rec.autos.simulators

  According to the Flight Sim folks(the ORIGINAL 3dfx diciples)  The TNT IS
superior to two Voodoo2
cards in sli mode.   The upcoming Falcon 4, (a hardware hog if there ever
was one) currently runs faster
on TNT cards than the native Glide sli version.  There will still be some
programs that the V2's run better and faster, but thier advantage is
slipping.  Even here in this newsgroup, many Hercules owners have reported
thier V2200 8 meg cards outperforming a double Voodoo in GPL
dave henrie

TNT might be a reasonably good card for D3D supported apps or where a
mini GL wrapper is available, but for GPL it's a non-event AND it's
relatively expensive! Further, TNT = a poor choice for a P200 and a
BAD choice for GPL plus abysmal *current* value for money or choice
for *** generally with it's immature, buggy drivers and firmware.

Grow up junior. Rendition's image quality is far superior to 3Dfx's
cartoon like graphics..always has been..always will be. Using RRedline
the advantages over Glide are clearly obvious. No anti-aliasing! Yuk!
You've got to be kidding!

The speed advantage that 3Dfx held for that short period of time is
ancient history, so get with the program and catch up with Q4 1998.
DirectX 6.0, D3D, OpenGl ICDs and wrappers have NOW pretty much
nullified 3Dfx's early proprietry driven speed lead (thank God!) and
unless they penetrate the OEM market, they're in deep sh*t! There are
only a couple of specific games where the speed of 3Dfx II is clearly
advantageous and taken advantage of now, and they still require an
expensive 3D ONLY solution. Hey, if you've got the spare cash..

The poor 'ole Banshee isn't gonna' stave off S3's Savage, Nvidia's
TNT, or Rendition's forthcoming offering for which I eagerly await.
Micron behind Rendition is very encouraging. If you really have future
vision, much though I DO like nVidia's products, why would I buy the
.35 micron TNT when shortly I can enjoy Rendition's latest offering?

My original Intergraph Reactor gave me stirling service, and my
Stealth II S220 V2100 was pretty good too, especially for the price.
My current AGP Viper V330 is a great card as well, and I hardly need
to use my 3Dfx Voodoo for much any more, although just like the TNT
the Viper V330 is absolutely useless for GPL. It's a shame I can't
remove the Viper and use the old V2100 for GPL, but I'm all out of PCI
slots 8^(, so I've got to put up with the poxy Monster's lack of
anti-aliasing. The average 25fps framerate and graphics are OK, but
just like in Nascar 2, Quake or Descent II, the 3Dfx images just don't
rate beside Rendition's for those of us who appreciate quality.

I for one am really glad Sierra/Papyrus have chosen to stick with
Rendition. I've always been happier with the image quality and value
of my Rendition cards over my 3Dfx Monster which was a market driven
grudge buy. I'm certainly awaiting tRendition's next chipset with
interest as a primary video replacement. If they get it as solid as my
Intergraph Reactor card was at release, I'll be purchasing one without
question.

Insofar as I see it, the requirement to have any specific support for
Glide only supported games is long dead already. *Almost everything*
releasing these days supports Direct 3D or some subset of Open GL out
of the box. Good riddance to all proprietry APIs, but if you're gonna'
use one, use a decent one like RRedline, not Glide 'cos it's easy for
dummies to program in or due some corporate affiliation like EA's
stake in 3Dfx. As for nVidia's proprietry API...hehehe. I do love
their Riva 128...but still not the 3D image quality of the Rendition
V2100/V2200, and they pay for that speed with horrendous screen
tearing and the tradeoff of texture load times. Just rip around a
Quake 2 level with it and you'll see what I mean. As a 2D card, image
quality is nearly (not quite) up there with Rendition, but speed
..YES, which is primarily why I bought it.

Sure..do you recognise any of these 'obscure' non-Sierra titles...

Quake
Descent II
Forsaken
Tomb Raider
EF2000 2.0
SiN
Heavy Gear
etc...etc...etc

...plus the stacks of others which just like 3Dfx cards use the D3D
API or have mini/Open GL wrappers.

Now crawl back in your cadaver you mindless buzzard! <gg>

FYI, it is the Rev.3 board that is the new faster Voodoo2 board, but no
one is shipping it, yet.

Also, you can get a 12MB Monster 2 for $139-$50 rebate=$90.

$90 x 2 = $180 for SLI, that is less than the $200 you quoted for one
board, not even close to the double that price you quote for SLI.

I think you're confused about this.  3Dfx designs their own chips, they
are not going to be making a TNT board.  Once the lawsuit comes to
trial, there may be nobody making TNT cards anymore.

