rec.autos.simulators

by **Jeff Ha** » Sun, 04 Oct 1998 04:00:00

All,

I am running a CeleronA overclocked to 450 mhz and have both an 8 meg
Thriller 3d card and an SLI configuration of Monster3d2 cards. I am
running at 800x600 with the detail slider at 3/4 detail and all
graphic options on. I am running a full field of 19 AI.

The interesting thing is that the Thriller 3-d outperforms the SLI
voodoos! The thriller gives me 36 fps almost all of the time while
the voodoo2's can only crank out 30 most of the time and vary a great
deal between the 20's and 36. It appears that the extra workload the
cpu has to do draw stuff for the voodoos (as noted somewhere in the
documentatiion, I think) kills it and appears to thrash the 128k
secondary cache. I do have the triple buffering turned off, actually
every one of the voodoo2 options is turned off.

QUESTION: Is anyone seeing better frame rates with a voodoo2 with a
Pentium II cpu that has the 256k secondary cache? If so it would be
interesting to know where the trade-off point is in CPU speed.

By the way at 1024x768 the dual voodoos pull ahead. but the frame rate
is not fast enough to race. I'd rather use the 800x600 with full
detail.

Thanks.

Jeff Haas

by **Marc Collin** » Sun, 04 Oct 1998 04:00:00

Thanks for letting us know this!! You have confirmed that once again
Papyrus' support for non-Rendition chips is abysmal. If you can't get
consistent high frame rates on your set-up, then the rest of us can forget
it....unless we are willing to buy a special video card just for GPL, since
the rest of industry ignores the Rendition chipset.

Marc.

>All,

>I am running a CeleronA overclocked to 450 mhz and have both an 8 meg
>Thriller 3d card and an SLI configuration of Monster3d2 cards. I am
>running at 800x600 with the detail slider at 3/4 detail and all
>graphic options on. I am running a full field of 19 AI.

>The interesting thing is that the Thriller 3-d outperforms the SLI
>voodoos! The thriller gives me 36 fps almost all of the time while
>the voodoo2's can only crank out 30 most of the time and vary a great
>deal between the 20's and 36. It appears that the extra workload the
>cpu has to do draw stuff for the voodoos (as noted somewhere in the
>documentatiion, I think) kills it and appears to thrash the 128k
>secondary cache. I do have the triple buffering turned off, actually
>every one of the voodoo2 options is turned off.

>QUESTION: Is anyone seeing better frame rates with a voodoo2 with a
>Pentium II cpu that has the 256k secondary cache? If so it would be
>interesting to know where the trade-off point is in CPU speed.

>By the way at 1024x768 the dual voodoos pull ahead. but the frame rate
>is not fast enough to race. I'd rather use the 800x600 with full
>detail.

>Thanks.

>Jeff Haas

by **John Simmo** » Sun, 04 Oct 1998 04:00:00

I have a V1000 rendition card and a Voodoo2 in a P2/333 with 128mb ram.

My observations follow...

Rendition V1000 (Intergraph Reactor, about a year old):
640x480 - In-car, 12fps (19 AI cars), 20fps alone
640x480 - Chase, 20fps all the time
800x600 - In-car, 8fps (19 AI cars), 13fps alone
800x600 - Chase, 13 fps all the time
1024x768 - 4fps - period

Voodoo2/12mb (Creative Labs, about 6 months old):
640x480 - In-car, 28fps (19 AI cars), 36fps alone
640x480 - Chase, 36fps all the time
800x600 - In-car, 23fps (19 AI cars), 36fps alone
800x600 - Chase, 36 fps all the time
1024x768 - Chase, 34 fps all the time

Looks to me like they support 3dfx pretty damn well. The rendition
chipset is only usefull if you're running a Papy driving simulator. If
you're doing ANYTHING else, you may as well s***the rendition card as
far as 3d games go, and invest in Voodo2 cards.

says...

