Voodoo 2 or 3 on PB???
John Mockett
I bought an ATI card 4mb Rage II games are still crappy.
If I get a Voodoo 2 or 3 am I going to see a definate improvement??
It is so bad now that I can't even play games such as Sin or Half
Life...nothing with heavy graphics. Is my system just really bad or can I
improve it with a great card.
Any way I can upgrade my chip. think the board will only handle up to 266.
Is it worth getting a new motherboard?? Would I get it from PB or any
computer place??
Let me know what you think.
Thanks
john
Jay Breen
than that of the Intel Celeron, you must keep in mind that the Celeron and
the M-II are geared towards two completely different markets. There is no
way that the M-II can compete with any of the other 6th generation
processors on the market in terms of 3D gaming performance, even when armed
with a Voodoo2 accelerator, the performance of the M-II 300 under Quake 2 is
barely reaching 30 fps. The Celeron has an extremely strong FPU and is
therefore much better for gaming, whereas the M-II has a considerably weaker
FPU but offers business application performance equivalent to that of a
Pentium II."
www.anandtech.com
While the above is discouraging, an increase to thirty fps or more with an
$115 V3 is a definite improvement over
a 4 mb Rage II.
Dave
CPU has a real slow FPU so it can probably not keep up with the demand from
Half Life or Sin. Adding a Voodoo2/3 might help a little, but with the MII
being so slow, the card will be idle most of the time. If you get a
Voodoo.....get a Voodoo3. The V3 2000 PCI is only $90.
Upgrading you motherboard and CPU is probably the best thing you could do.
If the PB850 is a LPX board you'll need a new case if you get a ATX board.
AMD is releasing the K7 in June. It's better than the PIII/PII. It will
need a Slot A motherboard. If you want a Celeron get a Slot1 board and a
Socket370/slot adapter if needed (for 400mhz and up....I think!).
You could also put in a PowerLeap adapter with a K6-2 or K6-III. If your
PB850 lacks L2 cache, the K6-III has it built in.
Since you have a non-Intel CPU, I would guess that your BIOS might boot with
a AMD CPU- but check to make sure!!! www.powerleap.com . If you need a new
BIOS from Unicore (MR BIOS), don't do it! Get a new motherboard.
John Mockett <jmoc...@NOSPAMcyberus.ca> wrote in message
news:9280348...@news.remarQ.com...
John Lashley
I have a Packard Bell Club, Cyrix MII- 300 with 32Mb RAM. I beleive the
board supports Socket 7 processors (correct me if I am wrong). My question
is; is it possible to replace the Cyrix processor with an AMD processor? If
yes, what processor should I use then?
As a side note I also have a Creative Labs Voodoo II (12Mb) card and I play
simulations like Jane's F15 and Longbow II and games like Half-Life and
Quake II. I see no problem with the speed of the games, even at higher
resolutions.
What do you think?
--
John Lashley
ICQ#: 17335897
Dave
opinion. I was playing Half Life, GLQuake, Quake II, and Unreal on a 4MB
Voodoographics card. Now that I have a Voodoo3, I could never go back. I
guess that I didn't know what I was missing. With the VoodooGraphics I was
using 512 X 320 (or whatever it was) and low detail and thought it was
great...until 1024 x 768 with all the special effects!
As for upgrading....first add more ram...it'll help the most.
John Lashley <las...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7iv24c$cmc$1...@gxsn.com...
Gary951S
initial post about you not being able to play those games with the MII
processor have probably never tried.
I have a friend and the best CPU his motherboard would support was an
MII300. I suggested a voodoo2 card to compensate for the CPU and in reality
it works fine. He is able to play Quake, Quake II, and Half Life just fine.
Not 100 fps in timedemo, but 30 fps, which is still smooth (Q2). The MII
isn't the best choice for gaming by any means, but with a V2 it will work.
