Voodoo II with P200 MMX?

[Cpt. Duke]

Recently I bought a Voodoo2 8mb card and yesterday I installed in a friend's P200 system. After trying to run Half-Life, I felt like a fool -- it's performance was awful! It was definetly less that 10 frames/sec. Using his ATI 4mb card in software mode was faster than this. Is this normal? What kind of performance should I be seeing???

thanks

 

That's an older system and will naturally be slower, but NO that's not normal. Is this a Pentium 200MMX or just plain vanilla Pentium 200? Or even worse, a Cyrix "P200"? If it's either of the later 2, then I wouldn't be surprised that it's slow. There are other factors too though. Like what mode were you trying to run the game in? And what about other considerations like the amount of RAM in his system?

I have a similar setup that I use for a spare computer for LAN gaming (233MMX, 64RAM, Voodoo2 8MB) and it runs the game surprisingly smooth with the miniGL driver. It can bog down some in big online slugfests, but it's still not too shabby for Half-Life and CounterStrike.

 

[Aboroth]

Make sure you try out WickedGL.

 

[Deeko]

Ouch, a 200 MHz CPU outperforming a V2? That's definitly not right...but then again, my TNT2 + K6-2 only yielded 25 fps in QII/III. So the CPU is definitly the biggest limiting factor there.

 

[Cpt. Duke]

Its an Intel P200 mmx, so I was hoping it would at least be playable... It is running under WinNT server, but that shouldn't be a problem. I am going to try installing it on my sister's K6-2 350. Maybe it's a bunk card...I'll find out.

Thanks guys

 

[samoo]

I had the same setup as you pentium 200 and with a voodoo2 and the game ran just fine, no problems at all, that game came out while machines like a pentium 200 were still considered decent

 

[Envelope]

Well, running under Windows NT server might be the problem. How much RAM is in the machine? I wouldn't even attempt to game under NT being the hog that it is without at least 128 MBs...

 

[Cpt. Duke]

The P200 machine has 96 mb. I am not concerned though because he had played Half-life with his ATI card for awhile without any problems (other than poor video performance).

 

[Brian48]

HL is a very CPU intensive game. Performance is much more dependent on the processor than the video card. Try the optimized WickedGL mini driver like these guys said, but don't expect miracles.

 

[BFG10K]

Its an Intel P200 mmx, so I was hoping it would at least be playable

No, the MMX systems are still based on the P5 core and are slower than P6 core (especially in 3D games). A Pentium Pro 200 would yield higher framerates than a Pentium 200 MMX.

 

[TargetDrone]

But the question isn't whether or not a PentiumPro would be faster than a PentiumMMX, it's why is Half-Life so slow. Half-Life is a moderately demanding game, but even a 200MMX and Voodoo2 can play it with some semblance of smoothness. Granted, it's not up to the standards of most of us in these forums, but it can be a very playable on that type of system.

 

[EvilDonnyboy]

the Pentium Pro's weren't all that. They had a longer pipeline to even out the benifit's of it's better cache and integer performance.

plus MMX evens out integer performance even more. and MMX/integer performance is critical in 3D applications. A 233MMX can surpass a PPro 200 in most situations.

 

[BFG10K]

the Pentium Pro's weren't all that. They had a longer pipeline to even out the benifit's of it's better cache and integer performance.

The P6 core supported write combining and various burst modes that the P5 core didn't support. It did make a difference (especially in 3D games) after the proper APIs were available.

And who says the P6's integer core sucked compared to the P5's? I think you're overestimating the benefits of MMX and underestimating the Pentium Pro's core enhancements. MMX wasn't that good.

plus MMX evens out integer performance even more.

Can you say mode switching?

and MMX/integer performance is critical in 3D applications.

Integer performance in 3D apps? I don't think so. I think you mean floating point performance.

 

[mechBgon]

May I suggest using Win95 or Win98 instead of NT Server, unless your friend has specific reasons for needing NT Server on it.

 

[Cpt. Duke]

mechBgon -- I agree but he has 2 other pcs that use it as a fileserver...

UPDATE: I am beginning to think that the card is bunk. I installed in on a K6-2 350 in Win 98 and couldn't get the card to work with Half-Life. Under video settings I selected the 3dfx mini-driver, the "default" driver (which yielded an error message) and I even tried the WickedGL driver (thanks Aboroth & Brian48) Whenever I try to load the hazard course, a new game or a LAN game I just get a frozen screen.

I think perhaps my problem is I don't know the board's manufacturer. (I'm using the Voodoo 1000 ref. drivers) I just bought this last week on this board, but the seller doesn't know the brand either. What should I do, try reinstalling the drivers, ask for the owner to dig and find the board's manufacturer, or return it to the seller? I am leaning away for the last option because I'm not really sure the card is broken... Any suggestions would be SWELL! thanks

 

[Cpt. Duke]

Anyone???

 

[TargetDrone]

Hmmm . . . this is coming out of left field and I'll blame it on the fact that I just woke up. But does the card work with other games at all? Or have you only tried Half-Life (which I understand by the way because all I ever play is TFC). For some reason, I thought I remember reading somewhere that the latest patch caused a problem with some 3dfx drivers (although I was thinking it was the V5). I think the problem was that it was trying to pull the drivers from the wrong directory and you had to either copy the drivers to the proper directory or edit the config file. Or something like that.

That probably doensn't apply here since it sounds like it WILL run with the Wicked drivers for a little bit before locking up. But if it does run fine in other games and only Half-Life was giving you problems, I would recommend asking for help on Half-Life, TFC, or Counterstrike forum.

 

[EvilDonnyboy]

okay. i got a bit mixed-up about the ppro. i screwed up on saying integer performance instead of FP.

But a 233mmx can still beat a 200ppro in most situaltions.

 

[BFG10K]

But a 233mmx can still beat a 200ppro in most situaltions.

Not for 32 bit apps and certainly not for 3D games. For 16 bit apps probably yes.

 

[beat mania]

dude ... does hardware acceleration even work in Winnt ... is it 3.5 or 4.0?