Voodoo5 5500 update review suggestions

[Matthew Witheiler]

Hey guys,

We are working on doing an all out Voodoo5 5500 review update that would include a few things. First off, we are going to play with the hidden surface removal settings located in the registry and see how that works. Secondly, we were thinking of comparing the drivers we used in our original Voodoo5 5500 review to the latest driver release.

We were just wondering what you guys though of this idea. Is there anything you would be interested to see that I did not mention? Is there anything else you would like us to test? Just let me know and I will be sure that it gets included (if we agree it is a good idea, that is).

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[Caitiff]

Dunno about the others, but since they claim this HSR works on older V3 boards as well, as a proud owner of this venerable warrior, I would like to see comparative benchmarks on it as well. If the HSR tweaks DO work on it reliably, V3 boards would be back in the ballpark performance wise. It would also make a good 'background' to the V5 5500. I'm sure that some people would like to see the V4 results as well, since it has really gotten a bad rap across the board as being an 'also ran'.

 

[NFS4]

The fact that the Voodoo 5 5500 can be had now for $175 + $30-40 coupon off that price

I also heard about a $50 rebate from 3dfx but haven't seen it yet

 

[Zeph]

Don't get caught up in benchmark-mania...if possible test a variety of real-world games with the HSR drivers and tell us how they look (several reviews say they look terrible).

 

[Dark4ng3l]

I hear hsr is only implemented for opengl so there arent many games to bench them with. I would also like to have a look at the v3's performance with these drivers.

 

[Rigoletto]

Very good idea and certainly of interest to the public now that V5 has dropped in price and has new drivers.
If NVIDIA can get so much attention for Detonator3 drivers, etc., it would seem unbalanced to ignore the work 3dfx have done on their own drivers.

 

[Remedy]

Could you have a short thought on the 2d comparison debate and shots of the 3d image(sp?)detail like a before and after of the 2 sets of drivers? Also try and toggle the GA thing they have like on and off performance difference between the previous set and the exclusive set of drivers.

 

[hans007]

you might want to do the same for the v4 , considering the latest budget roundup didnt even use remotely new drivers

 

[ndee]

Yep this would be great. What about the V3 and HSR? Does it work?

 

[Rigoletto]

hehe maybe I could tell you that later I've just installed the latest driver.

*I did a QuakeIII demo with the V3 2000 pci
I like high detail, bilinear filtering, LOD -2 and Faster on the depth precision setting.

800x600= 40.9fps
1024x768= 28.6fps

I had sharp image quality without seeing any artefacts. I believe the 800x600 used to be 37/38fps- not sure.

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

I dont know if now is a good time. Think about reviewing with the next release maybe?

If you do do this one, i would personally like a page with each setting. Like "Go on to HSR=2" with each page telling of anomolys, texture quality, and blurring.

 

[Soccerman]

the only problem I can see is trying to incorperate all the different types of tweaks you can impliment. do a bit of research on that topic to find the best version of this HSR tweak.

finally, you DEFINETLY need to do a V3/4 part as well, as a lead in to the V5. just to see what this new driver might be capable of doing.

BTW, I was not aware that u could do this on the V3 (I was hopeful though). is it basically the exact same thing?

 

[IBMer]

I think doing an HSR update is a waste of time. There is no setting that makes it go faster without numerous errors.

One big thing for me is using Faster on the Depth Percision. This is how I play and I do not notice any errors that result from it. Also turn AGP Fifo to 2X, and Refresh Optimization to enabled.

Other thing, I see now that you guys used MDK2 to benchmark.

I would deffently say you should use WickedGL with this.

They have update to allow for 32-bit color and large textures in the game.

If you setup the wickedGL control panel just like this:

Wicke GL Control Panel

It allows for Texture Compression in WickedGL without any errors. This gives the V5 a huge increase of speed without any adverse effects.

 

[IBMer]

Ok, just 3 more setting changes.

The only setting changes for D3D

The only setting changes for OpenGL

The General Tab setting changes.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Simply put: Yes, I'd be very interested.

 

[NFS4]

And another thing, be sure to check out this thread:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=286275

 

[DaveB3D]

Glad to see someone doing this. I was getting very close to doing it myself.

A couple of key things:

Make sure Refresh Optimization is Enabled and make sure depth precision is set to Faster. Also, when looking at image quality don't forget to use the LOD bias. That is VERY important.

 

[Recneps]

Could you post some benchmarks with Vsnyc On. So it is easyer to get what the real world numbers would be?

 

[BFG10K]

HSR is unfinished and can't really be included in the reviews yet. I vote for a single review with V4 and V5 in it, both using the latest WHQL 1.04 drivers.

 

[Soccerman]

actually, yeah, I'd like something that's ONLY on the WHQL 1.04's. then later on, you can add 3dfx's beta's later, when they have been tested out better (so you can be sure you have the best tweaks enabled), or when they've officially been released.

 

[RoboTECH]

agreed with BFG, to an extent.

1) Use 1.04 + DX8
2) play with the driver settings a bit

especially try "depth precision - fast" in 16-bit and "depth precision - faster" in 32-bit
they provide a nice boost with no visual anomalies (I have found a grand total of RA3 Quake3 map that looks a bit odd with "faster&quot
I mean, those benchmarks don't need to be the FOCUS of the review, but they really should be included, as it is pretty important considering just about everybody with 5500s use those settings, ESPECIALLy with FSAA

the 5500 has some pretty incredible driver tweeking. Lots stuff to fart with.

Mipmap dithering + lodbias really reduces the issue of trilinear filtering. Totally eliminates the need? Not quite, but really reduces the need for it. Perhaps a few screenies to show the difference, just make sure you play around with the settings to find the best blend.

How about a 2d comparison @ 1600x1200 on a Trinitron monitor? <G>

As IBM'er said, the new WickedGL has been greatly updated, and REALLY kicks ass in both MDK2 and Counterstrike.

Also, a bit of overclocking would be nice. I know a lot of people with 5500's, and the majority of those that I spoke with had no problems o/c'ing their 5500

CPU scaling?

low end (600ish), mid-range (800ish), high end (1+ AMD - I know you have one!!!)

How about a glide/D3d comparison in Unreal Tournament/Rune?

With the price coming down to $150ish, I think it would be great to see an updated review.

Great idea!


****EDIT****

oh, and PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE get a different demo other than demo001

how about the Q3 team arena demo? or at least make a demo in Q3 that has more action....use Q3tourney4 also. That's the most &quot;intense&quot; map with all the shaders

that map is what will drag a card down. q3dm7 is an easy map, easy textures, not much action.

 

[RoboTECH]

how about Evolva?

that's a good game for benchmarking

DX7, lots of advanced stuff

unfortunately, the 5500 doesn't have Dot3 (D'OH!), but since Evovla is the only game with it, it's not that big of a deal.

 

[Wingznut]

please, PLEASE, PLEASE use Glide whenever applicable. I don't know of a single 3dfx user who plays UT in D3D.

And I second (third?) the idea of combining a V4 in the review.

 

[Soccerman]

heh.. u know what game would have been a great test for CPU's? Homeworld.. if only they had a FPS counter in that game.

I agree with most of that above two posts. the reason that we want these things, is cause it's very time consuming, and some of us are afraid of trying (I'm even afraid to try to find that HSR stuff in the 1.07 V3 drivers).

plus, it would probably lay to rest alot of recent flame wars we've had with the V5 seemingly getting a second wind..

 

[madthumbs]

HSR won't perform in every game the same. Some games don't waste as much rendering as others.