Cavalier before I picked one I made personal comparisons in AH. I didn't have the uber-expensive 64 Meg GF2 to compare to, but as you mention it's not in the same price leage as the V5. I did my comparisons with the regualr 32 Meg GF2.
I have actually set AH up two identical systems at a computer shop, one with a V5 and one with a GF2. The V5's implementation of FSAA is just better. You can't really see the difference until you play, it's the movement thing. What happens is that the GF2's only really do FSAA in one axis, mostly the vertical. Horizontal lines don't work out so well. You really notice it when you are at the dead six of another plane and chasing him at long range. As he tilts his wings a bit you will see the crawling thing going on without FSAA. The 3dfx implementation at 2x removes that effect better than the nVidia FSAA does at 2x2 (pretend 4x). The Voodoo implementation uses a jittering patern, and it anti-aliases everything regarless of it's orientation. Where this shows up in a game like AH is the wings of planes. There are a lot of horizontal lines in AH and it shows the differences more than any other game I've played.
And yeah, it's generally accepted that nVidia's 2x2 (What they call 4x) FSAA is about equal to 3DFX's 2x FSAA. However, can you play AH with a GF 2 with their 4x FSAA enabled? I can play with the V5's 2xFSAA on in every game I have at 1024x768 32 bit color. Very strange that you get a higher framerate at 1280. I can't test that since my monitor would pop and melt.
If you can run your GeForce at that speed, then what kind of processor are you driving it with?
FSAA aside, I find the V5's visual quality to be better. Some of it's just personal taste, but I did set the two up side by side before I picked one. Not much else I can say, it's just my opinion.
BTW, if you hit my site again, at the bottom are the original screenshots. Yeah they are huge, but worth a look if you really want to see what it looks like. The reason I picked GIFs is that a game like AH is basically line art. yeah it has textures, but it's not a photograph. Althought the colors will be off in a Gif, it does not add visual anomalies like jpg compression does, and in this case I think that's the most important issue.
I'm just waiting for SOMEBODY... ANYBODY to make a card that will do 4x FSAA (real jittered 4x) at 1024x768 (or higher) in 32 bit color and get me 30fps minimum. I don't think even the GF2 Ultra will do this right now... not like I could afford one anyway. I think nVidia is doing a better job with their hardware, but I like the direction 3DFX has taken. Going hardcore at FSAA is the ticket IMHO, and I just hope somebody puts out a card with enough horsepower. Unfortunately the limit seems to be video memory bandwidth, so we may not see that card for a while.
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Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs
http://www.flyingpigs.com "A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