A Voodoo-II card will be quite a lot faster if your CPU is >266mhz.
So get a Voodoo-I or a K6-II and a Voodoo-II, it's so damned cheap today...
IMHO it doesn't make a difference if you you a Diamond, Orchid or
whatever as the cards are quite identical. Even the drivers are
exchangeble...;-)

Also, man mailt sich...

.\\atze        [ FmMW2109 - FmMB2139 ]

*home* : http://www.home4u.de/buesing/

 From what I've seen, it may run 1284x768 if GPL were patched, but you'd be
real lucky to get 25fps, let alone 50.  Plus of course it's limited to 36fps
to begin with.

Since you can't play several games accelerated on it, explain to me how it's
a better card.  I don't get it.  A nice card, yes.  Might put one in to
replace my Riva 128 for 2D, and for those games where it works better than
Voodoo 2 - but the Voodoo 2 sure wouldn't be going anywhere.

Check out www.tomshardware.com for TNT vs. Voodoo 2.  Although he praises
the TNT for the higher resolutions, the framerates never show it to be
faster than a V2 SLI at even the same resolution, and usually about the same
speed as a single Voodoo 2.  And 3dfx is pushing SLI, so look to get 2 V2's
for about the price of a TNT in the next few months.

For racing sims, let's see, Rendition runs N2, ICR2, and all the D3D ones.
Also runs EF2000 2.0 and a number of older games in native mode, and will
run everything you throw at it in D3D.

AND GPL RUNS ON Voodoo 2 !!!  What's your beef?

Yeah, of course in a year there' ll be Voodoo 3 or something that's twice as
fast.

spectacular.

Ok, you have really lost it now - 3dfx makes CHIPS.  Companies like
Creative, Diamond, Canopus buy these chips and make cards with them, that
you buy at the store.  nVidia makes the TNT chip, same thing.

I think what it is, you bought your TNT because you saw specs on the box or
some website, "Can do 1600x1200, it's faster than 2 Voodoo 2's,etc. etc" and
are now pissed since you discovered half the games out, including GPL, don't
run accelerated on it.  And you're especially pissed that GPL doesn't just
do like that half and support 3dfx, it also supports those "old" Rendition
cards.  Sucks that a $50 Stealth II can get more frames in a game than your
$180 TNT huh?

Ken

P.S.  Not trying to sound like a 3dfx or Rendition zealot, just trying to
counter the TNT zealot <grin>  It just doesn't run GPL (accelerated), no way
you can recommend it to a guy wanting a card to improve GPL, seemed simple
to me.

I'd say it is better in some regards, as you well might admit if it wasn't for
someone getting you hot under the collar :-)
True, many of those benefits are moot until supported, but I suspect you would
acknowledge that day will come.  For instance...

Faster than a single V2 in D3D (OpenGL??).
32 bit color.
Greater texture memory capacity.
Greater resolution capability.
Better image (by most accounts).
AGP 2x for large texture support.

I agree it isn't a V2 replacement, at least until/if Glide support dissapears.
But you seem to admit it has it's place!

OEM TNT's are already in the $140 range.  I suspect they'll stay ahead of V2
SLI's for quite a while.

Not sure you suceeded :-)

Alas, we all help it propogate, don't we?

Agreed.

David Snider

My Monster3D is for games, period.  Rendition may provide better image
quality, but I have no problems with 3dfx quality right now, and there's no
way that I want to use a Rendition board for graphics apps in NT.

Rick

Yes but this is rec.autos.simulators...   And the TNT is _not_ the way to go
for racing simulators. I didn't said it's not the way to go for ***. I
said not for racing simulators.

WTF are you talking about ?? Sierra bought by EA... it's more complicated
than that... Sierra in a certain way exist but not totally.. it's now
divided in multitude of "alliances" such as Sierra
Sports/Attractions/FX/Studios/Home and finally Dynamix.  You just can't
"buy" Sierra.

Actually... this is a myth and it's false.  Papyrus never made a Rendition
rasterizer because Sierra was selling their V1100 Rendition card.   Back in
1995, they decided to go with Rendition and port Icr2 because it was the
only good choice at that time. 3dfx board was about non-existant, and
3d-accelerators were not enough mature (the "boom" appeared just after..)
Since they already had a good port with Icr2 they decided to continue in
Nascar Racing 2 with it... and after Software Allies took it to do SODA.
Finally, the Papyrus rasterizer method for Rendition was really mature and
great, so with GPL it gives incredible results.  They tweaked it all those
years and titles, and don't be surprised to still see a Rendition port for
Nascar Racing - 1999 and Nascar Racing 3.

No, go buy a Voodoo-chipset based card.  For racing simulators. And if you
want, get yourself a Rendition card as your primary 2d/3d... You will be in
heaven.  A TNT will only bring you good fps in NHRA Drag Sim and I think
that's mostly all.. compared to a Voodoo/Rendition combo.

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