Voodoo2......unfortunatelly disappointed !
John
Hi,
I was one of the first Voodoo1 owners and I was also looking forward to get
the new Voodoo2 card, but after reading many posts about
the new card I am quite disappointed with it :
1) The card seems not be compatible with all glide games, even with games
that were recently produced (WC:P, F1 etc)
2) The speed improvement over the Voodoo1 is not very impressive,
especially if one considers the fact that 800x600 doesn't have such a big
difference over 640x480 ( that is my opinion ) . 10fps were the biggest
difference I saw for a P200MMX (that's my system and most people's system I
believe . Not highend P2s )
3) SLI mode hasn't proven anything yet ! Everyone who tried this
configuration said that he got same results .
As things are now, with early drivers and boards, I wouldn't personally
justify 200$ or more to upgrade from my Monster3D . All 3dfx games play well
now, and they won't be playing so radically faster with a Voodoo2 card . I
am afraid that Voodoo2 was an over-hyped product that will suit more the P2
than the common users . However for someone who just enters the 3D gaming
world, then Voodoo2 will propably be ideal, since it is really fast and
should be reliable in the near future too . But what about us , the Voodoo1
users who were expecting the Voodoo2 to rule over the V1 ? Ok it's a better
card but not 300$ worth .
That's my opinion, of course.
Regards to all 3D card owners
Ioannis
Fritz Schober
>a) The CPU is still a bottleneck for many systems, it's not a problem
>with Voodoo 2.
No, that's what the 3D card is for. They should have added a
geometric transformation unit and it would habe been CPU
independent.
>>3) SLI mode hasn't proven anything yet ! Everyone who tried this
>>configuration said that he got same results .
>I couldn't care less, since all you seem to get with two Voodoo2 cards
That's no valid answer. SLI is a waste of money because no game
today is fill rate limited anymore. They are all polygonal-limited
because the CPU can't do the geometric transformations fast enough.
>You must remember that not all people have a Voodoo1 card already. For
Also no valid answer. The point ist, is Voodoo2 an impressive and
worth next-generation card. I would say: no.
It's just same Voodoo chips clocked faster and in double setup.
I have Rigtheous 3D, when it came out (I have mine over 1 year now) it
was a revolution. Voodoo2 isn't. It's barly an evolution. I wait for
other 3D card solutions (Highlander, Banshee?!? or something new
from the Riva makers..). I am sick of 16 bit dithered. I am sick of
no-windowed mode (without extrem slow tricky ways), I want to use
my 128 megs SDRAM for textures and I expect a geometric transformation
unit taking care of the 3D calculations. The CPU has better to do
(gamelogic, AI other stuff).
CU
Fritz Schober
PSX/SATURN/N64/P133+RIGHTEOUS3D - I love them all
Check: http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-schobefr/
dantheman
Your post somewhat mirrors my feelings as well. I have a P166 and am not
planning on upgrading anytime soon. From what I gather for a P166 Vodoo2 =
about 1.5 times Voodoo 1 or for a game like Quake2 an extra 10 fps. Is that
worth $300? Probably not. I may just get it for the hell of it. Or is something
bigger around the corner?
DantheMan
John wrote:
> Hi,
> I was one of the first Voodoo1 owners and I was also looking forward to get
> the new Voodoo2 card, but after reading many posts about
> the new card I am quite disappointed with it :
> 1) The card seems not be compatible with all glide games, even with games
> that were recently produced (WC:P, F1 etc)
> 2) The speed improvement over the Voodoo1 is not very impressive,
> especially if one considers the fact that 800x600 doesn't have such a big
> difference over 640x480 ( that is my opinion ) . 10fps were the biggest
> difference I saw for a P200MMX (that's my system and most people's system I
> believe . Not highend P2s )
> 3) SLI mode hasn't proven anything yet ! Everyone who tried this
> configuration said that he got same results .
Richard Celeste
Yeah they could do that and push the price right up to $1000, no thanks
--
Richard Celeste [Q2E]SlowTrEmE
exxt...@bellsouth.net
Quake2 page Member 3Dfx Brotherhood
http://members.tripod.com/~exxtreme
Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.
-
Fritz Schober wrote in message <34f44c11...@news.3dfx.com>...
Stuart Ledwich
I was wondering about V2 and decided not to recommend V2 to my customers
until I have seen a marked improvement over V2 which now sells at a very
competative rate.
--
Regards,
Stuart Ledwich
(Remove the _*nospam*_ to reply)
John wrote in message <6d16uc$bac$2...@www.3dfx.com>...
Fritz Schober
>Yeah they could do that and push the price right up to $1000, no thanks
A geometric Transformation unit (chip) with P2-266 speed is 30$... so
go down to reality and think again.
