Looking for something better than onboard video

[Joe Auman]

Before I start, here's my sytem specs.

Dell L500c
Celeron @ 500Mhz
Intel i810 onbaord AGP video
128Mb PC100 SDRAM
13.6 Gb Maxtor 5,400rpm hard drive
15" Dell monitor
SB Live! Value
56K generic modem
40x generic CD-ROM
W98se+

Now than ever, I'm starting to become a gamer. So when I realised I'm getting a total fps maximum in Quake3 (one of my favorites) of about 23fps, I decided there has to be something better. Then the wonderful onboard video uses the AGP bus, so forget a AGP upgrade card. That leaves me with a PCI card.

I've been keeping my eye on the Voodoo4 4500 PCI card or the Voodoo5 5500 PCI. I'm wondering if it's practical to buy the Voodoo5 over the Voodoo4 for this system. The main difference between the two is the 4 has 32Mb SDRAM and the 5 has 64 Mb SDRAM. (And the 5 is about as twice as expensive as the 4, the 4 being $150, the 5 being $300, direct from 3dfx.) And any PCI GeForce cards haven't impressed me too much; neither has the TNT2. Here's some info on the two cards. TIA

Voodoo4 4500 PCI
http://3dfx.com/prod/voodoo/v4-4500pci-overv.html

Voodoo5 550 PCI
http://3dfx.com/prod/voodoo/v5-5500PCI-overv.html

[hackercarlos]

Hi Joe. I am getting my V4 4500 AGP card tomorrow. I bought mine from a guy (still sealed in the box) for 113.00$ shipped

As soon as I get it tomorrow I'll test drive it and tell you how it performs

BTW. I could not resist that nice price of 113.00 shipped

[Xayd]

Voodoo cards are nice for what you pay for them. Their OpenGL performance is behind that of nVIDIA, but anything will be better than the Intel on board video. For 113 bucks the 4500 isn't a bad buy, but I wouldn't pay the retail 150 for it. If you can find one for under 120 bucks go for it, if not get the 3000.

You should be able to get 40ish FPS pretty easily with either the 3000 or 4000 in D3D or OpenGL, you should be able to get 60 FPS + easily in games that are written in Glide, such as Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament. Glide is 3dfx's proprietary API, which is very quick and very smooth even on older systems, but sadly 3dfx has kept it proprietary so games that utilize it only pop up when 3dfx dominates the vid card market, which isn't the case here of late.

The Voodoo5 isn't worth it in your case. The Celeron running still @ 66mhz will be a big bottleneck for you.

You'd also be well served by getting a real modem and ditching the Winmodem that Dell gave you (likely one of those Aztech chipsets, right?) if you play online.

Xayd


[Edited by Xayd on 11-02-2000 at 05:56 AM]

[Joe Auman]

Thanks Xayd, you brought up the point I was looking for, the FSB on these Celerons. The problem is it seems that every parts distributor has the Voodoo3 and the Voodoo5, but no 4! Any ideas where I could look for a good priced Voodoo4?

Thanks hacker, I'd like to see how it does.

Is FSAA not useful for the Voodoo4? In the thread "Weird FPS," Xayd, you said that the Voodoo4 doesn't have the speed for anti-aliasing. Ah dang, that was one feature I found "nifty" about it.

Your right about the modem. It's Aztec chipset, but it came with Conexant drivers. I have to check into that about the drivers.

[Xayd]

Depends on the game.

You might be able to get away with FSAA on in flight sims and such, but anything that requires quick rendering, such as first person shooters (Unreal, Quake, Half Life) or racing games that move at high speeds (Nascar, motorcycle type stuff) FSAA is gonna kill the performance of the card speed wise.

FSAA will be much better applied to RPG's and such, which don't require tremendous speed.

As for where to get one, Axion has them for 119 bucks, which isn't too bad a price...

http://www.axiontech.com/cgi-local/p...dt=VISTV44500O

Xayd

[TdogAM]

Hey you can go check out pricewatch.com if you do not mind buying online. If you really want a V4, and cannot find it around town, and do not mind paying full price retail, go to http://www.shop3dfx.com, and you can order it.