Best card for develop whit LeadWerks

[mathfly]

HEllo evryone

 

yesterday my video card let me down. RIP( 8800 gts 320)

Now i really don't know witch one to choose ati or nvidia.

advices are welcome

[Canardia]

It's an interesting question, as I also switch from times between ATI and nVidia.

My last ATI was X800XTPE, and it was a very good card, and it still is.

Today I have nVidia 8800 GTS 640MB, and it has been for 3 years a very good card also.

 

Of course my nVidia is better than my ATI since it is one generation newer (DX9 vs DX10 card), but if I want to buy a better card, I can't really find one.

nVidia's GTX 280 is not really worth the upgrade, since it doesn't bring any benefits over my existing card:

I can still run Crysis with satisfying speed at Very High mode.

 

The only reason for me to upgrade would be to look for future development, which means: 64-bit GPU.

The limits of 32-bit GPUs are really completely outdated. People are talking about GPU tesselation, and with a 32-bit GPU you can't even cast shadows further than a few kilometers away before they get unusable inaccurate at the projection position (you see the shadow being off by many centimeters when you're away from the light source about 1-2km).

 

Since my 8800 GTS supports OpenGL 3.2, but not fully OpenGL 4.0, the deciding factor is to get a 64-bit card which supports OpenGL 4.0 fully.

nVidia seems to have only 32-bit cards, while ATI has been pushing even to 128-bit GPU and 16/32 core CPUs for a while.

 

When there is a OpenGL 4.0 game engine on the market, I will buy it. And then I will need to buy a 64-bit GPU also,

and at the moment it seems only ATI can deliver that.

[Josh]

For the best combination of value and performance, I say the GEForce 9800 GTX.

[Pancakes]

yeah i upgraded from a 8800gt and to be honest there isn't that big of a difference between 8800gt and the one i have now that's in my sig i forget what it's called

 

the biggest difference was getting a new processor from by old q6600 to what i have now because it relieved a bottleneck

 

so 9800gtx is a good value, the rest of the cards are a waste of money relativly speaking

[Canardia]

But he already had a 8800, so the 9800 would be just a replacement, no new technology.

Then it depends if he just wants to get his PC working again, or at the occasion get a next-gen card also.

I would probably get a next-gen card which will not be outdated for the next 5 years, since the current AAA cards can't even run games at FullHD resolution. 1680x1050 seems to be the absolute maximum to get decent FPS at fullscreen.

[mathfly]

i m more searching a card for replace the 8800 whit better memory off course and power. i regret it.

i looking on nvidia 250gts 1g, but i read about ATI 5770 will be better.

So it most a card for waiting 1,2 year before new generation. Play games and of course make game.

It was a time where it was easy to follow technologies and know which materials feat ours needs.

[Canardia]

I just looked at current cards and the ATI 5970 is damn cheap, only 400€ (remember it should last for 5 years). I would have expected to pay over 600€ for a next-gen card:

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2009/11/19/ati-radeon-hd-5970-worlds-fastest-graphics-card-amd/

Specs: 128-bit floating point HDR rendering

 

Comparing 5970 and 295 specs I found some wierd things:

nVidia says the 295 has only OpenGL 2.1 support and DirectX 10 support.

ATI says the 5970 has OpenGL 3.2 support and DirectX 11 support.

 

Even my 8800 drivers say they support OpenGL 3.3, so why is the 295 so bad?