Future of racing titles and V5 support

I was wondering what West Bros and Papy plan to do concerning support for the Voodoo series of cards. I bring this question up since it is widely known that the FSAA of the V5 is far superior to the Geforce2. Are they planning to still support the V5 or now focus soley on GeForce2 and Radeon. I speak from experience when I talk of V5's excellent FSAA quality, I tested a GeForce2 MX card (Hercules 3D Prophet 2 MX) in FSAA mode in GPL and it sucked. I could not even get it to run in F1CS 2000 in FSAA. Any ideas or statements from developers regarding this issue? -Dominic

> I was wondering what West Bros and Papy plan to do concerning support for > the Voodoo series of cards. > I bring this question up since it is widely known that the FSAA of the V5is > far superior to the Geforce2. > Are they planning to still support the V5 or now focus soley on GeForce2and > Radeon. > I speak from experience when I talk of V5's excellent FSAA quality, Itested > a GeForce2 MX card > (Hercules 3D Prophet 2 MX) in FSAA mode in GPL and it sucked. > I could not even get it to run in F1CS 2000 in FSAA. Papy's N4 is only supporting directX and OpenGL. There is no longer support for Glide or any other proprietary interface. From my knowledge, the voodoo cards are particularly speedy when using the directX interface. It is true that the AA support is supported better in the voodoo cards but this becomes less of an issue with the Geforce cards able to sustain very high resolutions at reasonable frame rates. > > Any ideas or statements from developers regarding this issue? The reality is, 3dfx technology as we know it is not something to invest in anymore. Even before the buyout of their assets, it was clear that 3dfx and Glide was going away slowly. Now it will just go away faster. Game developers such as Papyrus can only afford to invest development resources in so many places. They got burned way back by investing in Rendition and missed the 3dfx boat. Then they did 3dfx and almost missed that boat also. I will bet that they stick with standards from now on. /TomH

i THINK I read an interview with the West's where they were getting ready to change from glide to dx8. I don't think you will ever see another major release that supports glide. That said, the V5 does do d3d very well. You won't be a complete orphan. dave henrie "

>I bring this question up since it is widely known that the FSAA of the V5is >far superior to the Geforce2. Far superior? I'd argue that... It may be a BIT better, but not far superior... That said, with the demise of 3DFX, I'd think that all game makers to switch to DX8/D3D support as well as Open GL as the apps of the future... Both of which Nvidia's cards handle better than 3dfx in general... Since WSC is still nearly a year from release, I'd hope that we don't have anything to worry about... Jay J "Dominic Da Silva" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:0Yc26.201786$[email hidden]... > I was wondering what West Bros and Papy plan to do concerning support for > the Voodoo series of cards. > I bring this question up since it is widely known that the FSAA of the V5is > far superior to the Geforce2. > Are they planning to still support the V5 or now focus soley on GeForce2and > Radeon. > I speak from experience when I talk of V5's excellent FSAA quality, Itested

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> a GeForce2 MX card > (Hercules 3D Prophet 2 MX) in FSAA mode in GPL and it sucked. > I could not even get it to run in F1CS 2000 in FSAA. > > Any ideas or statements from developers regarding this issue? > > -Dominic > >

PS: I run a GeForce 2 GTS 64 meg card and can run GPL at 1280x1024 with FSAA 4x4 (full on) with 36+ FPS constant! Of course it helps to have a P-III 933 Falcon NW Mach-V system too ;-) JJ "Tom Hansen" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:zld26.3141$[email hidden]... > > I was wondering what West Bros and Papy plan to do concerning supportfor > > the Voodoo series of cards. > > I bring this question up since it is widely known that the FSAA of theV5

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> is > > far superior to the Geforce2. > > Are they planning to still support the V5 or now focus soley on GeForce2 > and > > Radeon. > > I speak from experience when I talk of V5's excellent FSAA quality, I > tested > > a GeForce2 MX card > > (Hercules 3D Prophet 2 MX) in FSAA mode in GPL and it sucked. > > I could not even get it to run in F1CS 2000 in FSAA. > > Papy's N4 is only supporting directX and OpenGL. There is no longer

support > for Glide or any other proprietary interface. From my knowledge, thevoodoo > cards are particularly speedy when using the directX interface. It istrue > that the AA support is supported better in the voodoo cards but thisbecomes

