3DFX 5500

[Sharky]

Lephturn,

Thanks for the info bud.  Ok here's another question,  am I wasting my time plunking a V5500 in a Celron 300a@450?  Am I going to be CPU limited?  I understand that "all" the processing is done on the card with the newer cards (some is still done with the CPU on my Viper 550 as I understand)

Or should I get the Celron 566@800 first?

Thanks,
Sharky

------------------
Playboy Leader
307th FS/31st FG
You can run but ya just die tired

[Torgo]

BTW, ALL the FSAA hype is true.

After 10 minutes of even 2x FSAA, you will not be able to tolerate any flight sim without FSAA. The jaggies will scream out at you.  

[Vila]

OK, I'm the "squadmate" Lephturn was talking about, I've owned a Geforce (still do, it's in my wife's machine now) and I just picked up the V5.  Here's the gouge:

The Geforce (even my "old" DDR model) is faster interms of pure power... if you care only about frame rate or are a QUAKER, this (or the GTS) is the card fer you.

V5 looks SWEET.  The 3Dfx implementation of FSAA (particulalry the 4X mode) just kicks the crap outta nVidias implementation, but the V5 has a few issues with AH right now:

1) terrain texture "cracking" with FSAA on...  not REALLY bad, but bad enough that it bothers me.

2) Jittery textures in the cockpit and on the clipboard.  Again, not a HUGE problem, but defintely annoying.

3) Frame "hiccups" at higher res (particularly with FSAA).  Despite good frame rates (40+), there are occasinal momentary pauses sometimes...particularly when viewing straight up when rolling inverted.  This one is actually the worst for me, sice it interruputes the visual "flow" and screws me up.

I believe these are all relatively minor problems, but I hope they are resolved SOON, because they are keeping me from thinking this is the best card ever for flight sims.  There may be some minor issues with the AGP drivers on my mobo (ASUS P3V4X- Via AP 133A chipset), so I'll load the newest versions tonight.

Vila


[This message has been edited by Vila (edited 06-15-2000).]

[Kieren]

Yes, GeForce, not GeoForce, Kieren.

*slaps self*

Thanks to AKDejaVu for setting me straight!  

[xmab]

I can pretty much second Vila's observations exactly.

I also tried an Elsa GTS 2 and a V5500. I used them on a P3 866 with a Abit VT6X4 motherboard (VIA Apollo Pro Chipset). The GTS 2 is about 20% faster in Q3A and has sharper textures. However, it had serious stuttering problems and texture flashing issues in AH and the FSAA implementation was not nearly as good. Furthermore, it did not work properly in sleep mode with any drivers I tried including 5.22. Consequently I kept the V5500 and returned the Elsa. I am very happy with the V5500 as it works in every game I've tried and has much sharper 2D text (for me, Nvidia's 2D text has always been fuzzy at 1280x1024).

But, like Vila said, there are still issues with the V5500 in 2x and 4x anti-aliasing. There are texture cracks as well as swimming gauges. Certain scenes, however, are perfect and anti-aliasing really does improve the image quality significantly. Unfortunately, the V5500 really does not have the fill rate needed to run games at 1024 x 728 at 4x anti-aliasing. 2x looks good though, and I am hoping that 3DFX will address the drivers soon.

xmab

[Creamo]

 

Originally posted by Vila:
There may be some minor issues with the AGP drivers on my mobo (ASUS P3V4X- Via AP 133A chipset), so I'll load the newest versions tonight.
B]

They just released a new driver set. I DL'd and installed them for the same MB. It doesn't correct everything, but the chipset drivers seem to free up some FPS by improving the AGP port. I think ASUS had it underclocked for stability.

[Sn1p3r]

 www.pricescan.com

Voodoo5 for 264 bills.

pricescan seems to be cheaper on just about anything I have ever looked for online.

-Sn1p3r

[CRASH]

My primary concern right now with buying a new video board lies with will it work with elsa's revelator 3d glasses.  I haven't tried them yet, but I understand that the difference with the glasses is quite dramatic, providing genuine depth perception. My current board, a voodoo3 3000 won't work with the revelator so I'll need to upgrade, but, the question is, will the new voodoo board work with them?  
     The glasses require z-buffer support and as yet AH doesn't support it.  From what I understand hitech is supporting z-buffer in AH because the these glasses. That's enough of an endorsement for me to consider them worth checking out.

CRASH

[Creamo]

Crash, I have tried the glasses at my brothers house, they aren't for a flight sim a far as I can tell.

Rainbow Six really looked 3D, and the rifle sight appeared to really have depth way into the monitor.. Pretty cool.

 Unfortunatley, shortly, your eyes start really hurting bigtime, and it's hard to concentrate when your family is howling in laughter at you sitting there with the wacky specs swingin.

[Lephturn]

Sharky,

Yeah, you are likely CPU limited with that OC'd Celery.  If you've currently got a TnT2 or a V3, I'd do the CPU shuffle first.  You can get an adapter to pop a new FC-PGA chip into your old Socket 370 board too just FYI.

Others with V5 5500, check this out:

Heard something at Hard OCP about possibly the V5 5500 drivers not installing properly.  HardOCP pointed to this link:

 http://www.3dfxgamers.com/boards.asp?BOID=31&THID=54443&boardsort=lastpost&b

------------------
Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs
Visit Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH news, resources, and training data.
 http://users.andara.com/~sconrad/
 

"MY P-47 is a pretty good ship
And she took a round coming 'cross the Channel last trip
I was thinking 'bout my baby and lettin' her rip
Always got me through so far
Well they can ship me all over this great big world
But I'll never find nothing like my North End girl
I'm taking her home with me one day, sir
Soon as we win this war"
 - Steve Earl

[This message has been edited by Lephturn (edited 06-16-2000).]