Why i still use 3dfx, my own take on the 3d market. [Archive]

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Riptides

22-Mar-2002, 06:46

Okay, this is just a laymans take on the whole entire mess with the market today, please take this as mostly fun, so poke at it as you will, correct me where i am wrong, and hopefully my points are well made and thought out, thanks :roll:
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Most V5 users realize that the shelf life/useability of the voodoo series is quickly approaching its end.. but if you are like me.. this is still one of the very best cards i have ever purchased in my time of buying video cards.. after upgrading beyond the 1 gig range, i have found the V5 scaled rather nicely.. much more than i expected.. as this was one of the features of the card when released.. that it would continue to be a viable card, and even more so if it had any sort of driver support, when faster processors would be released. :D

Even tho there will NEVER be any NEW drivers for the card, only optimised and system specific changes are all thats left to be made to the now aged x3dfx final, i still feel that i will never RETIRE my card, even when i remove it from my main system, it will still live on in my secondary.. for my TnT2 Ultra is getting very long in the tooth..

AS far AS nvidia goes.. kudos for them for keeping their release schedules, and making some of the fastest cards avail.. but until they use the 3dfx tech they acquired, namly the FSAA routines, i do not feel that they have in any way EARNED my buisness.
Not with their monkey assed driver swap routine that one must constantly play depending on the game one wants to play.. Yes.. i had a GeForce GTS before i got the V5, and i just got PLAIN tired of it.. and i still see this going on with their drivers to this day.

Once Nvidia stops concentrating on adding features that are not to be used until 2 years from now and how fast they can push their cards, and start concentrating on stability and compatability, they have in NO way EARNED my business. But even tho, they have worked more towards this, i still see Nvidia as OverHYPED and OVERpriced for what it is they offer. Why is it almost all computer components continue to drop in price as new tech comes along.. but Nvidia continually increases PRICE thru their releases ?..

But my biggest and its ONE BIG :evil: gripe with Nvidia these days, is how they are pumping out newer and faster cards than the market (namely game dev's) can even begin to keep up with.. yet at the same time, they still manufacture the TnT lines for OEM products.. This continually assures that game makers will still produce games to the lowest common denominiator, and we will NOT see the new features they tout in the new products until 2-4 years down the road. Nvidia is slowly tightening their own noose by doing this, constantly making obsolete their own tech every 6 months, while at the same time, selling more of their old tech as OEM..

Anybody who is anybody, who keeps up with video gaming news, has to realize that by now.. ATI has come leaps and bounds with their driver development. While still not perfected, they are coming close.. shame on all you who thought ATI should have perfect drivers right off the bat.. But these days one cannot argue that ATI creates SuXoR drivers anymore, and when comparing, one must realize that ATI is almost on Par with Nvidia considering drivers.. And offering a cheaper product with the same speed, they are very poised to take over alot of gamers business, if they keep up with this ATI will soon be my next choice in videocards, but they still need to get things worked out decently enough for me to want to support them.. *stop disabling features in your drivers dammit :cry:* but if my V5 fails me tomorrow and i am forced to make a NEW purchase, i feel that ATI has done more to earn my support and business than Nvidia has. Just by them coming out honest with that one statement that they KNEW their drivers were lacking, and that they were working on a viable FIX for this, and almost a year later, it seems to be paying off. But then again *sighs* :cry: , ATI is still trying to do the same as Nvidia, continually release new products, making obsolete their old, yet the whole time pumping their oldest *ATI RAGE* chipsets into the OEM market.. Until this shitty trend ends, no-one is going to see the Uber Graphics that we should be seeing considering the market of cards avail from BOTH Nvidia and ATI.

Lastly, i am not one to hold hope in phantom products.. right now it seems that the Kyro continuation is in question, *well development as it stands* but it will probably work out for them, but how long until another product ? Long enough to lose more customers to a fan-boi stance ?.. maybe..
and how will it fare considering the product cycle that Nvidia created and now ATI follows as well ?

Bitboys ? jeezuz, i think they were being laughed about in the Voodoo2 days.. Sorry but farting in a small room :o , calling it a great idea, does not a videocard make. :oops:
And until i see somth more than a backwater story regarding their ALMOST card, i just will not entertain the idea that such a thing exists..

SiS, (shitty integrated shit ?), these guys could do somth great, but probably won't, upon reading their specs.. seems that they are just creating another fair to middlin product, nothing to blow anyone skirts up.. swapping certain rendering processes off to the Main Processor, is.. well redundant in any form with whats avail out there today..

