GF4 versus NV3x questions...

[Malichite]

I have long been following the trials and tribulations of nVidia's infamous NV3x series. Having seen benchmark after benchmark, using various combinations of screen resolution, AA, and Anisotropic filtering. I am also aware of the various driver concerns with regards to 'cheats', optimizations, and image quality in general. However, I have been unable to get a good feel for how it compares to my current GF4 4600ti.

I am currently happy with the IQ and 4XS AA techniques on my GF4, but would like a bit more power <nice to use AA and Aniso simultaneously>. Since playing Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, and getting FSAA in older games is a must, the Radeon 9x00 series is not currently an option. The first questions that remains for me is what is the typical hit on a 5900/Ultra/5950 using 4XS versus 4X in actual games (no 3dmark scores)? Secondly are all the image quality, psuedo trilinear filtering, game optimization issues related to the drivers, thus affecting all nVidia cards using said drivers? Lastly on the topic of the mouse scroll beeping (apparently fixed in the GFFX 5950), does this also occur on the 5900 non Ultra boards?

-Mali

[reever2]

The trilinear issue only affects the FX series

[ChrisRay]

4xS is about 40% faster on the Nv30 cards, The 2x multisampling part is practically performance hit free, But its still doing super sampling.

4x Multisampling is like twice the speed of the Geforce 4 Ti from what I have seen..

[Edge]

Oh, and just to let you know you can use any AA modes from the FX series cards on a GF3/4. In D3D this includes 2x, Quincunx, 4x, 4x+9tap, 4xs, 6x, 8x, 8xs, 12x, and 2x2 supersampling. Of course, all the multi-sampling stuff will be much faster on an FX card, but all the modes are availible on Geforce 3 and up cards. Also, under OpenGL you can use 2x, quincunx, 4x, 4x+9tap, and 8xs. Suprisingly, many older games are actually quite playable at 8xs on a GF4 card. You can use Rivatuner or AAtweak (or whatever it's called) to enable the extra AA modes. You can tweak the anisotropic optimisation stuff as well, you should be able to get decent performence with both AA and Anisotopic enabled (also the performence hit of one is reduced by the other, so lvl2 aniso with 4xs AA is basicly free). Not sure if the 50 series drivers remove any AA modes, but they're all availible on the 40.xx to the 45.xx drivers.

So try testing out some stuff in Rivatuner to see if you can get better performance/image quality out of your GF4 before you spend to much on a new card. The Longest Journey looks spectacular with 8xsAA. But if you still find your GF4 is a bit to slow, picking up an FX card (5600 or better) will roughly halve the performence hit of normal AA modes, except for the xS modes which are only about 30% faster then the GF4 (but since the FX cards are naturally faster then the GF4, you'd get around a 50% performence increase running it on a 5600 card).

[StealthHawk]

According to some people with gf4s the new drivers, 52.16, have much lower scores in benchmarks that were known to be "optimized" for. Implying that maybe they are clean now :)