Why does AH seem to work so much better with Nvidia?

[BigR]

I have been going back and forth between nvidia and ATI(AMD) since I got rid of my Voodoo2 about 15 years ago. They have both always made decent cards and I never really had any real issues with them until a few years ago when I bought an AMD 6870. It ran AH well enough but I always had strange issues where my frame rate would drop out of nowhere. Other Strange things would happen as well. I replaced that with a 7850. Frame rate issue went away, but i started getting crazy graphical glitches. My brother has Nvidia and I noticed that his nearly identical system didnt suffer such problems in AH. On top of that, when you enable the new "shiny" effects on the nvidia, you can actually see the effect. When I do it on my 7850, nothing seems to happen. It just sits there and the frame rates go to crap. Anyway, I was getting frustrated so I ordered a GTX660 as a stop gap until I totally upgrade my entire system in about a year or 2. Everything is awesome now. Game runs flawlessly. Colors look way better. Its like an entirely different game. What I don't understand is that my AMD cards always worked great in every other game. I have had no problems at all except in AH. Do the AMD drivers just not play well with AH? Has anyone else noticed Nvidia's superiority in AH?

[BigR]

eh..meant to post this in the Hardware forum. Doh.

[save]

Some games suffers with Nvidia , and some game suffers with AMD, by design.

I think Nvidia/Intel might be a better dollar/performance for AH2, but might lose in other contests specially with maxed out anti-aliasing etc.

[Masherbrum]

My 7850 has absolutely no issues running this game, nor did the Crossfired 5770's before it.   

[ink]

I got an old 4830 works like a charm....

[Gman]

I went back to nVidia with my latest builds myself.  One thing I will say is that SLI makes almost no difference performance wise with FPS in AH2 as does just a single 680 video card.  Lesson being, listen to Skuzzy when he says the SLI profile from nVidia has never setup well with Aces High.

I`m not sure of xFire has the same result with the AMD cards, but I would advise anyone going for big performance to stick with a Titan over 2 680s in SLI, or even just get one 680, if AH2 is the primary focus of your gaming existence. 

[715]

I get serious graphical glitches in AH on my 7870 (single frames where half will be a white horizontal bar or many objects, such as trees, will suddenly be rendered many feet in the wrong place, again for a single rendered frame).  I also get constant Z-fighting issues for many objects, like the long barns or even vehicles.  (Z-fighting is where the card renders something that should be blocked by something else in front, for example showing the textures of the inside of the long barn instead of the outside, when viewing it from a long distance, or showing the silos in front when they are really in back.)

[Gman]

715, have you tried changing to different drivers?  That sounds a lot like driver issues, try uninstalling them, running a driver sweeper/cleaner, and then re installing the latest drivers for 7870 cards. 

[bozon]

Some games suffers with Nvidia , and some game suffers with AMD, by design.

I think Nvidia/Intel might be a better dollar/performance for AH2, but might lose in other contests specially with maxed out anti-aliasing etc.

Other games don't matter. There is only AH.

[TequilaChaser]

Heya BigR,  my Daughter's PC needs a replacement video card........ PM me if you are wanting to part with either that 6870 or 7850 ATI card ..... ( or if you want to part with both of them )

I myself have used both Nivida on 2 pc builds for AH that currently have no issues ( all though they are older video cards ) and my personal (2) current PCs use XFX AMD/ATI cards with no issues in Aces High.......  one has the XFX 6870 1 GB vidcard dual cooling fans, and the other uses an XFX 6950 2 GB vidcard dual cooling fans........

I can not tell a difference in visual terrain effects from the Nvidia 1 GB cards over the XFX ATI cards...... I do research my drivers though.....

not sure if this is of an help

<S>  BigR

TC ( Johnny )

[Max]

Tequila C ~

Strong chance I'll have a Evga GF 9800 GTX+ card coming free in a few weeks...maybe less. Interested?

[TequilaChaser]

Tequila C ~

Strong chance I'll have a Evga GF 9800 GTX+ card coming free in a few weeks...maybe less. Interested?

sure Max,

Jamie isn't picky, LOL....... just shoot me a PM.......... thanks Bro

<S>

Johnny ( TC )

[BigR]

Heya BigR,  my Daughter's PC needs a replacement video card........ PM me if you are wanting to part with either that 6870 or 7850 ATI card ..... ( or if you want to part with both of them )

I myself have used both Nivida on 2 pc builds for AH that currently have no issues ( all though they are older video cards ) and my personal (2) current PCs use XFX AMD/ATI cards with no issues in Aces High.......  one has the XFX 6870 1 GB vidcard dual cooling fans, and the other uses an XFX 6950 2 GB vidcard dual cooling fans........

I can not tell a difference in visual terrain effects from the Nvidia 1 GB cards over the XFX ATI cards...... I do research my drivers though.....

not sure if this is of an help

<S>  BigR

TC ( Johnny )

TC,

I always use the latest drivers from AMD, especially with the 7000 series because the original drivers were so horrible, and they have made quite an improvement in performance since then. AH being such a nitch game, there really isnt much driver specific information out there to draw on, especially for newer cards. I never had bad frame rates with the 7850....just strange flashes on the screen randomly, and only in AH. My 6870 was the same way....it had different issues, but only in AH. I tried 3 different power supplies, all of high quality. I reformatted my machine and that didn't make a difference either. I would say its some other hardware issue, but what makes me stop is that no other games have these problems. In the past year on my 7850 ive played Fallout 3, Skyrim, WOW, The Old Republic, Sim City, TF2, Borderlands2, Bioshock Infinite, and some others im forgetting now. They all played flawlessly on the 7850. I dunno...I am not going to worry about it anymore. I have enough crap to deal with  . I am happy with the GTX660.

I am currently using the 6870 in a hackintosh build and it runs fantastic in that machine. The 7850 is going to a buddy that is running an HD4000 without a dedicated video card. He hasn't had the funds to finish his system, so I was going to hook him up. I do tend to get my hands on extra parts pretty often, so if I come across a decent video card anytime soon, I will let you know.

[TequilaChaser]

I understand BigR, ... I do recall a few AH patches updates ago that HTC did address an anomally that was to do with
issues that some ATI video cards were having/showing in game... if I recall correctly, it actually was regarding the
same problem you have described... I don't know which exact update it was in without going back and researching the
version changes.... Which is hard to do on this mobile phone I'm on right now....

I appreciate the thought,  but Max has my daughter's videocards need taken care of,  but thank you
for offering, BigR, it is gratefully appreciated, Sir!!

Cheers

TC

[715]

715, have you tried changing to different drivers?  That sounds a lot like driver issues, try uninstalling them, running a driver sweeper/cleaner, and then re installing the latest drivers for 7870 cards. 

It has the latest driver that supports XP (which isn't the very latest driver available).  Thanks for the idea though.