Is the IQ of 1900XTX that much better?

Sorry if this link isn't allowed, I'll post it anyways...
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6145814/index.html
If it gets deleted then basically Gamespot have a pretty good system for comparing image quality, even if the article is a bit iffy. The image quality difference is most noticeable in 3DMark where the Geforces put jaggies on everything. I was planning on getting a 7900SLI setup, but after realising the IQ really wasn't that impressive I think I'm gonna hold off for a while till the next gen, doesn't seem like much point in having the ultimate rig if it can't even AA with HDR.

That review shows Nearly identical image quality on EVERY game aerlix. Only reason 3dmark looked better on the X1900 was because of AA vs no AA.

Again I say it by the way, AA + HDR is only usable in 2 games, Far Cry and Serious Sam 2. On everything else that uses FP16 HDR it's too slow to work.

HL2 and AOE3 doesn't use FP16 HDR, which is why it works on NVidia cards with AA as well.

That review DOES put to rest the whole "OMGz0r ATi IQ IS TH3 PWN@GE!"... They both produce an image that cannot be chosen as better over the other.

No more said, Case closed, END OF DISCUSSION.

Ok fair do's, there really isn't much difference at all, certainly not as much as people make out. But it was still there when you look at the zooms. Anyway I guess if you are thinking about a 7900GT then why bother caring? I do think the difference was big enough to take into account when considering an $800 investment though.

Ditto.

FWIW, I'm b!tching more now that I've moved from 7800GTX to an X1900XT. Then I find out each one of my IQ issues was being duplicated by another guy on rage3d forums with both cards in tow. :p

My only conclusion was that I'm not b!tching about framerates as much with the ATI part, so now I'm pickin' on IQ!

Also, ATI's CCC has a slider called, "Saturation" under AVIVO that finally does the equiv of DV in NV's panel. Here's a SS. Funny thing is, I don't need it. Default value looks as good as NV's DV up to medium or so.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...Saturation.jpg

having moved from a 7800gt to x1800xt (not the same thing as 79gt -> x19xt, i know) i would say Ati has better IQ, but i must admit i may not have had a full fiddle in the Nvidia CP.

All i can really say is, both are more than sufficient, however Ati on High Quality in driver looks far sharper on textures than Nvidia set to high quality (again, in drivers).

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Originally Posted by Jodiuh

FWIW, I'm b!tching more now that I've moved from 7800GTX to an X1900XT. Then I find out each one of my IQ issues was being duplicated by another guy on rage3d forums with both cards in tow. :p

My only conclusion was that I'm not b!tching about framerates as much with the ATI part, so now I'm pickin' on IQ!

Also, ATI's CCC has a slider called, "Saturation" under AVIVO that finally does the equiv of DV in NV's panel. Here's a SS. Funny thing is, I don't need it. Default value looks as good as NV's DV up to medium or so.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...Saturation.jpg

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Isn't AVIVO 2d, not 3d? Infact, according to ATi's website, it IS for 2d and not 3d.

I am in the same anguish as the rest of you. I'm going to upgrade very soon for Oblivion, but I'm so unsure. I know I've liked all my ATI cards (that actually works), but I haven't had since 9600. I know I'm not too fancy about the IQ of my current 7800GTX SLI configuration, however it's the best performing solution (well duh!) I've had. If I go 7900GTX I'm 99% I'll go SLI, however with X1900XTX I'm probably not going CF (since I currently have an NF4 mobo I just bought lol)...

One thing I've heard a lot about the IQ on ATI is that it's most visible in actual motion and thus it's very hard to appreciate just from a screen shot or two. Can anyone verify this? Thanks!

~ Kris

I loved the saturation slider when using CCC when I first got my X1800 card. I am not using the Omega drivers however and I see no options in that driver for AVIVO so I guess I have to do without the saturation slider as it appears to only be present in CCC. I do find it made the desktop etc much clearer and colours had more punch.

there's not much of an upgrade to go from 7800GT to 7900GT other than a few extra FPS which I'm not really lack of with resolution max out at only 1280x1024, I decided give ATI a try and ordered the retail version of SAPPHIRE X1900XTX from newegg, it will be here tomorrow so I'll see how I like it :D :D

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Originally Posted by ben805

there's not much of an upgrade to go from 7800GT to 7900GT other than a few extra FPS which I'm not really lack of with resolution max out at only 1280x1024, I decided give ATI a try and ordered the retail version of SAPPHIRE X1900XTX from newegg, it will be here tomorrow so I'll see how I like it :D :D

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If you haven't sold your XFX already, please give us an IQ comparison! I have XFX cards too and I was thinking of Sapphire as well (or HIS for its slightly better cooler). :)

no I haven't sold it so definitely can compare them ;)

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Originally Posted by ben805

no I haven't sold it so definitely can compare them ;)

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Excellent! I'm eagerly awaiting your results!

