Seems as if most nVidia to ATi converts are very happy...

[ATI LoVeR 9700]

I've been reading posts and it seems like the guys going from Geforce4 to Radeon 9700 are very happy. Ofcourse they're going to be happy about the 3D side, but I've read about better 2D and stuff. If your an nV to ATi convert, tell us all the stuff you like about your ATi purchase and what you don't like.

[5150 Joker]

You describe it as if we changed religions or something. I'm not a fanboy so I don't attribute myself as being a "convert". Rather I picked up a new piece of technology from a company I was hesitant about and enjoy the product thus far. The drivers have been solid for the most part, the card is solid, fast and delivers as promised. Very nice 2D (not leaps and bounds ahead of my former Ti4600 though), nice rich colors and the anisotropic/antialiasing is top notch.

If I had to pick something I dislike I'd say it's the way the stock cooling was put together. If they wanted to use a shim then it should've been nylon since the metal shim prohibits a lot of coolers from making full contact with the VPU. Also, the TIM is complete garbage. Thankfully I knew this ahead of time and replaced it with a custom copper cooler and all is well.

However, I will be giving NV30 a serious chance and if it proves to be quite a bit faster than the 9700 pro with an equally pleasing and fast Aniso/AA implementation then I'll consider purchasing it. I'll always be a fan of technology and not companies.

[-=Gib-McFragger=-]

I like the 2D clarity and richness of colors first and foremost. Followed VERY closely by the amazing AA/Aniso performance. The drivers have been rock solid thus far, and the card has worked with every game that I have thrown at it. In fact, there is not a single game I have tried, other than UT2K3, that even makes the 9700 break a sweat, and the only reason UT2K3 performance is not blazing fast is that it is CPU intensive. I have cured THAT problem now too.......hehehe. :D

The only downside I have with the 9700 is the price. It is bloody high, but once you pay it and try the card, it does not disappoint. :)

[Raptorman]

I love my R9700. Although, NFS HS2 doesn't seem to like it very much. Game works for about 30 secs and locks up when I load a race. Can't figure it out.

[_leech_]

Originally posted by 5150 Joker
You describe it as if we changed religions or something.

Hahaha :D

[Skarn]

Good- fast, great image quality
Bad- No Linux driver, no 16bit AA

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by Raptorman
I love my R9700. Although, NFS HS2 doesn't seem to like it very much. Game works for about 30 secs and locks up when I load a race. Can't figure it out.

Have you tried the updated beta drivers that are available here (http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4095.html)?

They're supposed to fix lockups with NHL 2003, which is also an EA game.

[Moose]

Originally posted by 5150 Joker
You describe it as if we changed religions or something....


hmmmm....

let us pray....

green chip bad... red chip better....

green chip bad... red chip better....

green chip bad... red chip better....


amen


:)

[Riptide]

I must say I'm pretty attached to my 9700 r1.1. Coming from a visiontek ti4600 I can say with certainty the 2d quality is cleaner. Takes a good monitor to tell the difference (using a gdmf500r) tho...

3dmark2001 scores are higher. The 4600 got about 12500 and the 9700 gets 14000 for me. Unreal Tournament 2003 looks beautiful. Face-3 CTF just absolutely rox. Haven't played much else with it yet...

The only negatives are a penchance for hard lockups in UT2003. Particularly when the details are max'd (character detail especially). This is very annoying but I am hoping the asus p4pe/l I am installing tonight will help... Getting rid of my SiS648 board since I want something I know should be stable with the 9700. Yes, I am using the latest drivers from ATI and it still locks.

[YeuEmMaiMai]

Ati has always been good for me and the cards are always priced right for my budget

[vitocorleone]

make sure you have Truform=False set in the UT2003 ini file. You might also try setting Truform to Always Off in the control panel. Somethin' funky is up with truform on the 9700 pro.... At any rate, this cured my lock ups, but each system is different. good luck!

[Chalnoth]

Well, if you're getting lockups, a good thing to look at would be your power supply. The Radeon 9700's are the most power-hungry graphics cards yet...

[Raptorman]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
Have you tried the updated beta drivers that are available here (http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4095.html)?

They're supposed to fix lockups with NHL 2003, which is also an EA game.

No, I havn't tried the BETA drivers. I may give them a run.

It's definetely not my power supply though. Could it be something with Truform?

As NovaLogic's Black Hawk Down MP Demo doesn't like for Anti-Aliasing to be turned on either.

[Chalnoth]

Why is it definitely not your power supply? You may wish to read this article (If you haven't already):

http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/02q4/021021/index.html

[jbirney]

As NovaLogic's Black Hawk Down MP Demo doesn't like for Anti-Aliasing to be turned on either.

Sorry to hear that but for me I run AA with out any issues (other than every now and then an alpha texture does not get AA) on my 9700 with the BHD deom. However we have different systems.....

BTW I was really enjoying the demo. Too bad the delay the game till next year :(

[Raptorman]

Trust me it's not the power supply.

