N4 and GeForce3 - no frame rate increase? wtf?

I went from a GeForce2 GTS 32mb to a new GF3 and my frame rate at 16x12 didn't improve at all? Whats up with that? I see all these online reviews of the GF3 and think 'sweet, now I can have 16x12 N4 at 60fps or so' but this is not at all the case. The main reason I bought this card was so I could run my favorite game (mainly N4) at high res at high frame rates. I maybe have gained 1 or 2 fps at best with full detail in N4. WTF? Btw, Abit BF6, PIII900, 256mb,Live, GF3

Stubby.... There's far more to getting good FPS in N4 than the hardware.....that's only "the starting point." Your PIII 900 CPU is probably hurting you a little bit.....but for the most part your hardware is capable of 60 to 80 FPS (maybe more once your GF3 card can stretch its legs with the right drivers and settings). I get anywhere from 50's to 90's FPS......using the settings below....only running a GF2 ULTRA (which won't be much different than a GF3....not in N4 they'll be almost indistinguishable...since they both have the same DDR memory and run at the same clock speeds). When you get your FPS in the 60's to 70's or better.....you should try running the FSAA that is a totally new "graphics engine" on the GF3.....see what "hit" you take to FPS....which should be minimal with the GF3's FSAA architecture/methodology. I should point out that I have posted the settings below here on RAS several times....and almost everyone (with similar equipment to mine) gets the same results as I do. Follow them closely.....all of them. Wishing you success..... Tom Pabst Pabst-Racing.com PS: What GF3 card did you buy and how much? ******GeForce 2 (MX, GTS, ULTRA) Tweaks and Settings for N4****** Desktop Color: Set to 16-bit color for N4 and all games. DirectX: Make sure you are using a DX 8.0 compatible driver (Nvidia Ref drivers versions 7.0 or higher) For N4: Run OpenGL (not D3D) in "XXXX"x16 (you must use a screen res compatible with your CPU speed and ram). Monitor: Make sure you have downloaded the latest drivers for your monitor...DO NOT USE "Plug and Play" Monitor drivers! Set your refresh rate at the highest setting you are allowed for your monitor at the specific screen res you want to run N4 at. Advanced Settings Tab For OpenGL: In The Scroll Down Box: Enable Buffer Region Extension (checked) Allow the dual planes extension to us local video memory (checked) Use fast linear-mipmap-linear filtering (checked) ****all others are unchecked**** Default Color Depth for Textures: Always Use 16 bpp Buffer Flipping Mode: Use page flip Vertical sync: Always off Full Scene Antialiasing Method: Always off Use up to [62] MB of system memory for textures in PCI mode Mother Board BIOS Settings: Video BIOS Shadow = "Disabled" Video BIOS Cache = "Disabled" Palette Snoop = "Disabled" AGP Turbo (or x4) = "Enabled" (if your mobo supports it....disabled or 2x or 1x if it does not) PnP Aware OS = "Yes" AGP Aperture Size = 128 mb (only if you have 128 mb or more...which you should) Resources Controlled by = "Auto" Assign IRQ to VGA = "Yes"

This is what I'd expect... From what I've been able to gather, unless the game is optimized for Directx 8, the GF3 will show little improvement over a Pro/Ultra. I'm pulling up to 75fps at 1280xwhatever with my GeForce Pro, and that's good enough for me :) Also, it takes a powerfull processor to feed a GeForce Pro/Ultra/3. I noticed a pretty good increase with the same card when I went from a 800Mhz Athlon to a 1.2Ghz DDR Athlon. -Larry "Stubby" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:3af61c0e$0$12817$[email hidden]...

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> I went from a GeForce2 GTS 32mb to a new GF3 and my frame rate at 16x12 > didn't improve at all? Whats up with that? I see all these online > reviews of the GF3 and think 'sweet, now I can have 16x12 N4 at 60fps or > so' but this is not at all the case. The main reason I bought this card > was so I could run my favorite game (mainly N4) at high res at high > frame rates. I maybe have gained 1 or 2 fps at best with full detail in > N4. WTF? > > Btw, Abit BF6, PIII900, 256mb,Live, GF3 >

Go to www.tomshardware.com Thats what they found too. "Stubby" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:3af61c0e$0$12817$[email hidden]...

