Voodoo5 5500 update review suggestions

[RoboTECH]

and for the love of pete, PLEASE include your EXACT, DETAILED benchmark settings for each game, and DON'T enable T&l on the 5500 during MDK2, okay?

ugh...I hate that.......

 

[Pete]

You called?

 

[RoboTECH]

hehehe....

 

[BenSkywalker]

I say use Glide and D3D in UT for the V5, but throw in OpenGL scores also. The 3dfx loyalists always scream about the V5 not having its' API of choice for UT, the nV boards run UT much better under OpenGL then they do D3D. I'd like to see a bench include various APIs under UT, but let all of the boards show what they can do under all the supported APIs. Also thanks for showing the minimum FPS in the latest reviews, I hope this will continue.

Also, I have to put in another vote for Evolva as a replacement bench for UT when looking at D3D. Using the rolling demo you can disable Dot3 and run an apples to apples with the V5 against the other boards, and you can also enable it to show what kind of performance you will see running another board with this feature on(relevant to usability). Evolva is near Quake3 like in benching, great fill test at higher resolutions and decent strain on the CPU in the lower settings. It also reports minimum FPS and is simply a superior bench to UT in nearly every aspect(having to edit the registry to change resolution and color depth is a bit of a pain, but the end results are far more meaningful in terms of overall video card performance then UT which is mainly only good for UT and to a lesser extent UT engined games).

One last thing, please tell us your exact settings for all benchmarks

 

[RoboTECH]

Let's recap what Ben wrote to make sure it happens:

1) Use multiple API's for UT testing

2) Show minimum framerate scores

3) Use Evolva for D3d, it's much better.

4) List exact settings in benchmarking

I recap this because they are important points

 

[Marty]

Just to satisfy a hunch, could you run the the benchmarks with HSR enabled on lower end (500-600MHz) CPUs? I would like to konow if it has any impact on the number of visual artifacts.

Marty

 

[r0d3nt]

Back to the subject.
I'd like you to test every resolution and makes sure there are no visual anomalies ( if there are , enable vsync, whatever) and THEN bench when there are no artifacts.
If there are artifacts , then the benchmarik is useless.

Sorry for the crappy english!

 

[Haervii]

If anyone is still reading this thread, I have but one suggestion: INCLUE 800X600!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THAT RES?

 

[BFG10K]

LXi:

I played original Unreal with a Voodoo Banshee, was never dark in the first place, since UT is out I never touched Unreal anymore.

Apparently the gamma settings did work with the Banshee but they no longer work with a V3.

Tell me, Im I not going to get Glide when I purchase V5? Your reasonings arent justified.

You are getting it, but do you buy the board because you get Glide? I don't. I buy the board for image quality, stability and speed. If Glide comes with it then I'll use it if I can, but I don't consider it a feature in factoring whether to make the purchase. When deciding what board to buy Glide deosn't even enter my mind.

Glide is one of the reasons why V5 is an attractive offer to me, Im sure the other 2 will agree.

Well, you answered my question. I guess you do look at Glide when buying a card.

And we all like to see what kinda Glide scores we're going to get, why do you have a problem with that?

I don't have a problem with Glide scores, as long as they aren't compared to the competing scores. I can't stand to hear some idiot say "oh the V5 kicks VideoX's butt because under Glide it runs so much better". Just evaluate the results in a realistic fashion and I'll be happy about it.

 

[Zucchini]

But glide is dead No future games will use it right? Why bother if this is true

 

[Soccerman]

"No future games will use it right? Why bother if this is true"

the reason why people buy V5's for Glide support, is because they use OLDER games still, and getting a Geforce would automatically keep them from running these games.

 

[ElFenix]

full disclosure of every setting used, in the drivers, in the benchmark, and perhaps a bit of explanation about what changes when you switch APIs.

 

[DeathroweR]

Ghhm...

I think you're missing a point here, people. Glide may or may not make the game faster (in higher res it's actually very slow) but it makes Unreal engine look beautiful (volumetric lighting) and it runs much smoother. It's something like those P4 optimized FLASK tests Tom was running - when something is written specifically for the HW, it will run MUCH better.

To those who're saying Glide is dead - not quite, not yet. Seen these new Unreal engine shots that use T&L? I'm pretty sure Glide support will be there by default - why spend time & money removing something that won't harm and is in place already?
Also - did you forget DukeNukem4Ever?

In OGL Unreal is simply unplayable, at least on a G400.

BenSkywalker -
Allright, let's include Evolva. What's the next step - treemark?

 

[BFG10K]

Seen these new Unreal engine shots that use T&L? I'm pretty sure Glide support will be there by default - why spend time & money removing something that won't harm and is in place already?

Incorrect.

Unreal 2 is a brand new engine built from scratch and will support only Direct 3D only. There is not a trace of Glide or any of the code from Unreal/UT in it.

Also I'm just curious, how is it you think Glide can support T&L?

 

[DeathroweR]

BFG10K -



<< Also I'm just curious, how is it you think Glide can support T&amp;L? >>



Can you show me where I said that?



