ATI vs. Nvidia cards for UT2/Unreal 2

[rh71]

It may be a bit early to ask, but I wanted to get opinions...

I know Nvidia has pretty much taken over the video card wars (at least in popularity) and so the programmers are probably coding the UT2/Unreal 2 for the Nvidia chips.

Now I have the opportunity to purchase any ATI video card for 50% off... will I be at a disadvantage with an ATI card (even top of the line) ?

Thx.

[Tetris L]

The results differ slightly, depending on what driver version you use and what built of the Unreal engine, but overall the ATI Radeon 8500 is about equal to a regular GF3. The Radeon8500 has even slightly superior hardware, but the GeForce3 compensates that with better drivers.

The GF4 (non-MX) clearly beats both the GF3 and the R8500, but due to the very restricted availability and the resulting prices I guess a GF4 isn't an option anyway.

The Unreal Performance Test 2002 gives you a better idea of the cards performance relative to eachother.

I'd say: If you can get a Radeon 8500 at 50% off, GO FOR IT. It's a very good card hardware-wise and over the months ATI will hopefully optimize the drivers and erase all bugs.

[RegularX]

and remember that the games abusing these new cards aren't coming out tomorrow. So if you can get a high end ATI card for 50% off ( ) then you should be golden for a while.

Personally I liked playing the new games on lower-than-the best thing out there and then swapping it out later. Makes the appreciation a bit sweeter.


rgx


(oh and double on the GF4 non-MX thing ... see the Geforce3ti200 thread)