3dfx's 1.03.00 Voodoo 5 drivers (Geometry Assist = even slower)

[xtreme2k]

there

even slower with 'geometry assist'

great 3dfx
keep going

'hardware TnL' done by the host cpu with SSE and E/3dnow!
wow

 

[Czar]

Great, software T&L, I thought they just wanted to do it hardwarely, like FSAA. Even though 3dfx's FSAA and nvidia's FSAA are both software no matter what they say.

 

[xtreme2k]

now they are calling software TnL hardware

great
what next?

 

[LXi]

<<Even though 3dfx's FSAA and nvidia's FSAA are both software no matter what they say.>>

3dfx's FSAA is software?

 

[xtreme2k]

it depend what u take software means

you can also say geforce's FSAA is hardware

 

[Marty]

AFAIK, the T&amp;L option only works in D3D right now anyway, so the Q3 benches are pointless. And the one D3D bench is far from conclusive too.

Marty

 

[yo2tup]

it's slower for pIII's, but it's faster for Athlons. read this thread..
http://www.3dnow.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/013819.html

 

[Deeko]

Here's a quote from me in this thread:



<< Ok, I ran some benchmarks with the 1.03's. Here's the setup:
Ok, I ran some benchmarks with the 1.03's. Here's the setup:
TBird 800@952(119MHz bus)
K7M
224MB PC100 RAM
Voodoo5 5500(normally at 177, but I left it at 166 for this)
SBLive!

I ran UTbench with all details up, min desired framerate at 0. I also did a few Quake III tests, and as much as I hate 3DMark, I tossed it into the mix. I have some comments at the end.

1.01 drivers
UT(D3D) - 640x480 - 41.25
UT(D3D) - 1024x768 - 36.47
UT(Glide) - 640x480 - 39.37
UT(Glide) - 1024x768 - 37.37
Q3 - 640x480(fastest) - 108.4
Q3 - 640x480(all maxed) - 89.7
Q3 - 1024x768(all maxed) - 64.9
3DMark - 3330

1.03 drivers(first number defaults, second number AGP 2x, geometry
assist, LOD @ -.75)
UT(D3D) - 640x480 - 37.28 - 38.17
UT(D3D) - 1024x768 - 36.11 - 36.81
UT(Glide) - 640x480 - 40.52 - 41.05
UT(Glide) - 1024x768 - 37.84 - 38.05
Q3 - 640x480(fastest) - 108.8 - 112.3
Q3 - 640x480(all maxed) - 95.3 - 94.6
Q3 - 1024x768(all maxed) - 71.5 - 71.1
3DMark - 3850 - 4330 >>



Looks faster to me....the slight drops in Q3 have nothing to do with geometry assit, but rather the LOD setting....if I changed nothing else, changed the LOD to -.75 lowers my FPS by about 2....so since it went down by less than that it is an improvement. But the only test there that takes advantage of the geometry assist is 3Dmark, and it is higher

EDIT: a type or 4

 

[Goi]

The new 3dfx &quot;Geometry Assist&quot; is simply SSE/3DNow! optimizations for the D3D software TnL HAL. It will increase performance for applications that make use of D3D's own TnL engine that MS wrote. This engine is NOT optimized nor updated frequently, but only with each release of 7.1, so it is not optimal. Without the &quot;Geometry Assist&quot; the D3D application will default yo D3D HAL, where everything(rotations/transformations/translations/lighting etc) is done by the MS code.

However, if a game has its own TnL engine, it will probably perform better than 3dfx's &quot;Geometry Assist&quot; since the engine is specifically written for the game and has better optimizations. If you compare apples to apples you will see that 3dfx's &quot;Geometry Assist&quot; is a good thing.

 

[thorin]

&quot;AFAIK, the T&amp;L option only works in D3D right now anyway, so the Q3 benches are pointless.&quot;

OMG I hope everyone dumps on them like they did to nVidia when nVs FSAA was only working with 1 API.

Thorin

 

[IBMer]

<< OMG I hope everyone dumps on them like they did to nVidia when nVs FSAA was only working with 1 API. >>



It is only an option under D3D, go troll some where else.



<< Great, software T&amp;L, I thought they just wanted to do it hardwarely, like FSAA. Even though 3dfx's FSAA and nvidia's FSAA are both software no matter what they say. >>



3DFX FSAA is completely Application and API independent. It simply needs to be turned on. It works with every game. All the driver troubles the NVidia had with FSAA in D3D shows that it is a software solution.

 

[3dfxAlf]

Okay, time to clear up some misunderstandings (not that they haven't already been addressed by others but my 2 cents here):

We're not calling this T&amp;L at all, either software or hardware. We are calling it Gemoetry Assist in order to prevent exactly this confusion. So if you are going to slam us for saying we have T&amp;L, you're looking a little to hard for a reason to be mad at 3dfx.

There's no shortcoming on our part because it only works in D3D. It's only available in D3D (as has been pointed out here) because it is already in OpenGL. D3D is the only API in which the option is relevant, which is why it's the only API in which the option is there (unlike FSAA).

GA is an option to increase performance and indeed, it does exactly that. If it doesn't give you a boost for a particular set of circumstances, no one is forcing you to use it. The important point is that it can give a boost and we are giving our users the option in those circumstances to enhance their performance (yikes, what kind of unspeakable cads would do that for their users!?)

Hope this clears some of it up!

 

[Wingznut]

&quot;...you're looking a little to hard for a reason to be mad at 3dfx&quot;

Ain't that the truth!

Anyway, the new drivers gave me a significant performance increase. You can check out the benchmark results (including new and old drivers) in this video forum thread.