The voodoo 3 2000 is a nice choice, but having both a voodoo2 in a system
and a banshee (just really an older v3) in another of my systems, I find
lots of "issues" with the banshee such as patches to make certain games
work. The V2 seems to work perfect out of the box with no patches.
For my $$ I would go to the voodoo2 newsgroup and buy a used
12MB V2 for $50.00. Your existing 2d card will work fine with it, and you
should be able to play games smoothly.
Let's face it, the MII processors are inexpensive and that is for a reason,
they don't compete with a celeron or K6/2 in FPU performance. I get 88 fps
in 800x600 with a K6/2 400 & a voodoo2, and it looks basically the same
playing the game as my friends MII with the V2 at 30 fps when running the
game.
Good Luck,
Gary
Gary951S
Your only stumbling block with the K6/2 would be voltage & clock
multipliers. The MII is 2.9 I believe and the K6/2 is 2.2 (475 is 2.4).
and I have no idea how high your clock multipliers go on that board.
If your board boots with the Cyrix, I would think it would with the K6/2.
Concept manufacturing makes a voltage adapter to reduce the voltage to 2.2
for about $30.00 Check www.pricewatch.com for voltage adapter under CPU for
more info. Or the powerleap adapter to do both voltage & jumpers.
www.powerleap.com
Good luck,
Gary
John Lashley <las...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7iv24c$cmc$1...@gxsn.com...
> I have a further question, people.
>
> I have a Packard Bell Club, Cyrix MII- 300 with 32Mb RAM. I beleive the
> board supports Socket 7 processors (correct me if I am wrong). My question
> is; is it possible to replace the Cyrix processor with an AMD processor?
If
> yes, what processor should I use then?
>
> As a side note I also have a Creative Labs Voodoo II (12Mb) card and I
play
> simulations like Jane's F15 and Longbow II and games like Half-Life and
> Quake II. I see no problem with the speed of the games, even at higher
> resolutions.
>
> What do you think?
>
> --
>
>
> John Lashley
> ICQ#: 17335897
>
>
Gary951S
It seems you are comparing different resolutions and details, not frame
rates. I have seen a MII and a V2 play Q2 at 800x600 and look just fine.
(yes, I have the wicked3d drivers so I can get higher resolutions from a V2,
I also have a system with a banshee)
I agree resolutions are a matter of opinion. I personally only play games
at 800x600 even on a 17 monitor because I don't care for higher resolutions,
nothing to do with frame rates (very good rates in any resolution), but
again, that's my opinion.
Good Luck,
Gary
Dave <wag...@splitrocktelspam.net> wrote in message
news:BEF43.436$Gj1....@news13.ispnews.com...
> Wether or not games are playable at a certain frame rate is a matter of
> opinion. I was playing Half Life, GLQuake, Quake II, and Unreal on a 4MB
> Voodoographics card. Now that I have a Voodoo3, I could never go back. I
> guess that I didn't know what I was missing. With the VoodooGraphics I
was
> using 512 X 320 (or whatever it was) and low detail and thought it was
> great...until 1024 x 768 with all the special effects!
>
> As for upgrading....first add more ram...it'll help the most.
>
>
Dave
fast that it doesn't matter what resolution I use, I get the same FPS. The
bottleneck in my system is the K6-2 333. With my Voodoo1 though, the less
was definetly better. Unreal wasn't playable and Half Life was at 512 x
320. With Q2 I got around 28-30 fps at 640 x 480 (limited by the 4MB
memory). I also found that Q2 is definetly less demanding than Half Life
or especially Unreal. Valve modified the Q2 engine extensively by adding a
'skeletal animation system' whch seems to drag down the FPS comapared to Q2.
Like I said its a matter of opinion. Some gamers want the highest frame
rates possible while others want detail and overall video quality. I like a
consistent frame rate rather than a real high one that drops when the game
gets complicated.
Gary951S <Gary...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:7j0qr0$up0$1...@nntp5.atl.mindspring.net...