ATI Rage Fury

[AuraEdge]

When I first saw this card, I dismissed it as being a weak overpriced card. Now that I take another look at it, It seems a great card. I know it has excellent DVD decoding and almost every available grafix support (Bump mapping, etc). I aloso read that it has better image quality than the TNT and has TV Out. I wanna ask if TNT or TNT2 has its DVD decoding qualitys and if TNT2 will support any more grafix tweaks than TNT (I think TNT only has OpenGL and multipass) and if in what ways, if any, does the TNT beat the ATI rage Fury

[harddisk]

If i m not wrong, ATI doesnt have hardware Bump Mapping.

[AuraEdge]

Im reading from PC Gamer June 99 p 162 end of first column
It sez Bump-mapping (embossed textures). Is that the same as the bump mapping the Matrox has?

[BBA]

It's not Hardware bump-mapping, its software support for bump mapping.

It compares to the TNT in all respects but you cant play games with it, because it smooths out video by buffering the whole 32M of data before redrawing the screen. What really happens is when you play Q2, you feel like your drunk and your actions have a 1/2 second delay. No ****... IT SUCKS!

Its desktop quality is excellant though.

BBA

[Exile]

The fury, and all rage 128 cards, use embossing, which is a form of multitexturing. This works, but it takes a lot of CPU cycles. TRUE bump mapping is also called environment mapping

[BBA]

As a matter of fact, I feel guilty about recommending it to my freind. After putting it in his P2 450, then playing Q2, we decided it must be defective. He exchanged it for another one and same thing.

Bummer!

Oh well, buy a V3 or TNT2 instead!

[harddisk]

I dunno which bump mapping the matrox use...I know tat the PowerVR uses perturbed bump mapping....

Dont really understand abt this bump mapping thingy...

[Bleeding Edge]

Go with BBA's recommendations. I'd lean to the TNT2. If you get the V3, choose the 3500 model, or better, the yet unreleased 4000 without the initial hardware bugs these early V3 seem to have.

As to DVD, the following are some quotes clipped from the stockmarket finacial pages.

Dated April 29th.

NVIDIA and InterVideo Deliver WHQL Certified Software DVD Playback for RIVA TNT
WinDVD's Breakthrough User Interface Combined with Leading Graphics Technology Delivers Consumer-Quality Software DVD Solution to Mainstream

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 29, 1999-- NVIDIA(TM) Corporation (Nasdaq:NVDA - news) and InterVideo, Inc. announced today that InterVideo's WinDVD(TM) software DVD player, when combined with NVIDIA's RIVA TNT(TM) 3D processor, has received Windows® Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) certification for high quality, full frame rate software enabled DVD playback.

This new DVD software playback solution is the first to successfully pass Microsoft's rigorous test requirements and achieve the WHQL logo of certification for the RIVA TNT. The WHQL certification was run on a Micron(TM) Millennia® Pentium® II 450 MHz system.

WinDVD's impressive list of features includes an advanced intuitive user interface, software video window scaling, software and hardware sub-picture alpha blending, software video signal de-interlacing, and software color and brightness control. WinDVD includes state-of-the-art support for VCD disc and MP3 audio file playback, DVD region control and the most powerful and responsive DVD navigator in the industry.

``We've proven that consumer-quality software DVD playback is possible on standard PCs equipped with our RIVA TNT family of processors,'' stated Dan Vivoli, vice president of product marketing at NVIDIA. ``Combined with WinDVD's outstanding user interface and navigation system, this new offering is the consummate DVD player for the mainstream PC market.''

EDIT

Oh. And Edge.. keep digging deep into daddy's pockets. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif



[This message has been edited by Bleeding Edge (edited 05-02-99).]

[BBA]

Well, I just downloaded the latest candidate drivers for the ATI Fury. They improved on gameplay delay over the shipped drivers, but with a P2-450, I still couldnt get decent play out of it at anything above 640x480 8 bit res.

In other words, buy a V3 or TNT2!

BBA

[Mikes110]

BBA, what games are you playing? I have a celeron 400@450 and it works fine for most games. I havent bothered to check the framerates, because there hasnt been any problems? I run quake2 at 1024x768@32bit and its smooth. The drivers you want to check out are a www.rage3d.com. I hope this helps you with your card. I do have to admit its not the fastest card I have owned,I sold a TNT to get it because I have an ATI TV ISA I want to use with the fury. ATI just forgot to include a decent driver for its card no big deal right???? I am still waiting for the drivers for the TV card its been 2months and still no driver, ATI claimed it would be the end of april and nothing.

[BBA]

Playing Quake2 on the internet and getting smoked when I use the ATI in his PC with my config's. He has the same 2way cable connection I have andthe same controls, the same PC basically (BH6, P2-450 in his, Celeron at 464 in mine)

Maybe it's a bad card, but it's already been returned for the same reason, SOB's wont give money back or take an exchange for a TNT.

I'm bummed out with it!

If you think your ATI doesn't suck, then your invited to play on my server at 24.129.79.241, see if you can keep up with a Joystick driver!

BBA

This thing sucks compared to my TNT

[This message has been edited by BBA (edited 05-03-99).]