I wonder how CM is going to run on 1Gigahertz systems

[Guest MantaRay]

Well, AMD finally did it, and Intel is not far behind. 1000 MHz systems will make my computer obsolete any second now. I cant wait to get the new rig and try CM out on it.

I love computers.

Ray

[Guest Captain Foobar]

Im waiting for the 2 gighz before I upgrade, gotta make that 100 gig hard-drive worthwhile

[Guest MantaRay]

Hehe, 2Gig is a couple of days away it seems. Intel had one going at 1.5, so shouldnt be too much longer.

Ray

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[CoolColJ]

Have you got the cash??????! I'll wait until 1 gigahertz cpu are the slowest slug around before upgrading should be worth $100 or so

Man 550 mhtz is more than quick enough for 90% of people. Unless your doing music, or graphics, and using it as a server, 1 gigahertz is juts a waste of money at the moment

------------------

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, or grab a CM Wallpaper!

[Guest MantaRay]

Well speed is life, and my little computer(K62) can handle the CM's of the world, but I also play FPS games and host other games, and after an hour...it starts to lag because of poor CPU speed. Plus I dont mind shelling out money for my hobby. Plus I will just write most of it off as a work expense. =}

Ray

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[CoolColJ]

well I have a 550 mhtz pc - its more than quick enough for any multiplayer I play now I can get 60fps with UT, QUake 3 etc etc

ccj

[Guest Big Time Software]

I can't even imagine how a game could chew up so much horsepower However, video technology needs a huge boost too. I bet the most top of the line video card only runs things marginally faster between something like a 500 and 600 MHz system. This is because so much of the work is done on the card, not in the CPU since traditionally the CPU was the bottleneck. Me thinks the engineers might want to offload some stuff to the CPU now

Steve

[Guest rune]

Well, since I have a 800mhz, I can tell you that a lot of stuff is being pushed more on the chip. I do have AGP 4X and 32 megs of memory on my GeForce card, which also has T&L built on. Also with the latest drivers, supposed to have the S3TC compression and FSAA {full screen anti-aliasing}. Can only imagine a CM with all the bells and whistles..

Rune

[Trooper]

Well, whilst I got lucky enough on my old PC not going obsolete too quickly, seems I went the other way this time. Last week I ordered a near top-of-the-line 800 from Falcon Northwest. It'll take some 3 weeks to get to me. Three days later, (And a couple weeks before I get the 800) out come the 900, 950 and 1000. Go figure. At least it'll probably be a year or two before the software catches up.

Take care...

NTM

[Guest Big Time Software]

Rune... full screen anti-aliasing... droooooool It will probably be a number of years before this becomes a standard reality (look how long transparancy took, and it *STILL* is a problem ) but it is probably the single most important advance we are looking forward to. Yes, there are lots of other Bells and Whistles, but anti-aliasing is one of those fundamental changes that happen only every so often.

Steve

[Thomm]

Absolutely pointless to join the race. Get the cheapest (or next to cheapest) computer and save the money for a nice holiday! I bought a Celeron 466 before Christmas and now they are not even sold anymore!

[killmore]

Almost fast enough to make it real time.

Ok.

Time for disclaimer before I get flamed:

I do not expect or want CM 1 to include real time play option.

[Herr Oberst]

How to buy a new PC:

Step 1: Determine if you really, really have to have it now. If Yes, goto Step 2, if not, put that cash into something more useful, like food or clothing or shelter or a significant other.

Step 2: How much are you willing to spend TODAY? Note that this may entail giving up certain items, like food or clothing or shelter or a significant other (oftentimes the activity that yields the most $$$ ). After determining this amount, proceed to Step 3.

Step 3: Look at the options you desire, and buy the biggest, baddest, coolest, most tweaked-out machine you can for the dollar amount resulting from Step 2.

Step 4: Swear on your mother's grave that you will not: look at, read, listen to, hear, peruse, or perform any other sort of information gathering related to processor speed, graphical capabilities, or mass storage for a period of 9 months.

[Lee]

CoolColJ: Yeah, but can your system put out 60 fps in Quake III at

1024x768 with high detail on and 32 bit color while in a running

battle with 7 other players? That's where the 850+ mghz Athlons

come in.

Steve: Actually we need more of the workload put on the video card.

