phil stanbridge Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I need a new rig for CMBN - and I'm undecided what to do for the best at the moment. But my choice will depend a lot on whether CMBN performs admirably on ATI/and or Nvidia chipsets. I'm half tempted to get myself one of the new Sandybridge laptops for simplicity sake - if I take this route they have the Nvidia chips. But past experience tells me to hold fire until the game is released. Can you forsee any problems? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pvt. Ryan Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I can foresee problems. But I don't know what they might be yet. I play CMSF with an Nvidia card without any problems, and I don't think that will change with CMBN. But your strategy of wait and see is a good idea. Maybe your current system will play CMBN just fine. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil stanbridge Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 I can foresee problems. But I don't know what they might be yet. I play CMSF with an Nvidia card without any problems, and I don't think that will change with CMBN. But your strategy of wait and see is a good idea. Maybe your current system will play CMBN just fine. I know they fixed the lighting issue recently in Shock Force with Nvidia cards which was great and I hope that they don't have the same problems again in Normandy. But there have always been 'niggles' ever since the days of CMBO. My current laptop will play the game but not particularly well if I use Shock Force as a benchmark. I'm guessing that with more 'flavor' and terrain the game will be slower still for me, hence the upgrade. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 CMBN does proform admirably on both, but I've been relatively unhappy with my old ATI chip. Nvidia seems to do shadows better. I'm no expert on the subject, though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Other Means Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I much prefer nVidia. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RooksBailey Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 nVidia is always the better investment. Always. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Whatever you buy, the month CM comes out that card company will release a buggy driver that will make you wish you bought the other card. And if you go and swap it out, the day you do that the driver for that card will be updated to something with a bug in it. And I'm generally considered an optimist Seriously, over the years we have had significant problems with both cards, but rarely both at the same time. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmar Bijlsma Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Yeah, could go either way if all you are playing is CM. If you play more games nVidia is the better pick, having generally more reliable drivers. They aren't the company they used to be pre 8x00 series but the majority of "my game is broken" threads that I see on the net are still ATI related. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatoichi Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Whatever you buy, the month CM comes out that card company will release a buggy driver that will make you wish you bought the other card. And if you go and swap it out, the day you do that the driver for that card will be updated to something with a bug in it. Ha! That's pretty much exactly what happened to me! I started out on ATI - there was the whole 'left click compatibility' issue with their drivers and CMSF way back in 2007/8 which you guys worked around. I stayed with ATI until a further ATI bug caused CMSF to crash if you used any drivers newer than 9.3 (back in 2009). So I finally swapped over to NVIDIA - of course, pretty much as soon as my new NVIDIA card arrived, ATI fixed their drivers and NVIDIA released a new set that had the 'lighting bug' (which is now fixed by an actual code change in CMSF & CMA and I'll assume in CMBN too). All driver glitches aside, I have to say CMSF and CMA look better on NVIDIA cards on my PC (in my humble opinion of course). So, take from that what you will, but evidently I am a total a total jinx, so you should go with ATI! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 If I'm not mistaken, I think nVidia has generally handled special effects (shadows, fog, etc) slightly better than ATI. So I'd go along with the thinking that nVidia is the slightly better pick. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tank Hunter Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 There seems to be a lot of Nvidia Fans in here even though lightning bug was unresolved for a long time. I always make up my mind on the day that I'm buying graphic cards. First how much am I willing to pay and how do cards in that range perform. I look at ATI vs NVIDIA and then decide. I just built a new PC (Sandy Bridge) and ended up with ATI 6970.It performed much better that Nvidias in same price range and it also included twice as much Video memory. I've tried maximized several games and all of them run perfectly on max settings. These include Bad Company 2 Vietnam, ARMA 2 OA. Call of Duty Black Ops, CIV 5. Funny thing is that CMx2 SF is still laggy on max settings, especially while scrolling around on battlefield. Using slightly less than max settings works fine. This leaves me to believe that there is a lot of work to be done on graphics engine if game that is almost 4 years old is not able to perform on max on high end gaming PC built a week ago. