ATi vs Nvidia game performance?

I've only ever used Nvidia GPUs, but they've been outpowered by ATi's offerings for some time. However, I always hear that most games are optimized for Nvidia's GPUs. What exactly does this mean? That ATi GPUs are less efficient with all their processing power? What's the real difference? Visual, performance, or just hoopla?

 

it's hoopla.

 

Mostly hooplah. Though there are a few games more or less intended for specific series of GPUs. Metro 2033 is one of them (GTX 4xx series). I do recall Lost Planet not playing for **** on ATi stuff though. It brought the 4670 I used to have to it's knees. Maybe it was the 128 bit memory interface as opposed to the 256 bit I had in my then-laptop's 9800M (though the 4670's GPU was a good deal faster), which during motion blur scenes really killed the FPS. Not too sure.....

 

What mobius said.

Interestingly, some games, notably Batman: Arkham Asylum, play better on GPUs from the brand they weren't specifically optimized for. B:AA was supposed to be a poster child for what PhysX was capable of, but it ended up having all sorts of problems for Nvidia users, particularly when PhysX was enabled. On the other hand, I never heard of the game causing any problems for ATi users, and I understand it even ran better in some cases.

 

Although I do like Nvidia cards, I don't like the slimy practices of Nvidia. More specifically, their 2 programs known as "PhysX" and "The Way It's Meant To Be Played". Both of these things are scams, bring nothing to gaming other than screwing over the consumer as a whole. Both these programs are essentially ways for Nvidia to pay off developers into screwing over ATI and ATI hardware. Wouldn't it be awesome if everyone competed on a level playing field?

 

hmm, I like ATI since there card worked for me so long in my one laptop I have. heh, other then that it makes me no difference besides defending ati when the nvidia fanbois get to flamboyant and monopolize. It probubly isnt worth defending in the first place since really having only two video card corporations/companys is ridiculous. I think all video cards should just be made with in relation to a motherboard and come in packages. To those who like to upgrade and exchange there is enough inflation and misonceptions in the computer industry that any objections would be a moot. lol

 

From my experiences, nvidia makes great GPU's but terrible drivers..

 

BS! Its ati that make the crappy drivers. Im not saying all of them are bad its just the quality of them are inconsistent. I have owned over 20 different nvidia and 12 ATi cards and I have to say the nvidia drivers are better usually. However ATi have done extremely well in the production of their gpu's in the past 2 generations. They set their price/performance ratio very well.

 

Agreed. I've had much better experience with NVidia and their updates to their drivers than ATi

 

Fixed it for you.

 

ATI makes better drivers than Nvidia? I hope you are joking, dude.

 

Fixed the fix for you.

 

From my experiences, ATI has had better stable drivers than Nvidia. I have a lot of crashing issues I never had with my 4870 on my 460. It is a new card, but at this point I cannot say Nvidia has better support. Also, their control panel is just cluttered, I like ATI's better.

 

i owned nvidia and 3 (technicaly 4 but 2 of them are in a CFX setup so they only count as 1) ati to day and 2/3 of the ati's worked fine no issue the last one was just outdated and would not work with window 7

while the nvidia one i had was just a bunch of issue the driver was all but stable and thanks to nvidia's really clear naming scheme i could never know if it was a high low or med end card
but let's just say it was newer then a laptop ati radeon 9600 pro and could not perform on a similar level whie it was a desktop card

 

I don't think Nvidia drivers being better is no longer justified.

Both AMD and Nvidia have their issues and neither is perfect.

 

In the past 2 years I've had 3 laptops - 2 of them with Nvidia dedicated cards (9600m GT and 260m GTX) and one with ATI Mobility radeon 4650 .
- I don't find any advantages in the Nvidia drivers compared to the latest ATI ones.
- The ATI card runs much cooler than the Nvidia ones.
- The Nvidia cards score better in synthetic benchmarks, but in real world gaming I think that the ATI is doing much better than in the benchmarks. Of course it can't beat the 260m GTX, but it beats the 9600m GT with much more than the 20% shown in the synthetic benchmarks.

 

GTX 260m: MW2 Ultra: 40FPS __ HD 4650: MW2 Ultra: 16.1FPS __ 9600m GT: I'm getting around 20FPS on ultra.

 

But what resolutions? AA?, etc, a comparison is useless without more detail into the settings and other specs.

 

an other thing i noticed if that with an ati runing a 16 fps it seem less painfull then a nvidia runing a 20 i don't know why the number of fps should be the same but it seem like if nvidia had a delay added when fps is goind down that ati does not

 

I think I fixed all the fixing.

 

and I "fixed" the thread.

Thread closed as these types of discussion lead nowhere except bickering.

a4500435,

There are many variables involved when judging performance and just because you hear something, doesn't mean it is always true.

If you have a specific questions about a certain feature or how well a certain graphic card handles a game, make a new thread(after reading the stickies).

If you want to know what will be the best card for your laptop budget, make a thread in the What notebook should I buy forum(make sure fill out the FAQ as there are many important things listed on there that you may not have thought about).