GEFORCE vs. VOODOO

[Warmonger]

After reading some reviews, with the GPU that GEFORCE has it is clearly leading in the video card market.

Go here and take a look !

http://www.nvidia.com/Products/geforce2gts.nsf/action.html

I hope the authors of CM are aware of the new hardware capabilities and utilize it !

[Hamstersss]

BTS has said they were going to improve graphics and lens flares, T&L and bump mapping would look cool but we all know their primary focus is on the realism and extensiveness of the game.

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I've got far more annoying things than that up my sleeve.

-Meeks

You must wear awfully loose shirts to fit an oompah band up your sleeve.

-Chrisl

[Guest Der Unbekannte Jäger]

Your missing a vital card in this...

The ATI Radeon. A great card that beats Voodoos and can keep up to and sometimes beat the GeForce cards.

(Benchmarks are all relative to who is doing them however)

Just my 2 cents.

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"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it."

[CaSCa]

I'm am Nvidia guy myself these days but the Radeon did get a 'Kick Ass' award from MaximumPC. I too wish some hardware T & L would be forthcoming. If CM supported that I would smack down the bucks for a g-force card.

BTW, aren't video card prices getting outrageous? I had a hard time keeping up when they were $250 a pop but these days that price seems like a bargain.

[Tiger]

Well if you're only intrested in framerates (which is limited by your own moniter's refresh rate, btw) and not visual quality, the geforce certainly "beats" voodoo 5 by a modest framerate boost in quake 3 and 3dmark 2000.

I'm very pleased with my Voodoo 5 and superior anti-aliasing and excellent compatibility with games.

-johnS

[Hamstersss]

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

Well if you're only intrested in framerates (which is limited by your own moniter's refresh rate, btw) and not visual quality, the geforce certainly "beats" voodoo 5 by a modest framerate boost in quake 3 and 3dmark 2000.

I'm very pleased with my Voodoo 5 and superior anti-aliasing and excellent compatibility with games.

-johnS

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey Tiger, I always thought 3dfx's big thing was framerates and nVidia's big thing was image quality? I'd love to see you make some bump models for armor though. Aaaaah, bump mapping for Panthers, aaaaaah...

And beware, beware for the path that this thread is on could lead to certain doom!!! (eg, Video card flaming...)

Oh, and the good thing about these expensive cards is that they'll all be less than 50USD when CM2 comes out, wahoo!!! In fact, if CM2 takes long enough, we could all buy a value PC with a 1ghz chip and a 64mb vidcard for the price of a playstation2.

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I've got far more annoying things than that up my sleeve.

-Meeks

You must wear awfully loose shirts to fit an oompah band up your sleeve.

-Chrisl

[Lawyer]

Tiger is right. I got the Voodoo 5 in July after much research for the FSAA, which is perfect for a game like CM.

I run 4x FSAA at 1024x768 on a PIII 600. NO (that means zero) pixel popping and beautiful pictures, particularly with the hi-res mods. You've got to see it to believe how nice it is.

GE Force cards are for speedy FPS, but not for high quality scenery like we enjoy in CM.

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Let them eat money!

[Maximus]

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

GE Force cards are for speedy FPS, but not for high quality scenery like we enjoy in CM.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Huh? Nvidia cards not for good image quality?

[crepitis]

When you have tried 4xFSAA on CMBO you would never degrade yourself to use anything else,and at the moment only voodoo can provide this.I speak from some little experience.I have been playing wargames on computers for over 15 years,and ive used voodoo 1,voodoo 2,voodoo 3,TNT ultra,Geforce 2,and ive finally gone back to voodoo,with a 5500 card.The FSAA experience is a bit like having your first beer,you realise afterwards that water is O.K.,but it aint gonna be your first choice.Try it,you might like it.

[Bruno Weiss]

Ahem (rising to the passion of tribal protectionism), I have the Voodoo V, and I'm loving life. The FSAA alone is quite worth owning the card for. I remember prior to my awakening to CM, and I was still flying EAW with a GEForce256, I did indeed like it very much. That is, until I got the Voodoo V and cranked up the FSAA. My eyes popped wide open. I could hardly believe it. Suddenly EAW was an entirely new game. It was actually as if I were flying over real terrain. I literally had that feeling that nothing was underneath me.

With CM, I'm so spoiled now with the crispness of the terrain features from the FSAA, I just couldn't imagine going back. Ya'll keep on buy them Nvidia's, leaves more Voodoo's for the rest of us...

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"Wer zuerst schiesst hat mehr von Leben"

Moto-(3./JG11 "Graf")

Bruno Weiss

[This message has been edited by Bruno Weiss (edited 10-28-2000).]

