(OT) Voodoo3 vs 4

Just curious: I've read several posts today recommending Voodoo3 cards for a budget solution if you can't afford the V5. Why is no one talking about Voodoo4?

I'd recommend a GeForce 2 MX as a budget card an a V3 as an EXTREME budget card...the MX will even beat out the V4 in framerate "Gary Wampler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Lv8C5.759$[email hidden]... > Just curious: I've read several posts today recommending Voodoo3 cardsfor > a budget solution if you can't afford the V5. Why is no one talking about > Voodoo4? > >

> Because, I think, there are no V4 users here yet. And....the main > reason for the V4 & 5 is not really speed but the FSAA. Sure the V5 is > fast, faster than a V3, but not gobs and oodles faster. But thepossibility > of fsaa really makes the cards mouthwatering. Now with the V4, we are not > even sure yet if it CAN do fsaa. Now that I am a proud owner of a brand new V4, I can answer this once and for all: the V4 4500 can do FSAA, but only 2xFSAA. The speed of the singe VSA--100 in 2xFSAA is comparable to a dual VSA-100 V5 5500 running at 4xFSAA. On my machine (Athlon 750) 2xFSAA is possible up to 800x600 with no speed loss whatsoever. At 1024x768, FSAA will hurt performance noticably. In 16bit modes it is much faster than the V3, in 32bit color the speed is about equal to a V3 3000. Until now, I am very satisfied with the card.

"Gary Wampler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Lv8C5.759$[email hidden]... > Just curious: I've read several posts today recommending Voodoo3 cardsfor > a budget solution if you can't afford the V5. Why is no one talking about > Voodoo4? Because, I think, there are no V4 users here yet. And....the main reason for the V4 & 5 is not really speed but the FSAA. Sure the V5 is fast, faster than a V3, but not gobs and oodles faster. But the possibility of fsaa really makes the cards mouthwatering. Now with the V4, we are not even sure yet if it CAN do fsaa. I have heard both ways so far...no fsaa or only 2xfsaa(which ain't bad btw) So for once the group here is being responsible and waiting til the card is out long enough for us to give honest reponses. Hawker has been promoting the Geforce2 mx card and that too should be a really good choice except for two 'possible' problems. I haven't heard lately any new complaints but the software fsaa was kinda a dud when it first became available on the nvidia cards. Hopefully they have improved it with the latest drivers. 2nd. No matter how good the Geforce 2 is...it can't run some of the older Glide titles well and, like in the converted road courses from ICR2 that N3/N99 users have...it can't run them in 3d at all, only software. If you aren't wedded to the older Papy titles, then the Geforce might be worth checking out. The V3 pretty much runs everything up til now fairly well. But it will start showing it's age soon with the newer sims like N4, WSC, and even NH.(although they have improved that titles use of the V3) dave henrie

> NH.(although they have improved that titles use of the V3) > dave henrieDAVE- what do you mean by that? Please explain, as I tried the origional demo on my V3 and the performance was not good. Is there a patch or something specifically related to the V3? Thanks! rik Dave Henrie <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:tvbC5.138993$[email hidden]... > > "Gary Wampler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:Lv8C5.759$[email hidden]... > > Just curious: I've read several posts today recommending Voodoo3 cards > for > > a budget solution if you can't afford the V5. Why is no one talkingabout > > Voodoo4? > Because, I think, there are no V4 users here yet. And....the main > reason for the V4 & 5 is not really speed but the FSAA. Sure the V5 is > fast, faster than a V3, but not gobs and oodles faster. But thepossibility > of fsaa really makes the cards mouthwatering. Now with the V4, we are not > even sure yet if it CAN do fsaa. I have heard both ways so far...no fsaaor

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> only 2xfsaa(which ain't bad btw) So for once the group here is being > responsible and waiting til the card is out long enough for us to give > honest reponses. > Hawker has been promoting the Geforce2 mx card and that too should be a > really good choice except for two 'possible' problems. I haven't heard > lately any new complaints but the software fsaa was kinda a dud when it > first became available on the nvidia cards. Hopefully they have improved

it > with the latest drivers. 2nd. No matter how good the Geforce 2 is...it > can't run some of the older Glide titles well and, like in the converted > road courses from ICR2 that N3/N99 users have...it can't run them in 3d at > all, only software. If you aren't wedded to the older Papy titles, thenthe

