Nvidia image quality?

[afterburntdw]

Hi all,

I had an X1900XT 256 version that admittedly wasn't the easiest to use under Linux. I recently sold it with the hopes that an eVGA 8800GTS would solve my desire for easy desktop effects under Linux (And killer gaming under Windoze). Now, I haven't had alot of time to play around with the new card, as I just got it installed last night around 9. But it seemed that the image quality didn't seem quite as good as the ATI card.....I have the latest official drivers for it. There isn't anything REALLY wrong, I just don't see the same quality that I did with ATI....Anyone experience something similar? Any advice?

I'm kind of feeling let down, since the X1900XT was only $260 and this beast cost $449.....

[Michael]

Actually, I just heard the same thing this past weekend from a user who switched from NVIDIA to ATI and was so much more impressed by the image quality. Maybe it's time Phoronix does a large image quality comparison...

[afterburntdw]

Ok, good. I was hoping I wasn't the only weird one!

It's not that the image quality is bad, it's just...Missing something. I can't place what it is, but it almost looks a little fuzzy. I dunno...DirectX10 doesn't really matter to me....Maybe I should have kept my ATI so that the AIGLX extensions could be added!

I will give it a little while, but I may be asking if someone wants to buy a slightly used 8800GTS

And yes, let's bring on the image comparison!

[joshuapurcell]

The only thing I can say about this is that I notice bad quality on certain resolutions in Windows... In Linux I haven't tested out anything other than 1920x1200. Try a different resolution and see if the quality changes at all. I am very impressed with my 8800GTS... I wouldn't trade it for anything else (well maybe an 8800GTX). The image quality on my current setup is better than I've ever seen, and I've had Beryl, Quake4, and a couple of other games in Windows running so far.

The thing that sold me on ATI was what you mentioned first... the support for Nvidia on Linux is far superior than ATI.

[MU_Engineer]

Originally Posted by Michael

Actually, I just heard the same thing this past weekend from a user who switched from NVIDIA to ATI and was so much more impressed by the image quality. Maybe it's time Phoronix does a large image quality comparison...

I think so. I used to have an NVIDIA 6200TC and its image quality was not nearly as good as my Radeon x1900GT's. I notice the same thing in "the other operating system" too. I thought that it might just had been the fact that the 6200TC was the weakest PCIe graphics card available and the x1900GT is far from that, but apparently it's in the chip design instead. Interesting.

And I didn't have very much trouble with installing the ATi drivers either. Setting up NVIDIA TwinView took a little fooling around and it's certainly comparable to setting up an ATi GPU in dual-head mode.

[afterburntdw]

I posted the same question about image quality on another site. The response that stood out to me was this:

"There is absolutely no question that ATI has superior IQ versus the 7x series cards of all types.

There is absolutely no question the 8x series of Nvidia cards has better IQ quality than ATI. What you are seeing is either a result of a driver issue, incorrect settings, some kind of malfuntion, or your eye not being used to a different and superior representation of a similar image.

This is a very common occurence in audio and visual changes as the viewer or listener experiences a different and sublte increase in quality i.e. headphones, CRT - LCD, VHS to DVD, analog - digital."

I've pretty much eliminated my settings. I have them all tweaked for quality over performance. I believe the card is working correctly, and I know my LCD is. Driver issue is a very real possibility, especially since it is a completely new design. So maybe it is just my eye not being used to it? I haven't had a video card hurt my eyes before - This was killing me after a few minutes of gameplay. The only thing that makes me nervous is that I have only 30 days to return it to Newegg....So I better make up my mind fast!

[Janusz11]

I just changed from an ATi Radeon 9800 PRO to a nVidia GeForce 7600GS and I'd say that the image quality has definitely improved.

[1c3d0g]

I was about to say the same thing. Last year I've moved from a Radeon 9800 Pro to a GeForce 6600 GT and IQ has been so much better it's unbelievable, no more "crawling" on textures, artifacting on the shotgun in Doom 3 magically disappeared etc. It's the best investment I've ever made, my eyes certainly thank me.

[joshuapurcell]

Originally Posted by afterburntdw

I posted the same question about image quality on another site. The response that stood out to me was this:

"There is absolutely no question that ATI has superior IQ versus the 7x series cards of all types.

There is absolutely no question the 8x series of Nvidia cards has better IQ quality than ATI. What you are seeing is either a result of a driver issue, incorrect settings, some kind of malfuntion, or your eye not being used to a different and superior representation of a similar image.

This is a very common occurence in audio and visual changes as the viewer or listener experiences a different and sublte increase in quality i.e. headphones, CRT - LCD, VHS to DVD, analog - digital."

I've pretty much eliminated my settings. I have them all tweaked for quality over performance. I believe the card is working correctly, and I know my LCD is. Driver issue is a very real possibility, especially since it is a completely new design. So maybe it is just my eye not being used to it? I haven't had a video card hurt my eyes before - This was killing me after a few minutes of gameplay. The only thing that makes me nervous is that I have only 30 days to return it to Newegg....So I better make up my mind fast!

One thing you haven't said is whether or not you've tried many different resolutions. Choosing the right resolution for your setup could very well fix the problem... it did for me.

[afterburntdw]

My monitor is a 19" widescreen with a native rez of 1440 x 900. I have tried other resolutions, but they look terrible.

I'm really unhappy with this card. My games frequently get slowdown and generally choppy. I'm going to RMA it back.