Buy a ET6000 based card and increase your F1GP2 frame rate by 0.8???

Hi there, This is my setup, Pentium 133, 32mb edo ram, 8x cd drive etc,etc and a very basic trident graphics card. Knowing that my graphics card was probably letting me down I upgraded to the ET6000 based Grafixstar 600, running normal benchmark tests the card flew compared to the old trident. I then booted up the great F1GP2 and compared my old framerate of 8.8, with the new one of 9.6, a fantastic increase of 0.8 :-( (These framerates was with all the detail switched on) I tried a number of windows and dos games and could not see any noticeable improvement. So unless I`m working with spreadsheets, CAD or paint packages I can see no use for a new graphics card and the only way to increase framerates is a processor upgrade (raw power). Have you had any similar experiences? Or have you any comments? BTW I am using the correct video display drivers. -- Best regards, Dan. ---------------------------------------- -If it ain`t broke don`t fix it- ----------------------------------------

DA> This is my setup, DA> Pentium 133, DA> ET6000 based Grafixstar DA> I then booted up the great F1GP2 and compared my old framerate DA> of 8.8, with the new one of 9.6, a fantastic increase of 0.8 :-( I replaced my Trident 9440 PCI gfx card with a Hercules Dynamite 128 (ET-60= 00). Framerate in SVGA with my GP2 gfxsettings, jumped from 21.3 to >25.6.= And the processor occupance decreased a lot in the game. My processor is= a P-120. So, clearly a gain. DA> BTW I am using the correct video display drivers. For GP2? There are none... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Henrik Hjortnaes AMIGA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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> Hi there, > This is my setup, > Pentium 133, > 32mb edo ram, > 8x cd drive etc,etc > and a very basic trident graphics card. Knowing that my graphics card > was probably letting me down I upgraded to the ET6000 based Grafixstar > 600, running normal benchmark tests the card flew compared to the old > trident. I then booted up the great F1GP2 and compared my old > framerate of 8.8, with the new one of 9.6, a fantastic increase of 0.8 > :-( > (These framerates was with all the detail switched on) > I tried a number of windows and dos games and could not see any > noticeable improvement. > So unless I`m working with spreadsheets, CAD or paint packages I can > see no use for a new graphics card and the only way to increase > framerates is a processor upgrade (raw power). > Have you had any similar experiences? > Or have you any comments? > BTW I am using the correct video display drivers.

Well, yes and no. In my experience, the most use upgrading your video card is if it is a REAL CRAPPER. You will most definitely notice a difference if the old card was a shocker, eg. upgrading from an S3 2M 32bit PCI to a 4M Diamond 3d, as I done :) However, although this did increase the framerate a little in dos, the main increase in speed is in windows. I think you'll find that virtually every new or recent card that is half decent is a windows based accelerator of some sort. I have yet to see a "dos accelerator". Some of the quicker dos cards I have had experience with are : 1. Matrox Millenium 2. Tseng Labs ET4000 W32 PCI 2meg 3. Tseng Labs ET6000 4. Diamond 3D 5. Hercules Dynamite Nothing can compare to a cpu upgrade though. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who is running a Cyrix P200+, since they have a 75MHz bus. Theoretically they should fly. Regards, Michael Hansen

> DA> This is my setup, > DA> Pentium 133, > DA> ET6000 based Grafixstar > DA> I then booted up the great F1GP2 and compared my old framerate > DA> of 8.8, with the new one of 9.6, a fantastic increase of 0.8 :-( In the 'Estimated Framerate' and 'Video Speed' (gp2log.txt) GP2 calculates framerates based upon the card's VGA speed, which may not vary much. I guess it's SVGA speed you're after, so you'd better tune graphic details manually. I am not sure why MP even included that 'Estimated Framerate' figure as it is indeed meaningless. When you set it up the game has no idea on what track you're gonna race, while framerates vary with the track greatly: check the same settings at Monaco and Barcelona. I am able to run decently (I won't give framerate figures) with everything on but sky at Barcelona on my P-120/Lightspeed 128. Anyway there's a nice site at http://www.zip.com.au/~davidg/GP2/gp2pop.html where you'll find a lot of 'benchmark' results for GP2 on various systems. GP2 seems a lot more CPU hungry than video speed hungry, but I disgress... Karim Sincerely, Karim ---------------------------------------- Warning: e-mail address protected by Anti-Bot Protection:) Please double any reply with an e-mail. My ISP loses them less often :(