The BETA drivers that were suppose to fix NHL 2003 fixed my NFS:HP2 problem. It works great now!

[Riptide]

Originally posted by vitocorleone
make sure you have Truform=False set in the UT2003 ini file. You might also try setting Truform to Always Off in the control panel. Somethin' funky is up with truform on the 9700 pro.... At any rate, this cured my lock ups, but each system is different. good luck!
After replacing my motherboard and power supply so far so good for the last few days (fingers crossed). No blue screens or hard lockups yet. Ofcourse I also did a complete rebuild since I went to a different chipset (i845PE now). My gut says the motherboard was the problem since my old power supply seems to be OK in a friend's system.

[Corona999]

I'm not really a convert but I'd just like to say I'm very happy with my 9700Pro. A lot of people had complained about compatibility issues with this card but I've had no problems at all. Looks like ATI's finally got it's groove back and with this generation of chips. It'll be interesting to see the upcoming battle next year in the graphics industry.

[pieman109]

I went from a leadtek G4 Ti 4400 to a 9700 pro. I cant really see any 2d quality improvement but I've only got a budget 19" monitor. where it really scores is gaming. I've noticed that, while framerates aren't blisteringly high, the fps never drop too low, especially with AAx6, everything set to quality, no AF. The overall framerate remains high no matter what settings I use. This ensures playable games with all the eye candy basically. I've also had no probs whatsoever with the card on any games, but thats prolly down the fact That I re-formatted before I installed the vid card. I really like this card and up till now I've had all Nvidia cards.

[FastM]

Originally posted by ohoffman10
After replacing my motherboard and power supply so far so good for the last few days (fingers crossed). No blue screens or hard lockups yet. Ofcourse I also did a complete rebuild since I went to a different chipset (i845PE now). My gut says the motherboard was the problem since my old power supply seems to be OK in a friend's system.

Stay away from SIS chipsets if your a Gamer, that goes for AMD and Intel..

[Chalnoth]

Originally posted by pieman109
The overall framerate remains high no matter what settings I use. This ensures playable games with all the eye candy basically.

Actually, I think that this is the Radeon 9700's primary problem. Based on a number of tests I've done, I've found, pretty conclusively, that the framerate of the 9700 is far, far more unreliable than the framerate of a GeForce4.

Still, sine the R9700 does have far higher average performance, particularly in high-quality modes, it doesn't make a huge amount of difference.

But ATI's drivers still have a long, long way to go.

Said another way, even if the GeForce FX only tied the Radeon 9700 in performance, unless the state of the 9700's drivers improve dramatically, I'd take the GF FX any day (Based upon performance chracteristics alone...not even comparing compatibility).

Of course, that's based upon the assumption that nVidia's drivers will be better at launch, which I think they will be.

[Bigus Dickus]

Sounds like the whole minimum fps in UT2k3 argument, which turned out to me mostly a farce.

[Chalnoth]

Originally posted by Bigus Dickus
Sounds like the whole minimum fps in UT2k3 argument, which turned out to me mostly a farce.

And now I'm actually speaking from experience. The issue is not a farce, not in the least. I'll have to post some framerate graphs, I suppose.

Regardless, what is most certainly true is that in certain games, with certain settings, there is a whole lot of stuttering. The game basically performs well for a fraction of a second, then stalls for another fraction of a second, and continues on doing this over and over again. This is obviously an extension of the above issue.

ATI really needs to solve this problem.

Once it is solved, the Radeon 9700 will be capable of being playable at higher quality settings than it is now (Which will be particularly important for games like DOOM3). As a side note, the games in which I have noticed stuttering the most (NWN, Tenebrae) both make use of stencil shadows...

Though once it is solved, the average framerate probably won't increase by a whole lot. Depending on the reason for the stuttering, it may actually decrease.

[Bigus Dickus]

Interesting... then this might be an issue with the way stencils are handled? I really wish framerate graphs were more common in reviews, that's for sure.

[Chalnoth]

Btw, I just wanted to let you know that I looked at the framerate graphs that I have currently in a couple of different ways.

Since I figured the massively-oscillating framerates I'm seeing on the 9700 could be masked by double or triple buffering, I decided to average the framerate over two and three frames, separately.

As it turns out, doing this has pretty much no effect on the output of the framerate graph, leading me to believe that it's oscillating in greater intervals than 2-3 frames, so I doubt it could be adequately masked by triple or double buffering.

I believe it was pointed out that these framerate numbers, that I'm getting from UT2k3, may not be indicative of the output framerate. If this is true, then the issue is even worse, and may explain even better why I'm seeing stuttering in specific scenarios. That is, if the output display is a constant 60 fps, but the game thinks the framerate is varying from 30 fps to 60 fps, then it's going to vary the time step between frames. That is, the game itself will speed up and slow down. I'm not sure if I can verify if this is happening or not when the game is stuttering, but it is an alternative possibility.