Well, that was quick, so long Geforce. I've seen all I need to see...

[Xayd]

Initial benchmarks had my hopes high with this video card, but after three days of tinkering to try to get a decent frame rate and visual quality in UT, I think I've had quite enough.

I figured I'd give the nVIDIA crowd the benefit of the doubt for about a week. Got a 64 meg Geforce 256 DDR offa E-Bay to give it a shot. After a week of tinkering and testing, these are my results/observations.

If you want a video card that will allow you to brag about your SSE and nVIDIA biased 3dmark bench results, nVIDIA will hook you up for the fair price of 300 dollars plus. If you want to have game speed and a card that just produces great looking effects with great speed, you need a Voodoo.

nVIDIA would like me to believe that gaming in 16 bit color is a thing of the past and I need a "graphics processing unit" (what a joke, lol) that costs upwards of 400 dollars to compete with other gamers. On the other hand, 3dfx can get you 80+ FPS with a 100 dollar Voodoo3, since everyone I know on the face of the planet plays video/CPU intensive games online at 1024 x 768 or 800 x 600 in 16 bit color for speed. Sure, I got to say I had a 6000 + 3dmark result, but a friend of mine at work with the same card in his box and a P3 733 gets 1000 points more than me, all other hardware equal. Madonion can take their benchmarks and shove em if they want me to believe that someone with a lesser processor by 300mhz beats me in 3d performance .

Of course, if I wanted to spend over 2 grand for my rig I'm sure nVIDIA and Intel could hook me up nice with 3rd rate visual-quality games like Q3A, though. No wonder the people on the 3dmark boards benchmark so much, their games look and play like Super Nintendo's finest .

I sincerely hope 3dfx kicks nVIDIA's proverbial butt with their next line of cards, so as to prompt another generation of Glide games for us. Meantime, this Geforce will be back where it came from if anyone is interested, just search E-Bay sellers by Xayd.

Voodoo5 here I come...

Xayd

[Tiretool]

Another one lost to the dark side, blinded by Voodoo's shallow promise of speed over picture quality. If everything was truly set up like it was supposed to be, that card would blow anything else out of the water, except for "possibly" the Radeon (at higher resolutions). We NVidiots will miss you, but at least now we'll have a better chance at fragging you! LOL

May the road rise to meet you...

[cobra]

Sorry about your luck Xayd,
As a former banshee owner, I have moved to nvidia and life is good.

[Xayd]

Heh, yeap, I think I'm lost to the dark side for good. My primary game is still Glide, and although I can get a "playable" framerate with OpenGL renderers for UT, it turns the visual quality into Q3A. No thanks.

And the more I thought about it, I come to this conclusion. So what if I can get 100+ FPS in Q3A or Soldier of Fortune or other such OpenGL game with a Geforce, anything past 80 is invisible anyways. I'd much rather have the higher image quality than 30 useless "braggable only" frames per second.
For image quality, the Voodoos still win.

No thanks on the benchmark results nVIDIA, I'll take 90 FPS in Glide instead.

Xayd

[Fubar512]

Xyad, I have had 3dfx based cards since they came out, and they were the driving force behind 3d graphics. Nvidia just happens to produce a faster card at the moment (and the image quality on the GrForce GTS with 4XFSAA is really good, with decent frame rates). I however, believe that competition improves the breed, and, that 3dfx really needed to be shaken up! I believe they will get their act togeather on the Rampage, and retake the lead in 3D graphics. However, for the time being, I enjoy my flight sims and driving simms at 1600x1200 16 color, and believe that the GeForce provides smoother game play at these resolutions.
As for Glide, the consensus is that it's dying. I have quite an investment in Glide games, but, that's just too bad.

[Xayd]

It's a shame that 3dfx won't open Glide up to the public. I mean, we've seen what it can do with the Unreal engine. Image quality is superb, and your game speed is only limited by your system RAM and processor speed, what a great concept.

The more I've read of the reviews out there this evening, the more content I am with going back to Voodoo. At low resolutions in 16 bit color both the Geforce2's and the Voodoo5's are registering over 100FPS, and as the resolutions climb the difference speed-wise between the two only gets smaller.

And yes, I agree. 3dfx has gotten a big wake up call from nVIDIA with the performance of the Geforce2, and I'm sure they'll roll with the punches and come out with another great card somewhere down the line.

In the meantime, what can I say guys, I'm a UT addict, I miss my Glide.

Xayd

[padawan]

I happen to be a big 3dfx FSAA fan, but I also own a GeForce2 GTS in one of my boxes as well. What kind of machine do you have? I just built a 1Ghz Tbird for a friend, with a GF2 GTS, and it handily beat a 1Ghz/GF2 GTS rig another friend of mine had. Maybe you have a setting screwed up or something.

I'm not trying to pull you to the darkside (read my Voodoo5 review at Maximum3D, it's very fair), but since you already spent the money, you might as well use the card. It is fast, and looks good at high res.

[Xayd]

I've got a Duron 650 @ 1059, 128 megs Crucial PC133 @ 2/2/2.

For UT, the game in question, I run @ 800 x 600, textures on low detail, sound on high detail (SB Live PCI512), 16 bit color, D3D as renderer, v sync off.