[Tiger]

here's a hint I found surfing the 3dfx boards:

go into 3dfx advanced features, find the level of detail bias setting, click on it and set it to -1.50

-john

[Hamstersss]

Wow, FSAA looks nice. What's the performance hit? Also, it looks less crisp, I assume this is because of the screenshot, right?

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I've got far more annoying things than that up my sleeve.

-Meeks

You must wear awfully loose shirts to fit an oompah band up your sleeve.

-Chrisl

[Guest Madmatt]

I like my Geforce II GTS with 64mb. And I too run my games with 4x4 FSAA and blazing fast frame rates.

Voodoo went with one style of FSAA (Rotated Grid Super Sampling)implementation and Nvidea and ATI went with another(Ordered Grid Super Sampling). They both have advantages and look great and when called to the task it is nearly impossible to differentiate between the two.

Both Nvidea and 3Dfx have new drivers out or soon to be out that are faster, more stable and unlock more features than we would have thought possible just a few short years ago. Elements like T&L make metallic textures shine like never before and its safe to say that any of the offerings from the three big contenders in the video wars will do your system proud.

I prefer my GeForce, but fully acknowledge that the new Voodoos are very capable as well.

Madmatt

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If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ!

Combat Mission HQ

CMHQ-Annex, The Alternative side of Combat Mission and home of the CMMC

CMHQ-Annex

Host of the Combat Mission WebRing

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 10-28-2000).]

[Bruno Weiss]

Ah dog-gone-it, leave it up to Matt to resolve yet another overly simplistic argument about meaningless trivia. And I was just getting my tribalistic blood up remembering the apeman attack on the prehistorics cave by the river in Quest For Fire.

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"Wer zuerst schiesst hat mehr von Leben"

Moto-(3./JG11 "Graf")

Bruno Weiss

[This message has been edited by Bruno Weiss (edited 10-28-2000).]

[Supertanker]

I actually ordered a V5 5500 right before I saw this thread! I decided on that over the GeForce2 because I decided the V5 is better for the types of games that I play, i.e. mostly sims, wargames, 2D stuff (like Baldur's Gate II), and several old Glide games. On the other hand, I play very little Quake3 or 3DMark (har). If I play a FPS, it is almost always Unreal Tournament (domination games with Infiltration or Special Ops weapons - mmmmmmmmmm, good), which runs much better in Glide.

All of these signs point to the V5 over the GeForce (amazingly, this theory even holds up in the discussions over at hardocp.com), but it doesn't mean one card is bad and the other is good. It is not like this is a obvious choice like it used to be (such as between an S3 Virge and a Voodoo1), they are both good products.

Now, the worst part is that my V5 was purchased almost entirely with Amazon.com gift certificates that my wife earned through Freeride.com (only $20 out of pocket after a $50 rebate). OK, OK, that is actually really good, but it means that this counts as my Christmas present, and she is threatening to make me wait until then before I can install it! She can have steely resolve about such things, but I'm hoping after a couple weeks of my whining she will crumble like a lump of sugar in front of a firehose.

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We eat like kings, drink like czars, and game like fat drunken king-czars. - CaSCa

[Wolfe]

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

this counts as my Christmas present, and she is threatening to make me wait until then before I can install it!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Now that's just plain mean.

FSAA definitely makes objects look more solid, particularly when moving around them, but the biggest benefit by a long shot is the enormous reduction in pixel popping and texture swimming in the trees, ground, and buildings. It's almost *painful* to watch CM now without 4x FSAA turned on.

And as Tiger says, definitely go into the Advanced features section of the drivers and turn the LOD bias down as far as you can. Although at very low numbers (-2), it can supposedly cause some graphical glitches, I haven't seen any in CM. A good demonstration of the difference in LOD Bias settings can best be seen in Half-Life, however. Look at the details in the walls as you move toward and away from them using different LOD Bias levels.

And to really see the differences between no FSAA, 2x, and 4x, start HL and take the ride in to the complex. Watch for texture swimming in the walls (especially on the canyon walls near the helicopter) as well as edge crawling along the edges of moving objects (like the 6-legged walking robots (the big yellow things that carry crates around)).

If you have X-Wing Alliance or a similar flight game, dust them off and give 'em another try ... it's like a whole new game.

You can have my Voodoo5 when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

- Chris

[Samhain]

Just wanted to put in a vote for the GeForce2, which is not only blazingly fast, but also has superb image quality, with or without the FSAA enabled (up to 4x in D3D and 2x in OpenGL with the latest drivers). Based on all the vid card reviews and benchmarks I've read, for CM you couldn't go wrong with either the V5 or GeForce2. For FPS's, it's a different matter.

