Author Topic: No offense Voodoo5 guys... (Read 673 times)

hblair · « **on:** September 22, 2000, 08:10:00 AM »

But that card is an overpriced piece of crap. (sorry SOB

) For nearly $300 you'd think you'd get *some* kind of noticeable frame rate increase. I could barely tell any diffeerence, and I tweaked the hell out of it. Also the picture quality was marginal at best. For 300 big ones! Not this 'ol boy.

I prefer my V770 for now, but plan on trying the geforce.

I remember over a year and a half ago playing warbirds, I went from some cheap card like a diamond stealth 8 meg to a Monster Fusion 16 meg, with voodoo banshee chipset. By todays standards in aces high it would be a marginal card, but at that time, it flat out kicked butt. I went from 15-20 fps in 640X480 to a solid 45-60. And I only paid a little over $100 for it. Over 3 times faster for about $100, thats the kind of upgrades I liked.

SOB · « **Reply #1 on:** September 22, 2000, 11:22:00 AM »

Don't be sorry, the frame rate it gives does suck!

The FSAA is just too purty for me to pass up tho'!

SOB

Skuzzy · « **Reply #2 on:** September 22, 2000, 12:28:00 PM »

hblair, is it possible your monitor is limiting your frame rate?

If you run with V-sync on, which you really should do, a typical monitor in non-interlaced mode will peak at about 80-84 FPS max.

The same monitor and resolution in interlaced mode will only yeild 40-42 FPS max.

The video cards are now fast enough that the monitor is now the bottleneck to higher frame rates.

I did a lot of research on monitors before purchasing the one I have now. I looked at Sony, NEC, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, and a couple of others.

It came down to a toss up between the Sony and NEC. The NEC won only be cause is would go up to 160Hz refresh rates, and the Sony peaked at 120Hz.

Now, I fly AH in 1280x1024x32 bit mode with the refresh set to 100 and typically get about 50 FPS (at 100 hz, the monitor is in interlaced mode).

For giggles and grins I set the res back to 1024x768x32 bit and the refresh to 160hz (again, interlaced) and was banging 80 FPS.
At 85 hz, the monoitor can runs that resolution non-interlaced and I got a little better, but not much.

The kicker is I only have an ATI Rage Maxx video card. The V5 should tromp this card into the dirt, thus I think you may be hitting a monitor limit for your performance.

Again, all this was done with V-Sync on. With V-sync off, all bets are off. I can get almost 100 fps with v-sync off.

Processor is only a PIII 600E, not overclocked. If you are at the AH CON, you will be able to see the system.

Oh yes, forgot to mention, not all video cards can support refresh rates up to 160Hz, so your mileage may vary, and to determine what the best mix is, you MUST have your monitor manual handy.

Just a thought.

------------------
Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp. http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net

[This message has been edited by Skuzzy (edited 09-22-2000).]

Mox · « **Reply #3 on:** September 22, 2000, 04:57:00 PM »

Nvidia has been the top video card maker for some years now.

FYI 3dfx is in MAJOR financial problems and the next VooDoo will likely be their last.

Oh I forgot to mention I have a friend that works at 3dfx and he's told me to buy a Nvidia card, and guess what he owns, yup a GTS2!

Mox

[This message has been edited by Mox (edited 09-22-2000).]

Exile · « **Reply #4 on:** September 22, 2000, 10:10:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy:
The video cards are now fast enough that the monitor is now the bottleneck to higher frame rates.

That's the situation I'm in as well. I just put together a badass 1gig TBird w/256megs PC-133 CAS2 ram, the latest ABIT KT7 mobo. I'm using my old vid card (GeForce DDR) and monitor (19" Trinitron) and my monitor will only let me push 85fps in 1280x1024 32bit with VSYNC on. With VSYNC off, I can actually get it beyond 200fps, but there tends to be some wierd stuttering effects when firing guns. On average it's right around 60.

So I guess if your gonna spend $300 - $500 on a new card and expect to get better frames, make sure your monitor is up to the task.

I'm looking for a badass 21" monitor now. You can never have enough fps.

hblair · « **Reply #5 on:** September 23, 2000, 01:58:00 AM »

Not real sharp on monitors, mine says 85 hertz on the back of it. Shouldnt that be good enough? What do ya think fellas?

gatt · « **Reply #6 on:** September 23, 2000, 03:24:00 PM »

Hblair,
watch out, theres a nasty bug in Voodoo5 drivers installation. Sometimes the system reads the card as a simple 3Dfx Voodoo and not as a 3Dfx Voodoo 5500. After drivers installation you have to check carefully in the control panel/system. If the card is seen as a simple 3Dfx Voodoo you will have only 1 chip working and not two. This happens VERY often.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** September 24, 2000, 10:32:00 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by hblair:
Not real sharp on monitors, mine says 85 hertz on the back of it. Shouldnt that be good enough? What do ya think fellas?

It depends hblair. If the monitor is a plug-n-play monitor, some video drivers ignore you trying to set manual refresh rates, while others will use the highest refresh rate and ignore anything higher you set in the video configuration. They do this to try to keep folks from frying thier monitors.

Yes, the incorrect refresh rate will kill a monitor if run too long that way.

If the monitor is not a plug-n-play monitor, then you are on your own with the refresh rates. When not using a plug-n-play monitor the video cards will typically set the refresh rate to 60Hz, as this is pretty safe for virtually all resolutions.

Typically, the rate on the back of a monitor is the maximum rate the monitor will run. If this is true of your monitor, then you are very monitor limited. Most of the better monitors on the market today will easily run 120Hz, and some like the NEC FP950 (19") will run up to 160Hz.

More and more, folks want higher frame rates, but the human eye/brain can only truely perceive a maximum frame rate of about 30. Once you get past that, you really can't see any difference, but higher frame rates could help the software (i.e. game) run better.

Bottomline; all the high end video cards will do you no good unless you have a monitor capable of matching the performance of the video card.

hblair, if you dont have the manual for your monitor, you might check the manufacturers web sites to see if they have the information online.

------------------
Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net

Robert · « **Reply #8 on:** September 24, 2000, 12:56:00 PM »

ok guys here is the specs on my monitor. tell me if i could use a Gforce card with this monitor and see some results.
i have a PIII 500 cpu ,Nvidia tnt 16 meg video and 128 meg ram, now i get about 30+ fps with out the hi res patch installed.

CRT 21",Aperture grille,.28 mm stripe pitch, 90 degrees deflection

Resolution 1600 max horizontal; 1200 max vertical

display colors unlimited

scanning freq. horizontal,30 to 180khz;
vertical, 50hz to 152hz

thank you
RWY

kbman · « **Reply #9 on:** September 24, 2000, 01:21:00 PM »

Yes...

kbman

Skuzzy · « **Reply #10 on:** September 25, 2000, 11:07:00 AM »

Well, it depends again Robert. If you are runing that monitor at 1600x1200, my bet is the refresh is at about 60Hz.
If you have vsync enabled in your video card setup, about 30-33 fps is about the best you could do.

I am guessing on the refresh. It could be as high as 92Hz, depending on the monitor. If the monitor is running at 85Hz, at 1600x1200 res, then I would say you can better frame rates. At this refresh rate, you should be able to sustain between 40 and 44 fps.

------------------
Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net