Rumor has it that 3dfx has a new trick up their sleeve, and it has something to do with this:

[madthumbs]

Michael,
You still didn't give me any tangible evidence that your system is running better than mine. If indeed it is, then you will be the second person I've come across with claims as yours. If my system is running that bad, I wanna know.

If anyone can see anything wrong with my system specs.. please let me know;

Enermaxx 350W P/S model EG-351P-VE
Abit Ka7 w/evaluation RY BIOS and VIA4 in 1 drivers
K7 700 w/900 core @ 850,1Ghz
3dfx Voodoo 5 5500agp
SbLive Value v2(optical out)
2x Micron PC133 cas 2 7.5ns 128meg ram (total 256)
Realtek Ethernet card for Road Runner modem
Rockwell 56k v90 modem
Promise Ultra 66 IDE controller card
Goldfinger -Maximizer
WinME clean install

Maxtor 20.4gig 5600rpm (5 partitions)
Maxtor 20.4gig 7200rpm (master)
Kenwood 72x
Creative 4224 CDRW
Toshiba/ IBM 6x DVD

Fellow's 4 port USB Hub
Microsoft natural keyboard PS/2
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer USB (original)
HP Deskjet 812c USB
Intel PC cam USB
Logitech Wingman Force USB
Logitech Wingman Force 3D USB
Logitech Wingman Formula Force USB
Logitech Rumble Pad USB
Microsoft Sidewider Freestyle Pro

I've already been through a lot of stupid advice like disabling sound (did nothing) fresh install of drivers (how about a fresh reformat and install of WinME +the latest drivers and 4in1's), disabling unneccessary startup programs, it go's on and on. Nothing I have done has made a difference, and I've gone through a lot of trouble because someone over at 3dfxgamers has people believing that 32bit color/1024x768/4xfsaa should get around 74fps in Quake 3 timedemo 1. I only get 74 fps in Quake 3 at 16bit color/1024x768/no fsaa.

 

[rahvin]

madtumbs

Why don't you answer Michaels question. If in fact you do claim that Q3A is the only game in 2years we can assign your opinions to the appropriate pigeon hole.

 

[Michael]

madthumbs - I don't give a rat's ass about what type of system you have (which is a somewhat more powerful system than I have, but mine is more fully loaded). You said no games released in the last two years. If you want to just discuss Q3a, then say so. If you want to spend your time tweaking your system and running benchmarks, more power to you. Twice so far you've not answered me while responding to my question. When it comes to you having a negative opinion on what other posters have to say, you've now moved into my "pot/kettle/black" category.

I played two games of NHL 2001 last night at 1024x768 with 4xFSAA and there were ZERO slowdowns.

I think I'm beginning to see why the mods at 3dfxgamers banned you.

Michael

 

[ElFenix]

i'm guessing windows millenium is part of your problem... its a lot slower than 98. and did you bother with the driver settings that are in the 1.03 versions? thats where most of the perfomance gain is made.

 

[Hardware]

Ahriman6:
Just to support "old" Geforce cards and to counter any possible 3dfx threat!

 

[KingDeviant]

People like Madthumbs really annoy me, claiming a significant speed advantage for the Geforce over the Voodoo 5500 by using one game to prove his point. Why is this kind of narrow-minded attitude so common on these forums? I have a Geforce 2 and my friend owns a V5500. We often play LAN games side by side and the only games I have ever seen a discernible difference in playability in were based on the Unreal engine (i.e. Unreal Tournament and Dues Ex), both favoring the voodoo 5500.

Having a concern over the lifespan of the Voodoo 5500 would be the only valid concern I would support, and even that is based on speculative support for hardware T&L in future games. To make blanket statements dismissing the Voodoo 5500 because its not fast enough is both close-minded and uninformed.

 

[Wingznut]

I don't know what to tell you, madthumbs... But I get around 80fps in Q3, at 1024x768x32 High Quality. You sure that you are using the v1.03 drivers?

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

Basically, it comes down to this. I have a V5 5500 - am i going to get some drivers for software HSR?

 

[Soccerman]

let's hope so! 3dfx needs all the help they can get to gain their throne back.. we need more competition, and it appears that 3dfx is finally lowering their prices a generous amount!

