Lee Posted June 10, 2000 Share Posted June 10, 2000 Yes, it is as I suspected. With 4x on you take a very big hit in fps and with things like lots of smoke it just gets worse. The biggest difference is by far the jump from no FSAA to 2x. So you can easily live without 4x and still get good frame rate. Only the voodoo 6000 will give 4x with super speed. But as I said before, only a very fast system can keep pace with the 6000 to give that kind of performance. I can't wait to see how good CM runs on my new system I'm getting later this year. A v6000 would be nice, but they're so expensive. I'll probably go with a v5500, we'll see. Has anyone had the chance to compare a GeForce and the v5500 to see how the quality of the colors and images in general compares? One of the complaints about voodoo cards in the past has been the tinting of the colors in games that happens with voodoo cards. The TNT and GeForce cards were said to have more vibrant and accurate colors by far. Have the new voodoo cards corrected this problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rob/1 Posted June 10, 2000 Share Posted June 10, 2000 From what he said I was expecting more but I gess because the ones on my computer have always been that good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolColJ Posted June 11, 2000 Share Posted June 11, 2000 Don't compare GF FSAA to a V5500 The GF 2 GTS is what you should compare it too, and the fps are very similar. Also the GF 2 also has a 9x FSAA mode too The distant tetxure swimming is cause by CM using tetxures that are too large for the object, so its switching between 2 or more pixels that could occupy that space, since the tetxure is several times larger than the actual pixel size of the object. If the pixels that are being switched are of different colours you get the twinkling effect. The only way to get rip of that is to recode the CM graphic engine to use mimapping. This would require, several copies of each texture at various sizes. Turning on mipmapping in your GFX card options, is similar, but its a brutal approach and doesn't look anywhere as good as it would look if it were done within the Game engine. Mipmapping does lose detail though, so its a trade off. ------------------ Check out my CM mods, Music and artwork www.geocities.com/coolcolj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Posted June 11, 2000 Share Posted June 11, 2000 This was a GeForce II that I saw head to head with a v5500 in FSAA mode. The v5500 won pretty easily, especially as you got up to higher res, IIRC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolColJ Posted June 11, 2000 Share Posted June 11, 2000 Only in D3D, The GF2 beats the V5500 in OpenGl Turn of FSAA , and the GF2 spanks the V5500 plus its T&L as well Gf has had FSAA in opengl for a while now, D3d FSAA is quite new, so its a driver issue as well. All Nvidia crads get faster within a few months from release, so it will catch up to the V5500, pretty soon. ccj [This message has been edited by CoolColJ (edited 06-11-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted June 11, 2000 Share Posted June 11, 2000 A few more notes (er - disjointed stream-of-conciousness rantings): Unfortunately, the V5 doesn't seem to have a force mip-mapping selection, so I can't try turning that on. Strangely, this option (along with force trilinear texture) was available on my V2 drivers. Turning it on took a significant performance hit and made the tree textures look very blurry. But no more shimmering. I've gone back to the CD driver set. The beta was too unstable in X-Wing Alliance and wouldn't allow Unreal to even run. I even tried mixing the LOD bias inf file with the certified drivers, but this caused the computer to completely lock up solid when running various games. So I'll wait for 3dfx to release a certified driver set with the LOD bias slider in it. Half-Life doesn't look quite as good. There's a an OC util for the V5 over at: http://www.3dfxgamers.com/drivers/3dfxtools/ I tried using hypersnap to get a better pic of what is shown on the screen. Unfortunately, it didn't help. The pics of the ground still shows up as highly banded areas which is completely wrong for the V5. This card actually produces a perfect transition from color to color with no banding to be found in the ground textures. The dithered sky, however, is exactly what I'm seeing on my V5, is this correct or do I have a setting wrong? Played with CM looking for the various resolutions available. They are: 1600x1200 1280x1024 1280x960 1152x864 1024x768 960x720 800x600 720x576 640x480 640x480 software Nothing above 1600x1200. And you're allowed to use FSAA on the V5 at 1280x1024 and lower; 1600x1200 even in 2x mode is unavailable. Wish CM had 1440x1080; would be interesting to try. I think I've settled on 1024x768 in 4x AA. 1280x960 is nice, but 2x mode just isn't as impressive to me. Maybe I'm being too picky. BTW, in Half-Life D3D mode seems to produce a better FSAA image than in mini-GL (as well as 'Default GL'). The 4x mode using the mini-GL doesn't look too much better than 2x mode, IMO. So if you have the choice in a game, try the D3D. Oh yeah, the smoke is fixed with the V5. But I think it also works properly with the latest V3 drivers too, right? Just not the V2. Gary Tarolli of 3dfx has been hinting over in the V5 newsgroup that the V5-6000 will come with some more FSAA modes (perhaps up to 8x and mixing in some other techniques (the 3dfx FSAA uses a rotated grid approach; NVidia uses ordered grid)). A combination of the two would likely produce a better image than either one alone. At some select angles, even in 4x mode, the V5 produces some edges that look slightly 'scalloped'. Look closely at the top of the gun barrel, it's still slightly aliased. I suspect the Geforce also has trouble with a few select angles. Combining OGSS and RGSS would help greatly with AA in all directions. - Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted June 11, 2000 Share Posted June 11, 2000 Wolfe: If you're plugged-in over at 3dfx (sounds like it), maybe you could get them to blurb CM a little bit? I sent in a review and several follow-ups, and never got a response of any kind, even from the "contact us" links. I know they aren't obligated and maybe the review sucked, but the point is that we got a 3D game thing going on here and they don't seem to be aware of it. Maybe you have a contact, or you could do one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juju Posted June 11, 2000 Share Posted June 11, 2000 Why is it that ,when anti-aliasing (both FS and texture AA), some of the buildings seem to have totally different textures? Seems a little odd. ------------------ Combat Axiom 46. Do unto others, before they do unto you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted June 12, 2000 Share Posted June 12, 2000 Mark IV: Unfortunately, I don't know anyone at 3dfx, I just read their newsgroups (and own their products ). I've posted about CM a couple of times over in the V3 and V5 groups, but have gotten hardly any response. Most seem to be hardcore FPSers with the occasional flight sim groupie. I've followed up a couple of Jeff Jones' posts over in V5 regarding CM (he's the only other one who even seems to have heard of the game; dunno if he visits this board), but the threads didn't generate much interest. :-( When the game is shipped, I'll post again in the newsgroup. Hopefully Steve and/or MadMatt will post a new series of screenies that people can link to to highlight the game. Juju wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Why is it that ,when anti-aliasing (both FS and texture AA), some of the buildings seem to have totally different textures?