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transparency - CPU or V-Card dependant?


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Hey-

I was wondering-

The transparency effect on the new smoke- I understand that the computers slows down when its on. My question, however, is what causes that slowdown. Is it overburdening of the CPU or the processor on you 3d card (tnt2 in my case).

The reason I ask is because I run a reletively slow CPU (350mhz k6) with my TNT. The slowish CPU slows frame rates and doesn't at all take full advantage of my Video card. If the transparency calls slow CPU calculations it will probably slow the game even further (to near unplayable levels), and I wont be able to use them frown.gif if they are VC processor dependant, then there is a good chance my hit to real-world performance will be insignificant at best.

I'd love to know if my logic is completely flawed

-EridanMan

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On a PC - both the CPU and V-Card share the load of displaying graphics and FX. Old AMD chips don't have a lot of floating point performance, you should upgarde that first - then the card. Since the faster cpu will crunch turns faster, as well as getting more FPS.

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CCJ

aka BLITZ_Force

My Hompage ----> http://www.geocities.com/coolcolj

Double your immersion with my Tweaked Textures and Saving Private Ryan sound set mods for CM!! Check out my new Textures V2.0 photo Gallery and my music while your there! :P

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Ok, I have a K6-2 333 and a Voodoo2 and CM runs at acceptable speeds. As your graphics card is a lot faster than mine, it's probably the CPU that's limiting your frame rate. Transparent textures however don't stress the CPU much more than non-transparent ones. The only issue with them is that you have to draw them in the right order (back to front) or draw them after everything non-transparent with z-buffer writes turned off.

As your graphics card handles the drawing of all the triangles including texturing, the CPU doesn't have to do anything different with both kinds of textures, so I don't think you should get another frame rate penalty.

Dschugaschwili

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CCJ-

I'm well aware of the old k6's pathetic FPU and I'm already planning to upgrade... (1ghz Athlon wink.gif) I was just wondering if I'd be able to use to smoke cool smoke before I did so.

Dschug-

that was my thinking as well... I hope ur right.

-EridanMan

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