worth upgrading my gaming rig to an ATI card?

[CC_machine]

current setup:
Athlon x2 4200 (2.00ghz)
512mb ddr2 ram (i know, needs upgrading)
PCI-Express NVidia 6600 256mb
160GB sata drive.

are ATi's drivers mature enough to buy for a gaming setup yet? i really would like to support them; considering their open source driver offerings.

if so, which card should I aim for? i'm completely clueless on the ATI naming scheme. Nvidia's is simple: generations of cards as the x***, then *y** denotes how powerful they are within that generation. first digit is usually the most important except when the second is under 6 or so (e.g. the 7900GS is more powerful than the 8500GT.)

[chalewa]

i personally hate ati drivers. nvidia seems to get much better support.

[CC_machine]

i personally hate ati drivers. nvidia seems to get much better support.

i hear they have improved very much as of late, ever since the AMD takeover.

[chalewa]

i hear they have improved very much as of late, ever since the AMD takeover.

don't get me wrong, they have improved a lot. i am running the latest ati drivers on my computer but there is a still a ton of video playback issues, with and without compiz on.

and if you are talking about gaming, i would want a card that would not be harnessed by drivers.

[Pumalite]

Nvidia is the way to go.