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think it's randomly assigned by the game. - Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattias Posted June 16, 2000 Share Posted June 16, 2000 To all those using this card... There is talk of a serious bug in the installation routines of the V 5500. Some users are reporting significant performance increase after making a minor update of drivers in Windows. If this cockup is indeed as bad as it looks 3Dfx has really shot itself in the foot on this one. Take a look over at Annandtech for more info. http://www.anandtech.com/index.html Also, I picked up this guide on how to fix the "problem" over at the 3Dfx forum: "as my friend Joe Lamos Told me.... do this After you install the Voodoo 5 5500, goto Device Manager and look at Display Adapter. notice is says 3dfx Voodoo Series driver or something along that line.... goto DRIVER and hit UPDATE.... point the install to the cdrom folder WIN9X and then DRIVER9X IT SOLVES EVERYTHING.... DEAD SERIOUSNESS... I COULD SEE AND INSTANT DIFFERENCE..... NO SH*T THANKS AGAIN JOE LAMOS!" Be interesting to hear if this has any effect on how CM works for you V5500 people out there... M. [This message has been edited by Mattias (edited 06-16-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted June 16, 2000 Share Posted June 16, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mattias: To all those using this card... There is talk of a serious bug in the installation routines of the V 5500.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The majority sentiment over in the V5 newsgroup (as well as other places) is that it simply helps uninstall leftover V3 driver entries. If you previously had a V3 installed, then I'd recommend trying it. Otherwise, it doesn't seem to do much. And when it does help (for V3 owners), it seems to speed up OpenGL games only. It's not a magic FPS wand, unfortunately. See: http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?id=1250006014571003&sort=postdate Thanks for the heads-up, though. - Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gromit Posted June 17, 2000 Share Posted June 17, 2000 To all: Just a reminder for anybody putting in a new videocard on a PC with Windows. FIRST, replace your existing card driver (before taking it out) with the generic VGA driver (under the top choice of categories on the left column) and reboot. You will save yourself MAJOR headaches by doing this as it "Wipes the slate clean" and allows the newer card installation to operate as it was meant to. I can back this up with ten years of personal experience and my own headaches over the years. Cheers! Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Posted June 17, 2000 Share Posted June 17, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mattias: To all those using this card... There is talk of a serious bug in the installation routines of the V 5500. Some users are reporting significant performance increase after making a minor update of drivers in Windows. If this cockup is indeed as bad as it looks 3Dfx has really shot itself in the foot on this one. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, I originally bought a V5 but my machine frequently had hard crashes with the new card. I worked on it for 3 days straight with no luck. when the card did work, CM looked fantastic with the FSAA. I traded the V5 in for a Creative Annihilator 2. The FSAA is not as good as the V5 but the colors look more vibrant. I would have liked to have kept the V5 but after 3 days of tinkering, the crash to play ratio was just too high for me. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renaud Posted June 17, 2000 Share Posted June 17, 2000 Wolfe: Homeworld (publisher Sierra Studios, developer Relic Entertainment) would be good for showing off differences in 16/22/32bit color. The space backgrounds are vast panoramas of nebulas, stars and glowing gas clouds gently merging into the blackness of interstellar space. Banding is VERY apparent in these subtle transitions at lower color densities. Ren Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted June 17, 2000 Share Posted June 17, 2000 Very much pictures like what I have with ATI Rage 128 32 MB on a G3. The smoke is gorgeous (transparency and all the rest)as the flames are and the big explosions as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted June 17, 2000 Share Posted June 17, 2000 Practically (can't see much difference really) same scenery I have with my ATI Rage 128 (32MB) on a Mac G3 350MHz. scrolls as silk and graphs are gorgeous, smoke, fire, explosions, etc etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted June 17, 2000 Share Posted June 17, 2000 sorry for double posting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted June 17, 2000 Share Posted June 17, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Homeworld (publisher Sierra Studios, developer Relic Entertainment) would be good for showing off differences in 16/22/32bit color. The space backgrounds are vast panoramas of nebulas, stars and glowing gas clouds gently merging into the blackness of interstellar space. Banding is VERY apparent in these subtle transitions at lower color densities.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks. I've heard some good things about the game but haven't picked it up yet. I'm currently going through Thief 2 with occasional forays into HL and X-Wing Alliance. So I've already got plenty to do. Tried Unreal in D3D and the lighting only shows a scant bit of banding in 22 bit mode. 3dfx's filter is very nice. I'll have to give Homeworld a try. Of course, I was really hoping to start up with some CM today, but unfortunately the mailman has already been here and no package. - Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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