April 2: This was an April fools joke.

After some long and hard discussions, the administrators and moderators have come to an important decission regarding the future of this board.

3dfx Has been gone now for over 8 years and we feel it is time to move on. Starting on the 2nd of April, this forum will shift it's focus to primarily nVidia based discussions.

We will still have some subforums for other vendors but can not guarantee their continued existence.

On a personal note; YAY! I just got a GeForce GTX285 :D

First, I understand the reasoning in a slight way, but the 3dfx forum should still be first and foremost with subsections on different hardware even though it has been 8 years. A forum/website on antiques wouldn't say that even if an antique was a hundred years old (if you catch my drift.)

Sure I think the time is now to expand the website to more hardware etc, but 3dfx should still play a part in it.

But a pro nVidia forum? Why on earth just them. Why not a general GFX discussion board, which includes all manufacturers? (Before you mention your second sentence, I did see it, but it comes over it's 90% nVidia, 10% rest)

Just focussing on nVidia I do not agree with, they are a fine company, but even NVNews, which was always pro nVidia, has since years and years been a general forum, or for instance Rage3D (pro ATI), and many others have shifted from their initial ideas of supporting/documenting/discussing products from just one manufacturer.

I don't think I agree with this, I think 3dfx should stay the main focus of the website. If it's nVidia focused, there is no point in this board anymore.

Besides all that, I don't get it, maybe Falconfly can elaborate more on this.

I think VoodooAlert have got it nailed, a balanced mix of hardware from different vendors.

A personal brand preference of the mods/admins/mods does not generally reflect all users preferences, and should not be forced on others in my opinion.

ASUS ENGTX285 myself!

Im guessing april fools.

sb306 wrote on 01.04.09 at 03:53:19:

Im guessing april fools.

I'm hoping  :-/

It appears the Conficker worm/virus has infected FF....  :D

1st April....
Only NVIDIA...

April fools...........I hope

Darn it, I can't possibly believe I fell for that, naturally, even if it's the middle of the night, it's still April 1st. lol

D'OH



I want my five minutes back writing that!!!

lol

NitroX infinity wrote on 01.04.09 at 02:05:55:

Starting on the 2nd of April, this forum will shift it's focus to primarily nVidia based discussions.

nVidia?   :(
That's a bad joke...

I don't like nVidia anymore, because of things like this...

"nVidia - The way it's ment to be corrupted" :P

Oh yes. Nvidia FTW !!! 8800GT here, very happy...
forget 3dfx
::)

but...tomorow close this thread ? mkay ?

;D april fool.

I dit one too on my web site : 3dfx is back after 8 years. Due to the bad image of the last month nVidia will change the name of their high end graphic card :
They 'll be called 3dfx VR "Voodoo Ressurection" instead of nvidia Geforce as nVidia have the copyright of the term 3dfx and Voodoo  ;D

A lot graphic-cards here, no NV

my friends, no NV

hm what shall i do^^

Yes, it was a joke, the entire post*, april fools!

*including me getting a GTX285.

That's a relief.. There for a moment, I thought you went over to the Darkside  ;D

I'm glad it was a joke as well.

If this would've become an NV board, you wouldn't see me anymore.

Me is only 3DFX and ATI, the last nV card I owned was a Geforce 3 Ti200, after which I switched to 9800Pro

I moved along with 3Dfx to NVidia. Been lovin NVidia ever since. ATI's never had that extra "something" ... always had heaps of problems with ATI's; driver issues, cards malfunctioning, etc.

And very often Nvidia has some neat features: like hardware physx acceleration on GF8 and up, digital vibrance controls, image sharpening, etc.

I've had some Nvidia cards in my first Computers, like the Geforce 2 GTS,  Geforce 5600, Geforce 6800 and Geforce 7950GX2.

But the 7950GX2 was only poorly usable for gaming, because of unstable "perceived" framerates, caused by SLI.

That and things like this made me turn to ATI:
ftp://ftp.tomshardware.com/pub/nvidia_on_kyro.pdf

Up to now I've got many ATI cards.
From the ATI EGA Wonder up to the X4870.
And the only ATI card I ever had Driverproblems with was the Rage Fury Maxx!