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> less of an issue with the Geforce cards able to sustain very high > resolutions at reasonable frame rates. > > > > > Any ideas or statements from developers regarding this issue? > > The reality is, 3dfx technology as we know it is not something to invest

in > anymore. Even before the buyout of their assets, it was clear that 3dfxand > Glide was going away slowly. Now it will just go away faster. Game > developers such as Papyrus can only afford to invest development resources > in so many places. They got burned way back by investing in Rendition and > missed the 3dfx boat. Then they did 3dfx and almost missed that boatalso. > I will bet that they stick with standards from now on. > > /TomH > > >

"Jay J" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:w6r26.82988$[email hidden]... > PS: > > I run a GeForce 2 GTS 64 meg card and can run GPL at 1280x1024 with FSAA4x4 > (full on) with 36+ FPS constant! Of course it helps to have a P-III 933 > Falcon NW Mach-V system too ;-) > > JJ > Is that 36 fps with FSAA both offline and online? I, and some others I know, get a weird performance drop with Geforce FSAA online. That is, if we connect directly through the multiplayer screen, GPL won't even start through Winvroc with the FSAA on. Perhaps the problem is hardware/driver dependent... My system is a 800MHz Athlon Asus A7V mobo with 128MB 100MHz SD Ram, W98 standard, Asus V7700 Geforce 2 GTS 32MB. The problem occurs with latest Asus drivers as well as several releases of Nvidia reference drivers. Bart Westra

"Jay J" <[email hidden]> wrote: > I run a GeForce 2 GTS 64 meg card and can run > GPL at 1280x1024 with FSAA 4x4 (full on) with > 36+ FPS constant! 4 x 4 is misleading, it suggests that the 1280 x 1024 image is down-sampled from a 5120 x 4096 image (4x width, 4x height) which is clearly not the case as that would require something on the order of 116 Mb worth of video memory (try to get your card to handle the '16x' setting at that resolution). The '4x' in this case refers to 2 x 2 image in relation the the destination resolution, i.e. an original image size of 2560 x 2048. Having seen both on the same monitor I have to agree with the original poster, the Nvidia '4x' OGSS FSAA is a poor second to the 3dfx '4x' RGSS FSAAA technique. Hopefully in the future we will have the best of both worlds - a Nvidia card with a RGSS FSAA implementation, that scenario seems a bit optimistic to me though. - George

"Jay J" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:w6r26.82988$[email hidden]... > PS: > > I run a GeForce 2 GTS 64 meg card and can run GPL at 1280x1024 with FSAA4x4 > (full on) with 36+ FPS constant! Of course it helps to have a P-III 933 > Falcon NW Mach-V system too ;-) nvidia has a nifty little "trick" up their sleeves with their drivers. I found this out "the hard way", i.e. firsthand with mine. You can set it "full on", but it'll scale itself back (without telling you) if you select a resolution/color depth that it can't do. In o0ther words, you crank the FSAA setting, then go to 1280x1024. Don't assume that you actually have "4x4" FSAA enabled. you don't. the drivers automatically scale back the FSAA setting. Chances are good you're @ 2x2.

"Jay J" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:S4r26.82987$[email hidden]... > >I bring this question up since it is widely known that the FSAA of the V5 > > is far superior to the Geforce2. > > Far superior? I'd argue that... It may be a BIT better, but not far > superior... to each his/her own. I'll agree, having owned both. The 5500's FSAA is far far superior. > That said, with the demise of 3DFX, I'd think that all game makers toswitch > to DX8/D3D support as well as Open GL as the apps of the future... Both of > which Nvidia's cards handle better than 3dfx in general... OGL, yes. D3d....sometimes. ;->