John
What I wanted to stress with that message is that Voodoo2 is not really
something revolutionary as Voodoo was . They just use that same design but
more chips . It's like using a bigger motor machine for making a car to run
faster and advance the old machine to a newer one with more cylinders mpi
and other cool stuff .
Bye
Ioannis
Joe
fritz-...@netcologne.de (Fritz Schober) wrote:
>A geometric Transformation unit (chip) with P2-266 speed is 30$... so
>go down to reality and think again.
Is that true? If so why on Earth aren't they being incorporated into
these "next generation" cards?
Joe
Joe
dantheman <dant...@utech.net> wrote:
> Your post somewhat mirrors my feelings as well. I have a P166 and am not
>planning on upgrading anytime soon. From what I gather for a P166 Vodoo2 =
>about 1.5 times Voodoo 1 or for a game like Quake2 an extra 10 fps. Is that
>worth $300? Probably not. I may just get it for the hell of it. Or is something
>bigger around the corner?
I'm also trying to decide if it's worth it too. $300 US (which is 500
of my Canadian $) for basically 10 fps and a hundred or so pixels in
each direction.
Mnd you, there should be another performance jump when strips and fans
are implemented. And when games come out optimized specifcally for the
Voodoo2 card they will probably be able to do some impressive things.
So I probably will get one eventually, but I may wait a bit until the
drivers shake out and some v2-specific software is available.
Joe
Dave
I have been hearing that a 166 MMX gets around 40 FPS in 800 X 600 in
Quake2. Thats double the performance or more. Seeing how Voodoo 1 only
gets 25 in 640X480. So I would say double the performance is
revolutionary. You would think a PII at 666 MHZ would be revolutionary
wouldnt you if it was released tomarrow? Its about three times faster
for PIIs. I think it made a huge leap in speed. I will wait B4 buying
because I want to hear more about compatibility. I think it may have to
do with Creatives drivers so I will wait and see what the Diamond card
and drivers do.
Nos
On Wed, 25 Feb 1998 21:59:02 +0200, "John" <ch9...@central.ntua.gr>
wrote:
>
>
>
>What I wanted to stress with that message is that Voodoo2 is not really
>something revolutionary as Voodoo was . They just use that same design but
>more chips . It's like using a bigger motor machine for making a car to run
>faster and advance the old machine to a newer one with more cylinders mpi
>and other cool stuff .
>
>Bye
>Ioannis
If it was revolutionary then NO current 3DFX games would run on it. A
bigger engine is what we need, not a completely new design. If I can't
play my current 3DFX games two years form now on a VoodooX then I'm
going to be very disapointed.
Joe
Dave <dav...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>I have been hearing that a 166 MMX gets around 40 FPS in 800 X 600 in
>Quake2.
That's much higer than the numbers I've seen posted. 40 fps is more
like P233MMX + Voodoo2 territory. So it's basically +10 fps and +100
pixels compared to a Voodoo1. Not that impressive. Now if they could
achieve that frame-rate on one card at 1024x768, THAT would be
something to get excited about.
Joe
David Hedbor
mcg...@direct.ca (Joe) writes:
Bear in mind that 800x600 means about 185% (480k compared to 256k)
more pixels than 640x400...
--
[ Below is a random fortune, which is unrelated to the above message. ]
flannister, n.:
The plastic yoke that holds a six-pack of beer together.
-- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends
Iron
It seems that the whinners about the Voodoo2 are the ones who have a p200 or
lower. Come on quys be smart. There is just so much you can do do increase
performance with chips of that power. Most people that are getting above 20
fps have had to butcher Quake and sst settings in order to get it. I know
of no one with a cpu less than a P2 that is getting anything more than about
20fps. The people who have a P200 or lower should just forget about the
Voodoo 2 or any other chip set that comes out because you will be singing
the same old tune. I feel that you are right and that if you are not going
to upgrade your cpu than it would be a waste of your time. Ohh and I would
not put too much on press releases. How many time have you heard about a
new chip thats suppose to outperform the current top runner and come up way
short. If you are going to play the PC game, you will have to up grade your
chip and motherboard at least once a year. If you are not going to play
than just whine, its all the same. As I was looking at the scores from one
system to the next, The Voodoo 2 is somewhat cpu dependant but it does
increase in performance with a faster cpu unlike the Voodoo 1 Which pretty
much mantain the same performance no matter what CPU you had. This can be
good or bad depending on what you plan on doing. My next CPU and
motherboard change is planned in arround June. The Voodoo 2 is definitly
the choice because of the big increase in performance you get with a Voodoo
2 over a Voodoo 1 on a P2
Nos wrote in message <34f685ec...@news.3dfx.com>...
Sean Whitty
We are when they sell a total of 3 cards in a year at that price.
--
Sean Whitty
Richard Celeste wrote in message <6d1rck$kk0$1...@www.3dfx.com>...
