Hi to all you racers out there.
Just came accross this very good program to increase the performance of your
graphics card based on the S3 chipset (e.g. the Diamond Stealth). It's called
S3 Speed Up Version 3.02 and is written by Dietmar Meschede.
You can get it at:
FTP Directory: ftp://ftp.uni-muenster.de/pub/msdos/mesched
WWW Homepage: http://www.dungeon.com/~mesched
Here is an extract from the help file:
S3 Speed Up is a TSR program, which speeds up VGA mode 13h (see below!)
and most VESA modes of S3 graphics cards (S3 928 or newer).
S3 Speed Up was designed to work with S3 928 chipsets.
It should work with newer S3 chipsets (Trio32, Trio64, Trio64V+,
Vision 864/964, Vision 868/968, Virge, Virge/VX, ...), too.
How does S3 Speed Up work? It activates 'Enhanced Mode Mappings' and
enables 'Linear Addressing' in VGA mode 13h. And it activates 'Linear
Addressing' in most VESA modes (not in text and 4 bits/pixel modes).
This package is Freeware.
I used it on my computer (Pentium 133, 16 Mb EDO RAM, Diamond Stealth 64
2Mb VRAM) and I got the following results:
* with Video Speed (another good program on his page)
Without s3spdup
Testing VESA mode 0101h (640x480x256) ...
8-bit move 32 x 64 KB = 2 MB 0.21 s 9.7 MB/s 33.2 frames/s
8-bit write 32 x 64 KB = 2 MB 0.21 s 9.7 MB/s
8-bit read 16 x 64 KB = 1 MB 0.55 s 1.8 MB/s
16-bit move 64 x 64 KB = 4 MB 0.22 s 18.3 MB/s 62.6 frames/s
16-bit write 64 x 64 KB = 4 MB 0.22 s 18.3 MB/s
16-bit read 16 x 64 KB = 1 MB 0.43 s 2.3 MB/s
32-bit move 64 x 64 KB = 4 MB 0.22 s 18.3 MB/s 62.6 frames/s
32-bit write 64 x 64 KB = 4 MB 0.22 s 18.3 MB/s
32-bit read 16 x 64 KB = 1 MB 0.37 s 2.7 MB/s
With s3spdup
Testing VESA mode 0101h (640x480x256) ...
8-bit move 32 x 64 KB = 2 MB 0.21 s 9.7 MB/s 33.2 frames/s
8-bit write 32 x 64 KB = 2 MB 0.21 s 9.7 MB/s
8-bit read 16 x 64 KB = 1 MB 0.55 s 1.8 MB/s
16-bit move 80 x 64 KB = 5 MB 0.20 s 25.3 MB/s 86.3 frames/s
16-bit write 80 x 64 KB = 5 MB 0.20 s 25.3 MB/s
16-bit read 16 x 64 KB = 1 MB 0.28 s 3.6 MB/s
32-bit move 224 x 64 KB = 14 MB 0.21 s 67.4 MB/s 230.1 frames/s
32-bit write 256 x 64 KB = 16 MB 0.22 s 73.3 MB/s
32-bit read 16 x 64 KB = 1 MB 0.14 s 7.2 MB/s
* From the log file from GP2 ( use GP2 LOG:ON to get one)
Without s3spdup
Processor (x86): 5
Speed (c.f. DX2-66): 257
Video speed: 162
With s3spdup
Processor (x86): 5
Speed (c.f. DX2-66): 257
Video speed: 318
* Playing GP2, I was able to increase the framerate by 2!
(Another good suggestion to keep the game smooth: set your framerate
2 lower than the value suggested. This will keep your processor occupancy
below 100 most op the times and hence give smooth graphics)
There is another driver around, called UNIVB, but this will not give you
any gain with gp2. It works very well with ICR2 (a game I haven't
got yet unfortunately)
Have fun!
ManueL.
[link lost in import: /~mfsteven/]
