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.

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.

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

ATi did dirty tricks as well, really? 

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. 

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.

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!   
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/5186

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.

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


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.

paulpsomiadis wrote on 10.05.09 at 01:42:49:


Quote:


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:


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   )