Hi Elrond,After I read your post then read the comparison, I emailed Brent to thank him for his work, and to reassure him how important it is to us. I'll let him know about the replay functionality if / when he gets back to me. I sort of don't want to flood him with another email so soon after the first :-)As for my card choice, I agree with what you say. I'm sort of hoping that ATi will follow the Nvidia lead and go to a 0.13 micron process soon. It concerns me a bit to be buying that sort of horsepower on the larger 0.15 micron die, even though I am sure it is thoroughly engineered and the layout of the 9800XT is improved as regards heat dissipation.

Although I think these benchmarks are fairly useful on a like-for-like comparison, I'd like to see the fps counter when the image quality is matched, not the settings. The ATi AA implementation is effectively one notch ahead of Nvidia at this time. Radeon-4xAA = Nvidia-6xAA. That is clear from the screenshots, and is regardless of the AF level in use.It's odd that the AF was not functioning correctly on that rig and I think that needs looking into before too much store is placed by these benchmarks. Also, note that certain FSAA values are no longer achievable on the new NVidia ForceWare drivers (to give them their proper name). Quincunx settings have gone for example, and some of the supersampling levels are not currently active (I hope these may be achievable with a patch script).To my way of thinking Nvidia have got closer to the Radeon performance levels for a given control panel setting, and are achieving better performance levels than before on relative settings, but if you turned down the Radeon so that the IQ matched the Nvidia it would probably cream it in the fps stakes. And there isn't actually much scope on the Nvidia card to turn up the settings very much - AF is already maxxed out and the FSAA is the only real level worth changing. LOD remains a question as the patch scripts from RivaTuner don't appear to work yet."Horsepower is no good if you can't lay it to the ground"Allcott

No freaking way would I put up with that terrible ground texture blurring on the FX5950 just to get 3 or 4 more avg FPS - that's the whole reason why it's "faster" than the 9800 anyway - Nvidia lowered the image quality in exchange for speed. My next video card will be a 9800, absolutely no doubt about that.Ryan

>No freaking way would I put up with that terrible ground>texture blurring on the FX5950 just to get 3 or 4 more avg FPS>- that's the whole reason why it's "faster" than the 9800>anyway - Nvidia lowered the image quality in exchange for>speed. My next video card will be a 9800, absolutely no doubt>about that.>>RyanGo read the new stories at Anandtech and Toms'....seems 3 Game makers (not NV) are accusing ATI (and the visual proof is there) of lowering image quality to get better fps. In the recent comparisons, NV's image quality is better, though ATI does better smoothing of Vert and Horiz artifacts. Some of the pictures are quite interesting! But form your own opinion...after doing proper research. The ATI's have certain gotten my interest over the past 2 years (specially in 4 to 8x AA mode!) , yet they still exibit the same frustrating driver problems, an issue that I've never had long with an NV card....you always have so many to choose from. The new FX5700 looks pretty interesting....no way I can spend $400-500 for a card....but $200....much better!I also like that one of those sites is including F1C from EA in their benchmarks...another of my favorite Sims.....

Hey Paul,You're right of course... I took no more than a glancing look at the shots yesterday, so I just took a closer look at them again. Indeed, either the 52.16's are artificially restricting AF or his setup was wrong when he took those shots on the 5950. Either way, that would of course explain his numbers for FS if he had the same settings during the runs.I'd not be surprised if Nvidia artificially locked the AF to lower levels in these drivers, however, since they've screwed with tri filtering as well. Doing this to become "competitive" in fps scores really turns my stomach. This, for me, is a huge disappointment coming from NV in such a blatant fashion - specially after the high profile discussions about such things the past few months.I haven't and won't have the time to test the 52.16's myself for a while, so I'd be interested in hearing any results you might have yourself.Take care,Elrond

ATI is using IBM's 130nm process on the new 9600XT, so your hope has come to pass, so to speak :-).Take care,Elrond

What about FSAA, visibility, 3D cloud settings and traffic percentages? These things all have an impact on frame rates.TonyDigital-Flight