How old is that pdf? ATi did many many dirty tricks like that as well, and uptil recently still did. They are both just as guilty of that.

IMO not something to judge a company on, but that's just me.

Plus, ATi multiGPU cards suffer from microstuttering as well, not just nVidia's.

Tim wrote on 09.05.09 at 13:33:36:

How old is that pdf? ATi did many many dirty tricks like that as well, and uptil recently still did.

Anyone recall quake vs quack exe in the ATI framerate tests?

Both companies have their tricks.

I perfer the Nvidia as the drive sets have given me the least amount of trouble and have the smallest footprint, plus older OS support has been excellent.

I know. The only real functioning properly multi GPU cards came from 3dfx.  ;)

ATi did dirty tricks as well, really?  :o

The only thing I know is, that not long ago some German hardware magazines adjudged the new ATI cards as worse than Nvidia cards, because they had "Problems with their testing Hardware" (how it was called on their website, later).
In the magazines itself I've never red about this concession.
Ironically the same magazine sells Nvidia graphic cards under their name...  :-?

Also in the PCAction some time ago, ATI cards had harder test parcours, and caused by that lower frame rates; only mentioned by a "*" and explained in a hidden small print...

Maybe you reject this just as a conspiracy theory by me.  ;D

In fact I don't like Nvidia anymore, not because of their cards but through their "company policy".
Nevertheless I've got more than 20 Nvidia cards, but only older ones.  ;)

Probably the only company without a skeleton in its closet is S3. :D

RaVeNsClaw wrote on 09.05.09 at 16:24:55:

ATi did dirty tricks as well, really?  :o

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTEx

Interesting, Newer knew about that!  :-?

There was something similar, not long ago, about 3DMark Vantage, because some physics CPU tests were performed by the Geforce GPU.

EDIT:
Such "Performance optimizations" seem to have a long tradition!   ;D
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/5186

gdonovan wrote on 09.05.09 at 15:43:02:

I perfer the Nvidia as the drive sets have given me the least amount of trouble and have the smallest footprint, plus older OS support has been excellent.

Me too I guess. Mainly because of linux driver support. ATIs linux support really lacks a lot. Configuring multi screen setup under linux and ATI is like trying to eat soup with a fork - it always slips somehow out of your grasp and you have to start xconf reconfigure all over again :(

I think we all have got a little brand preference in us. But I can honestly say that I don't care much anymore. I do have a slight preference for nVidia though.

But I would recommend anyone to go for the best bang for the buck, with as many features as one can, then you're always gonna have good fun playing games. Of course, permitting driver support is correct.

I do like how nVidia always seems to bring out "new" tech, like Ambient Occlusion and Physx, CUDA, over the course of history, ATi has always seemed to play catch up a little bit in these things. Classic example is SLI vs. Crossfire. ATi said it was pointless in the beginning with the 6800's, now look where we are. ATi doesn't always seem to have this x factor.

But if ATi would come out with a card with excellent performance, whilst nVidia is lagging behind, I would have no trouble going ATi. :)

My last 3 high end cards were a 6800GT, 7800GTX 512mb, and 8800 Ultra, they all were in my opinion the cards with the most speed, and most features at the time. The only mistake I made was not choosing a 9800 Pro over a 5900XT, I just didn't have enough money then, the 5900XT was very cheap. Oh well.

1) nVidia did not introduce physics. AGEIA did, nVidia bought them out.

2) Forgot the Rage Fury MAXX? Way before nVidia introduced Scalable Link Interface.

NitroX infinity wrote on 10.05.09 at 00:19:02:

1) nVidia did not introduce physics. AGEIA did, nVidia bought them out. 2) Forgot the Rage Fury MAXX? Way before nVidia introduced Scalable Link Interface.

Physics on the GPU I was talking about, I'm well aware of AGEIA, I've been with it right from their beginning. That's why the "new" was in quotation marks.