Matrox, the little card that almost does, if you listen to the rumor mill.. Seems like they are always ready to release the NEXT gen 3d Accelerator, but only if you listen to the fans, which i do not blame Matrox for, but in the end it does hurt the company a bit, but also, what does this tell you regarding everyones feelings about only 2 main players in the 3D biz ??

Its not that i want any of these companies to fail, but this is where the reality lies.. they (the 2 main) are all slowly choking the market to death with their products and how they implement them these days, the rest, are either happy in their niche markets *matrox*, are struggling along *sis and Kyro*, or just plain do not exsist *bitboys*.
In my opinion, i want the market to settle down, i want companies to spend more time on working on and perfecting the next gen releases, and PHASE out all chipsets older than 3 years, and create some sort of standard, until then, i feel that the market will continue as it has been since the demise of 3dfx, which is.. it is slowly stagnating.. look how much the console market has pulled away from devloping games for the PC market over the past 2 years ?
How good was last year for gaming ? Not very ?
and even tho there are some good contenders this year.. it still seems nothing OUTSTANDING has been released or will be released this year that takes advantage of new 3d tech in any way. :wink:

Ailuros

22-Mar-2002, 07:33

Dumb question: do you have any idea what the future (never released) products from the late 3dfx included?

Those kind of conversations are really getting old and although NVIDIA will most likely make use of their tech/patents some time in the future they don't "rely" on it and it doesn't determine their future either. They would still be market leaders, 3dfx tech or not.

What really makes a huge difference in this business is execution. Any company that would sit back right now and slow down processes delibaretly would automatically commit suicide. As to where and why I leave it to you to figure it out. Some sale statistics could help here of the past years.

It does come down to what the majority really wants doesn't it?

mboeller

22-Mar-2002, 07:38

SiS, (shitty integrated shit ?), these guys could do somth great, but probably won't, upon reading their specs.. seems that they are just creating another fair to middlin product, nothing to blow anyone skirts up.. swapping certain rendering processes off to the Main Processor, is.. well redundant in any form with whats avail out there today..

At least they seem to be smarter than Nvidia. The SiS330 is the chip the GF4 MX - series should have been. Including pixel-shaders and leave out vertex shaders is IMO by far smarter than vice-versa.

dksuiko

22-Mar-2002, 22:00

Rip,

Once Nvidia stops concentrating on adding features that are not to be used until 2 years from now and how fast they can push their cards, and start concentrating on stability and compatability, they have in NO way EARNED my business.

Once nVidia, ATI, or any other company stop concentrating on adding features and on how fast they can push their cards, then there will be NO 3D market. Stability and compatability? They're not concetrating on that? The goal is to push new features, push the speed, and at the same time push stability and compatability. It's not one or the other, the goal is to get them all.

i feel that the market will continue as it has been since the demise of 3dfx, which is.. it is slowly stagnating.. look how much the console market has pulled away from devloping games for the PC market over the past 2 years ? How good was last year for gaming ? Not very ?

Are you saying that had 3Dfx not went down, the PC market would not be touched by the consoles competition and gaming would be great? Hardly. 3Dfx, nVidia, ATI, or anyone else's video cards will never make or break gaming. That responsibility lies in the developers hands alone. So, if you're going to rant about gaming, video card companies are not the target you should aim to shoot.

and even tho there are some good contenders this year.. it still seems nothing OUTSTANDING has been released or will be released this year that takes advantage of new 3d tech in any way.

Well, if the 3d market does what you want it to, settle down and stop concentrating on new features and better performance, then there will never be a new and outstanding product.

-dksuiko

Tagrineth

22-Mar-2002, 23:45

Even tho there will NEVER be any NEW drivers for the card, only optimised and system specific changes are all thats left to be made to the now aged x3dfx final, i still feel that i will never RETIRE my card, even when i remove it from my main system, it will still live on in my secondary.. for my TnT2 Ultra is getting very long in the tooth..

Wrong! 3Dfx Underground is building a new driver, 1.09.00, with a totally re-written OpenGL ICD (1.2 compliant).

http://3dfxunderground.cjb.net

Matt

23-Mar-2002, 00:22

That long diatribe sounds like you're just trying to convince yourself over everything you've said.

Just get whatever is within your needs and budget and just play games. That's what it is all about, not dissing a company you don't like because you think they're blah, blah, and blah.