>Thanks for letting us know this!! You have confirmed that once again
>Papyrus' support for non-Rendition chips is abysmal. If you can't get
>consistent high frame rates on your set-up, then the rest of us can
>forget it....unless we are willing to buy a special video card just
>for GPL, since the rest of industry ignores the Rendition chipset.

>>I am running a CeleronA overclocked to 450 mhz and have both an 8 meg
>>Thriller 3d card and an SLI configuration of Monster3d2 cards. I am
>>running at 800x600 with the detail slider at 3/4 detail and all
>>graphic options on. I am running a full field of 19 AI.

>>The interesting thing is that the Thriller 3-d outperforms the SLI
>>voodoos! The thriller gives me 36 fps almost all of the time while
>>the voodoo2's can only crank out 30 most of the time and vary a great
>>deal between the 20's and 36. It appears that the extra workload the
>>cpu has to do draw stuff for the voodoos (as noted somewhere in the
>>documentatiion, I think) kills it and appears to thrash the 128k
>>secondary cache. I do have the triple buffering turned off, actually
>>every one of the voodoo2 options is turned off.

>>QUESTION: Is anyone seeing better frame rates with a voodoo2 with a
>>Pentium II cpu that has the 256k secondary cache? If so it would be
>>interesting to know where the trade-off point is in CPU speed.

>>By the way at 1024x768 the dual voodoos pull ahead. but the frame rate
>>is not fast enough to race. I'd rather use the 800x600 with full
>>detail.

--
=========================================================
John Simmons - Redneck Techno-Biker (Zerex12)
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

John Simmons - Barbarian Diecast Collector
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

If you want to send me email, go to either of the URL's
shown above & click "Send Me Mail" in the contents frame.
=========================================================

by **Lou** » Sun, 04 Oct 1998 04:00:00

Have you read the Hardware FAQ at this sight ?
http://nh.ultranet.com/~alison/gpl/
I think the L2 cache and 100Mhz FSB make a difference with the V2's.

>All,
>QUESTION: Is anyone seeing better frame rates with a voodoo2 with a
>Pentium II cpu that has the 256k secondary cache? If so it would be
>interesting to know where the trade-off point is in CPU speed.

>By the way at 1024x768 the dual voodoos pull ahead. but the frame rate
>is not fast enough to race. I'd rather use the 800x600 with full
>detail.

>Thanks.

>Jeff Haas

by **plegr..** » Sun, 04 Oct 1998 04:00:00

You better check your hardware...sounds like something is broken.

PAPA DOC

Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand
Infamous
Pink Flamingo Pilot...<G>

http://home.earthlink.net/~plegrand/PINKFLAMINGO.htm

by **Mike Peterse** » Sun, 04 Oct 1998 04:00:00

You may be able to overclock a CeleronA to 450, but that doesn't mean it's
a p2-450...

I have a p2-450 with a Diamond M3D2 (just one), and I get 36fps...

Also, remember:

If you have an older system, Rendition will probably out perform 3dfx2
If you have a P2/???, 3dfx2 will blow away Rendition

Mike

>All,

>I am running a CeleronA overclocked to 450 mhz and have both an 8 meg
>Thriller 3d card and an SLI configuration of Monster3d2 cards. I am
>running at 800x600 with the detail slider at 3/4 detail and all
>graphic options on. I am running a full field of 19 AI.
>The interesting thing is that the Thriller 3-d outperforms the SLI
>voodoos! The thriller gives me 36 fps almost all of the time while
>the voodoo2's can only crank out 30 most of the time and vary a great
>deal between the 20's and 36. It appears that the extra workload the
>cpu has to do draw stuff for the voodoos (as noted somewhere in the
>documentatiion, I think) kills it and appears to thrash the 128k
>secondary cache. I do have the triple buffering turned off, actually
>every one of the voodoo2 options is turned off.
>QUESTION: Is anyone seeing better frame rates with a voodoo2 with a
>Pentium II cpu that has the 256k secondary cache? If so it would be
>interesting to know where the trade-off point is in CPU speed.
>By the way at 1024x768 the dual voodoos pull ahead. but the frame rate
>is not fast enough to race. I'd rather use the 800x600 with full

