NASCAR and 3D Blaster

Hello all. I'm running a 486 DX2/80 with 8 meg ram and have been kicking around the idea of getting a 3D board. Namely the 3D Blaster. I "hear" that these boards will make 486s run at Sony Playstation framerates! Has anyone seen the 3D Blaster version of NASCAR in action? How was it? Also, with a 3D board, how much load will be removed from the processor. Would a 3D board give a better frame rate than a Pentium without at 3D board? Thanks, -- Dan Ireland

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>I have the 3DB and run NASCAR on it. It looks great!! If you get one, >invest in the memory upgrade to 2megs, then you can have 800x600 >graphics, all detail on. Without the upgrade, you can have 640x480, >with all detail on. Very smooth. >The machine with the 3DB in it is a DX2-66, VL bus machine, and my main >machine is a P90 with an ATI Mach64 (not the quickest video card by >far). Graphics are better with the 3DB. >Mike

My understanding is that there is not a PCI version of the card yet, can anyone verify that? SC

Anyone tried the Diamond Edge version yet ?

The way I see it is like this: for an average texture mapped 3D game (such as NASCAR, IndyCar Racing, Grand Prix 2 et cetera), about 90% of the processor load goes on graphics. The other 10% accounts for the aspects of the game such as the physics model, driver AI, timing, collision detection etc.. In theory, a 3D accelerator card has the potential to remove virtually all of the 90% graphics overhead from the CPU - which would give your 486 with 3D board superior performance to a Pentium based machine without. The reality, as it stands at the moment, is slightly different.. The first generation of 3D boards (eg the Diamond Edge, 3D Blaster) are pretty primative. In reality, the Diamond Edge can't push Virtua Fighter Remix around at the target (30 fps) frame-rate even on a Pentium machine (all detail on). Apparently, the performance gains people have seen out of the 3D Blaster are 'noticable', but certainly not very significant. My advise is to leave buying a 3D card for about a year, by which time a host of significantly faster (and PCI based) cards should be available (such as the #9 card which is going to be supported by Quake). As of now, I would advise you to upgrade to a Pentium based machine, to give you a good, solid platform from which you could later upgrade with a 3D card. Fraser

Child) writes: >>I have the 3DB and run NASCAR on it. It looks great!! If you get one, >>invest in the memory upgrade to 2megs, then you can have 800x600 >>graphics, all detail on. Without the upgrade, you can have 640x480, >>with all detail on. Very smooth. >>The machine with the 3DB in it is a DX2-66, VL bus machine, and my main

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>>machine is a P90 with an ATI Mach64 (not the quickest video card by >>far). Graphics are better with the 3DB. >>Mike >My understanding is that there is not a PCI version of the card yet, >can anyone verify that? >SC

That is correct. I think sometime in March-April. Mike