Ah, my trusty Voodoo 3. Thou art becoming antiquated and I must replace thee. I've been really looking forward to some Voodoo 5 action, but since 3dfx is gone there is not going to be much support within a few months. So I begin to weigh the other options. nVidia seems to be the king of gaming right now so they'll have the best compatibility and support, right? WRONG!
Ever since the TNT2's became mainstream I haven't really liked nVidia chips. I had an Elsa Synergy II (TNT2 based) for about a month. I promptly bought a Voodoo 3 when Diablo 2 locked constantly from "issues on nVidia chipsets." I made up my mind then that nVidia can suck it and 3dfx was my card of choice.
I've put together alot of systems over the past year or so and have played with most of the Geforce line. But each time the performance just disappointed me more, I could get awesome performance from an $80 V3 or pay $130 for a lesser card, the MX. I was even able to play with a Geforce 2 GTS with the 64 mb of ram last month, I liked it ok, but it wouldn't even play half the games I wanted to without having issues of some sort! Every forum and support board I went to had dozens of posts about incompatibilites and issues from nVidia chips, but hardly any Voodoo problems out there. Coincidence? I doubt it. Just plug in a Voodoo, and it will almost always work, without a hitch.
However, since 3dfx has died, I wanted to give nVidia one last chance to prove themselves. I went out and bought a Geforce 2 MX. It was an ok price for a card bought locally and not on the net: $130. I brought it home and plugged it in, jumped on nVidia's site and downloaded the most recent Detonator drivers. I turn on UT and play for a few hours, tweaking the settings as I go for best performance, and eventually settle on 1024 res with 32 bit color. It plays well, about 55-60 FPS. But then it comes, LOCK. Thinking the lock was my computer not the video card, I default clock my Athlon to 750 and make sure all the bios settings are nice and conservative so I can have maximum stability to test my MX. I head for UT again, only to lock a few minutes later. Frustrated, I try out some of my other games, Red Alert 2, Klingon Academy. They all play ok, about what my Voodoo does. I'm starting to feel like I never even purchased an upgrade when they all perform the same as they always have with my Voodoo. I'm a MechWarrior fan, so I go to Microsoft and download the Mechwarrior 4 demo and play it. Immediately I lock again! Becoming fairly irritated I check the readme, "incompatibilites with TNT and Geforce based video cards, nVidia is working on the issue." I almost piss my pants. A brand new game, and the supposed KING of gaming can't even play toether!! Severely pissed that I sunk 130 bucks for NOTHING I head for UT and tone down the graphic settings more, I just want to be able to play SOMETHING. Within 5 minutes I lock again.
This, my friends, is why nVidia stinks. All they're concerned about is making the dollars, they don't give a crap about the quality of their product. You can quote me specs about the cards all day, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't change the instability or the incompatibilites. Let's say nVidia really IS working on all these issues. What do I have to do? Update my drivers every other day and hope my game will ever work or not?? That is unacceptable. nVidia is just like Microsoft, they release a new product and are already working on the bug fixes before it even gets in the consumer's hands, now THAT is a SHODDY product. I don't care if 3dfx IS dead, I'm buying a V5, it's a vastly superior product.
Ever since the TNT2's became mainstream I haven't really liked nVidia chips. I had an Elsa Synergy II (TNT2 based) for about a month. I promptly bought a Voodoo 3 when Diablo 2 locked constantly from "issues on nVidia chipsets." I made up my mind then that nVidia can suck it and 3dfx was my card of choice.
I've put together alot of systems over the past year or so and have played with most of the Geforce line. But each time the performance just disappointed me more, I could get awesome performance from an $80 V3 or pay $130 for a lesser card, the MX. I was even able to play with a Geforce 2 GTS with the 64 mb of ram last month, I liked it ok, but it wouldn't even play half the games I wanted to without having issues of some sort! Every forum and support board I went to had dozens of posts about incompatibilites and issues from nVidia chips, but hardly any Voodoo problems out there. Coincidence? I doubt it. Just plug in a Voodoo, and it will almost always work, without a hitch.
However, since 3dfx has died, I wanted to give nVidia one last chance to prove themselves. I went out and bought a Geforce 2 MX. It was an ok price for a card bought locally and not on the net: $130. I brought it home and plugged it in, jumped on nVidia's site and downloaded the most recent Detonator drivers. I turn on UT and play for a few hours, tweaking the settings as I go for best performance, and eventually settle on 1024 res with 32 bit color. It plays well, about 55-60 FPS. But then it comes, LOCK. Thinking the lock was my computer not the video card, I default clock my Athlon to 750 and make sure all the bios settings are nice and conservative so I can have maximum stability to test my MX. I head for UT again, only to lock a few minutes later. Frustrated, I try out some of my other games, Red Alert 2, Klingon Academy. They all play ok, about what my Voodoo does. I'm starting to feel like I never even purchased an upgrade when they all perform the same as they always have with my Voodoo. I'm a MechWarrior fan, so I go to Microsoft and download the Mechwarrior 4 demo and play it. Immediately I lock again! Becoming fairly irritated I check the readme, "incompatibilites with TNT and Geforce based video cards, nVidia is working on the issue." I almost piss my pants. A brand new game, and the supposed KING of gaming can't even play toether!! Severely pissed that I sunk 130 bucks for NOTHING I head for UT and tone down the graphic settings more, I just want to be able to play SOMETHING. Within 5 minutes I lock again.
This, my friends, is why nVidia stinks. All they're concerned about is making the dollars, they don't give a crap about the quality of their product. You can quote me specs about the cards all day, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't change the instability or the incompatibilites. Let's say nVidia really IS working on all these issues. What do I have to do? Update my drivers every other day and hope my game will ever work or not?? That is unacceptable. nVidia is just like Microsoft, they release a new product and are already working on the bug fixes before it even gets in the consumer's hands, now THAT is a SHODDY product. I don't care if 3dfx IS dead, I'm buying a V5, it's a vastly superior product.