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> > DA> This is my setup, > > DA> Pentium 133, > > DA> ET6000 based Grafixstar > > DA> I then booted up the great F1GP2 and compared my old framerate > > DA> of 8.8, with the new one of 9.6, a fantastic increase of 0.8 :-( > In the 'Estimated Framerate' and 'Video Speed' (gp2log.txt) GP2 > calculates framerates based upon the card's VGA speed, which may not > vary much. I guess it's SVGA speed you're after, so you'd better tune > graphic details manually. > I am not sure why MP even included that 'Estimated Framerate' figure > as it is indeed meaningless. When you set it up the game has no idea > on what track you're gonna race, while framerates vary with the track > greatly: check the same settings at Monaco and Barcelona. I am able to > run decently (I won't give framerate figures) with everything on but > sky at Barcelona on my P-120/Lightspeed 128. > Anyway there's a nice site at > http://www.zip.com.au/~davidg/GP2/gp2pop.html where you'll find a lot > of 'benchmark' results for GP2 on various systems. GP2 seems a lot > more CPU hungry than video speed hungry, but I disgress... > Karim > Sincerely, Karim > ---------------------------------------- > Warning: e-mail address protected by Anti-Bot Protection:) > Please double any reply with an e-mail. > My ISP loses them less often :(

For what it's worth, my Cyrix 166+/32MBEDORAM/ASUST2P4 with 512k and Hercules 128/4MB runs a ">25.6 frame rate" with everything on except for sky textures. The game is very fluid and natural. I would not stake my life on all those MP benchmarks. Have fun, Jorge

> DA> This is my setup, > DA> Pentium 133, > DA> ET6000 based Grafixstar > DA> I then booted up the great F1GP2 and compared my old framerate > DA> of 8.8, with the new one of 9.6, a fantastic increase of 0.8 :-( In the 'Estimated Framerate' and 'Video Speed' (gp2log.txt) GP2 calculates framerates based upon the card's VGA speed, which may not vary much. I guess it's SVGA speed you're after, so you'd better tune graphic details manually. I am not sure why MP even included that 'Estimated Framerate' figure as it is indeed meaningless. When you set it up the game has no idea on what track you're gonna race, while framerates vary with the track greatly: check the same settings at Monaco and Barcelona. I am able to run decently (I won't give framerate figures) with everything on but sky at Barcelona on my P-120/Lightspeed 128. Anyway there's a nice site at http://www.zip.com.au/~davidg/GP2/gp2pop.html where you'll find a lot of 'benchmark' results for GP2 on various systems. GP2 seems a lot more CPU hungry than video speed hungry, but I disgress... Karim Sincerely, Karim ---------------------------------------- Warning: e-mail address protected by Anti-Bot Protection:) Please double any reply with an e-mail. My ISP loses them less often :(

>> > DA> This is my setup, >> > DA> Pentium 133, >> > DA> ET6000 based Grafixstar >> > DA> I then booted up the great F1GP2 and compared my old framerate >> > DA> of 8.8, with the new one of 9.6, a fantastic increase of 0.8 :-( Jumping in late, so a lot of these points have probably been covered... 1) As others said, don't believe that recommended framerate. Usually, it is too HIGH (I know you didn't want to hear that). I find that if I set it to the recommended value, the "processor occupancy" is usually above 100%, resulting in real elapsed time significantly greater than lap time (ie, the game is moving in slow motion). 2) However, that 9.6 sounds absurdly low for a P133 with an ET6000. Hmmm, maybe mine does get that low if I set everything to ON (including clouds and all textures in mirrors). 3) Yes, an ET6000, though it benchmarks magnificently, doesn't really buy you much over a standard S3 Trio (or 868, or many other S3 chipped) based video card. I compared the STB Lightspeed 128 (ET6000), Millenium, and my old 868-based Stealth64. Virtually no difference in F1GP2 (or Air Warrior, or ATF, or an m1a2 beta...). The 128 typically did from 0 to 5% better, but not much more.