>But if no company has any thing to compete with it, and the 3D card becomes
>totally independant of CPU speed, then who is to say they cant charge
>whatever they want?
Harry
fritz-...@netcologne.de (Fritz Schober) wrote:
>>Yeah they could do that and push the price right up to $1000, no thanks
>
>A geometric Transformation unit (chip) with P2-266 speed is 30$... so
>go down to reality and think again.
Wake up. You are hallucinating.
Joe
David Hedbor <neo...@lysator.liu.se> wrote:
>Bear in mind that 800x600 means about 185% (480k compared to 256k)
>more pixels than 640x400...
I know that but visually, there's not much difference.
Joe
C.B.
And it is supposed to both relieve older cpu's while
scaling with newer faster cpu's.
At least thats what they say....
C.B.
Marc
In some instances I would agree with you that *visually* there isn't
much difference between 640x400 and 800x600. It probably depends on
the game though.
Flight Unlimited 2 (for example) looks much better at 800x600. The
terrain is much more detailed. The streets and buildings look more
realistic and less blurry (IMO). Just wish I can get a V2, cuz the
frame rates really drop at that resolution.
Anyone with some benchmarks or subjective observations regarding FU2
and the V2?
Marc.
Adam
On Wed, 25 Feb 1998 23:29:13 GMT, mcg...@direct.ca (Joe) wrote:
>Dave <dav...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>>I have been hearing that a 166 MMX gets around 40 FPS in 800 X 600 in
>>Quake2.
>
>That's much higer than the numbers I've seen posted. 40 fps is more
>like P233MMX + Voodoo2 territory. So it's basically +10 fps and +100
>pixels compared to a Voodoo1. Not that impressive. Now if they could
>achieve that frame-rate on one card at 1024x768, THAT would be
>something to get excited about.
800x600 = 480000 pixels
640x480 = 307200 pixels
Difference = 172800 pixels
Hardly 100 pixels now is it.
-
l8r
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Adam
On 26 Feb 1998 05:05:35 GMT, "C.B." <bor...@nospam.com> wrote:
>And it is supposed to both relieve older cpu's while
>scaling with newer faster cpu's.
We are just waiting for a new version of the drivers that implement it
properly.
I think then everyone will see alot less dependance on the CPU being
the limitation for games.
Gary Tarolli
Iron wrote:
>
> It seems that the whinners about the Voodoo2 are the ones who have a p200 or
> lower. Come on quys be smart. There is just so much you can do do increase
> performance with chips of that power. Most people that are getting above 20
> fps have had to butcher Quake and sst settings in order to get it. I know
I just want to put in a few cents here. I know Voodoo2 relieves the CPU of
triangle setup processing, however, that is all it relieves the CPU of. If
a game is taking up 80% of the CPU time, which is not that uncommon, then
even if we replaced our hardware with INFINITELY fast hardware, you only get
a small increase in performance (1.25x). Voodoo2 isn't infintely fast, so
the results are even smaller. Each game takes up a different
amount of the CPU, so you will see different results for different games.
However, many games are also fill-rate limited, especially when you go to
higher resolutions. Thus Voodoo2 does give you a big boost on these games.
Actual game performance increases may be anywhere from 0% to 200%, it all
depends. If it is 0%, it does NOT mean we lied. Please, please, please
try to understand how performance works.
Victor S. Denisov
> higher resolutions. Thus Voodoo2 does give you a big boost on these games.
> Actual game performance increases may be anywhere from 0% to 200%, it all
> depends. If it is 0%, it does NOT mean we lied. Please, please, please
> try to understand how performance works.
Rest assured - most of us DO understand this. The problem is that people who
are happy are unlikely to post anything - they are too busy playing with their
new card. I'm planning to upgrade in two to four months form P166 to P2-266 or
something like this, and change my Voodoo for Voodoo 2. Then I'll be ready
for anything game industry might throw at me for at least a year and a half
(as it is with my current system - I own it for about a year now).
With best regards,
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Victor S. Denisov Open Systems Division
mailto:vden...@redline.ru Scientific & Research Computer Center
ICQ #: 3467725 Moscow State University
Eric Whalen
Well, i doubt any 3d card coming out will be ANY faster on an equally
MHz PC then voodoo 2. There is only so much the 3d card can do, the CPU
has to do much of the work. Until we have geometry and lighting on the
3d card, the CPU will still be boss. Highlander, won't be faster, it
has a lower fill rate i do believe, and it uses infinite planes, not
polygons. And remember, DX 6.0 will use multitexturing, meaning even
faster d3d performance, and Glide 3.0 will have strips and fan support =
even faster glide, open gl performance.
Joe wrote:
> David Hedbor <neo...@lysator.liu.se> wrote:
>
> >Bear in mind that 800x600 means about 185% (480k compared to 256k)
> >more pixels than 640x400...
>
> I know that but visually, there's not much difference.
>
> Joe