Since the GF2 MX costs only about �80 you can hardly compare it to a �200+ V5. Also FSAA needs no developer support. The V5 does OpenGL and D3D without a problem, so future support shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully for the sake of V5 owners, 3dfx can get some DX8 d3d drivers out the door before they close technical support in two months. "Dominic Da Silva" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:0Yc26.201786$[email hidden]... > I was wondering what West Bros and Papy plan to do concerning support for > the Voodoo series of cards. > I bring this question up since it is widely known that the FSAA of the V5is > far superior to the Geforce2. > Are they planning to still support the V5 or now focus soley on GeForce2and > Radeon. > I speak from experience when I talk of V5's excellent FSAA quality, Itested

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> a GeForce2 MX card > (Hercules 3D Prophet 2 MX) in FSAA mode in GPL and it sucked. > I could not even get it to run in F1CS 2000 in FSAA. > > Any ideas or statements from developers regarding this issue? > > -Dominic > >

Having also owned both, FSAA is the only area where the V5 is better, and it's only better by around 20%. FSAA on the GF2 improved a lot from the 6.34 drivers onwards. Even when I had a V5 I hardly used FSAA. There's no way the small image quality gain is worth the frame rate drop (for me). Nothing kills realism IMO like halving the frame rate. "SGT Robo" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:92e0a8$kic$[email hidden]... > > to each his/her own. I'll agree, having owned both. The 5500's FSAA isfar > far superior. > > OGL, yes. D3d....sometimes. ;->

> Having also owned both, FSAA is the only area where the V5 is better, and > it's only better by around 20%. FSAA on the GF2 improved a lot from the > 6.34 drivers onwards. Even when I had a V5 I hardly used FSAA. There'sno > way the small image quality gain is worth the frame rate drop (for me). > Nothing kills realism IMO like halving the frame rate.I second this opinion. I stopped using anti-aliasing in N3 for this reason. I was able to eliminate anti-aliasing and then go to a higher resolution and still have a better frame rate. The higher resolution certainly reduces the need for AA. /TomH

On Fri, 29 Dec 2000 11:47:07 GMT, "Simon Brown" <[email hidden]> wrote: >Since the GF2 MX costs only about �80 you can hardly compare it to a �200+ >V5. Also FSAA needs no developer support. The V5 does OpenGL and D3D >without a problem, so future support shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully for >the sake of V5 owners, 3dfx can get some DX8 d3d drivers out the door before >they close technical support in two months. Won't nVidia take over support in a way? If not, it's a weird buy, getting 3dfx and then dropping the support alltogether. Ruud van Gaal, GPL Rank +53.25 Pencil art : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/ Car simulation: http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/racer/

Do you want the guys who put out all those TNT drivers to be kludging up the Voodoo drivers??? :) dave henrie "Ruud van Gaal" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > On Fri, 29 Dec 2000 11:47:07 GMT, "Simon Brown" > <[email hidden]> wrote: > > >Since the GF2 MX costs only about �80 you can hardly compare it to a�200+ > >V5. Also FSAA needs no developer support. The V5 does OpenGL and D3D > >without a problem, so future support shouldn't be a problem. Hopefullyfor > >the sake of V5 owners, 3dfx can get some DX8 d3d drivers out the doorbefore

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> >they close technical support in two months. > > Won't nVidia take over support in a way? If not, it's a weird buy, > getting 3dfx and then dropping the support alltogether. > > > Ruud van Gaal, GPL Rank +53.25 > Pencil art : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/ > Car simulation: http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/racer/

On Fri, 29 Dec 2000 17:32:53 GMT, [email hidden] (Ruud van Gaal) wrote:

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>>Since the GF2 MX costs only about �80 you can hardly compare it to a �200+ >>V5. Also FSAA needs no developer support. The V5 does OpenGL and D3D >>without a problem, so future support shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully for >>the sake of V5 owners, 3dfx can get some DX8 d3d drivers out the door before >>they close technical support in two months. > >Won't nVidia take over support in a way? If not, it's a weird buy, >getting 3dfx and then dropping the support alltogether.

Not at all. They just didn't buy the company. They bought patents, technology and "assets"(like chip-design toolsets and stuff). 3dfx the company remains and is supposed to support the Voodoo-line of cards. However, as it is also dissolving it leaves the cards orphaned eventually. Kind of a drag, I suppose, if you're a Voodoo owner. /Magnus GPLRank hcp: -34.32