I'm not going to even argue with any of the points you brought up, because it looks like you're dead set on your opinions. dksuiko said it best anyways. Enjoy your V5. :)

Edit: That whole "PC gaming is declining" bit is total BS. I've heard that every year for the past 5 years, always the naysayers and pessimistic just dying to cry out the doom of gaming. Sorry bub, it's not dying or declining, and consoles have nothing to do with PC gaming. Perhaps you're just being jaded and need to take a deep breath, relax and take a vacation, or maybe stop gaming altogether.

linthat22

23-Mar-2002, 01:32

One question, what does SuXoR stand for? I see quite a bit and I still don't have a clue to what that is or means.

Matt

23-Mar-2002, 01:38

It's a childish way of saying "suck".

Althornin

23-Mar-2002, 03:39

Its not childish!
It makes me sUp4r L337!!!
:)

LittlePenny

23-Mar-2002, 05:56

Say what you will about nVidia's business tactics, but it seems to me they have been a benefit to the online hardware enthusiast community. They started releasing beta drivers when they saw we liked the leaks, there PR department answers numerous emails from every website big or small, and if they follow through with that internet server patent, I think it will be nV will have a very solid base of loyal customers that use their gaming servers.

LeStoffer

23-Mar-2002, 08:55

That whole "PC gaming is declining" bit is total BS. I've heard that every year for the past 5 years, always the naysayers and pessimistic just dying to cry out the doom of gaming.

Exactly. We're still a long way from rendering Star Wars Episode II or Lord of The Rings real time on our cards, but getting there (albeit incremental) with new features and generations is what people here enjoy. Odd, but true. :P

Sure, I might never see much greatness from the old T&L on my old Geforce DDR but the card has been good to me anyway from the greater performance (over my Voodoo2). I paid for progress that I will not see before Unreal 2 (which I BTW will enjoy on my next card). And I guess some GF3 owners will have shifted to R300 or NV30 before a DX8 game is out.

So you pay for progress but the return just comes later than you expect[ed]. That's okay with me because new card not only deliever new features but also greater performance with the games that is out now.

Regards, LeStoffer

Typedef Enum

23-Mar-2002, 09:23

This isn't really in-line with the topic...But on a related note, how many people who bought the original GF3 can honestly say that they got a lot of mileage out of it, despite the lack of DX8 titles?

Seriously....I realize the Ti4600 can beat the crap out of it in several meaningful ways, but there (for me, this is almost 12 months later...) isn't one single title out that makes this card feel old or outdated....

In fact, based on the early numbers we've seen (and recalling the Lowest Common Demon. factor) from the Unreal2 Performance Test, there won't be a title to stress this thing out for some time to come...

It's funny, because even 12 months ago, I was very hesitant about getting the card, knowing full well just how long it would take for *any* title to take any significant advantage of the hardware...

But despite it all, the performance of the thing will wind up carrying you a good 2 years, as I don't actually expect any software to make you think twice until Doom3...

It's just kinda funny when you think back to this time last year...

So, even when these guys try their best to get developers to jump on the <fill in the blank> bandwagon...and it takes a couple of generations to happen (if it all), you can still say it was a good investment, provided that the sheer performance of the thing, along with any other advancements(IE FSAA, advanced filtering, etc) gave you a better 3D experience.

slaterat

23-Mar-2002, 17:08

I have to agree with Rip. I'm still using my voodoo 4. It runs all the games I play just fine. The main game I play is WW IIO and get equivelent frames , sometimes slightly more or less , than then similar systems running any geforce mx or geforce 2.

I've never been a bleeding edger, I dont have the spare dough, I do have 2 kids, wife , mortgage , life ins ect.... but I am a hobbiest

What I really want is good value, good price, good performance and compatibilty ; with a whole bunch of tweaking options

geforce 4 is listing at $600 here in Canada
geforce 4 mx $200
Radeon 8500 $269
radeon 7500 $179

Obviously the radeons are a better deal but in the game I play ie WW IIO
a 7500 is no better or faster than my voodoo4, and radeons have serious issues with the game to boot!!

If a had to buy today it would be a kyro II at $150 it will eat up any Mx, but I'll wait hoping the Creative and 3D Labs can pull something off.....

Slaterat

Gunhead

24-Mar-2002, 18:20

It's "the highest common denominator", dagnabbit!

:lol:

(The "lowest common denominator" is zero.)