by **Jerry** » Mon, 05 Oct 1998 04:00:00

>All,

>I am running a CeleronA overclocked to 450 mhz and have both an 8 meg
>Thriller 3d card and an SLI configuration of Monster3d2 cards. I am
>running at 800x600 with the detail slider at 3/4 detail and all
>graphic options on. I am running a full field of 19 AI.

>The interesting thing is that the Thriller 3-d outperforms the SLI
>voodoos! The thriller gives me 36 fps almost all of the time while
>the voodoo2's can only crank out 30 most of the time and vary a great
>deal between the 20's and 36. It appears that the extra workload the
>cpu has to do draw stuff for the voodoos (as noted somewhere in the
>documentatiion, I think) kills it and appears to thrash the 128k
>secondary cache. I do have the triple buffering turned off, actually
>every one of the voodoo2 options is turned off.

>QUESTION: Is anyone seeing better frame rates with a voodoo2 with a
>Pentium II cpu that has the 256k secondary cache? If so it would be
>interesting to know where the trade-off point is in CPU speed.

>By the way at 1024x768 the dual voodoos pull ahead. but the frame rate
>is not fast enough to race. I'd rather use the 800x600 with full
>detail.

>Thanks.

>Jeff Haas

How do you enable the frame rate counter. I just got the game last night and I
haven't had time to read the manual so don't bite my head off. I had to just
start playing as soon as I got the game. I have a Celeron without cache
running at 448Mhz and SLI CL Voodoo 2 12MB cards. I was running at 800 x 600
with full field and max detail and it wasn't smooth, very hard to drive. I had
played the demo with one 12MB Voodoo 2 and it was absolutely smooth at 800 x
600. Anyway I turned the detail slider back to the middle and turned off
clouds and went to 640 x 480 and it was really smooth. Actually in my
configuration one 12MB voodoo 2 is just as fast as SLI at 640 x 480 in all the
games I have benchmarked. With SLI you can get the same frame rate at 800 x
600 that you got at 640 x 480 with just one Voodoo 2. I love the game, but
it's the hardest racing game I have ever played. Practice practice and
practice some more.

Jerry

by **Don Burnett** » Mon, 05 Oct 1998 04:00:00

Alt-F enables the frame rate counter.

--
Don Burnette
Palmetto Racing
Dburn on Ten
AOLL Iroc Series Administrator
http://pages.southtech.net/palmetto/aoll.htm

>How do you enable the frame rate counter. I just got the game last night
and I
>haven't had time to read the manual so don't bite my head off. I had to
just
>start playing as soon as I got the game.

snip

by **Marc Collin** » Mon, 05 Oct 1998 04:00:00

Not all of us have the latest V2 12MB 3dfx cards.... People pointing out
that they can get terrific frame rates on the most premium equipment isn't
very helpful, at least to me (we can usually figure that out ourselves). I
need to know how well more modest equipment performs.

>I have a V1000 rendition card and a Voodoo2 in a P2/333 with 128mb ram.

>My observations follow...

>Rendition V1000 (Intergraph Reactor, about a year old):
>640x480 - In-car, 12fps (19 AI cars), 20fps alone
>640x480 - Chase, 20fps all the time
>800x600 - In-car, 8fps (19 AI cars), 13fps alone
>800x600 - Chase, 13 fps all the time
>1024x768 - 4fps - period

>Voodoo2/12mb (Creative Labs, about 6 months old):
>640x480 - In-car, 28fps (19 AI cars), 36fps alone
>640x480 - Chase, 36fps all the time
>800x600 - In-car, 23fps (19 AI cars), 36fps alone
>800x600 - Chase, 36 fps all the time
>1024x768 - Chase, 34 fps all the time

>Looks to me like they support 3dfx pretty damn well. The rendition
>chipset is only usefull if you're running a Papy driving simulator. If
>you're doing ANYTHING else, you may as well s***the rendition card as
>far as 3d games go, and invest in Voodo2 cards.

