Quake3World.com Forums
     Technology & Troubleshooting
        Another video card thread.


Post new topicReply to topic
Login | Profile | | FAQ | Search | IRC




Print view Previous topic | Next topic 
Topic Starter Topic: Another video card thread.

Insane Quaker
Insane Quaker
Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Posts: 449
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 05:28 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


So it's easy to find out what video cards get the highest frame rates at different settings, but which cards present the best image quality? I realize this is somewhat subjective, so naturally I'm looking for opinions.




Top
                 

foolproof
foolproof
Joined: 11 Jan 2001
Posts: 7927
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 05:33 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Do you mean stuff like what material the card's ports etc. are made of?

Because I think it doesn't really matter, and image quality is *much* more dependent on monitor than video card.




Top
                 

Glayven?
Glayven?
Joined: 23 Jan 2005
Posts: 13025
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 05:34 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


"Best Image Quality" is probably the most vague, unhelpful question you could possibly ask. Your question doesn't address monitors or any other variable at all.

Are you asking about such things as which card does AA better? Even that is a pretty useless question all things considered.




Top
                 

Glayven?
Glayven?
Joined: 23 Jan 2005
Posts: 13025
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 05:35 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Damn you Plan B. :angrymad:




Top
                 

Insane Quaker
Insane Quaker
Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Posts: 449
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 05:47 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


whoaa....it'll be ok.

When I said "presents" I meant that to imply which cards will generate an image, in the frame buffer, that might be sharper or have better looking anisotropic filtering, etc. I figured since I said video card, no one would jump to monitors or anything else but I can see why someone could get the wrong impression.

to be clear, I'm only referring to the image as it stands in memory immediately after rendering.

fun fact: if you think the question is useless, you should state why.




Top
                 

Glayven?
Glayven?
Joined: 23 Jan 2005
Posts: 13025
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 06:29 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


It's useless because "somewhat subjective" is an understatement.




Top
                 

Insane Quaker
Insane Quaker
Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Posts: 449
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 06:32 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


That's why I was looking for opinions, things people may have noticed, maybe AA looks horrible in some cases and someone would have had a gripe about it -that's what I was looking for. Or maybe someone could show a high-res side by side comparison of the same scene rendered on different gpus? That'd be good too. I only ask here because I haven't been able to find anything on google. A while ago, ATI used to be the one that focused on image quality, and nvidia wanted to crank out higher frame rates any way they could. I was mostly curious how this has changed or not through user's experiences.

Here...here's something non-subjective. Multi-GPU configurations, they sandwich cards together pretty close, like 6970s and other high end cards that generally appear that the majority of their air flow comes from a hole in the middle of the card which becomes completely obscured by the card next to it, so it seems as if the only card that can be properly cooled would be the last one in the system. How does this work without destroying the cards under heavy load?




Top
                 

i liek boobies
i liek boobies
Joined: 26 Nov 2000
Posts: 11930
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 03:54 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I can sort of see where he's coming from. Back in the day, it was widely agreed that Matrox cards had the best "image quality" of all the available 2D cards at the time. I do agree that it's not really relevant anymore, and as you guys said it's subjective. Anandtech will occassionally talk about image quality in some of their more comprehensive reviews, but I don't think they really do an A to B comparison either.




Top
                 

Insane Quaker
Insane Quaker
Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Posts: 449
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 04:59 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Is this because that technology in-general has just reached a certain point that now...everyone's image quality is good? I remember distinctly being able to tell the difference between ATI and nVidia cards just from screen captures. I just didn't know if ...that was still the score today.




Top
                 

Your Other Daddy
Your Other Daddy
Joined: 03 Dec 1999
Posts: 20012
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 06:52 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


i remember the difference between Matrox, Ati, Nvidia, 3DFX.

but these days if you run at 16AA and 16 or 8AF it's all good bro



_________________
[WYD]SoM


Top
                 

I'm the dude!
I'm the dude!
Joined: 04 Feb 2002
Posts: 12498
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 07:56 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


There is a lot more feedback between GPU manufacturers and game developers. Developing with consistent results between architectures is pretty crucial on modern games. You might see bigger differences between Xbox and PS3 comparisons than you would between nVidia and AMD due to hardware limitations on consoles. Due to tight competition, PC GPUs have been pretty similar for some time.



_________________
GtkRadiant | Q3Map2 | Shader Manual


Top
                 

Timed Out
Timed Out
Joined: 02 Aug 2000
Posts: 38063
PostPosted: 05-05-2011 11:32 PM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Steve - Take a look at the nVidia Quadro and ATI FireGL cards. They're designed for design/CAD work and push better per-pixel accuracy than the consumer gaming-oriented cards (Geforce and Radeon).

This is all a function of the drivers, too. There were instances in the past where a simple software unlock on a card converts a Quadro to a Geforce, and vice versa.

And of course the tradeoff in quality comes at a heavy FPS price.




Top
                 

Insane Quaker
Insane Quaker
Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Posts: 449
PostPosted: 05-06-2011 06:23 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I actually had a Quadro 600, one of the new Fermi ones for a while, and I wasn't too impressed. For 170 bucks I got 96 CUDA cores, ECC ram on the video card, one DVI, one Display Port, and no 3D Vision Pro support in linux. I didn't find out that last part until after I had it for a while. I didn't get the impression it produced images that really looked accurate, I still saw fuzz with anisotropic filtering, FSAA should have been more configurable. What I was really looking for was something that could pull of 8x or 16x FSAA via super-sampling and had 3D support in linux, but given the prices of these cards, getting both of those in one card is going to be pricey. I remember being able to mod Radeon 9700s into their workstation counterparts. I wish I could do the same thing with a 580GTX but you need a special connector to make 3d support work in linux via their special glasses.




Top
                 

Mercenary
Mercenary
Joined: 07 Sep 2009
Posts: 230
PostPosted: 05-06-2011 09:21 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


any gtx 200+ cards will do



_________________
NRC
Defrag
Q3 Map Archive


Top
                 

Insane Quaker
Insane Quaker
Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Posts: 449
PostPosted: 05-06-2011 09:31 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I don't think the gtx200s or any gtx cards will provide 3d vision in linux. I didn't see any on the HCL for linux 3d support.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_pro ... linux.html

However, it's clearly going to be so expensive to get 3d vision in linux I've just given up caring about that, at this point I've narrowed it down to super sampling, running in windows is fine, and I'll worry about 3d junk later.

Does anyone out there running a 5xx or 4xx series nvidia card see super sampling options in the driver settings? If so, which options do you see? Thanks




Top
                 
Quake3World.com | Forum Index | Technology & Troubleshooting


Post new topic Reply to topic


cron
Quake3World.com
© ZeniMax. Zenimax, QUAKE III ARENA, Id Software and associated trademarks are trademarks of the ZeniMax group of companies. All rights reserved.
This is an unofficial fan website without any affiliation with or endorsement by ZeniMax.
All views and opinions expressed are those of the author.