 

[BFG10K]

Weyoun:

All in all, makes some pretty snazzy 16-bit games

Yes it does and it's a major plus for 3dfx IMO. A lot of old games only run under 16 bit colour and the image quality on the Voodoo 3 is better than any other video card (in 16 bit colour). Also you can avoid memory bandwidth issues by running in 16 bit mode and then getting a nice image quality boost.

When I was running Return To Na Pali on my GF2 MX in 16 bit colour I noticed it had more banding in the sky than my Voodoo 3 did. Of course you can run it in 32 bit colour which is better than 22 bit, but you get my point. I assume the Voodoo4/5 also have this 22 bit rendering scheme? 3dfx would have been crazy to drop it.

DaveB3D:

On the ulrs to the articles, you need to add the /old/ like in the main url. then the articles will work.

Thanks. I'm reading the articles right now. Very interesting...

Sephiroth_IX:

I have a V5 5500 - am i going to get some drivers for software HSR?

Just make sure you have a decent CPU and you normally run games at high enough resolutions to be fillrate limited.

Soccerman:

we need more competition, and it appears that 3dfx is finally lowering their prices a generous amount!

They really need to lower the price of the Voodoo 4.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Nah, I like how 3dfx has things set up.

If somebody is going to spend $150 to buy a video card, they'll see the V5 for a "measly" $50 more and will opt to get the better card. I fear that this price drop is going to kill margins on this card. Currently, RAM costs half of what it was when the V5 launched and I imagine the VSA's yields have improved a bit. But do this decrease in manufacturing cost warrent a 1/3 price drop?

3dfx is going to sell a crapload of the 5500's for Christmas at this price, that's for sure. Hell I was just at Best Buy and for the first time, they were completely sold out of the V5's (still had some V4's left though - Hmm... sounds like my theory is holding some water, eh?)

 

[oldfart]

Wow, I had to come in here and see what this huge thread is all about. I didn't read though all that much of it, but I have one urgent question:





WHO KIDNAPPED THE BFG10K ANTI-3DFX ZEALOT WE ALL KNEW SO WELL AND PUT THIS IMPOSTER IN HIS PLACE?

It looks like Hardware will have to do it alone. Nice change

 

[Soccerman]

nah BFG is still as neutral as ever.. he just had a bad experience with a Geforce MX..

 

[DaveB3D]

I might be rubbing off on him.

 

[Weyoun]

BFG10K:
yes, 3dfx kept the postfilter for the entire voodoo range, including the v4/5. there was as issue a while back where the postfilter was kept on even when working with 32bit colour, but this was later disabled in another driver revision. hope this helps you

if 3dfx dropped the price fo the v4 down a bit, i'd recommend one to a friend of mine, he wanted good 2d (17" or 19" 1280+@75hz+), and some 3d so i thought this would be the good way to go. did i make the right choice? he's pretty budget limited though..

as for the old BFG, i think it was the MX that he bought that might have turned him off nVidia I can still see some old BFG lying in the corpse though

now is it just me or has 3dfx's situation picked up a mighty lot in the last few weeks? lower prices, rumours of new drivers imminent, back to making chips, high performance discovery on these boards, the list goes on. i just hope the future is this bright for them

 

[madthumbs]

Haa!; to all the sarcasm here. For one, Quake 3 is one of the few games that I know how to benchmark. I have NHL 2001,and NFS PU; can you tell me how to benchmark them? I'm not going to argue with you about wether a game is playable at certain settings or not, that is opinion, and a waste of time dicussing. I see no valid arguments on anyone's behalf when they can't include benchmarks with their claims. In NFS PU I have tried playing this in 32 bit color 2x FSAA, and 1024x768 and it is simply choppy. I could see someone thinking it was playable at that, but I'm not going to tolerate watching the trees on the side of the road jump from location to location, I'd rather play in 16 bit, or no FSAA.

As for my being banned from 3dfx, it had a lot to do with someone that was stalking and harassing me. Because there was a female on a male dominating board she got a lot of attention. She befriended a moderator there who allowed her harassing posts to remain on the board, while deleting anything I had to say. I reported it, but got a "sorry, if you said something earlier...." BS response along with an apology later for the moderator's incompetence. The harassing picked up again, and nothing was done to prevent it, so I just started harassing back. Incidently there were a few males who thought with their head and saw what was going on there.