Mark N

24-Mar-2002, 20:20

...how many people who bought the original GF3 can honestly say that they got a lot of mileage out of it, despite the lack of DX8 titles? ...the performance of the thing will wind up carrying you a good 2 years, as I don't actually expect any software to make you think twice until Doom3... ...you can still say it was a good investment, provided that the sheer performance of the thing, along with any other advancements(IE FSAA, advanced filtering, etc) gave you a better 3D experience.

I think it's ironic that the game you cite which might finally make the GF3 seem inadequate is likely the first real DX8 title, and what was the big selling point of the GF3 in the first place? You see people saying, "get a GF3 Ti 200 over a MX460, no question, because of the DX8 stuff", but does it really make sense to buy the slowest, least feature-laiden DX8 card at the end of that generation's lifespan at the top, just because of a DX8 capability that might not do you much good when the good, DX8-optimized games actually appear? Seems like that same old nVidia 32-bit color/large texture/T&L future protection argument of the 3dfx era to me.

What probably turns out to have been the most meaningful new feature with the GF3 was Lightspeed, which allowed that card, with a 200mhz core and 230mhz DDR memory, to achieve notably higher framerates than a GF2 Ultra, clocked at 250/230, particularly at higher resolutions. But did it make sense to pay around $400 for that, when you could have paid half that or less by waiting six months and buying a Ti 200 with memory probably capable of running at the same speed? Unless you were stuck with using a GF256 SDR card or something slower for that period, you didn't lose too much, even with games like Giants, B&W, Max Payne. And the drivers for that new card had a chance to mature.

And that savings means you could potentially make the next upgrade earlier - when the GF4 4400 drops to a reasonable price or maybe even when the 4200 comes out - instead of hanging onto that GF3 for another generation and then maybe blowing another $400. I just don't think that buying the fastest new-gen card from nVidia at the $400 they charge ever makes much sense, no matter how you put it.

pascal

24-Mar-2002, 20:37

Usually I say get a GF3Ti200 (or 8500LE) because of the quad stage texture pipeline and higher sustained polygon throughputb T&L pipeline.
It will help a lot with Doom3, Unreal 2 and UT2 in six months :)

Then to simplify the recomendation people say get a DX8, but not necesserally because the nice DX8 features.

Sharkfood

24-Mar-2002, 23:04

But on a related note, how many people who bought the original GF3 can honestly say that they got a lot of mileage out of it, despite the lack of DX8 titles?

This is where, it seems, I part company with a lot of folks. It simply didn't have the 'mileage' potential I was hoping for the moment the antistatic bag was removes and slammed into an AGP slot, which meant immediate greedy desire for the next product batch.

Same goes for the 8500 (albeit a notch better), and looking into the 330mhz core GF4's now in hopes of this getting me there.

What do I want? I want the best IQ, playable and fantastic framerates, compatibility and stability for *all* of my games (not just a select few OGL and/or D3D titles) and future support in the form of drivers to maintain this balance with the same static set of titles.

Basically, I want V5's FSAA, the GF3's anisotropy and framerates to meet or exceed 60 fps in most all games. Flight sims and non-action based adventure crawlers can be half that, but you get the idea.

I'm less interested in what will run Doom3 or Unreal 2 a year from now as I am what will run the stack of CD's I have sitting on my desk right here and now. When I throw on anisotropy and 4x AA and games stagger and sputter below 20 fps, it's a little discouraging.

Also, when I throw on anisotropy and 4xAA, if I need to take screenshots, import into photoshop and zoom to 900% to see the improvement, I'm equally discouraged.

It's also important that adding anisotropy and AA shouldn't be a simple placebo setting in the display properties. I'm less interested in being able to say "yeah, I'm running 4xAA!" versus "Wow, this AA looks great" which seems to be the trend these days. If you don't *visually* know you have AA or anisotropy enabled or not, you're missing the point and the performance hit such methods take is meaningless.

The number of "samples" or "taps" a particular image enhancement feature is advertised to use and it's related performance hit should never take precedence over it's overall impact on visual quality. This concept is heresy given the current round of benchmarks, user commentary and flame wars seen abroad.

I believe it's this very "placebo specs" versus "delivered visual impact" mindset that has been driving future product lines. Matt said it best- play your games. Let this facet control the purchasing and upgrading of hardware, as well as praise for product lines or new hardware.

