rec.autos.simulators

After discovering my old V1000 performed better than my Voodoo1 for GPL
in my P200, I asked advice on whether to go V2200.  Got a big yes.
Found that the Thriller was a -lot- more expensive (in UK here) than I
expected and found a V2100 for about a 3rd of the price.  Steath II 220
(noted in Four Wheel Drift, no less).  It's absolutely no better than
the old V1000 in either N2 or GPL.
Had to sell a load of games to get the finances for this thing as the
wife has banned fresh PC kit outlay, and I'm so disappointed.  I wasn't
expecting much, but I got nothing.  Might as well have thrown 55
($80ish) down the drain.

If someone can tell me that I'm doing something wrong (other than buying
lame hardware) I'd appreciate it.

Mark
Reading, UK

        Factors that might explain it - the chipset isn't everything,
card design and drivers are important, and memory size is very
important.

             bob

As someone else has already mentioned, grab the latest S220 drivers
and BIOS from Diamond's site. The 1.36 BIOS clocks the V2100 up from
45MHz to 55MHz default, and increases the SGRAM clock from 100MHz to
110MHz. This alone is a nice little performance boost. Magic in Win95,
I found the V2100 a bit troublesome in Win98, but apparently those
problems have been cured by the latest driver update. Perhaps relevant
to you, one of the problems I experienced in Win98 was a *significant*
slowdown of the card's 2D performance.

Whilst I can't comment on it's performance in GPL, in my experience
the V2100 does do a lot better in games like Quake 2 using the mini-GL
ICDs than my V1000. I had it them in iP200s at the time, and for newer
games like Forsaken etc running D3D, I can hardly tell the difference
between the V2100, Riva 128 and 3Dfx Voodoo in terms of frame rate,
and image quality of the Riva and Rendition was marginally better IMO.

That said, I'm going around to a friends place tomorrow to have a look
at GPL on his PC, an iP233MMX with V2100. He says he's getting 25fps
in 800x600 which is similar to what I'm getting in that res with my
Voodoo on a K6-2 300, so I'll see how it compares with my Voodoo and
let you know. I'm almost inspired to put my V2100 back into service,
but I'm all outa PCI slots. 8^(

  I had gotten the updated bios a while back, but I haven't been able to get
the latest drivers
to load.  during the setup procedure I keep getting an error message that
says, No hardware found.
and that ends the setup...Diamond sent me a tip or two but that hasn't
worked either.
dave henrie

What can I say! Whilst I admit to being a Rendition fan, as a realist
and avid gamer I also have a 3Dfx Voodoo Monster which I'm currently
using for GPL in my primary PC (#2 is down/upgrading) and I have an
AGP nVidia Riva 128 as my current primary 2D.

I'm really surprised at the performance of the V2100 in GPL.
Ordinarily I would have expected the Voodoo to outperform it.
It certainly does in Quake and Quake 2 using Open GL wrappers.

Here's what we found. All tests were conducted with everything on,
full detail with only driver arms and steering wheel removed.

We conducted with training mode, 1 car only and single race, 19 cars
full AI. Track was Silverstone.

In 640x480, there was **nothing** between them framerate wise,
although remember, the V2100 was only running alongside 83MHz bus on a
P55C-250MMX whilst the Voodoo was running alongside 100MHz FSbus
AMDK6-2 300MMX.

What was really remarkable was the performance in 800x600. Here the
Voodoo took a big hit, and runs only about 30fps with no cars on the
circuit. With full traffic and AI it runs 25, traffic pretty much on
the horizon. The Rendition V2100 ran 36fps in solo mode, and 30fps
with traffic! I was amazed. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't
tested it myself, but it's true.

Whilst I find the GPL performance of the Voodoo (orig) with my K6-2
300 adequate, the V2100 does perform better with GPL, particularly in
the higher resolution. It also looks better, with preferable image
quality and no jaggies from the absent anti-aliasing of the Voodoo.

So no question, for GPL the V2100 is a really inexpensive video
solution with solid performance. If I had a spare PCI slot, I'd be
very tempted to take out my nVidia Riva and put the Verite 2100 in
just for it's performance in this sim.

As it is, I'll definitely upgrade soon from my Voodoo to a Voodoo II,
but will also have to consider the Verite AGP alternatives such as the
Herc Thriller V2200 AGP as an alternative to my Riva given it's
performance in GPL and undoubtedly the forthcoming NASCAR 2.5.