The problem with 3D cards is that while they may be fast they still

rely very heavily on the CPU. So while the cards might supply high

frame rates it's not uncommon to see the CPU using 75% or 80% of

it's total processing power on just feeding the 3D card, this

leaves little else for AI, physics, interface, positional sound,

etc. It would be nice to have the video card do more and free the

CPU to have more power available to run all the other aspects of

the game. Plus, it's MUCH cheaper to throw in a new video card

that will give a large speed boost to your system's 3D graphics

without needing to also go out and spend another $1000 on a

top-of-the-line computer chip and ram and MB to keep up with the

3D card. What we need is cards like the GeForce but with much

faster T&L capability, to offload the work from the CPU. That would

turn your computer into a real rocket with CPU power to spare,

even when running something like Falcon 4.0 at high res.

Trooper: Oh man, Falcon Northwest *drool*, the best systems money

can buy. The Cadillac of PC's. You will not be disappointed.

I'm looking forward to my new system as well (might get a Cybermax,

great prices and good reviews (address cybermaxpc.com)), trying

to wait for the new 1100 mghz Athlons to come out. But the waiting

is tough.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Lee,

It's a catch-22. It's tempting to design a system that offloads more of the 3D work from the CPU onto the graphics card. But there's a bandwidth problem. In the 3D processing pipeline, much of the "raw" polygonal data is thrown away, because it's out of the field of view, too distant, or other reasons. The CPU handles this and often can do it very quickly, skipping lots of unnecessary further calculations. Offloading this to the graphics card means sending large amounts of raw data over the bus, which is a bottleneck in and of itself - mostly for data which will just get thrown away.

I think it's more likely that in the future we'll see CPUs designed with special hardware that performs typical 3D math operations faster than ever before. Pentium's MMX was a baby step in this direction, and the AMD K6 (sort of) does this now. The PowerPC has the Velocity Engine (I think that's what they call it now) which also (roughly) does this sort of thing. All these technologies are just getting started, though, and have plenty of room to mature.

And then of course there's the raw speed of the CPUs themselves which just keeps increasing rapidly.

Charles

[Lee]

Charles: Interesting. I wasn't aware of that particular problem

and how it relates to the admitedly limited bus speeds. PC's need

more memory bandwith and faster moving of data around the system,

especially between the video card and CPU. The only problem with

relying on the CPU's to get faster at 3D math (FPU and such) is that

it requires the gamer to go out and buy a new CPU, MB and RAM (plus

a new video card most likely) to get the big speed benefit. And

that's an expensive proposition. I'm just trying to think of

a cheaper way to get the same increase in 3D speed.

IF we could just have a video card that handles all or nearly

all of the 3D workload then there wouldn't be a need for all that

unnecessary traffic on the PCI/AGP bus and so the limited bandwith

wouldn't be a problem.

[Guest Big Time Software]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>IF we could just have a video card that handles all or nearly all of the 3D workload then there wouldn't be a need for all that unnecessary traffic on the PCI/AGP bus and so the limited bandwith wouldn't be a problem. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You've essentially just defined a CPU (like a Pentium, or PowerPC, or K6, etc.).

"Handling all of the 3D workload" is a very broad task, and requires (for the most part) a general "calculation engine", i.e. a CPU. You could put such a chip on the graphics card but that still doesn't get around the memory bandwidth problem. You still have to send all the raw data to the card in this case. I suppose you could allow some sort of asynchronous direct memory access to this "CPU" but then we're really talking about nothing more than a special case of a multi-processor architecture (i.e. you could just have a system like you have now, but with two Pentiums instead of one, with one of the Pentiums dedicated to handling 3-D tasks).

I think multi-processing will become more prevalent in the future, for many reasons.

Charles

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 03-08-2000).]

[Lee]

Well, I was hoping that a chip on the video card designed to do

nothing but 3D might be cheaper than a CPU. Seems like there

is no way around having to spend a lot of money for fast 3D

performance to keep up with the latest games (which is bad news

indeed for serious 3D gamers ). At least a second processor would

be cheaper than getting a whole new MB, etc. Of course, games

don't support that now so it wouldn't do much good. But I do like

the idea of one processor handling all the 3D chores along with the

video card while the other CPU handles everything else.

That would make for one blazing fast system. And the gamer could

always add in the second dedicated processor after he gets his

system when the chips prices come down.

[Compassion]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lee:

CoolColJ: Yeah, but can your system put out 60 fps in Quake III at

1024x768 with high detail on and 32 bit color while in a running

battle with 7 other players? That's where the 850+ mghz Athlons

come in.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My dual Celeron 500's on an Abit BP6 with the GeForce DDR and 256megs ram does that now... It's a lot of machine, but still, the boards, procs, and RAM comes out under $600... about the same price as that Athlon. The big upgrade can be done cheaply, just have to be a little creative (and agree to beta test Win2k some more... grumble grumble grumble...).