<< There is not a trace of Glide or any of the code from Unreal/UT in it. >>


Oh really? And do you mind sharing with us just how exactly do you know that? Those demos looked very familiar to me

 

[Wingznut]

Duke Nukem Forever will definitely use Glide. 3DRealms has already come out and stated that DNF will run better on a 3dfx card.

Btw, DNF is on the very top of my &quot;Most Wanted&quot; list.

 

[Loralon]

AFAIK, Glide doesn't support any T&amp;L functionality. OpenGL and D3D 7.0 and up do. I'm pretty sure that the Unreal2 will be based on D3D8.

 

[RoboTECH]

I want benchmarks dammit!

I want benchmarks with lasers shooting out of their eyes

Is that too much to ask here people? Throw me a frickin' bone here.....

 

[NFS4]

Why hasn't this thread been moved yet?

 

[LXi]

<<Apparently the gamma settings did work with the Banshee but they no longer work with a V3.>>

I dont know about you, I've been able to change gamma with both Banshee and V3(actually a Velocity100).


<<You are getting it, but do you buy the board because you get Glide?>>

Its one of the reasons, I never said I'd buy V5 JUST BECAUSE of Glide.


<<I don't. I buy the board for image quality, stability and speed.>>

Now thats your problem. I also buy it for image quality, stability and speed, and one of the best way to get those three things, is using Glide.


<<If Glide comes with it then I'll use it if I can, but I don't consider it a feature in factoring whether to make the purchase. When deciding what board to buy Glide deosn't even enter my mind.>>

Why not? Its one of the things you wont get with any other video cards, its one of the things that can increase the speed, sometimes by a big margin, its one of the things to make some particular games look good(Tribes, UT, NeedForSpeed... the list goes on). In another word, its an advantage V5 owners get, its your problem not taking advantage of it. And you have no right to accuse other people buying V5 with Glide as a factor in mind.


<<Well, you answered my question. I guess you do look at Glide when buying a card.>>

Why not? Its gonna speed up my game, its gonna make my game look nice, why should I disregard it?


<<I don't have a problem with Glide scores, as long as they aren't compared to the competing scores. I can't stand to hear some idiot say &quot;oh the V5 kicks VideoX's butt because under Glide it runs so much better&quot;. Just evaluate the results in a realistic fashion and I'll be happy about it.>>

If you dont have a problem with it, why do you have an argument in the first place? I guess we're all well educated people knowing there are better things to say than &quot;oh the V5 kicks VideoX's butt because under Glide it runs so much better&quot;.

 

[BFG10K]

DeathroweR:

Can you show me where I said that?



So you know Glide doesn't support T&amp;L? So why did you bother mentioning T&amp;L when you were trying to prove that Glide is good?

Were you implying that Direct 3D will run under T&amp;L and Glide won't? How does that make Glide good?

Oh really? And do you mind sharing with us just how exactly do you know that?

Link.

...can be processed through the hardware T&amp;L pipeline of Direct3D cards with that feature. That means the theoretical limit for polygons and, more importantly, the numbers of characters on screen jumps substantially for applications intended for Microsoft X-Box or computers equipped with hardware T&amp;L-capable cards like Nvidia GeForce or ATI Radeon and the myriad of others that will follow. The new features of DirectX 8 in particular will enable skeletal characters to make full use of the hardware to accelerate rendering of smooth-skinned meshes.

I don't see Glide mentioned anywhere there, do you?

Those demos looked very familiar to me

What do you mean they looked familiar? Familiar to what?

LXi:

I dont know about you, I've been able to change gamma with both Banshee and V3(actually a Velocity100).

There were a couple of threads about this issue a while back, and around a dozen people agreed with me that Unreal ignores the gamma control panel setting for Glide, and hence the game is always dark.

I guess we're all well educated people knowing there are better things to say than &quot;oh the V5 kicks VideoX's butt because under Glide it runs so much better&quot;.

You'd be surprised. I've seen numerous arguments to the contrary.

 

[ndee]

OK, I didn't read the whole thread, but at the end of the thread is something really diffrent, than the thread title is. Funny how a Thread can mutate

 

[tigger80]

is the 2d and text quality of the voodoo5 5500 is that much better than the GTS 2D on my sony 19 inch trinitron? i run at over 1280x960 res. I really hate the shaky text. i have to reduce the refresh rate to 85 instead of 100mhz

 

[DeathroweR]

BFG10K -

What I meant by &quot;o, really?&quot; was more referring to &quot;There is not a trace of ... any of the code from Unreal/UT in it (U2).&quot;

Common, man, they spent like 5 years building the damm engine and now you're saying they'll just create a new one from scratch in like 1 year or less? Riiight...

But you may be right saying that it won't support Glide; it's just that both OGL and DX incarnations of Unreal engine games to date look like really, really poor caricatures of what the game looked like in Glide from the start (original Unreal). The engine's graphics handling was built on and for Glide; the rest were just crappy ports.

But I agree, they may re-work that part; I just would like to see an OGL version as well.

 

[RoboTECH]

tigger, the 5500 is far better in 2d.