Sure "SLI", alternate frame rendering etc etc, we all had that before, but it was nVidia who blew new life in it and made it mainstream again. ATi played catchup, that was my sole point of that one, NOT that nVidia was the first ones with multi chip tech, I never said that anywhere.

Actually... :P

PhysX is the hardware that accelerates physics. ::)

But I'm just nit picking... :D

I've always been in the ATI camp for my GFX. ;)

Currently running an ATI Radeon 3870X2 1GB in my main rig. 8-)

I prefer ATI as they have always had superior image quality - nV tend to sacrifice quality for speed. :-?

(this can clearly be seen when comparing PS3/X360 games - e.g. Resident Evil 5, DMC 4, Assasins Creed, etc...) :-X

paulpsomiadis wrote on 10.05.09 at 01:42:49:

Actually... :P PhysX is the hardware that accelerates physics. ::) But I'm just nit picking... :D I've always been in the ATI camp for my GFX. ;) Currently running an ATI Radeon 3870X2 1GB in my main rig. 8-) I prefer ATI as they have always had superior image quality - nV tend to sacrifice quality for speed. :-? (this can clearly be seen when comparing PS3/X360 games - e.g. Resident Evil 5, DMC 4, Assasins Creed, etc...) :-X

Quote:

NVIDIA PhysX is a powerful physics engine which enables real-time physics in leading edge PC and console games.

Physx used to be the hardware, not anymore. Phyx is the engine now, the hardware are nVidia GPU's, well not strictly speaking just nVidia GPU's, but that's another story.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_physx.html


Quote:

I prefer ATI as they have always had superior image quality - nV tend to sacrifice quality for speed.

An age old stigma that has been long lifted my friend. Nowadays image quality is so good that your well off in both camps. I can show you more reviews that prove that then I can count on both hands. ( I can't believe people who prefer ATi still refer to that, wake up! lol  :D )

Quote:

I can't believe people who prefer ATi still refer to that, wake up! lol :D

Whassamatter tread on yer toes? ;D

...and I'm quite alert you'll find... ::)

BTW - I refer to it because it still applies. ;)

I recently built a gaming system with similar specs to mine, but it used an nVidia X2 card instead... 8-)

I test ran DMC 4 with my PC on my HD telly - then ran it again on my mates PC (the one I built) on my HD telly. :-X

The ATi card STILL produced a sharper image - so there ya go! ;)

However, this is now starting to pull the thread WAAAAAY off topic... ::)

Also, it's not image quality that matters nowadays - it's the overall feature set of the card... ;)

...it remains to be seen which of the big GFX companies will make an "all out win" on this particular tricky issue... :-?

Tim wrote on 10.05.09 at 00:11:53:

I think we all have got a little brand preference in us. But I can honestly say that I don't care much anymore. I do have a slight preference for nVidia though.

I perfered ATI for years (9800 and x850 series) but after driver hell known as Catalyst Control Panel and the rediculous problems with trying to drive a HDTV panel with an ATI board I gave up and went over to the dark side.

Been pretty good ever since.

I really am still suprised how many people report to having problems with ATI drivers, I never ever had any problems with them, aside from, but I don't think that is driver related, the sporadic VPU recover.

I have had:

9500Pro
9700Pro
9800XT
X800XL
X1950XT
HD4870

And they were put on rigs, with Via chipsets, nForce 2, 3 and 4 and now on AMD/ATI chipset and I have used the ATI drivers since way back, never had any problem.

I've gotta say that I've stuck with ATI after 3dfx went under along with AMD and when AMD bought out ATI, it was a ++ for me. I realize there's been a lot of complaint about ATI drivers and when I had my x1950 Pro AGP I did have some issues at first but they were fixed pretty quickly.

Since building my newer system (last spring) I couldn't be happier though. Running a 9850 BE quad, 2x 3870 Toxic cards and haven't had any issues what so ever.

Even the Win 7 Beta drivers are already incorporated into the 9.3/9.4 drivers and haven't had any issues with that either. For me, it's just a personal choice to stick with them.

Jand.