Hi Allcott,From an IQ perspective, I agree that it would be important to see an additional set of runs with identical IQ settings. But I wouldn't like to see the straight comparison replaced with such a test. Most people set the same settings they hear others are running well with, so that should be the same focus given in the reviews (as done now).You're right though, having an additional apples to apples comparison would add so much more to the reviews. It would also place more pressure on NV and/or ATI to get back to comparable settings instead of cosmetically "tweaking" their drivers for ghost gains.A great suggestion to write the review sites with.Take care,Elrond

Hi Tony,Exactly why continued pressure from the entire community here and elsewhere for a built-in FS benchmark from MS is important. One that keeps settings exactly the same between runs, and includes its own feature rich measurement tools. If only a few keep asking for this, exactly repeatable benchmarks will continue to be extremely hard to do in FS.We *all* need to come together on this issue, specially since so many hardware sites are finally attempting to use FS as a valid bench. Thats good for FS visibility in the market (and thus, MS's bottom line) as well as us as enthusiasts.Take care,Elrond

Jetninja; read Hanner's reply to Tom's allegations:http://www.elite######s.com/page.php?page...ad=1&comments=1.

>Jetninja; read Hanner's reply to Tom's allegations:>>http://www.elite######s.com/page.php?page...ad=1&comments=1.Nice read, but they were not "Tom's" allegations, they are from 3 game companies. Tom's is not the only site reporting them either. Anandtech is also putting together a special focus on PQ and how its dealt with on these various cards.I'm waiting to hear from ATI. Nonetheless, I've been so close to grabbing a 9500P/9600P but forum after forum for the games I like (EA's F1 series, MS FS/CFS, and WWIIOL) I read about display problems with the ATI's by most. This gets old after 6 years! Maybe they are fine in whatever shootem up the wider population of teens and young men play with, but for my sims I expect the card to work too....

Actually, to be unambiguously clear, they were not Toms allegations and they were not "3 game companies" allegations.All three are Nvidia allegations made during one of the slide presentations at their recently finished "Editors Day" event (similar to ATI's "Shaders Day" event). Nvidia contacted the game developers for their input after they made the allegations.Lets keep the murky water as clear as possible here, because those two companies are doing as much as they can to churn the water brown for each other.Take care,Elrond

>ATI is using IBM's 130nm process on the new 9600XT, so your>hope has come to pass, so to speak :-).>>Take care,>>ElrondExellent! That could well be the card I will get then, because I am after IQ, not speed :7

>Hey Paul,>>You're right of course... I took no more than a glancing look>at the shots yesterday, so I just took a closer look at them>again. Indeed, either the 52.16's are artificially>restricting AF or his setup was wrong when he took those shots>on the 5950. Either way, that would of course explain his>numbers for FS if he had the same settings during the runs.>>I'd not be surprised if Nvidia artificially locked the AF to>lower levels in these drivers, however, since they've screwed>with tri filtering as well. Doing this to become>"competitive" in fps scores really turns my stomach. This,>for me, is a huge disappointment coming from NV in such a>blatant fashion - specially after the high profile discussions>about such things the past few months.>>I haven't and won't have the time to test the 52.16's myself>for a while, so I'd be interested in hearing any results you>might have yourself.>>Take care,>>ElrondHi Elrond,As per the 52.16's...Trilinear is broken when you select "application mode" no matter if you choose TF in game, any game, this is progress?However you can still force All AF levels no problem there. Also as others have found out some AA modes are missing.For quality 44.03 are still tops as IQ slips from there on after.

>>ATI is using IBM's 130nm process on the new 9600XT, so your>>hope has come to pass, so to speak :-).>>>>Take care,>>>>Elrond>>Exellent! That could well be the card I will get then, because>I am after IQ, not speed :7 Its Nvidia thats using IBM 0.13-micron fab proccess and NVs first card with the IBM chip is the 5700-ultra's.http://www.pcstats.com/releaseview.cfm?releaseID=972However the ATI 9600xt is using a 0.13 fab as well.Nice updated chart to compare all cards:http://users.erols.com/chare/video.htm