Thanks ATI, switching to Nvidia!

ahahaha, stop it hurts, ahahaha, oh, oh, ahhhh, cough, ahahaha

Edit: sry that was a bit mean, just tired cos the builders next door are cutting bricks at 7:30am and my head hurts, but seriously this thread is a waste of space.

Nvidia and ATI both sucked for years, cards are always getting nicer, but people will always want 'more fps'/'lower power'/'higher resolution'/'more compatibility' or something, all hardware vendors do is try to turn that want into a perceived need, most people do not actually need what they think they do. It is sad how this all results in so much waste, much old electronics even gets dumped in third world countries as the first world runs out of room for it.

 

Whats funny about that? you've lost me on that one pal, Win 98 sure, but I can honestly say I have never had a BSOD, I get hardlocks and restarts but I have never had a BSOD, quite the opposite of funny IMO.

 

sad? if you say so, rofl

 

Not entirely true. I've had problems in the past when switching from nvidia to Ati and back, but only in XP, vista works like a charm.

 

ROFL all you want, why is it so unbelievable? just cos some people don't know how to set up a computer properly does not mean everyone has the same issue. In my office we have 4 XP computers, 3 of which have never BSOD, my bosses one however, has, because he installs all the crap and tools and applets he can find...BSOD. I on the other hand only have what I need installed and running, (that goes for home and work) this has resulted in pretty much 7 years of XP bliss.

You're obviously enduring constant BSOD as your insinuation that I am liar proves so difficult for you to appreciate, I think I'm the one ROFL at you for being a spathtic, lol! :biggun:

 

Sorry I should not have flamed you, but I saw in other posts you did not make this claim so absolutely which puts you on shaky ground.

I am a programmer, so I know what each BSOD message means, and you are right if you do not do much with a computer you will probably never see one on your PC. I have even seen a RSOD rofl, I don't know why you are so scared of BSOD.

EDIT: and no I do not get them very often.. there are plenty of popular programs that many people will try that cause BSOD from time to time... from memory "Perfect Disk" is the last one that did for me.

BSOD can be for lots of software related problems, the most common being memory violations. You do not get as many (sorry.. any) BSOD because XP runs everything in separate memory spaces.. if software touches a boundary XP will unload the software, it will still BSOD though if a piece of software crosses a boundary for what ever reason (sometimes it is not the softwares fault). RSOD is for hardware but as you say the machine usually freezes or reboots before you see a RSOD or windows simply can not detect the fault and misses the error or blames software/drivers.

 

No worries.

I have experienced BSOD, I just have never had one on my own personal computer, nor my own work computer that was set up and installed by me. I do get them on the shared office laptop, and over the years I have certainly found laptops to be quite susceptible. When I worked at the BBC we only had laptops, not desktops, and it was quite a common occurrence, but I have funny feeling it was not XP (in fact, no it wasn't, was NT, man, thats ages ago, I feel old now).

It was the other threads that got me thinking, as from memory I thought XP was supposed to do away with BSOD, hence when I first got it and never had any issues I was quite surprised. I then forgot about that until recently, so its only on reflection that I have realized I have not had one on my own computers, but then I'm pretty anal about what I do with it and what I install on it.

 

Its not that HD3800s are bad cards ... My HD3850 is quiet ,cool and overclocks like crazy but immature drivers are horrible. For me 8.1 work the best.

 

I'm still on the Omega 8.0s, no problems with them either, and now ATI Tools supports dynamic fan control I'm supported, overclocking without fear of cooking.

 

let me just say something

First... everyone noticed - everything goes down..
flashy instalation of viewsonic monitor, or stupid crashing autorun from creative for audio card... or ****ty ati website..and so on..
there is no simplicity, and the person feels annoyed from there!...
1. to install monitor drivers or audio card drivers, abit motherboard drivers.. properly its a pain
*flash autorun struggles, pc almost kills himself..its flash with effects and if a disc is a bit old..its almost not readable..

2. going to stupid ati website i cannot find simplicity also...
no driver list,
video card list.. nor list of anything with few lines notes.. ( ccc is for this.. ) .net framework is for that..specifications..
I cannot even find in many websites ati 3850agp 512!.. it doesnt exist.. This is only laziness and nothing else..
Neither my 3850agp exist in ati website, nor you exist for them..
This is gonna be tough for stupid people but.. Look at nvidia website.. i can watch
any vga and compare its specifications..to see any model.

Its only example... those 1. and 2. steps can be easily skipped by coming to great forum and seeing stickies with list..
..i have read recently one of the directx creator was telling about how ms makes big bull.. in os..especially in vista... no simplicity, just pure crapy codes...
flashy websites, crapy vista who eats resourses, games with adds lol..disks with autorun flash who barely can run properly...

at least linux keep on being better and web 2.0 is coming..

My definition? Im not sure.. i was surprised 3850cannot run in ubuntu gutsy :3eyes: and dirt was with flying tires and car flying in the sky..

Its just luck if ati or nvidia card runs perfectly for you... And thanks for fans who releases modifies drivers or creates good forums...

 

nVidia isn't much fun either.

 

I used to have a 7 series NVDIA card, but then I switced to my current X1950 Pro, and the visual quality went through the roof. Before, games like NFS Carbon would crash and freeze for no reason (in the middle of a race >.<) and other games would have corruption.. But since I've had my ATI card, I've never had any problems, and I can play COD 4 on high graphics fine, and Crysis on Medium w/ ne probs (Unless 10 houses explode at once)

 

The cause of your problems may very well be your motherboard.....
The CF setup in the 3870 X2 stil relies upon the 790 chipset from ATi to gain top performance and stability. Not the nVidia 5 series chipset in your motherboard. Try checking compatibility and doing your homework before buying new tech.


