Dudes,
About 3 weeks ago, I bought a new ATI graphics card since my GF4 had burned out and was non-functional. Well, I install the thing with Omega Cat drivers (they rock), and test it on my software. It was the first time I had ever gotten the BSOD with XP ever in my life. After a day of optimization, most things are running smoothly, so I go out and get Farcry. "No", my puter says, "Not even when hell frezzez over will you run this game." I was like OMG! This card is for the most part twice as fast as my old GF4 ti4600 128mb card. Well today, I became fed up with it. I went back to Fry's and exchanged the ATI for a Geforce fx 5600 256 card and all my computer can say is "Thankyou, I won't melt when you play LOMAC anymore."
Now, the whole conspiracy theory of mine is that how does everything work great with nVidia and goes from bad to worse with ATI? Even with new XP service packs, re-formats, driver rollbacks and updates (LOMAC players KNOW what I'm talking about), this ATI's performance is mediocre at best with all the tweaks in the world? I know that most devs get freebees from nVidia in terms of hardware. Yet, everywhere I look, I see the logo; on walls, magazines, games, and websites. It's getting as bad as the Budwieser ads in Texas! Ads are one thing, but come on, now we have to buy the bloody video card that the friggin game was 'optimized' on? Who's with me here?