Older video cards

[Kevin]

So my computer has been old for awhile. It's old enough that friends cast off parts are now upgrades for me.


I currently have a 6600 GT video card (the newest thing in my system actually).

I've been gifted a new mobo, processor (Opteron 170), 2 GB of memory, HDD, and I've actually gotten 2 video cards.

An ATI x800 XL and an Nvidia 7600GT

Both are better than the 660GT I know i'll do better with either.

I've looked at the VGA charts on Tom's I've poked at some reviews on Anand. I've still got several of the other review sites that I used to use a lot linked at home but haven't looked closely at them.

It appears to me they are pretty much the same card one ATI, one NVidia. But I'm looking for a few more opinions. I haven't had an ATI card in forever. I still have nightmares about how bad the drivers were to deal with (it's been that long, 8+ years). I've not really followed computer hardware closely since the Ti4800 was the big dog video card to give another frame of reference. :)

I mostly play WoW, I'll likely play through Oblivion now that I've got the beefier hardware and I play other older games. I'll fire up Starwars Battlefront II from time to time. I'm finally playing through Freelancer. I might get the orange box at here at some point to mess with that.

I will be using the T.V. out function for piping movies from the computer to the T.V. since I don't have a set top DVD player.

There is a good chance this card will be running under Ubantu but it might be an XP SP3 install as well.

Given that I don't think it matters which I use, but what would you do given those options?

There will not be any money spent. There is no 3rd option. It is one of those to cards and I think I'm probably looking at a coin flip at this point.

[roguebanshee]

I still have nightmares about how bad the drivers were to deal with (it's been that long, 8+ years).

My current PC is using an ATI, my previous was using a nVidia. Drivers are about the same amount of hassle on WinXP.

[DeeBye]

The 7600GT is the better card, and is a newer model than the 800XL.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?...5&card2=50

[Klaus]

My experience is that nVidia drivers for linux work well. Don't know about ATI.

[Kevin]

The 7600GT is the better card, and is a newer model than the 800XL.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?...5&card2=50

Newer isn't always better for a good chunk of time there ATI was just better than NVidia. I was aware the 7600GT was newer.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop...e,598.html?prod[1722]=on&prod[1663]=on&prod[1650]=on

Code:

App                 7600 GT         x800 XL
3D Studio           629             501
Rise of Nations     13              11
Half Life 2         94              94
Oblivion            13              17
Titan Quest         18              23

That is just a sample from the VGA charts on Tom's site.

That to me says toss up and so close it doesn't matter too much. But then again how much do I trust that?

But it does look like "moving forward" the 7600GT is better and I've heard folks chime in on the Linux drivers for it.

So I do value that link too, the better DX compatibility and PS/VS version is nice, there is a good chance I'll be using this card, 2+ years down the road. :)

Basically it looks like the NVidia card is newer tech but the ATI card was very well implemented older tech. Both are clearly better than a 6600GT however you slice it though. :)

[Concillian]

Star Wars: Battlefront engine tends to favor ATi, as I recall.
Oblivion tends to favor ATi.

Linux used to be difficulty with ATi, and nVidia was much easier to deal with. However, ATi has since made major improvements in their Linux drivers. I don't know enough about the current config to know.

I prefer the ATi drivers to the nVidia drivers when using multiple monitors spanned in Vista. Vista did some things that makes spanned mode difficult, and you have to kinda work around it, it was easier to do that with my ATi card & drivers than with my nVidia card & drivers.

I do see it as largely a toss up & preference.

[vor_lord]

If you want to play WoW under wine, there are some special things that need to be done with ATI:

ATI issues

People. World of Warcraft WILL only work properly with tweaks done to ATI cards. Many people have tended to post the same things others have posted a thousand times, so dont post these again:

- Full Screen Glow MUST be turned off!

- You must use the Reg-Tweak below to prevent icon and graphical corruption!

- Special effects used in quests such as "Maintaining the Sunwell Portal" as well as other quests in WOTLK that uses this "out of phase look", will not work without a special setting in the Config.wtf, scroll down!

- Turn OFF the desktop special effects if the game flickers! (There is no composite support at the moment from ATI ( This should be fixed with Catalyst 9.1 or 9.2).

[[vL]Kp]

If you plan to use Linux, you need to decide whether you want to use a tainted kernel. (For those who are not familiar, users of tainted kernels tend to receive very little support or sympathy in the event of a kernel panic.) nVidia refuses to release documentation, so the open nVidia drivers are not nearly as good as the open ATI drivers. In particular, multi-monitor support doesn't work with the open nVidia drivers.