From GeForce 4200 to Radeon 9600 XT

  • Thread starter Thread starter Haqsau
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Haqsau

Just upgraded as in the subject and have not seen much of any speed
increase. Quake 3 is same as before. Unreal Tournament is marginally
faster in the flyby but slower in the botmatch. Star Wars Galaxies is
roughly same as before. Shouldn't there be more of a speed difference?
Both are 128 meg parts. Comp is P4 2.4C, using 1 gig of dual channel ddr.
 
Haqsau said:
Just upgraded as in the subject and have not seen much of any speed
increase. Quake 3 is same as before. Unreal Tournament is marginally
faster in the flyby but slower in the botmatch. Star Wars Galaxies is
roughly same as before. Shouldn't there be more of a speed difference?
Both are 128 meg parts. Comp is P4 2.4C, using 1 gig of dual channel ddr.
Benchmark something that is using DX9
Click to expand...
 
isnt SW:G DX9? anyway, those two other games are probably runnng pretty good
on the 4200 and in DX8 the gforce will be every bit as powerful as a 9600XT.
You need something a bit more uptodate like doom3 or half life2 (although
some gforce cards wont run DX9 on that) or any game around a year old to see
the benefits of the radeon card. Pure fps may not be the best benchmark.
 
the cards except for the dx9 compatibility in the 9600 are about the same
speed.
if you wanted a better upgrade you should have gotten a 9800 or a 6600gt.
 
Haqsau said:
Just upgraded as in the subject and have not seen much of any speed
increase. Quake 3 is same as before. Unreal Tournament is marginally
faster in the flyby but slower in the botmatch. Star Wars Galaxies is
roughly same as before. Shouldn't there be more of a speed difference?
Both are 128 meg parts. Comp is P4 2.4C, using 1 gig of dual channel ddr.
Click to expand...

From this page:
http://techreport.com/etc/comparo/graphics/

The 9600XT has a memory bandwidth of 9.6Gb/s and a peak fillrate of 2000
MPixels/s and 2000 MTexels/s

The Ti 4200 has a memory bandwidth of 7.1Gb/s and a peak fillrate of
1000 MPixels/s and 2000 MTexels/s

So it won't be a massive amount faster, but it will be a bit of a boost.
You will notice the boost mainly in DX9 games, firstly that the image
quality is much better (with the improved support) and the performance
should be better. Older games like Quake etc. you'll see virtually no
improvement because they're already running very fast under the 4200.

Having said that Ive upgraded from a 9600XT to a 9800 Pro as Doom3, Far
Cry and Half life 2 run better for me and I feel its a better match with
my other components.
 
Haqsau said:
Just upgraded as in the subject and have not seen much of any speed
increase. Quake 3 is same as before. Unreal Tournament is marginally
faster in the flyby but slower in the botmatch. Star Wars Galaxies is
roughly same as before. Shouldn't there be more of a speed difference?
Both are 128 meg parts. Comp is P4 2.4C, using 1 gig of dual channel ddr.
Click to expand...

this article should give you a good idea of what to expect
http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html
- you havent increased the number of pipelines - youve decreased the number
of texture mapping units (i think im correct in that) but made up for it in
a large core/memory clock speed increase. Not much of an upgrade. Because
Radeons favour D3D you see an increase there but Nvidias OpenGL driver is
better so Q3, Call of Duty and probably Doom 3 are about the same. Make sure
you use the 4.12 Catalysts - currently the best driver 9x00 cards. Try the
Omega version from www.omegadrivers.net which the one I use on my 9700.
 
Make sure
you use the 4.12 Catalysts - currently the best driver 9x00 cards.
Click to expand...

Hi Sleepy... couldn't help noticing your recommend Cat 4.12's for 9x00
cards. Why is that? is it stability, speed, compatibility with games?

Others' have suggested the latest CAT's are always recommended....
unless a problem shows up then revert to the previous used.

Thanks much if you can shed some light...
 
BuddyWh said:
Hi Sleepy... couldn't help noticing your recommend Cat 4.12's for 9x00
cards. Why is that? is it stability, speed, compatibility with games?

Others' have suggested the latest CAT's are always recommended....
unless a problem shows up then revert to the previous used.

Thanks much if you can shed some light...
Click to expand...

this thread on the rage3d forums will show plenty of ppl think the same
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33814110 - there have been
plenty of reports of ppl having serious slowdown with HL2/CSS and some of
this years Cats. FFS ! A mainstream game like this and ATI clearly didnt
test the drivers enough. The fact they've gone to a
driver-release-each-month is commendable
for some reasons but it also means proper testing isnt happening. It also
seems that ATI are focusing the newer drivers (understandably) on the newer
cards. Nvidia did the same a while back and Geforce4 owners stuck with the
4x.xx dets for performance rather than use the 5x.xxs
 
Thanks all. Just realized it wasn't a fair comparison, the Ti 4200 was
overclocked and the 9600 XT is not. Do 9600 XT's respond well to
overclocking?
 
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