The other issue is that it is new tech. The drivers are never 100% ready for new video cards. I had no end of trouble with my 6800. Came to the point where i gave up with PC games for a couple of months til the foreceware was stable enough to use. The 8.3's were rushed for X2 compatibility. The hotFix sorts a few isues. But you'd be best waiting for 8.4.



Theres no major issue with the ATi drivers which a sensible and average tech cant sort out.
I left the drivers installed form my 2600XT and simply replaced the card with the 3870XT*, ran the 8.3 installl again and alls working fine still.
Before that, was an 8800Gt. Bloody pointless.
Granted, i could get an extra 500 points in 3Dmark06, or an extra 10 fps (still 100+ so whats the diff) but the image was not as clear and colours were somewhat faded in comparison to the 3870XT

The only problem i have with this card is its 2D/3D mode. When i try playing a rather undemanding game, the GPU core stays at 297MHz. Instead of the 900Mhz its currently clocked to use.
The Overdrive Autotune tooko the speeds a little too far. kept getting artifacts all over the palce. But there was no problems with the heat.
Got it clocked down a bit now to 900/1250. Stunning performance over the 8800's with lower heat output, lower power consumoption, better image quality and at a lower price (£120, full retail package)


Anyway, looks like he got a 9800 instead now. Poor guy. cant wai for his next public whine about the lack of stable drivers, his PSU doesnt have enough grunt and he cant figure out how to get round the 6Pin + 8pin issue.


*Sapphire 3870 XT 775Mhz, 512Mb GDDR4 1125MHz.

 

Driver issues? I got a 3850 and i love it. this is my first ATI card..

i use the w@rc@t 8.3 drivers and they dont hick-up, sneeze, cough nothing it runs smooth

 

flame on protatoes, one 9800gx2 runs excellent on my pc. So many angry nerds who stay cloistered away. You also might want to try reading the whole thread next time before you speak with such haughty arrogance.

 

Drivers can really drive the decision to switch camps, I switched from nvidia to ATI due to drivers, and now I'm ready to switch from ATI to nvidia again due to drivers, the grass is always greener on the other side, at least that's what I hope :/
The problem is that since people from both sides keep switching and the average therefore stays the same the manufacturers don't get the message that decent drivers should be high on the priority list, so in that sense a lot of threads about lousy drivers on many forums might slowly, in a few hundred years, make them get it already and hire some more/competent people and focus a bit more.

Oh and they should design the drivers according to some standard so they work on any game, and not make drivers that need a damn patch for every single game, the games are all created using the MS documentation and the standard functions calls right? so why do the graphics-card makers seem to have to tweak for every single game you might want to run?
Also they should not stare themselves blind on WHQL either, because that is a dead duck, currently the most stable drivers are non-WHQL and the ones that are WHQL have bugs even the most dull-sensed idiot would(/should) not give any certificate.

 

where in the world did you get the xt because there is no xt in the 3800 series

 

A true story

I am finally switching from ATI to Nvidia after long and much suffering from a lack of driver updates.

How it all began: In the early, pre-3D days I had Cirrus Logic and S3 graphics chips in my PCs and only because of Linux I was aware of the difference in brands. My first 3D card then was a Matrox Mystique, because Matrox also had very good 2D performance. That is something no one these days talks about any more. After that came the Nvidia Riva TNT, which I really liked. Seeing the difference in image quality between ATI and Nvidia cards, however, I switch to ATI and my first ATI card was the Radeon 9200. I never got me any Voodoo or Permedia cards. I was just not hooked on 3D gaming as much as others. Anyway, it does not hurt to have some good 3D card in your PC. After the Radeon 9200 I bought me a Radeon 9550 and even a 9800PRO. When ATI began selling the X1xxx-series I then bought me a X850XT as my last AGP card.

It is my last buy that made me switch to Nvidia. In August last year ATI had released their last working driver for my card. Since the release of Catalyst 7.9 it refused to work with any DirectX game until Catalyst 8.1 had finally a fix for it. After waiting 5 months for a fix that allows me to update the driver, and seeing how others in the meantime got hot-fixes for just minor problems, I found myself being kicked down by ATI twice. The fix did not fix the problem correctly! Whereas previously games simply denied to start they now crashed with a BSOD in the middle of a game. If anyone is wondering if my hardware is broken and how can I be so sure that it is a driver problem then the answer is quite simple. All I need to do is to go back to 7.8 or an Omega driver and the problem disappears - including most other game fixes of course ... ATI has lost interest in caring about AGP cards.

So now I bought me a Nvidia GeForce 9600GT. I have got most parts together for building me a new PC and I cannot wait to see this Nvidia card perform. When it comes to anti-aliasing several benchmark results show that it can outperform a Radeon HD3870, and for ~15£ less. Next week I will hopefully know more and how well it works in combination with a Phenom 9850 BE*).

I have no idea what to expect from Nvidia or how well their future support of the GeForce 9600GT will be, but after ATIs lack of support it is hard to imagine anything worse than what I have seen with ATI.

For those of you who want to tell me that they never had such a problem (with ATI) be warned. I have read several such responses in all those months and they did not help!

Sven

*) If I get any good overclocking results out of the Phenom I will write about it.

 

Its odd, looking on Sapphire and Asus website there is no official product, but doing a google search shows plenty of people referring to 3870XT's.

A quick look on Newegg shows an Apollo and Gecube XT, so I guess they must exist, its just a name though, looking at Sapphire with about 5 different models of the 3870, one of them I guess would have the XT and even XTX moniker in the name product name somewhere.

 

XT is only an addition to the name, it has the same spec as the reference 3870.
3870 is XT, 3850 is Pro.

Sapphire models for everyones information:
3870 dual slot
3870 single slot
3870 Toxic
3870 Atomic
3870 Ultimate
+X2 editions