I get a max of 65 FPS, average about 60. Tried every driver I know of, and still get the same framerate, and pauses of 3 to 4 seconds during "busy" times of the game, i.e. four or five people fighting in a small area.

And yes, I read your review at Max3d and though it was very fair indeed .

The bids on the card on E-Bay are already approaching what I paid for it, so even if it doesn't get a "full refund" I'll cut my 20 dollar loss anyways. I read quite a bit about Voodoo5's before making this decision, and have seen performance with the "eye-candy off" of 90 FPS + from them at 800 x 600, and I don't play with the "eye-candy" on since I'm a first person shooter player mainly.

I'm aware that Glide is dead or dying and all of the ramifications that go with that, but for now UT looks and runs great with it, so I'm going back to it.

Maybe next time guys, check back with me after the Glide funeral .

Xayd

[Prader Willi]

From a little different perspective, I wonder what the people who made UT were thinking. Why develop a game like UT so that it runs so poorly with D3D-- even with the numerous patches? Granted that UT is one of the best games ever made, however, I am inclined to NOT buy future games built on the UT engine because I use a Geforce card and know I will not get great performance-- opting instead for games built on the QIII engine-- such as Star Trek Elite Force (a really cool game by the way).

BTW-- the 3 to 4 second pauses you are getting shouldn't happen. UT should automatically decrease some of your settings to maintain a minumum framerate (you specify the minimum framerate).

My TBird 800 with a Geforce DDR 32 mgs averages about 75 to 80 frame per second with textures on high detail, 800X600, low detail people, high quality sound (3d sound on), dynamic lighting turned off and I never get the pauses you mentioned- even during those wild games when there are 12 or more people. Could the pausing be due to your soundcard becoming overloaded? You might try decreasing the sound quality or turning off Directsound (directsound is known to cause crashes so it may not help in your case).

[Tiretool]

Also what type of internet connection you using?

[Xayd]

I'm on 1.5mbps/384kbps DSL, get around 25k up and 175k down, pings are consistently under 100 to quick US servers.

The FPS numbers I posted above are offline, not online.

I did manage to find a fix for the pauses, lowered AGP aperture to minimum and it smoothed things out quite a bit.

I gave the Loki OpenGL renderer a try last night as well, and didn't get any improvement, actually FPS went down to around 40. I've heard of alot of success with Loki OpenGL under Linux, but due to the mouse speed problems with the X server Linux is kinda unplayable for me, even though it looks great and is more stable.

I dunno what else to try guys. UT is still by far the best first person shooter out there, and it just isn't the same without Glide. Yes, it was a serious error on their part to make it that way, but what's done is done. The next Unreal Engine game is being written in close contact with nVIDIA, so I'm sure it'll be much better than the current Unreal Engine offerings compatibility wise, but it isn't here yet.

Xayd

[Tiretool]

Umm....... why are you using OpenGL for UT??
It runs TONS smoother under DirectX. Have you even tried it under DX with 16 bit graphics? Smooth as silk.

I'm getting around 45-55 FPS with my Celeron setup in UT using DX with 16 bit graphics.

[Xayd]

There's an OpenGL renderer from Loki, the company that maintains UT for Linux, that basically allows you to use the extra textures on the second CD, which kill performance anyways.

And yeah, but I get 80+ FPS with a Voodoo3 in Glide .

Xayd

[raydioactive]

Xayd, are you using the 432 patch for UT?, i found this to be a revelation for D3D. I have a celeron 633@855 and a hercules Geforce2mx. Running it at 600x800 in 32bit high detail i get on average 65fps with 6 bots which i find plays great on or offline. I once wished i had my old voodoo 2 back, but not anymore i love UT in D3D now

[Xayd]

No, but hmmmmmm .

I'll give it a try. So many folks reported problems with 4.32 that I stuck with 4.28.

Thanks for the tip.

Xayd

[Tiretool]

I feel confident that you'll be much happier using DX... I play at 800 X 600 and get good smooth game play. It seems to play much better in 16 bit color instead of 32 bit.

[mosquito]

I don't know why everybody keeps talking about framerate this, framerate that, I don't even know what framerates I have. I only know that the games I play are smooth (UT, Counter-strike, Star-Trek Elite Force) Image quality is very good. (V3 3500 @ 1024*768)

I think that going from 80 to 90fps will make you a better gamer, the only thing that really matters with on-line gaming is ping time.

My next upgrade will be a Rampage based 3Dfx card. (I really want to see the FSAA at work)

[Xayd]

Framerates do matter, especially in multiplayer first person shooters.

Reason: All video cards get choppy with a lot of "stuff" going on (buncha people fighting in a small area), which creates choppiness. The guy with the highest framerate will have the least lag (and yes, it relates to ping), and will therefore have a big advantage over others.

The day I went from a K6-2+ @ 600 to a Duron @ 1000 my average kills per match went up by about 10 in UT, same ole me against same ole people.

Xayd

[TdogAM]

Everyone that is hoping to upgrade to 3dfx cards that will be a no go, 3dfx will no longer be manufacturing cards, but liscensing out their tech, like nvidia, just though you guys would like to know that. Also, try the 5.32 Nvidia drivers, good stuff no probs w/ my prophet 2mx