>says...
>>Thanks for letting us know this!! You have confirmed that once again
>>Papyrus' support for non-Rendition chips is abysmal. If you can't get
>>consistent high frame rates on your set-up, then the rest of us can
>>forget it....unless we are willing to buy a special video card just
>>for GPL, since the rest of industry ignores the Rendition chipset.

>>>I am running a CeleronA overclocked to 450 mhz and have both an 8 meg
>>>Thriller 3d card and an SLI configuration of Monster3d2 cards. I am
>>>running at 800x600 with the detail slider at 3/4 detail and all
>>>graphic options on. I am running a full field of 19 AI.

>>>The interesting thing is that the Thriller 3-d outperforms the SLI
>>>voodoos! The thriller gives me 36 fps almost all of the time while
>>>the voodoo2's can only crank out 30 most of the time and vary a great
>>>deal between the 20's and 36. It appears that the extra workload the
>>>cpu has to do draw stuff for the voodoos (as noted somewhere in the
>>>documentatiion, I think) kills it and appears to thrash the 128k
>>>secondary cache. I do have the triple buffering turned off, actually
>>>every one of the voodoo2 options is turned off.

>>>QUESTION: Is anyone seeing better frame rates with a voodoo2 with a
>>>Pentium II cpu that has the 256k secondary cache? If so it would be
>>>interesting to know where the trade-off point is in CPU speed.

>>>By the way at 1024x768 the dual voodoos pull ahead. but the frame rate
>>>is not fast enough to race. I'd rather use the 800x600 with full
>>>detail.

>--
>=========================================================
>John Simmons - Redneck Techno-Biker (Zerex12)
>http://www.racesimcentral.net/

>John Simmons - Barbarian Diecast Collector
>http://www.racesimcentral.net/

>If you want to send me email, go to either of the URL's
>shown above & click "Send Me Mail" in the contents frame.
>=========================================================

by **Jeff Ha** » Tue, 06 Oct 1998 04:00:00

>You better check your hardware...sounds like something is broken.

>PAPA DOC

Thanks for the very useful post.

Jeff

by **Jeff Ha** » Tue, 06 Oct 1998 04:00:00

On Sat, 3 Oct 1998 20:09:29 -0400, "Mike Petersen"

>You may be able to overclock a CeleronA to 450, but that doesn't mean it's
>a p2-450...

>I have a p2-450 with a Diamond M3D2 (just one), and I get 36fps...

>Also, remember:

>If you have an older system, Rendition will probably out perform 3dfx2
>If you have a P2/???, 3dfx2 will blow away Rendition

>Mike

Thanks for the info Mike, that confirms my thoughts about the lack of
full cache on the celeronA. I'm well aware of what I have :) . given
the cost, it's a great solution until the prices drop.

Jeff

by **David Ript** » Tue, 06 Oct 1998 04:00:00

>On Sat, 3 Oct 1998 20:09:29 -0400, "Mike Petersen"

>>You may be able to overclock a CeleronA to 450, but that doesn't mean it's
>>a p2-450...

>>I have a p2-450 with a Diamond M3D2 (just one), and I get 36fps...

>>Also, remember:
>>If you have an older system, Rendition will probably out perform 3dfx2
>>If you have a P2/???, 3dfx2 will blow away Rendition
>Thanks for the info Mike, that confirms my thoughts about the lack of
>full cache on the celeronA. I'm well aware of what I have :) . given
>the cost, it's a great solution until the prices drop.

