NVIDIA or ATI?

An often heated debate with lots of passion and not much reason- do you prefer NVIDIA or ATI cards, and why?

I am an ardent NVIDIA user and do not even consider ATI cards, though quite honestly I cannot articulate why (marketing? developer community?). I am usually flexible in my choices and if I am not, I have an articulated position- but on GPUs, I have a strong opinion with no basis (woot, I should be a political pundit!).

Nvidia. Quite simply, stuff just looks better on it. No sure what it is, but there is a look. It might have changed in recent years, but I haven’t gone back since.

I started with nVidia, then went Ati, and now back to nVidia. I think I will be sticking to them for a while.

I dunno… always seemed like driver updates and getting stuff to run was always easier with nVidia. And I agree with Erilaz: stuff just looks better on nVidia.

And now, I do not know if there is something similar for Ati, but I run Rivatuner to trick out my 8800GTXs. It is totally badass. I won’t put together another machine without it. Rivatuner Homepage.

I found the ATI cards I have used at the pro level were faster at some times but driver stability and graphics glitches always make me pick Nvidia when I have a choice.

I’ve never owned an ATI.
8600 on the laptop, Quadro FX 1100 on the main box. I find video cards are one of the last things I ever upgrade on a machine so I’ve only owned a hand full. I enjoy the nVidia drivers, especially on the quadro.

I’ve always gone with Nvidia. I have several friends who work for the company so that kinda biases it for me. Also, ATi’s cards don’t play nice with FX shaders in 3ds Max in my experience.

experiencing a 5(6?) part driver install for an old All-In-Wonder has left me an ardent Nvidia fan for the past few years.

nVidia all the way - the drivers are just plain better at 3D stuff, ATI’s openGL stuff used to be quite shit (haven’t used it recently). For 3D packages, it seems nVidia is the best way to go.

I’ve had a few ATI cards over the years and have occasionally found software doesn’t like them so I’m sticking to Nvidia for the moment. Except in my laptop where I’m stuck until I replace it.

Some examples of ATI weirdness:

I found some weird problems with Photoshop some years ago where some layer blend modes would show solid vertical lines at certain transparencies. Very, very annoying and I don’t know if that was the graphics card or photoshop itself. Doesn’t seem to happen on the laptop though.

I found Maya didn’t like the ATI card for certain things. The paint icon would just leave crap all over the screen, marking menus wouldn’t appear and sometimes certain viewports would display nothing (perspective and top would be fine, but front and side wouldn’t show). Those sorts of things. And no I checked the clip planes and they were fine.

Silo doesn’t react well with the brush circle on my laptop. It smears the view when you hit the sides of the viewport.

It seems there’s something wrong with the overlays used for things like icons.

Max seems fairly happy with whatever card I’ve had. I don’t need shaders much but when I’ve tried things out (mostly messing with Ben and Kees ShaderFX) it doesn’t seem to have had many problems.

These problems were mostly with the Radeon 9600 or the laptop variation (Radeon mobility M10), I haven’t tried the recent cards which I hear are better.

Nvidia here too as I had so many driver issues with the ATI cards. Every time I got one I ended up regretting it.

I know I just said I wasn’t keen on ATI. However. Does anyone have any experience of how well the Radeon HD 3450 chipset works with 3d software?

Those Dell Studio 15 laptops are looking pretty good value, but I’m wary of the ATI hardware. The XPS ones have Nvidia hardware, but are a lot more expensive.

[QUOTE=robinb;1106]The XPS ones have Nvidia hardware, but are a lot more expensive.[/QUOTE]

There have been some interesting stories in the past few months about nVidia mobile chips in the last few months, can be summarized as “They fail on a frighteningly regular basis”. I would recommend doing some research into that topic before going with a mobile nVidia, altho last i heard there were mentions of fixes on the way.:rolleyes:

Mostly Nvidia. Their drivers manage to bluescreen my Vista only about every few months (that must be the only thing Vista does in one frame… :). ATI used to do that a lot more often.

SamiV.

[QUOTE=djTomServo;1110]There have been some interesting stories in the past few months about nVidia mobile chips in the last few months, can be summarized as “They fail on a frighteningly regular basis”. I would recommend doing some research into that topic before going with a mobile nVidia, altho last i heard there were mentions of fixes on the way.:rolleyes:[/QUOTE]

I thought that was the 9 series rather than the 8 series ones that are faulty. The XPS are 8 series. But thanks, I’d definitely look into that. I’m not exactly at the position of getting a new laptop right now, but I am starting to get annoyed with the slowness of the current one.

[QUOTE=robinb;1118]I thought that was the 9 series rather than the 8 series ones that are faulty. The XPS are 8 series. But thanks, I’d definitely look into that. I’m not exactly at the position of getting a new laptop right now, but I am starting to get annoyed with the slowness of the current one.[/QUOTE]

If i remember correctly it was the 8400M and 8600M chips, i haven’t heard much about the 9 series. Sad too, i was really wanting to pick up a new mobile future box myself in the near future:no:

[QUOTE=djTomServo;1119]If i remember correctly it was the 8400M and 8600M chips, i haven’t heard much about the 9 series. Sad too, i was really wanting to pick up a new mobile future box myself in the near future:no:[/QUOTE]

Ah right. Well the original question still stands then. Anyone know anything about the Studio 15 ones with the Radeon HD 3450 chipset?

I use Nvidia also, I have been temped to try ATI again just for the heck of it though. Don’t know if I will try an ATI again. I ran into problems with them in the past with certain games and programs. I have had issues with Nvidia also though, so it goes hand in hand I guess.

I am really pleased with the HD ATI series. I’ve always been a fan of ATI. My nVidia at work is currently giving me all sorts of hell. I was thinking maybe that’s because I do a lot more with it than I would at home, BUT I previously had a higher end X series ATI card (at work) and it was far more stable and better preforming than the nVidia. I’ll also note that, in my experience, the cards that die for no reason (and more often) tend to be nVidia.

Also, I am a huge Source Engine fan and the first time I played a source game on an nVidia card I was shocked… many of the shaders (like water) were terrible… ok maybe not terrible but didn’t seem right at all. (I suppose its all about what you get used to first)

cheers.

[QUOTE=thedour;1159]I am really pleased with the HD ATI series. I’ve always been a fan of ATI. My nVidia at work is currently giving me all sorts of hell. I was thinking maybe that’s because I do a lot more with it than I would at home, BUT I previously had a higher end X series ATI card (at work) and it was far more stable and better preforming than the nVidia. I’ll also note that, in my experience, the cards that die for no reason (and more often) tend to be nVidia.

Also, I am a huge Source Engine fan and the first time I played a source game on an nVidia card I was shocked… many of the shaders (like water) were terrible… ok maybe not terrible but didn’t seem right at all. (I suppose its all about what you get used to first)

cheers.[/QUOTE]

What 3d apps are you using with the card? And how are you finding the stability with them? All I’ve found out about the afore mentioned laptop HD 3450 is that it isn’t stable with Silo 2, which is a bummer since that’s the app I would end up using most at home. Performance isn’t the issue for me really, it’s stability with 3d apps that I’m more interested in. And is it a laptop or desktop card?

Thanks.

I’ve got an 8800gts in my current computer and i’ve never experienced more frustrations. it blue screens all the time with a nvstore.sys error. apparently vista and nvidia drivers don’t play well together. i read on a couple forums that the companies have been throwing the threat of law suits at each other over it…

after the last year i wouldn’t get another nvidia card. i don’t care how good it looks when it’s working. i’ve spent more time staring at a blue screen then i have playing any games…