Rumour has it the 300a hasn't much longer to live (due to the high speed socket7
cpus due RSN). Prices are cheap so I invested in a 300a, relegating the 266/448 to
insurance duty. And, for GPL at least, I'm impressed.
I should say straight away though that I bought an SBLive value at the same time. Input
from my (UK...F1 Sim) wheel is now noticeably improved, with hardly any wheel shake
at all and a much "tighter", more responsive feel to the controls.
The move to PCI has obviously contributed to the framerate improvements in GPL I'm
seeing, but I didn't swap cpu and sound card separately so this is hardly scientific.
Anyway, I still prefer to drive with cars only in mirrors, nothing but skids on down the
right hand side, and the detail slider all the way over to the left. Set up like this I now
see 36fps *all* the time except for a slight (32ish) dip just at the start and the
predictable dips in pile-ups.
More scientifically, and using the same settings as above *except* slider on max
detail...
300a 266/448 300/450a (all with Voodoo2)
3dmark 1756 1991 2047
PerfW95 249 208 314
Quake2 (crusher) 28.8 33.6 35.1
GPL(pre start) 11.1 12 17.9
GPL(start dip) 9.8 11.8 15.6
GPL(clear ahead) 24.0 26 36
(all GPL tests at same track starting from the back)
Notes:
1) Quake2 (and 3d mark) numbers prove Q2's 3d card dependence
2) PerfW95 is Shiny Entertainment's mini-D3D benchmark from MDK, and it obviously
fits in the 300a's cache! One interesting thing is that it multitasks, and I just tried
playing a sound file at the same time as running it. Score dropped from 314 to 292
and I'm wondering now if this'd be a good test for how much cpu time different
soundcards "eat". I've a total of 3 soundcards at the moment and if I was feeling
enthusiastic I'd follow this up. But this W95 config's quite stable...don't want to cripple it
now :-)
Oh, and before I forget...I'm listening to F1ferr94.mp3, someone pointed us to it a while
back on the list and I don't have the URL. Absolutely *superb* sound file, especially
using the SBLive!'s 4 speaker support. Scarily realistic!
3) Basically, looks like that cache is put to good use. GPL was excellent on the
overclocked 266, but it'seven more excellent now.
Andrew McP
