ATI Product Stack

[Rob Williams]

techPowerUp! posted a new ATI slide... but I am not sure how 'official' it actually is because the grammar is off.

One of the slides actually states "You have to wonder if the GS stands for Goes Slower", haha.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/ProductStack

 

[Greg King]

I'm not buying that. nVidia's lineup is impressive but I was able to play around with some ATi setups at the GDC and they too are impressive.

Buying a video card is kind of like buying gas to me. When I get gas, I understand that all the stations have the same shit, so I try to go to the one that might be a penny or two cheaper just to reward them.

While not an exact analogy, it is kind of spot on. Each generation of cards, at least for the 7x00 for nVidia and the 1x00 for ATi, they were all stellar cards. The only way they could best each other in the end was by adding more RAM to the video cards. A lot of people buy by brand but most buy for preformance and if I can't afford a flagship card, I more than likely can afford to get a mainstream card from the same maker, just to say I have that brand sometimes.

Both of the two big companies make good shit and your more than likely a liar if you try to tell me that you can see a differacnce between 5-10 FPS if your all ready up in the 100+ FPS to start out with. Before you nail me to the cross, I know the differance is there, it's just not noticable. If you have the money, listen to the benchmarks for the flagship GPUs, if not, get what you can affors as you can get a great card for the money if you do your homework.

 

[Cool Barn]

Overall I tend to favour ATI cards myself, but even blind Freddy can see that is simply marketing propaganda. Nvidia could do the same thing and handpick the ATI cards they wish to be compared against, the shop from where the prices must be taken, the games used to obtain the performance readings, and they too could be shown as having the superior line-up.

If both companies spent as much time and money on improving their hardware and software, and less time working on such marketing claptrap, then we consumers would be better off.

 

[andanton]

Overall I tend to favour ATI cards myself, but even blind Freddy can see that is simply marketing propaganda. Nvidia could do the same thing and handpick the ATI cards they wish to be compared against.

I prefer Nvidia and by far Nvidia has the best driver support. ATI has always fell short in that regard. I can take any game I ever bought, including games that are years old and they will work without a flaw with a Nvidia video card. Can't say the same about ATI cards.

 

[Jakal]

The only time I ever noticed a driver error or problem was when I was using the wrong graphic engine (OpenGL/D3D). Other than that I never had a driver error. I updated regularly, or when I bought a new game, but that was it. Ati did have problems a few years ago because they didn't have all- in-one drivers like nvidia. Nowadays, they use something similar.

 

[izzie]

The only time I ever noticed a driver error or problem was when I was using the wrong graphic engine (OpenGL/D3D). Other than that I never had a driver error. I updated regularly, or when I bought a new game, but that was it. Ati did have problems a few years ago because they didn't have all- in-one drivers like nvidia. Nowadays, they use something similar.

I agree with the other poster, and I noticed glitches in some older games too.

 

[Cool Barn]

I prefer Nvidia and by far Nvidia has the best driver support. ATI has always fell short in that regard. I can take any game I ever bought, including games that are years old and they will work without a flaw with a Nvidia video card. Can't say the same about ATI cards.

Mate get yourself a flux capacitor, leave the late 90s, and come join us in 2006. Ever since ATI released their Catalyst suite with official monthly updates their drivers have had great performance and been extremely stable.

Sure the Catalyst Control Center blows goats, but when you use NGOHQ optimised drivers with ATI Tray Tools and the standard Control Panel that doesn't matter one bit. Sure ATI are still way behind when it comes to drivers for Linux, but let's face it how many gamers use Linux as their platform of choice?

Right across the board the Catalyst drivers have been fantastic for the last few years. Anybody who says their drivers suck probably hasn't used an ATI card since their old Rage Pro used to display problems some time back in the Jurassic Period.

 

[discharge]

I always read the technical sections for games I buy. Top of the line games for the last 5 years always report technical problems in the technical section under the ATI section. The same games don't report problems for Nvidia on their bug report sections. I agree with the others who said ATI's drivers are not up to par.

 

[Cool Barn]

I agree with the others who said ATI's drivers are not up to par.

Last year an independent testing organization came up with the following report. Surely ATI's drivers haven't decreased that much in quality in the 10 months since the test was done! Check out http://www10.dcccafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?section=CorpNews&articleid=186909:

In an independent quality and stability test by AppLabs (formerly KeyLabs(TM)), ATI's recently released Catalyst(TM) 5.6 Software Suite proved to be more stable than the equivalent publicly available NVIDIA offering. An executive summary of this test is now available and the full Display Adapter Stability Test Report issued by AppLabs and ATI Technologies Inc. will be available June 24, 2005.

In June 2005, ATI commissioned AppLabs, a leading provider of quality assurance and testing, to conduct the test, pitting ATI's Radeon(R) display adaptors against comparable NVIDIA GeForce products. The objective of the test was to perform advanced software stress testing of the Radeon product line against the GeForce product line. AppLabs used publicly available test applications extracted from Microsoft's latest Windows Hardware Quality Lab test suite 5.3 to conduct the study in its Lindon, Utah facility. Testing was conducted on a variety of graphics adaptors from each of the two manufacturers, and included the repeated execution of a multitude of test cases (for more than 500 times on each card) to mimic a typical, long term, real-world PC usability scenario.

In this series of independent trials, ATI consistently earned higher stability rankings, scoring as high as 8.6 percent above NVIDIA. The AppLabs report concluded: "Based on the results of these software stress tests, the stability of the ATI Catalyst software exceeded that of their NVIDIA counterpart."

"In a world that is increasingly dependent on visual technology, software stability is critical to ensure the best possible user experience," said Ben Bar-Haim, Vice President, Software, ATI Technologies. "We built the Catalyst software suite with the intent to deliver the most stable graphics software in the industry today, and these tests provide further validation to that commitment."

"AppLabs offers the industry's most trusted and comprehensive set of testing resources," said Mike Fahnert, AppLabs executive vice president of client services. "The results of this test are clear: ATI's Catalyst Software Suite offers users of visually intensive applications the most stable 3D graphics driver available."

About AppLabs(TM)

AppLabs(TM) is the premier quality assurance and risk mitigation consulting and testing provider for technology producers and corporate IT departments. The company provides a comprehensive suite of network testing services, including e-commerce stress and security testing, SAN testing, performance analysis, scalability verification, and proof-of-concept testing. AppLabs develops and manages industry certification programs for many leading software and hardware vendors, and assists major corporations in validating large-scale technology environments. AppLabs customers include Cisco, Novell, RealNetworks, U.S. Robotics, SAP and InstallShield, as well as enterprise clients in key vertical sectors like financial services. AppLabs is one of only a handful of software testing experts to have achieved SEI CMM Level 5, the highest quality standard attainable in software engineering.

More information is available at http://www.keylabs.com.

Now no driver set is perfect, and of course ATI have their problems from time to time. But it amuses me when Nvidiots cling on to the myth that ATI have dodgy drivers, all the while ignoring things like the shimmering problems for example that Nvidia have had over the last few releases of cards.

As an impartial observer I think their drivers are about the same in quality. Nvidia have better Linux drivers and I really like their Digital Vibrance option, but I also prefer ATI's official monthly release schedule. Both have their pros and cons.

 

[xstatic]

I will never switch to ATI until ATI adds a similiar feature like digital vibrance to their cards. I read an article a couple years ago stating that ATI was working on it, but they never added it.