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanzfeld Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 I just ordered a Sandy Bridge as well (i5 2500k overclocked) with a GX580. This is going to be KILLER when I get it. Hopefully next week. Looking forward to Arma2 as I just dicovered that game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottie Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Radeon 6950 fine for CMSF (all options at best setting inc anti analysing) , was on an Nvidia 8800GT prior which was pretty much the same IMO using out of the box CMSF settings. I was always an nvidia fan prior to the 6950 , thought i would take the gamble and save £80 over the Nvidia 570. I use this site for comparisons http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tagge Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 My vote would go to Nvidia too. I mostly play CM and and Lock-On Flaming Cliffs 1.2 and 2.0 and both are OpenGL-games which ATI seems to handle better. But I still traded my ATI-card for Nvidia about a year ago because ATI had serious problems with other games I played (Fallout 3, Oblivion and carsims such as GTR, Race 07, Race On). Nvidia handles them all and when the lightning issue got fixed it pretty much seals the deal. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil stanbridge Posted March 13, 2011 Author Share Posted March 13, 2011 Hmm I've decided to build my own rig as it will work out cheaper in the long run plus it's more future-proofed. The question is, do I opt for a ATI 6950 which has 2gb of memory, (which may help as I have a 24" screen @ 1920x1200), OR do I opt for the old faithful, and purchase a quiet and reliable Nvidia 560Ti, which only has 1GB of memory but it is more likely (possibly?) to give me less hassle in the long run. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulverisor64 Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 I have a graphic card related question which could address Nvidia or ATI. Would CMBN benefit from DirectX 11? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil stanbridge Posted March 13, 2011 Author Share Posted March 13, 2011 I have a graphic card related question which could address Nvidia or ATI. Would CMBN benefit from DirectX 11? Absolutely not, as it uses Open GL as far as I know. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 Confirmed... CMx2 uses OpenGL, therefore cards with DirectX 11 support don't specifically aid CM's performance. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kulik Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 Hmm I've decided to build my own rig as it will work out cheaper in the long run plus it's more future-proofed. The question is, do I opt for a ATI 6950 which has 2gb of memory, (which may help as I have a 24" screen @ 1920x1200), OR do I opt for the old faithful, and purchase a quiet and reliable Nvidia 560Ti, which only has 1GB of memory but it is more likely (possibly?) to give me less hassle in the long run. I recommend to chose some of the overclocked version of 560Ti. Like Asus GTX560 Ti DirectCU II or Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti SOC. More info: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-560-ti-roundup-asus-engtx560-graphics-card-overclocking,2858.html 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveyJJ Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 Confirmed... CMx2 uses OpenGL, therefore cards with DirectX 11 support don't specifically aid CM's performance. Steve Don't talk about stuff like that. The minute you mention graphics the RAVE monster/debacle I'd locked away many many years ago (OSX 10.0) breaks out of the tiny room I trapped him in and causes me to have shortness of breath and start worrying about my platform choice. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil stanbridge Posted March 14, 2011 Author Share Posted March 14, 2011 Thanks for your input guys - I ended up going with ATI this time round. I found a reasonable deal on a MSI 6950 with twin (quiet) fans. I'm thinking this will last me longer as it has 2gb of ram versus 1gb of the 560ti. Time will tell! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 The term "chipset " is usually used for the chips making up the mainboard (sans CPU). NVidia (mainboard) chipsets stink. If you are talking about graphics cards, anybody who buys ATI for any kind of obscure and/or older game is insane. While NVidia had their goofs, too, namely the ****ty state of the initial Vista drivers, the 15 year record of working software is much cleaner than ATI's. ATI's QA department seem to consist of a bunch of twitchy kids verifying that the top 10 selling games work. NVidia does normally comply to the actual API definitions. Of course NVidia also had periods of bad chips and cards but that is covered by warranty, bad drivers are not. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MG TOW Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 ATI uses architecture of design to increase processing power whereas Nvidia concentrates on adding frequency accelerators to older chipsets and giving them a new designation. Both will take older model cards and add more onboard memory and sell them as budget vs performance cards. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroCat Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 I would recommend going with Nvidia based on many years of gaming and PC building. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil stanbridge Posted March 14, 2011 Author Share Posted March 14, 2011 Yeah in my 20 years plus experience of building and fixing pc's I'd generally go with Nvidia too, but I couldn't resist the deal I was offered. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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