Mark N

25-Mar-2002, 05:59

Usually I say get a GF3Ti200 (or 8500LE) because of the quad stage texture pipeline and higher sustained polygon throughputb T&L pipeline.

Let's look at that. The Ti 200 is quad pipelined at a core speed of 175mhz, and the MX460 has a dual pipeline architecture running at 300mhz. So it seems to me the Ti has a theoretical 17% advantage. But this card like most is ultimately memory bandwidth-limited in the real world, so probably less than that in performance. The MX has a 35% memory speed advantage, 270mhz DDR to 200mhz, and this is a real world advantage. The Ti counters with Lightspeed I, 4X32-bit memory controllers plus the Z-buffer stuff. The MX has Lightspeed II MX, which features 2x64-bit controllers, but (I assume) adds the upgraded Z-occlusion culling of the GF4 Ti's that the GF3 Ti's don't have. So what do the benchmarks say?

TH at 12x10 and 16x12 shows the Ti up 10% in Giants, about even in Max Payne, and 10% edge to the MX in Q3A. Anandtech shows that Q3A edge down to 5%, a 10-15% advantage to the Ti in SerSam2, a very small edge to the MX in RTCW, and a huge 55-65% advantage to the Ti in Unreal2 test. So other than Unreal2 it's really a wash. Seems like the advantage the GF3 has is with its version of Lightspeed, which must make up that 35% memory speed disadvantage.

So we look at the 200mhz GF2 Ti, also at 200mhz but without Lightspeed at all, and with a 250mhz quad-pipeline core, a 43% advatage over the Ti 200. Giants shows the GF3 Ti with a 30-40% advantage, Max Payne a 55% advantage, Q3 a 35-45% advantage, and the GF2 runs at the same speed as the MX in Unreal2, far behind the Ti 200. Seems like that verifies the advantage Lightspeed gives the GF3, but also casts serious doubt on what LMA II MX really does for the GF4 MX cards.

In any case, I'm not sure how much of an advantage with the Ti 200 over the MX460 that will show itself in this area on near future games. The Ti does a bit better on newer current games, but much better with the polygon-intensive Unreal2 test. What does this test say about the MX, which can't beat the GF2 Ti even with memory 35% faster and with LMA? Is this game so GPU-intensive that memory bandwidth is no longer the issue? If so, why does a Ti 500 have a 23% framerate advantage when it has a 43% core speed edge but only a 25% memory speed edge? And is this test a real indication of future game stresses?

If so, nVidia has put out a new MX card that probably represents the low-end for them for at least the next year, a card that will be included in many OEM PCs, and not only does it not include programmable shaders, but either can't crank the polys fast enough to provide higher framerates than a GF2 on the new stuff, or its LMA MX is vastly inferior to that in the GF4 Ti's. Doesn't sound good. I still have my doubts about this Unreal test being indicative of the future, though.

Mark N

25-Mar-2002, 06:07

mboeller

25-Mar-2002, 07:29

Let's look at that. The Ti 200 is quad pipelined....

THANKS for this summary. It "proves" my decision to go with an GF3Ti200 instead of waiting for an maybe faster MX 460 ( the MX460 is more expensive here than the GF3Ti200 !! ).

pascal

25-Mar-2002, 14:46

UT2 will be out in six months and will have a simplified version of the Unreal Performance Test 2002.

Many people will be really sorry for buying this ugly GF4MX :roll:

Mark N

25-Mar-2002, 15:46

THANKS for this summary. It "proves" my decision to go with an GF3Ti200 instead of waiting for an maybe faster MX 460 ( the MX460 is more expensive here than the GF3Ti200 !! ).

You're welcome, but I'm not sure I "proved" much of anything. The two cards are pretty equal everwhere except the Unreal2 test, and I don't know what to draw from that. As I said, the Ti 500 has a 43% faster core than the 200 and 25% faster memory, and the framerate difference is 23%. The MX460 is 30-35% faster than the MX440, and it has a 35% memory speed advantage but only a 9% GPU speed advantage. That sounds like memory bandwidth is the issue. On the other hand, the difference between the Ti 4400 and 4600 is 10-12%, and the 4600 has a 9% faster core and 18% faster memory, so that looks a bit more like a GPU issue. Or is that really a CPU limitation being felt on the fastest cards, and a faster CPU would push that up to around 18%?