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Originally Posted by krille

One thing I've heard a lot about the IQ on ATI is that it's most visible in actual motion and thus it's very hard to appreciate just from a screen shot or two. Can anyone verify this? Thanks!

~ Kris

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2 words for you...

LAN Party

There's a 250 person party here in 10 days. I'll try to arrange something like that with another lanner.

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Originally Posted by DilTech

[H] found shimmering on both NVidia and ATi's latest offerings.

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One of the lamest, biased, most misleading comments I've seen on this board.:stick: :stick: :stick:

Here is a quote to clear up the slop Diltech just implied.


"Shimmering, Oh My!

There you go, yes, I said it, “shimmering.� Specifically “texture crawling,� caused by either aggressing filtering or really bad LOD. I notice it using the Dell 2405FPW LCD. I believe the brighter contrast and crisper image coupled with the fact that the screen is just physically larger at a higher resolution all amplifies the problem and makes it extremely visible. I don’t notice it in all games, but there are a couple games in which it did negatively impact my overall level of gaming immersion. While this is another raging Green Vs. Red argument found many places on the Net, we have never specifically addressed it as we have never truly seen it impact our gameplay, but that is simply not the case with our 24� widescreen display.

We found in World of Warcraft there was horrible texture crawling on the ground as you walk through the game. It is most notable on coble stone or dirt paths through forests. Comparatively, texture crawling is much worse on NVIDIA GPUs than on ATI GPUs from our experience, but rest assured this is a problem that is present in both teams’ technologies. I noticed distinctly that moving from a NVIDIA-based GPU to the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX or XL very much reduced this “shimmering� problem in World of Warcraft as textures had less crawling. However, there was still some noticeable. Texture crawling is definitely worse on the GeForce 7800/7900 GPUs though. We were using the default driver settings for both NVIDIA and ATI.

We also noticed texture crawling in EverQuest II. Again on the ground, though this game wasn’t as bad as World of Warcraft. I didn’t really notice it or find anything distracting in games other than those mentioned above. It seems that World of Warcraft is the worst of them all when it comes to shimmering, and it was quite distracting on the large widescreen LCD."

Now Skeeter, he didn't mean any trouble...

Anyway, i would like to see one of us here at XS compare them from an unbiased standpoint. As i said in my first post, personally i've never noticed a difference, but i haven't done direct side by side comparisons. i just max games out and enjoy them.

:)

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Originally Posted by DilTech

That review shows Nearly identical image quality on EVERY game aerlix. Only reason 3dmark looked better on the X1900 was because of AA vs no AA.

Again I say it by the way, AA + HDR is only usable in 2 games, Far Cry and Serious Sam 2. On everything else that uses FP16 HDR it's too slow to work.

HL2 and AOE3 doesn't use FP16 HDR, which is why it works on NVidia cards with AA as well.

That review DOES put to rest the whole "OMGz0r ATi IQ IS TH3 PWN@GE!"... They both produce an image that cannot be chosen as better over the other.

No more said, Case closed, END OF DISCUSSION.

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so your opinion is the only one which counts and there is no debate :)

how come some (a decent proportion of ) people (me included) see a difference ?

because we know how to adjust gamma and contrast on our display without needing digital vibrance... as we can see the difference between FP16 and non-FP16 (nill in current games).

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Originally Posted by STEvil

because we know how to adjust gamma and contrast on our display without needing digital vibrance... as we can see the difference between FP16 and non-FP16 (nill in current games).

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And the verdict is?

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Originally Posted by krille

And the verdict is?

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Is this > ATI do not have better image quality than nVidia. It's just something ATI fanboys like to say (but never backup)

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Originally Posted by Pronstar

Is this > ATI do not have better image quality than nVidia. It's just something ATI fanboys like to say (but never backup)

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Nvidia IQ has been noted in every nvidia reviews for years now. But is only visible at high resolutions. I have recommended the 7900GT to multiple people as the IQ is one aspect of the issue, and Nvidia has features ATI doesnt.

My hat off to Diltech for singlehandedly trying to give rebuttals to peopel's answers. He may have his perspective on the issue, but he is trying his best to answer everyone's (onesided) questions so pls dont be too fast in criticizing him.

I'm sure Diltech will agree that Nvidia iq IS an issue...an issue that will probably be resolved by better drivers, and therefore since there is no inherent proof that it is caused by the hardware, no one can say the issue will be there tomorrow. Here is the most recent take on the Nvidia IQ in Bit Tech's Round Up of 7900GTXs:

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Originally Posted by Bit Tech

We feel that NVIDIA's hardware suffers from having lower realistically playable image quality - high quality anisotropic filtering is a given on the Radeon X1900-series cards, meaning that they are in a different league on the image quality front. If you're looking for the best-looking pixels in the business, you should be using an ATI Radeon X1900XT or Radeon X1900XTX. That's not to say that NVIDIA's filtering quality is outstandingly bad, it's just not as good as its competition.

