Just a few quick blurbs.;
First, the issues bother me when they goi against the owner/community's wishes. Alot of the issues gave false impressions that were later confirmed by poor performance (no matter what you did). And if one card plays with better IQ AND better FPS, then the cheating just makes it look otherwise (not always IQ cheats).
Their reaction to the issues also bothered me.
The whole thing is just not GOOD no matter how it's painted.
And the issues that actually bother me now are more related to TWIMTBP and CG vs HLSL. I don't like waiting for performance to increase if I'm paying that much for a card. What if my title isn't one that nV feels they wish to spend any time optimizing for (sound like ATI & CS?). To me it's not so much an issue if it's an older game but these will be newer games requiriing these work arounds. IT's just an issue for me, and other may differ. nV's attitude towards a few of these things, and towards every other player (be they gamers, MS, FM, or reviewers) in the marketplace/community just doesn't sit well with me.
Onto the other item;
While nV owns the cheap DX9 market (you figure is actually high, it's just over 50% [around 54%]), that's thanks to it's 73% low-price market share. Ati still owns the mid to high end market, which is where we were really focusing this discussion, and definitely I'm focusing my next pruchase.
As Xbit say about that;
<i>NVIDIA also tripled its sales of the Performance Direct X 9.0 GPUs and grabbed 32% of the market. ATI was flat in terms of units and its share felt [sic] to 68%. In overall, it means that ATI Technologies still sells loads more high-performance DirectX 9.0 parts than the rival. </i>
And considering that most people (or developers) don't look to the FX5200 as being a standard DX9 part, I would think the focus would be on the performance and mid-range market more than the low-end screensaver cards for their optimizing and targeting. Sure it will PLAY on the FX5200 (likely slower than the GF4ti), but you will get the most out of it with an R9600Pro/FX5700 level card and above. I can see it now on the box Requirements : R9000/FX5200 class card 64mb or higher. Requirements for DX9.X effects: R9600P/FX5600U/FX5700U 128mb or higher.
I don't see the FX5200U really playing a realistic role in any future titles, so I don't think that's a valid argument in favour of the nV line. IMNSHO
In any case the next generation is a whole new story, and ATI may very well miss the boat with it's jump to architecture supporting 32bit, but that will only be apparent as preview cards hit the market. And then I will give ATI the one chance that I wouldn't give nV at this point in history.
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