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> I went from a GeForce2 GTS 32mb to a new GF3 and my frame rate at 16x12 > didn't improve at all? Whats up with that? I see all these online > reviews of the GF3 and think 'sweet, now I can have 16x12 N4 at 60fps or > so' but this is not at all the case. The main reason I bought this card > was so I could run my favorite game (mainly N4) at high res at high > frame rates. I maybe have gained 1 or 2 fps at best with full detail in > N4. WTF? > > Btw, Abit BF6, PIII900, 256mb,Live, GF3 >

>Go to www.tomshardware.com > >Thats what they found too. > So, even though N4 requires DirectX 8.0+ (doesn't it?), it isn't optimized for it? -pw

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>"Stubby" <[email hidden]> wrote in message >news:3af61c0e$0$12817$[email hidden]... >> I went from a GeForce2 GTS 32mb to a new GF3 and my frame rate at 16x12 >> didn't improve at all? Whats up with that? I see all these online >> reviews of the GF3 and think 'sweet, now I can have 16x12 N4 at 60fps or >> so' but this is not at all the case. The main reason I bought this card >> was so I could run my favorite game (mainly N4) at high res at high >> frame rates. I maybe have gained 1 or 2 fps at best with full detail in >> N4. WTF? >> >> Btw, Abit BF6, PIII900, 256mb,Live, GF3 >> >

"pw" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:9d6osc$o6s$[email hidden]...

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> >Go to www.tomshardware.com > > > >Thats what they found too. > > > > So, even though N4 requires DirectX 8.0+ (doesn't it?), it isn't > optimized for it?

Microsoft recommends (forces?) to include newest DirectX, optimized for or not is not matter. Y. Minami

I had the exact same experience Larry....jumping from the same...to the same....cpu wise. I am buying a GF-3 for "experimental" reasons only (and bumping up to a 1.333 AMD Athy....oc'ing to 1.6 gig and PC2100 SDRAM - CAS 2 setting.... RAM...tons of it)....not because its needed in N4 for FPS. however. Although, I will be interested to see if the GF-3 Quincunux (spl?) FSAA is a substantial improvement on the OpenGL "jaggies".....in N4. I run 1600 res......same FPS....you might try that res....the "jaggies" are reduced to insignificant levels....at that res.....with very strong FPS figures still. Give it a try! (However, I just realized with my 21" monitor....I may be more prone to noticing the "jaggies" than I would on a good 19"????). Tom

by optimized they are talking about the new features in DX8 that, at this time, only the Geforce3 can use. So papyrus made their program DX8 compliant but did not address many of the new features of DX8 since at the time of N4's release, NO CARD was capable of displaying them. The only real new feature that N4 uses is transform and lighting via hardware. So N4 required DX8 because there are still many items only available with that build, but the fancy vertex shading and per pixel programing they did not use. You most likely won't see very many programs at all that can take advantage of the new dx8 features until Christmas at the soonest. So to wrap up. N4 requires DX8 but it is not coded to benefit from the newest feature sets in DX8 because at this time, there is only ONE very EXPENSIVE card that can make use of those features. (btw...the first framerate test I saw of a Geforce3 with an alpha build of a program that used all the fancy graphics... 28fps....of course the Geforce 2 bogged down to under 10 but thats what we will see...new programs that overwhelm the first generation Geforce3 cards) dave henrie "pw" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:9d6osc$o6s$[email hidden]...

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> >Go to www.tomshardware.com > > > >Thats what they found too. > > > > So, even though N4 requires DirectX 8.0+ (doesn't it?), it isn't > optimized for it? > > -pw > > >"Stubby" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > >news:3af61c0e$0$12817$[email hidden]... > >> I went from a GeForce2 GTS 32mb to a new GF3 and my frame rate at 16x12 > >> didn't improve at all? Whats up with that? I see all these online > >> reviews of the GF3 and think 'sweet, now I can have 16x12 N4 at 60fps

or

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> >> so' but this is not at all the case. The main reason I bought this card > >> was so I could run my favorite game (mainly N4) at high res at high > >> frame rates. I maybe have gained 1 or 2 fps at best with full detail in > >> N4. WTF? > >> > >> Btw, Abit BF6, PIII900, 256mb,Live, GF3 > >> > > >

"Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:oTHJ6.125539 > So N4 required DX8 Not sure if required is the right word. You can skip the DX8 install and the game works fine. I have yet to upgrade to DX8 (still at DX7) and it runs fine for me.