because another company doesn't have theirs out yet. Newsflash people: You can compare two companies that aren't at the same stage of a their latest tech launch, and one of them will be better. Right now that companies name is Nvidia.

If you honestly fail to recognise right now that Nvidia hardware is far superior to comercially available ATI hardware then you've got issues, because the 8800GTX's are far superior to anything ATI have available.

I don't know what on earth would possess you to think that Bit-tech are Nvidia apoligists, look at the original article ffs. It's not exactly putting them in a good light(although it is putting them in an honest one). It's rather obvious you're not accepting Nvidias attributes, even when people who're clearly going to know more accurately than you the current situation of things(unless that is, you're a hardware reviewer/journalist that is) are telling you.

 

Did the card work? 3 months is a long time in this business.

Balanced as you see it. LOL. What I see is a contradiction. You weren't replying to my arguments.

You mean ATI, don't you?

You missed the important part of my argument: There is no real use for NVidia's hardware, which entirely is the point. ATI's hardware will not come when it's almost outdated again, it will come when people will start to really be able to exploit the new features DX10 hardware offers. Did you intentionally avoid this point?

Next, I wasn't saying the article's author defended NVidia in regard to the author: I said he made ATI worse than it was. I also wasn't saying bit-tech defends NVidia, I was saying the author (or other people in this thread) did it. Finally, my references to NVidia being defended were made in regard to the discussion in this thread, not the article.

I recommend you read what you write about in the future, and stick to replying to what as actually been said, and to its entirety.

 

The point is the 8800 is a FAST card in DX 9 and 10. It doesnt matter if it was meant for 10 when it runs stuff faster in 9. Sure, there's no point in buying one unless you own a 22+" screen and enjoy oodles of AA and AF, because that's what it's designed for. We're not talking 17/19" screens here, or without AA/AF.

NVIDIA have enjoyed massive Q4 profits because they have a fast DX9 card for XP, even before Vista was released with DX10. Sure, they suck arse in Vista but tbh with the general state of software support for it across the board I don't intend to upgrade for at least 6 months. I would never recommend an NVIDIA card if you're using Vista for the forseeable future, but I'd also never recommend anyone to use Vista either. ATI drivers work fantastically in Vista but they still only have DX9 hardware, so why upgrade to Vista and that either?? The X1950XTX is a great card and by the time R600 comes out ATI will have had several more months to polish drivers for it.

Not that I'm having a dig because you're German and my Deutsch is hardly as good as your english but I still think your English needs some work. Extensive is a real word.

We are NV fanbois? Check my Vadim article: the WHOLE PC is brought down by NV and Vista. But the customer still chose a pair of 8800s because they are technologically superior.

 

Yeah, so is six months... you know, the difference in time between Nvidia launching 8-series and ATI's scheduled launch for X2000 series.

Did you actually read the same article that Brett wrote, I edited and everyone else read? I'm starting to think you didn't.

Yeah, you could take a leaf out of your own book there, too.

 

No, the point is the new features of the 8800, because you do not really need faster DX9 cards than you already have.

So you beat me on 'extensive', right. I admittedly, didn't look it up, just concluded from its German (and Latin) meaning.

Finally, you are trying to pin-point the entire discussion down to a single issue: DX10 haves and not haves. This never was my point, nor is it the entire issue.

 

karx11erx:

You can't fully use any DX10 capable card untill there is a DX10 capable game.

 

These replies are complete roffle, I'm printing it out and adding it to the "how can you call yourself a journalist if you sign an NDA".

I can't stop laughing. Maybe we should try an X1950XTX with Oblivion on a 30" Dell and see how it handles it. Afterall, that's still DX9. Not everyone can afford a 30", true, but bigger monitors are being sold hand over fist now compared to what they used to be.

 

That's the most true statement you've said so far. With this type of fanboyism, Don Quixote had a better chance of having a rational discussion with a windmill.

<mod hat on>
With that out of the way, I'm going to please ask that we keep this on track from here on out. I've shown a lot of moderator leniency in humouring the "Oooh, well that's because NV sucks and ATI cards are better anyway", but that was never the point of my column nor is it even relevant to the discussion. Any posts after this about that or any that focus on "well dx10 is the only reason for vista anyway" (which it has been explained, I had my reasons - not the least of which was the inability to buy another legal copy of XP at the moment for the same price as Vista) will be deleted as trolling.
<mod hat off>

Now, back to the discussion at hand. I did get to speak to one of NVIDIA's lead driver techs last night, who assured me that 7-series SLI will be seen in the very next beta release.

He also cautioned me that there is one more follow-up driver being released today or tomorrow that IS NOT the beta...that one is v100.65 and is meant solely for WHQL certification of the 8800s. Most OEM manufacturers (like Dell) can't ship the 8800 yet at all with Vista because it has no WHQL driver, so he wanted to be very clear that this is not the beta he's promising.

What I couldn't get them to do was promise for a more regular beta schedule - I had really hoped the company might be willing to give us a little good faith with a more frequent beta release, maybe weekly instead of every fortnight. Andrew was very inflexible on that, saying that basically NV doesn't like to take chances with the beta breaking other things. So essentially, we'll keep seeing the every couple weeks schedule.

There was further discussion, but I want to see it come to light before I praise too much for actually listening to us. When I see the beta delivered (and timely), I'll write a follow-up to this piece, because there are a couple new companies that have landed in my crosshairs and a couple who seem to be doing everything they can to fix their problems.

 

JOY!

 

Did you ever wonder that some of your problems could have been Vista 64 bit related?

I have to wonder about someone that would use 32 bit games and complain about them not running correctly on a 64 Bit OS. I have been reading time and time again unless you have applications that need 64 bit computing stick to 32 bit Vista. 32 bit will remain dominant now and into the future. Perhaps in say 2 yrs, 64 bit will be cool for gaming but as far as today goes it is not.