The Celeron A should be very comparable to the P2 at the same clock
speed -- 128 KB of full-speed cache compares nicely to 512 KB of
half-speed cache. Obviously some programs will be faster on one or
the other depending on the core working set, but I really doubt
you'd notice the difference in any game. (The old L2-cacheless
Celerons are another story, but even they are good enough for many
games, since the core working set often fits in L1 cache.)

Increasing your cache size is good, but you get seriously diminishing
returns in typical programs. (If your L1 cache has a 90% hit rate,
and L1 plus the first 128 KB of L2 has a 95% hit rate, then all the
additional cache in the world can only come into play 5% of the
time.)

Data point: P2-333 overclocked to 412 MHz. Voodoo 1 card. 640x480.
32-36 fps when hotlapping at the Glen, with all details on. Solid
36 fps with a few details turned off. 8 fps in the back of the pits
behind 19 computer cars, rising to about 25 fps after the start.

Looks like there's a ton of overdraw going on when a lot of cars
are displayed, and a Voodoo 2's extra fill rate helps a lot in that
situation. Given a fast CPU, the game is very playable with a
Voodoo 1 at 640x480. (800x600 is noticably slower.)

With the Celeron 300a at $143 and Voodoo 1 cards at $49, I don't
think GPL's hardware requirements are out of line. It would be
nice if the actual requirements were on the box, though. (The
time spent on the unusable software renderer should have been
spent on a D3D or OpenGL port, so the people with TNT, i740,
G200, and future 3D cards could play, too.)

--

spamgard(tm): To email me, put "geek" in your Subject line.

by **papa..** » Wed, 07 Oct 1998 04:00:00

Your welcome...

PAPA DOC

Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand
Pink Flamingo Pilot...

http://home.earthlink.net/~plegrand/PINKFLAMINGO.htm

by **Marko Hadjin** » Wed, 07 Oct 1998 04:00:00

Is GPL runing faster with rendition card or voodoo?I think I read
somewhere that is faster with rendition on systems up to PII300 and faster
with voodoo II on systems over PII300.

by **Jerry** » Wed, 07 Oct 1998 04:00:00

I have been testing with both my V-Raptor 4MB AGP card (rendition V2200) and my
voodoo 2 12MB SLI combination and came up with some suprises. At 640 x 480 ,
19 cars, everything on and detail slider at 50% I ran both video cards at
Monza.

Celeron 266 cacheless (4 x 112MHz =448MHz ) Abit BH6 (Intel BX) 64MB ram

MONZA
Sitting in the pit (Ferrari)
3DFX Voodoo2 12MB (SLI) 12 fps
Rendition V2200 4MB 21 fps

back of full grid
3DFX Voodoo2 12MB (SLI) 15 fps
Rendition V2200 4MB 20 fps

Start of race
3DFX Voodoo2 12MB (SLI) 12 fps slowly climbs to 21 then max of 26 fps
Rendition V2200 4MB 16 fps Immediatly back to 20 then 36 fps by
the time you get to the fences . Stays at 36 fps for the rest of the race.
Even four cars around me the frame rate stays at 36 fps.

This is the only game that supports both the 3DFX and Rendition card that the
Voodoo 2 has lost. I have two Voodoo 2 cards in SLI so it must be the CPU. To
be fair the second Voodoo 2 card doesn't start adding fps unless your in 800 x
600 but that is always equal to or slower than 640 x 480. With this
Combination I can get 35 FPS average, as good as Pentium II 450, on Unreal
timedemo.02 at 1024 x 768 . In SODA OFF Road , another sierra papyrus auto
sim, the rendition mode is the same framerate as the software mode (27-30 fps
at 640x 480). Even in Monster Truck Madness 2 , which has both a glide and
rendition mode, one Voodoo 2 12Mb is about 10 fps faster ( 55 fps vs. 45 fps).

Jerry

rec.autos.simulators

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates

GPL Observation/Question on CPU cache, Voodoo2 and Thriller 3d frame rates