Good riddance ``jaggies.'' Those annoying jagged lines and square pixels that destroy graphic realism in most computer games have been banished thanks to the newest visual technologies in the latest gaming PCs.

Jaggies used to be obvious, whenever a computer tried to display an image with straight or diagonal lines. The pixels were so visible that lines would turn into jagged staircases where they should have been smooth. Now machines that sport the latest ATI Technologies Radeon 9800 Pro and Nvidia GeForce FX 5800 chips are so fast that they can display ``full-scene anti-aliasing,'' the technique for smoothing out the jaggies. And they do it even at the highest performance speeds in lightning-fast games.

Once upon a time you could only play a game at the highest speed if you turned off the graphics features. But now the technology can handle both priorities at the same time, at least on the current games.

I compared the ATI and Nvidia chips side by side in the latest Area 51 machines from Alienware. I couldn't tell the difference between the two. But I liked what I saw. Alienware is one of several companies specializing in game machines and it shows. It offers the choice of either Nvidia or ATI graphics, depending on who is fastest any given month.

I also compared Alienware to Dell's first gaming computer, the Dimension XPS. The Dell model is the same as its high-end consumer PC model, the Dimension 8300. But Dell added a bigger 460-watt power supply, a sleek blue case, new software options, and a special technical support line staffed by a volunteer crew of gamers. Subtle differences between the two machines meant nothing to me as far as which was better.

One thing is for sure. This year, graphics on the PC will leave the consoles in the dust. At any given time, there are a couple hundred thousand pixels on an Xbox screen, which has the best visuals among the consoles. But on a new PC there might be a million pixels, making for much better resolution and a better overall visual experience.

Finding the fastest

Now I must admit that I'm not the keenest of heat seekers when it comes to judging how good a game looks on one computer compared with the next. I relied upon Futuremark's 3-D graphics benchmark (www.futuremark.com) to figure out which of the machines was fastest. Each machine I tested had 1 gigabyte of DRAM and a 3.07 GHz Intel microprocessor. (At the time of testing, Intel had topped AMD, which has since come out with an equivalent of a 3.2 GHz chip). And I ran the test at 1024 X 768 resolution.

The Dell machine with the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro scored 5,402 on the benchmark test (higher is faster).
[ The Alienware Area 51 machine with the same ATI graphics scored 5,540. ]
The Alienware machine with the Nvidia GeForce FX 5800 scored only 5,357.
The Dell machine had the advantage of an 800 MHz front-side bus,
but Alienware has already upgraded from its 533-MHz front-side bus to the 800.
As I said, I couldn't tell the difference. Alienware and Dell are trying to eke each other out on performance and price.

I ran a real-world test with Atari's ``Unreal II: The Awakening.'' Played at full speed, the game looked exactly the same on each machine. With the quality turned up, with full-scene anti-aliasing and full anisotropic filtering, the differences were more pronounced. ATI pretty much pulled away from the Nvidia machine, as confirmed by the benchmarks. Nvidia has conceded defeat with the 5800, but it just recently announced a faster 5900. You can expect that ATI will have something new to challenge Nvidia in the future.

If I didn't notice much difference in graphics, I noticed even less difference in monitors. CRT monitors are supposed to be much better than flat-panel displays at responsiveness in games. But again, I saw no difference playing on flat panels or the CRTs. I played the machines on a 20-inch CRT monitor from NEC, as well as Envision's 19-inch EN9110 flat-panel monitor and a Dell flat-panel monitor. Again, I couldn't tell much of a difference.

Dell or Alienware?

It occurs to me that if I can't tell the difference, then other gamers out there may feel the same way. So it comes down to whether you think future games will run better on your Dell or Alienware box, or whether they will run better on ATI or Nvidia chips. And it comes down to price. The systems I've described here run about $3,000, monitor included. Alienware actually beat Dell on price on an equivalent system, but Dell is likely to close the gap.

Unfortunately, the best demo for these machines isn't available yet. ``Doom III'' and ``Half-Life 2'' are scheduled to ship later this year. But then again, by that time there will be new graphics cards available from Nvidia, which in June will ship its new GeForce FX 5900 chip. Nvidia contends this chip will take the speed crown back from ATI. And ATI is sure to ship a new high-end chip as well by the fall.

So what's the best machine to buy? If you're like me, it doesn't really matter. But pay close attention to the shipping date of the newest graphics chips and CPUs if you want to get the best bargain and the best performance.