There is also no FP16 HDR and antialiasing support in hardware either. However, we are sure that NVIDIA will encourage developers that take part in the The Way It's Meant To Be Played program to use alternate techniques in order to allow antialiasing to work at the same time as the implemented HDR lighting method.

On the plus side, NVIDIA has succeeded in shrinking the die to 90 nanometres and have released a product with a fantastic heatsink design that whispers away in the background. In comparison, the reference cooler that ATI and its partners have used on the Radeon X1900-series cards is sometimes whiney and loud under heavy load.

If you've got a GeForce 6-series or GeForce 7-series product and you're happy with the image quality that it delivers with either the quality or high quality driver settings, you'll be perfectly happy with the quality delivered by the GeForce 7900 GTX. However, there are some cases where the Radeon X1900-series - with high quality anisotropic filtering enabled - delivers noticeable image quality benefits.

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http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...oundup/17.html

Is this being used as an issue to undermine Nvidia and its sales ? Yes it is and it shouldn't be. OPP, Kingpin, Shamino, Kinc and many others of the top ocers are playing with these cards at around -85C levels and finding them a blast to oc and break WRs with, and if you were to ask them of this they would tell you there are awesome cards worthy of praise even from ATI.

But there comes a time when someone buying a $300, $400, $500 or a $600 card begins to think of these things when making their buying decisions and that is where Nvidia must address the issue now or in the future before it does become a factor...right now, ATI and Nvidia both have room to improve in this area and it isn't a factor big enough to affect the overall performance and value of the cards...yet.

Perkam

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Originally Posted by Plywood99

One of the lamest, biased, most misleading comments I've seen on this board.:stick: :stick: :stick:

Here is a quote to clear up the slop Diltech just implied.


"Shimmering, Oh My!

There you go, yes, I said it, “shimmering.” Specifically “texture crawling,” caused by either aggressing filtering or really bad LOD. I notice it using the Dell 2405FPW LCD. I believe the brighter contrast and crisper image coupled with the fact that the screen is just physically larger at a higher resolution all amplifies the problem and makes it extremely visible. I don’t notice it in all games, but there are a couple games in which it did negatively impact my overall level of gaming immersion. While this is another raging Green Vs. Red argument found many places on the Net, we have never specifically addressed it as we have never truly seen it impact our gameplay, but that is simply not the case with our 24” widescreen display.

We found in World of Warcraft there was horrible texture crawling on the ground as you walk through the game. It is most notable on coble stone or dirt paths through forests. Comparatively, texture crawling is much worse on NVIDIA GPUs than on ATI GPUs from our experience, but rest assured this is a problem that is present in both teams’ technologies. I noticed distinctly that moving from a NVIDIA-based GPU to the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX or XL very much reduced this “shimmering” problem in World of Warcraft as textures had less crawling. However, there was still some noticeable. Texture crawling is definitely worse on the GeForce 7800/7900 GPUs though. We were using the default driver settings for both NVIDIA and ATI.

We also noticed texture crawling in EverQuest II. Again on the ground, though this game wasn’t as bad as World of Warcraft. I didn’t really notice it or find anything distracting in games other than those mentioned above. It seems that World of Warcraft is the worst of them all when it comes to shimmering, and it was quite distracting on the large widescreen LCD."

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They say, right there, it happens on both... Right along with what I said. So, what's the problem?

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Originally Posted by DilTech

They say, right there, it happens on both... Right along with what I said. So, what's the problem?

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I'm afraid in today's world of reading headlines, Dil, you need to point out where in the review it says otherwise people don't read it ;)

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It is most notable on coble stone or dirt paths through forests. Comparatively, texture crawling is much worse on NVIDIA GPUs than on ATI GPUs from our experience, but rest assured this is a problem that is present in both teams’ technologies.

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Perkam

Ah, thanx perkam... I forget that alot of people don't read entire articles(I'll admit, I've been guilty of it too), they just skim to find what helps their argument and ends it off there.

Apparently WoW is the game that's trouble for the 7900's though.

I'm still trying to get familiar with this ATI card and overclock it, haven't pay any attention to the IQ yet but the text looks like shiit during POST and in dos environment, remind me of those cheap 8mb pci video card back in the days, the text are very choppy...maybe it has something to do with my Venus.


Flash the new bios for Venus, but damn man....dos environment still looks like crap!! I don't get it....how can a $500 video card display such suck shiit text, everything looks normal as soon as the Winblows loaded up but man this is a turn off :stick: