ATI Radeon blurred images???

[Guest Hanse_1]

Hi!I am about to get a new 3D card and I have my eyes and cashon a Radeon 9700 or 9800, but I read from tests and comments thatit sometimes gives blurred images.This confuses me, since the overall score is so positive.And.......does anyone know if the new GeForce 5950 PRO is any good?All this to work with FS9......Grateful for comments and help.Thanks!Hans HermanssonSWEDEN

[miguelpp]

Hi Hans.The Radeon doesn

[Guest CHRISH]

Hi Hans,This might help, I have used both cards and settled with the Geforce 5950 due to superior image quality and higher refresh rates ..The tests below were carried out on a AMD FX 51 3200 using FS2002 (Test A, 9800 XT), Test B (Geforce FX 5950) So here we go: System: AMD FX-51 (3200) 64 Bit Processor1GB of PC RAM80 GB Hard DriveWin XP ProfessionalMS Flight Sim 2002Radeon ATi 9800XT (Test A)(Drivers ATi 3.10)Geforce FX 5950 MSI (Test :((Drivers Nvidia 53.06 (unofficial)Resolution: 1024 x 768 (Test1 16 Bit), (Test 2 32 Bit) Test A (Radeon ATi) TEST1: Constant FPS: 71.5TEST2: Constant FPS: 77 (100% ATC) (I let fs build a/c for 5 mins, maybe that's the reason why I got higher FR's?)TEST3: 71 (Zero ATC)TEST4: 58 (100% ATC) As I loaded the test scenario, I immediately noticed the constant shimmering and blurriness of the textures in both FS2002/2004 and now MS Train Simulator, which for me distracted from the enjoyment of flying. By way of example any letters or wording in either game appear blurred and smudged, like the A/C registration number or frame rates/coordinate counter. I must admit although the frame rates are very good, in my opinion the image quality ispoor on this card. Although I have to say things have improved a little bit with the latest Radeon 4.1 drivers, but unfortunately, I didn't have the time to replicate the tests with these new drivers. But the quality of the image seems to have improved. Test B (Geforce 5950) TEST1: Constant FPS: 55TEST2: Constant FPS: 50TEST3: 37 (Zero ATC)TEST4: 36 (100% ATC) On loading up the test scenario, I immediately noticed a huge improvement in quality, although the frame rates are considerably lower, by almost 50% in some cases ! However, the images are sharper, there is definitely more depth to the views, (more autogen / trees are visible), no blurred lettering on A/C registration numbers or on the frame rate counter. Both the water and night effects are absolutely stunning and really seem to come alive with this card, and are far more noticeable than when using the ATi Radeon card. Finally the big plus for me is that the screen refresh rates are higher, (120Hz in 1280 x 960 x 32 bit resolution). These of course can be changed in the display properties using the Nvidia settings. Something that is difficult to achieve with the ATi card unless of course you download the Tweak utility from www.rage3d.com I am still amazed at the difference in Frame Rates. It is interesting though, because as you fly into add on Airports like Gary Summons EGCC, Simflyers KEWR / KDFW, the difference between the two cards drops to around 6 FRPS. By way of example, at KDFW (notoriously harsh on Frame rates), I use to get 5 FPS (on my AMD 2100xp system) with sliders set to max and traffic (FST) set to 100%. I now get 20 with the ATi Radeon and 15 with the Geforce FX, in my standard resolution of 1280 x 960 x 32bit. The highest Frame rates I get when looking at the sky with my Ati card were 125, and with my Geforce that drops to 55! What a difference ! But the difference in quality and depth of image is far superior on the GeForce FX 5950, so I guess that's the system I will stay with, especially now I have had the invoice for the second card! I gave up on the Nvidia 52.16 and 53.03 drivers as the frame rates were appalling for such a powerful card. Instead I downloaded the unofficial 53.06 drivers from www.guru3d.com which improved the frame rates by around 15% on average. Conclusion: If you want higher frame rates and can accept lower quality images then the Ati 9800 XT Is an excellent card. However if you can accept lower frame rates, but demand higher quality screen images then the Geforce FX 5950 is superb. I hope the above helps. Best Wishes,Chris

[Guest Bigshot]

Don't buy that. The only thing Nvidia has to offer these days is spin. Here's a poll that hardocp did a while ago. There ended up being over ten thousand responses with ATI coming in at over 90 percent. Believe the users:ATI image quality is much better than Nvidia. Always has been. Even back in the days when ATI was having all kinds of driver problems, their image quality blew away Nvidia's image quality. ATI's AA is far superior to anything Nvidia has to offer. If Nvidia doesn't do well with its NV40, it'll be history in the graphics card war. Right now, Intel is in first place, ATI is in second place and Nvidia is in third place in market share for video card sales. http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbottled/hardpoll.jpg Ask yourself why; why are there so many textures being uploaded to the libraries without any mipmaps? Running an ATI card, I've got to add the mipmaps back into all those textures. So they look halfway decent. And I very seldom have any problems with any blurred textures with mipmapped aircraft textures and they look a hundred percent better than a nonstandard nonmipmapped texture. And I never have any problems with blurred textures in the terrain. Who's having the problems with blurred mipmapped textures? It's not a problem with an ATI card!! I could speculate; but I won't.

[Guest Hanse_1]

Hello!And thanks for your comments!Hans HermanssonSWEDEN

[Guest Hanse_1]

Hi!and thanks for your elaborate and expert advice;I certainly appreciate it and will use your datafor myself; obviously you get better image qualitywith the GeForce 5950.Thanks again.Hans Hermansson SWEDEN

[Guest ChkSix]

My Radeon pro 9800 produces blurred images and some artifacts. The drivers always seem to be buggy in one way or another as well. This doesn't bother me much since it isnt in the machine I use to FS, however I thought you might want to know.MikeP4 2.4C @3.44 285FSBAsus P4C800 Deluxe1gb Corsair XMS PC3500 Asus V9950 FX5900 Ultra 256mb 500/950SB Audigy2 Platinum ExWatercooled baby!!!Pics: http://community.webshots.com/user/chksix2002