With all the insulting, and sarcasm here, this board is beginning to look like the 3dfx message board which I am proud to no longer be a part of. The focus of a message board should be on information sharing, not who can lob the best insult, or harass the most. Think of how good this message board would be if insults weren't here! If I wanted mindless conversation, I would go back to IRC! I acknowledge that something may be wrong with my system, I am requesting benchmarks and means of benchmarks. There is no point to insulting me for my "opinion" on wether a game is playable at certain settings or not. Not a single one of you helped me here to determine if I'm doing something wrong, or my situation is different.

IRC or Anandtech?

 

[rahvin]

<<? I'm not going to argue with you about wether a game is playable at certain settings or not, that is opinion, and a waste of time dicussing.>>

Then why are you trying to argue it?

 

[madthumbs]

I want benchmarks, I don't care if people think that 15fps is playable, I wan't to know exactly what they are considering playable.

 

[Milhouse PEZ]

Ok folks...time to close this thread down.

 

[Wingznut]

Bite it, grinch-boy!

 

[Hardware]

To go back! to the topic: are the (future) HSR drivers for the V5 a hoax or something confirmed by 3dfx?

 

[BFG10K]

WHO KIDNAPPED THE BFG10K ANTI-3DFX ZEALOT WE ALL KNEW SO WELL AND PUT THIS IMPOSTER IN HIS PLACE?

nah BFG is still as neutral as ever.. he just had a bad experience with a Geforce MX..

I might be rubbing off on him.

as for the old BFG, i think it was the MX that he bought that might have turned him off nVidia I can still see some old BFG lying in the corpse though

There was nothing inherently wrong with the GeForce 2 MX (I don't think the board was faulty either). It just wouldn't play well with my monitor. The Quake 3 image quality was superb and fast and enabling S3TC wasn't that bad. I ended up returning the board yesterday because I just couldn't fix that stuck resolution/60 Hz issue.

Anyway the old story of you don't know what you had until its gone is certainly true in this case. Basically I noticed a few things that 3dfx have done right that I was pretty much ignoring until now. While I don't agree with their multi-CPU approach or their lack of T&amp;L, they really do have stable drivers and hardware, hardware which just plugs in and works straight away.

The fact that they produce WHQL drivers is not to be taken lighlty: it means a lot. Also I think 3dfx's driver control panel is better than nVidia's because it has more options and is laid out better. And the last obvious advantage they have is their superior 16 bit colour, and since I play Unreal a lot that makes a big difference to me.

So what's my next upgrade? A Coppermine Pentium 3E (133 MHz FSB) of some kind. That should give me a nice boost from my old Celeron. Then if the Voodoo 4 drops below $100 U.S I'll seriously consider it, given I can't get a Radeon and I don't have a huge gaming budget.

Weyoun:

yes, 3dfx kept the postfilter for the entire voodoo range, including the v4/5.

Yes I suspected that.

did i make the right choice?

He's in exactly the same position as I am. Wait until it drops below $100 and then it might become a bargain like the Voodoo 3 before it.

DaveB3D:

Those 22 bit colour articles were very informative. I'm now reading the T&amp;L articles.

Milhouse PEZ:

Ok folks...time to close this thread down.

Err I don't think so. Why should we close it down?

 

[Michael]

madthumbs - Why don't you just admit that you were exagerating for argument's sake and that you really meant Q3a? There is no built in benchmarking utility in most games. To tell you the truth, high FPS is not the most important criteria for most games.

I provided you two benchmarks. Using my subjective judgement and comparing the FSAAx4 and no FSAAx4 at 1024x768, I have concluded that if there is a difference in frame rate, it is small enough that I do not notice and it does not effect my gameplay.

Note - this isn't just my opinion. Reviewers who have tried games other than Q3a or UT with 4x FSAA say the same.

Whining that I'm not providing Q3a benchmarks simply makes you look more idiotic as the question is not Q3a. You seem to be missing the fundamental difference between games like Q3a which use massive amounts of fillrate to begin with and games aimed at a much larger audience that require far less fillrate. There are a handfull of games that require Q3a's fillrate. Most games released in the last two years require so little fillrate in comparison to what the current generation of videocards have (I'm not limiting this to the V5), that you can use fillrate intensive effects like FSAA and have little to no effect on the speed of the game whilst gaining in visual quality.

Michael