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I rode a tank, held a general's rank

When the blitzkrieg raged, and the bodies stank.

--Rolling Stones

[jpinard]

I love my GeForce 2. Not ONLY do I get excellent FSAA, but I also get T&L (which voodoos do not) and yes there are great games that use it now (Commanche Hokum is one), but I can run games at 1600x1200 with zero slowdown. At 16-bit or 32-bit. You cannot do that with a VOODOO either.

Also 3dfx is reporting much lower than expected earnings while NVidia is flying high...

[Tiger]

t&l actually will slow down faster processors (it doesn't run as quick as your processor does the t&l itself and having the processor do it is not taxing the high-end systems anymore). FPS is also limited if you're online depending on the game you're playing. Quake 3 has this limitation as well.

And they're just now putting out good games that use t&l?? What happended to all that nvidia hype and bs about all those titles they said would be available soon (last year)? Why don't people jump all over nvidia for this like they'd do if it was 3dfx?

Who runs games at 1200 by 1600 anyways? Your fps rate is limited by your monitor's refresh rate.

Why can't I run my voodoo 5 at 16 bit or 32 bit? Why has nvidia gone back to 16 bit again when they were the ones who harped so much on 32-bit? Can the human eye tell the difference between 16 bit and 32 bit (I don't think so)?

Both companies use whichever gimmick they think will increase sales at the moment, but at least 3dfx is honest about it and gives good reasoning on why it's being done a certain way. All nividia gives you is marketing hype. They're the Gobbels of the 3d card market

What about the max fill rate of the geforce. Do you realize the maximum fill rate they claim is not attainable because of the card's other limitations?

nvidia's hacked drivers for fsaa do not come close to 3dfx's fsaa, I've seen the difference. Why there arose this anti-3dfx campaign in the first place is beyond me. People are not happy unless they have something to trash.

As far as nvidia riding high, they've lost the first arguments in 3dfx's lawsuit against them for stealing 3dfx's multi-texturing technology; and wasn't a nvidia employee recently sent to prison for the felony of insider trading before the microsoft deal went thru? nice company.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Also 3dfx is reporting much lower than expected earnings while NVidia is flying high...

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

3dfx going under would be a good thing....?

Both companies have really nice video cards. Saying one is better than the other because of "raw speed" (which is never fully utilized)is pointless. I'm just happy there's some competiton. Buy whichever card you think is right for you I say.

-john

[This message has been edited by Tiger (edited 10-30-2000).]

[Guest Madmatt]

Well Tiger, so much for keeping this civil.

Yes the human eye can see a difference in 16bit and 32bit, its all in the amount of dithering and shading that can be done at the two depths.

Nvidia hasn't 'hacked' their FSAA, they just use a different method then 3Dfx's use, the same method that ATI has just adopted in there Ratheon card by the way.

Frame rate is only limited to refresh rate when full vsync is enabled. Many people turn that off the minute they install their drivers.

I play Combat Mission and sometimes CFS2 and SOF at 1600x1200 just because I can.

There are several games that use T&L, CFS2 is just the latest and greatest.

http://www.3dsl.com/files/nvidia/T&L.htm

I have no idea what you mean when you say "go back to 16bit in re: NVidia" I currently run all games in 32 bit (even in CM which only natively supports 16bit).

T&L is not handled by the computer CPU but by the onboard GPU unit.

Right now the key factor that slows video cards down is memory bandwidth. Overclocking the memory core is one solution and if you look beyond all the hype (which I admit both major parties are guilty of) you will see that primary differences anymore is the speed of the memory that they are dropping in the cards.

As to the business practices of Nvidia as compared to 3Dfx, time for a history lesson. Check how many of the original engineers of the Voodoo are still with 3Dfx. Both companies have had problems in the past, as has everyone in this industry.

These two companies will continue to sue each other from now till the end of time. Its the nature of industry. I think they are about even on judgements but thats not really important.

As I said before, both cards have advantages and you can't go wrong with either one. This thread will quickly boil into a "My video card is bigger than yours" one, so I am locking it up.

And yes, I got to get in the last word, so NAHHH!!!!

Madmatt

The comments above are solely my own and do not reflect on the position of Big Time Software or Battlefront.com. Besides, Steve and Charles both use Mac's anyway so their opionins are already worthless!

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If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ!

Combat Mission HQ

CMHQ-Annex, The Alternative side of Combat Mission and home of the CMMC

CMHQ-Annex

Host of the Combat Mission WebRing

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 10-30-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 10-30-2000).]