Tom's Hardware Guide has done up a pretty good review of STO:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/star-trek-online,2553.html
Seems the reviewer enjoyed his time in STO and had some very positive things to say about it. The nice thing about this review, as opposed to many we've seen already, is that performance is actually tested and charted quite nicely for both Nvidia and ATI hardware. The only downside being that the benchmarking was done at the end of Open Beta, and so is not very properly representative of current game performance since recent patches and newer drivers have come out and improved graphics performance significantly since then.
I can say from personal experience that the ATI scores are on the lower side of where they should be now, but as I said before, these tests was run before official launch so don't reflect current performance numbers.
Comments
I am planning to upgrade soon. Currently I am rocking a ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe with a Dual-core AM2 Athlon 5600+, 2 Gb of DDR 2 800 RAM, Win XP Pro (32 bit) etc. etc. and the previously mentioned 8800 GS. The game runs smoothly at 1280x1024, which is my monitor's top resolution. I'd like a monitor upgrade, but that is not a top priority. I will be replacing my motherboard, CPU, RAM and vid card though.
To be honest, I'm unsure why with an AMD system you'd be preferenced towards Nvidia when AMD makes faster graphics right now as well. I'm less then fond of Nvidia at the moment due to how far behind they are on current generation hardware. They are over half a year late with the new generation and even after they release it, it's going to be months before they're even available. Even if your upgrade puts you in an Intel setup like mine, I still heartily recommend AMD Radeon 5800 series over anything Nvidia has to offer.
Nvidia is also suffering shortages of last generation hardware as well, leading to higher prices for lower performance. This is a bad time to be an Nvidia fan.
Don't get too excited about those tests. That's what I was saying above, that these tests were preformed on beta code of the game with older drivers. AMD cards have seen several driver releases since then, with performance boosts along the way that change that graph up quite a bit.
Really? I'm not on a cutting edge card and bugs that were causing rubber-banding, etc, were fixed which did help with stability but overall performance wasn't really improved.
I'll read this as my next purchase will probably be a AMD/ATI setup. I got burned years ago by ATI so I've been leery of going back to ATI cards but as you said, Nvidia is way behind the curve now. I've always had good luck with AMD so I'm hopeful they've improved ATI.
Don't get me wrong, Nvidia won't stay behind forever, but right now they are not the top choice. That's not to say they're a BAD choice. Just not my personal first choice, right now.
I agree about the "burned by ATI" thing, they've had some real ups and downs, much like Nvidia has though. ATI has improved their game dramatically since being bought by AMD, and have in the process helped AMD through a rough period where AMD's traditional market, CPUs, has been hurting due to Intel competition.
At this moment in time, my recommendation for top performing systems is an Intel/AMD mix, Intel CPU (i5/i7) with AMD 5800 series GPU. Recommendation for best bang-for-buck though is an all AMD system, CPU and GPU. Phenom II competes with i5 very well and costs quite a bit less, platform wise. 3 months from now my recommendation may be totally different. Never get roped into a single brand. Even when one brand screws the pooch and falls behind, don't count them out and keep your eye on them for a come back. AMD did it. Intel did it. Nvidia has one up their sleeves right now, it's just taking them a bit to deal with how floppy their sleeves have been lately
I just went in and adjusted settings a bit, I take my previous statement back. I can run at higher settings than in Open Beta (even though Nvidia hasn't released newer drivers). I can still run EVE at higher settings than STO, but now but at least it looks better.
Now that I'm older, I can't upgrade as often or "the Boss" will get mad at me. I also travel for work quite often, so I like "desktop replacement" laptop so I can game on the go. My next will likely be a ASUS G73j Which is the Intel / ATI mix you mention. That is if I can talk by work-boss into it or "the Boss" if I buy it myself.
Yeas, and Nvidia has since released the 196.21 drivers that solved the majority of the issues Nvidia cards were having with the Cryptic MMO engine, and have improved performance on Nvidia cards since since the open beta too; so the point is moot on that score.
Err, I don't know what card you're using, but since the end of OB, performance has gotten worse, especially on ground missions, shadows and textures still flicker, and dynamic lighting/post processing still cause crashes.
I'm using a pair of Radeon 5870's in CrossfireX setup, exactly as listed in my sig, and while CrossfireX itself doesn't seem supported yet by STO, Dynamic Lighting is working fine with ZERO crashes for me since moving to Cat 10.2.
The "shadows flicker" thing is the only remaining bug. No textures ever flicker, but then I use SSAA, not default MSAA like you may be.
Performance has measurably gotten better since end of OB on both my dual 5870 rig and on my single 4870 with only 512mb vram on it. Both perform much more smoothly. The only thing off is shadows, since lighting on high covers proper shading on your ship itself.
It's very narrow. It provides generalizations about the gameplay but no specifics. It leaves me wondering if the writer played the game for more than 15 minutes.
It was really more of a benchmark feature than a game review.
Funny thing for some of you then, because over on Rage3D forums, I'm not the only one that 10.2 fixed DL/PP crashes for.
Just did exactly this. My old system was a Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 on an Asus P5Q Pro motherboard, modestly overclocked to 2.8GHz, and a nVidia 8800GT video card. Whenever I fired up STO the fan on the nVidia kicked in at full speed which made for a loud system as well as 20-25fps performance.
Over the weekend I overhauled my system and installed a Core i7-860, Asus P7P55D EVO mobo, and ATI Radeon 5850HD overclocked to 765MHz - WOW, what a difference. Now running STO in 1920x1200 fullscreen with all graphics settings maxed out and getting 80+ fps, AND the fan on the video card still runs at idle...
AMD/ATI has historically had notoriously bad drivers on any system other than Windows. That is why I choose NVIDIA. I use Windows to play games, and Linux for everything else.
Fanboi's are morons. You will belittle a professional reviewer with a journalism degree, but then proceed to tout a blog as a credible review. GTFO
Historically, yes, I would agree, AMD's past Linux drivers were less then steller. But that is history. AMD Linux drivers have been rock solid for over a year now, not to mention open sourced and third party versions are now available.
But sticking with Nvidia for Linux, just out of habit, is a safe bet. Understood.
I completely agree, notice the reviewer's screenshots indicate hes only a LT, wonder if it would be the same coming from an Admiral (Doubtful). I was semi-satisfied as well in the first 5 days i was playing.