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> Geforce might be worth checking out. > The V3 pretty much runs everything up til now fairly well. But it will > start showing it's age soon with the newer sims like N4, WSC, and even > NH.(although they have improved that titles use of the V3) > dave henrie > >

rik anthrax wrote: > > > NH.(although they have improved that titles use of the V3) > > dave henrie > DAVE- what do you mean by that? Please explain, as I tried the origional > demo on my V3 and the performance was not good. Is there a patch or > something specifically related to the V3? I think what he's referring to is the addition of 1024x768 screen resolution on the V3's after the patch. -- Chuck Kandler Windows--computing for the Unwashed Masses Registered Linux User #180746 http://counter.li.org

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> > > NH.(although they have improved that titles use of the V3) > > > dave henrie > > DAVE- what do you mean by that? Please explain, as I tried the origional > > demo on my V3 and the performance was not good. Is there a patch or > > something specifically related to the V3? > > I think what he's referring to is the addition of 1024x768 screen > resolution on the V3's after the patch. > -- > Chuck Kandler

That would be correct Chuck. They also redid how the textures are loaded so that the dash gets precedence over the backgrounds etc. But if your system had problems with the demo...I don't think you will see very much improvement with the patch. CPU still plays an important part in this equation. dave henrie

ok, thanks! Dave Henrie <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:DsxC5.142463$[email hidden]... > > > > NH.(although they have improved that titles use of the V3) > > > > dave henrie > > > DAVE- what do you mean by that? Please explain, as I tried theorigional

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> > > demo on my V3 and the performance was not good. Is there a patch or > > > something specifically related to the V3? > > > > I think what he's referring to is the addition of 1024x768 screen > > resolution on the V3's after the patch. > > -- > > Chuck Kandler > That would be correct Chuck. They also redid how the textures are

loaded

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> so that the dash gets precedence over the backgrounds etc. But if your > system had problems with the demo...I don't think you will see very much > improvement with the patch. CPU still plays an important part in this > equation. > dave henrie > >

On Tue, 03 Oct 2000 08:59:07 GMT, Alexander Marx wrote:

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> >Now that I am a proud owner of a brand new V4, I can answer this >once and for all: the V4 4500 can do FSAA, but only 2xFSAA. The >speed of the singe VSA--100 in 2xFSAA is comparable to a dual >VSA-100 V5 5500 running at 4xFSAA. On my machine (Athlon 750) 2xFSAA >is possible up to 800x600 with no speed loss whatsoever. At >1024x768, FSAA will hurt performance noticably. In 16bit modes it is >much faster than the V3, in 32bit color the speed is about equal to >a V3 3000. Until now, I am very satisfied with the card. >

I too just bought a V4, and I'm pretty happy with it. The 2xFSAA is nice, and you can also configure FSAA hotkeys, one for D3d and one for Glide. With the hotkey you can turn FSAA on and off while you're in a game, which is great for comparing. Actually, the FSAA doesn't really seem to change the performance much, so you're really just seeing how much better things look compared to how they used to be. But a few games, like Madden 2000, look better with the FSAA off. The problem I'm having is with older games, like NFS2 SE, NFS3, and UltraHLE (well, it's an emulator, not a game itself.) The Need for Speed games will not detect or run in Glide mode, and UltraHLE has some texture alignment problems. I think UltraHLE had problems with the Voodoo3 too. -Dan Bateman

On Thu, 05 Oct 2000 18:51:32 GMT, [email hidden] (Dan Bateman) wrote: > I too just bought a V4, and I'm pretty happy with it. The 2xFSAA is >nice, and you can also configure FSAA hotkeys, one for D3d and one for >Glide. With the hotkey you can turn FSAA on and off while you're in >a game, which is great for comparing. Actually, the FSAA doesn't >really seem to change the performance much, so you're really just >seeing how much better things look compared to how they used to be. Some of the 3dfx guys warned about benchmarking with the hotkeys-options on. It is for image-quality only. The speed of the non-AA'd isn't what it is supposed to be(supposedly). My guess is that it runs 2 frames but without jittering(=no AA), with the hotkey just adjusting the jitter on/off. /Magnus GPLRank hcp: -18.38