Then again, I can be smug. My company just announcedthat they are going to give away a new PC to every employee during Q3. While the supplier hasn't been announced yet, the baseline for those systems has... PIII 677's with 128meg RD Ram... Woohoo! So by the time my dual 500's starts slowing down, I can take this new system and (for a modest fee) upgrade to a 1gig PIII... Just in time for the fall games... who knows, maybe Daikatana will be out.... or maybe even Combat Mission!

[Guest MantaRay]

Well if Steve keeps replying to this thread, CM will never come out.

But I am a guy who shelled out $5000 to play Panzer General and Fleet Defender, so $3000 on a computer doesnt seem so insane to me anymore.

I must admit a small factor in the next 2 weeks that I am going to buy the new cpu is that a kid who is half my age on my RS Squad, has a better computer than I do, and he lets me know about it all of the time. Usually the only consulation to fend off the tears from the knowledge that a 15year old can go faster than I, is that my awesome cable is way better than his modem. But he is getting DSL soon, so I need that ego boost to say that both my cpu and connection can kick his booty. Even my wife gets into the, "mines better than yours syndrome." hehe

That is what is cool about my wife I guess, she hates me being on the computer as much as I am, but understands that big boys need 1gighrz toys. Plus she will get this PC all to herself, w/o me harassing her. My biggest worry will be her wanting to get a second athlon for herself, as then I will never see her either. Oh wait that may be a good thing.

Ray

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[Compassion]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MantaRay:

But I am a guy who shelled out $5000 to play Panzer General and Fleet Defender, so $3000 on a computer doesnt seem so insane to me anymore.

I must admit a small factor in the next 2 weeks that I am going to buy the new cpu is that a kid who is half my age on my RS Squad, has a better computer than I do, and he lets me know about it all of the time.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I understand completely. Like I said, My compnay jjust announced that they are giving away PIII667's to everyone (actally, one press release says 677 and the other says 667... don't know my multiples of 133 well enough to tell yet). They also say that if you want to upgrade that that shuld be a reasonable option. ONe of my co workers asked me why I would want to do that. I could only respond that I only had to go a little bit faster than the neighbor....

[Lee]

Compassion: Hmm, that's odd. I've seen benchmarks of the celeron

500 running Quake III and they were well below 60 fps (and

I'm not even sure the test was run at 32 bit color, which would

mean even lower fps). The only thing that I've seen that will

run Quake III at 60+ fps continuously with all details cranked at

1024x768 and 32 bit color and with lots of other players running

around firing rockets is something in the 800+ mghz range with a

GeForce DDR or possibly a voodoo 3500 onboard.

[Compassion]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lee:

Compassion: Hmm, that's odd. I've seen benchmarks of the celeron

500 running Quake III and they were well below 60 fps (and

I'm not even sure the test was run at 32 bit color, which would

mean even lower fps). The only thing that I've seen that will

run Quake III at 60+ fps continuously with all details cranked at

1024x768 and 32 bit color and with lots of other players running

around firing rockets is something in the 800+ mghz range with a

GeForce DDR or possibly a voodoo 3500 onboard.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Like I said. Q3A, dual Celeron 500's (note apostrophe) on a BP6, W2K, GeForce DDR. 1024x768, 32bit. THe only difference between me and most gamers (other than running an SMP setup) is that I use 256 meg ram... should also note that I was clear that it was Q3 we were talking about since that's the only SMP aware game that I know of. All others? Your setup would blow my doors off...

[Lee]

Compassion: Ah, then that explains it. I wasn't aware that

Quake III could make use of two processors (it's the only game

I have heard of that can). It all makes sense now. It would

be nice if all games could, would give gamers another option for

more speed.

Personally, I'm trying to hold out for the 1100 mghz Athlon

before I upgrade.

[Compassion]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lee:

Compassion: Ah, then that explains it. I wasn't aware that

Quake III could make use of two processors (it's the only game

I have heard of that can). It all makes sense now. It would

be nice if all games could, would give gamers another option for

more speed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Q3 engine is quite a feat. If you see its full feature list, it's very impressive. Hopefully more games will start supporting SMP, 3D Now, MMX and the SIMD exensions and the like... And then maybe we can get some decent drivers for Win2K... then we'll be playing with power!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

Personally, I'm trying to hold out for the 1100 mghz Athlon

before I upgrade. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm hoping that the above mentioned free PC that I have coming is upgradeable cheaply...