Geforce 4 Ti vs Radeon 9000Pro

[Keith Loh]

Both of these cards seem pretty similar in 3d performance, at least from the benchmarks I've seen (Tom's Hardware, Anandtech). And both are pretty close in price. Someone told me, however, that the Ati's are better for video. At least for video playback. Will getting the Radeon give any kind of performance benefit in EDITING video? That might help me make a decision one way or another.

I've narrowed down my choice to these two for my single machine which I use for DV, general purpose and gaming. The models I've looked at have dual monitor out, are 64mb, and are around $250-280 Cdn.

[Adam Lawrence]

Id go for the geforce Ti...very good card. Also good for video and such...

I currently have a GVX420 and a Matrox 550....the Matrox cost somewhere in the relm of the Ti and radeon..but is far better for editing video but
has no 3D performance what so ever..so dont plan on gaming with it.
I was very impressed with the card myslef.

[Keith Loh]

Yeah, I'm not planning on building a pure video system anytime soon so having good 3D performance is something I need.

I've heard back from some people that the Radeon is getting slammed for driver and instability issues. I HATE spending time hunting up proper drivers and isolating to stable versions so if this is the type of feedback it gets my choice will be the Ti.

[Adam Lawrence]

right....the 550 runs 3d software just as good as anything....yet
its NOT a gaming card.....it doesnt run games very well...but its great
for professional use. I would choose the Ti out of the two..but theres other great cards out there as well

[Keith Luken]

I can't speak to Nvidia cards on my editing system, I use GeForce 4 on my game system. I have ATI 8500DV All in Wonder on my Video editing system. And while I liek the tuner and stuff, ATI drivers SUCK!! I have more conflicts with ATI drivers and editing software I can;t take it any more. The worst offender i sPinnacle, ATI drivers break Pinnacle Studio and Edition DV. Some versions also have bugs with Vegas Video. The drivers that XP supplied in SP1 seems fairly good, but Pinnacle Edition DV is still broke. Pinnacle says they have been working with ATI to fox the problems. Next vide card refresh I do I suspect ATI is outta here! I may actually go Marox on my video system and stay Nvidia on my gaming. Every version of ATI drviers fixes some things and breaks others. The sad thing is when I talked to a support manager at ATI he felt there drivers were much better. I asked him compared to what?

[Keith Loh]

Apparently the 9000s series Radeons have an integrated driver so ATI did themselves a favour there.

I ended up getting a Geforce Ti 4200 128 for entirely selfish reasons: I wanted to play Battlefield 1942. To my dismay, that game still sucks frame rate.

[Adam Lawrence]

ahh...the game of all games....I try running that on my computer at home..
i have a geforce 2 MX200 and it doesnt run all that well....Actually runs
pretty crappy on some maps...i guess i need to either upgrade on RAM or
get better card...maybe the Ti like you said might be way better.

[Marc Betz]

I use the original drivers that came with the 8500dv and have no problem. I did try the damned catalyst drivers, and uninstalled them within the hour. The original drivers work great and cause no issues with any of my software.

I don't use adobe though.

dual boot xp and win2k

[Keith Loh]

Well, I *thought* the Ti4200 would make me able to play the game but nope. The frame rate becomes a slideshow when I face most of the map. Too bad. I could play the demo just fine but even the Wake Is. map (same as the demo) suddenly chugs in the retail version. And I'm a 1ghz thunderbird, 512mb.

I guess I'll have to either return it or wait for a patch.

[Adam Lawrence]

well....supposably the single player game runs in-efficiently becuase
the computer has to run the BOTS you play with and against....if you ever tried playing online youll notice that the game runs fairly smoother playing with real people....though this is just somehting i heard.

[Keith Loh]

It runs equally bad whether I'm trying to troubleshoot playing with bots or if I'm online with a ping of 40.

[Adam Lawrence]

thats odd....im going to look into that some. I play network games with my co-workers and their games run flawlessly unlike mine....and they have the same setup i do....this is puzzling needless to say. ....if that Ti wont run it , then i dont know what will besides a wildcat or GVX series. But why spend the money for a $45 game.

[Keith Loh]

For the same reason I spent $400 cdn on a PS2 a few months ago just so I could play GTA3. I HAD to play it. Crazy, I know.