I guess I don't know what Unreal2 test shows. UT was such a poor benchmark because of its CPU dependence. That engine didn't utilized hardware T&L, and the new one apparently doesn't do much with the DX8 stuff, so its hard to draw much in the way of conclusions from such a divergent approach. Or maybe it only seem divergent when compared to the oft-cited Quake engines.

In any case, I don't know why the Ti 200 has such a massive advantage over the MX460 in this test, 55-65%. The core has only a 17% fillrate advantage, and it doesn't seem its LMA could offset the 35% speed advantage of the MX and add anything close to that kind of margin. Maybe U2 has an awful lot of 32-bit chunks passing in and out of memory - if its LMA created a doubling of memory bandwidth efficiency (not realistic, of course), that would create a 55% advantage, which when coupled with the fillrate edge might explain this. This one perplexes me, but maybe someones else has an idea what's happening here.

mboeller

25-Mar-2002, 16:35

pascal

25-Mar-2002, 17:21

The advantage is 71% at 1024x768x32 (build 856).
Probably the main reason is the higher average textures per pixel around to 3. Unreal 2 will require from 2 textures to 50 passes with some particle effect (flamethrower).

My guess the GF3Ti200 quad texture pipeline is a big advantage.
Please people break this paradigm:
- older hardware
- older name (GF3<GF4)
- lower peak fillrate
- lower memory bandwith
- lower core MHZ

Mark N

26-Mar-2002, 03:11

Probably the main reason is the higher average textures per pixel around to 3. Unreal 2 will require from 2 textures to 50 passes with some particle effect (flamethrower). My guess the GF3Ti200 quad texture pipeline is a big advantage.

I'm not sure that the numbers bear that out. As I said, the GF4 MX and GF3 lines seem to show that within those families it's memory bandwidth that makes the difference. The GF2 shows the same thing in Anand's original article on the engine - at 1280x1024 the Ultra and Ti, with the same core speed but a 15% memory speed difference, show a 12.5% framerate difference, and the Ti and Pro, with the same memory speed but a 25% core speed difference, show a 5% framerate difference.

That doesn't rule out rendering capability between families of cards, but if you look at the GF2s vs. the GF3s, both with the quad pipeline thing, what do you see? The Ti 200 and the Ti both have 200mhz memory but the Ti has a 43% core speed edge, yet the Ti 200 is 50-60% faster. The Ultra and the Ti 500 have the same 250mhz core speed, the Ti 500's memory is only 9% faster, yet the Ti is 80-90% faster.

Anand's conclusions include, " If these results are any indication, moving forward, GPU clock will actually play a much more important role than it has in the past. A delicate balance between GPU clock and memory clock, such as what was made possible on the GeForce3, will be ideal to obtain... There are still some questions that remain unanswered, including how effective hardware T&L actually is on slower systems." And his comment on the GF4 MXs was, "A significant disappointment is the GeForce4 MX which fails to even outperform the GeForce2 Ti 200. This is exactly why we recommend either going for the GeForce3 Ti 200, the Radeon 8500LE or waiting for the GeForce4 Ti 4200".

But this really sheds very little light on the issue. Both the brute-force GF2s and the GF4 MX finesse fail to come close to even the dog-slow Ti 200, let alone the GF4 Ti's blistering pace. Maybe this game utilizes the single-pass quadtexturing capability of the GF3's pipelines and maybe its version of crossbar is much more effective here than the MX's. I suppose Epic could have designed the engine's optimal quality settings to be achieved specifically through the use of the high-end hardware available during its development. But the margin just seems too large to be explained by that alone.

And the Radeon 8500's margin over the 7500 is nearly as great as the Ti 500's over the GF2 Ti or GF4 MX460, even though the approach is different. HyperZ might well be better than the Z-stuff in the GF3s, but there is no crossbar, and the 8500 can do more textures per pass than the GF3. The 7500 is even more different compared to the GF2. Compared to the 7500, the 8500 has memory that is 20% faster, the 7500 has a 5% faster core clock, The 8500 has four twin-texture pipelines and the 7500 two triple-texture pipelines, and unlike the the GF2/GF3/GF4 MX comparisons, the basic memory architecture is identical. The 8500 does have an improved version of HyperZ, though. The numbers show the 8500 84% faster at 12x10 and 55% at 16x12, with the gap falling as reso increases and not the reverse as with all the nVidia cards. Perhaps in part a driver issue, though, but it could be a memory bandwidth limitation at 16x12. So hard to say why the pronounced difference, but fillrate must be part of it.

But I drift OT here. I still don't see why the GF4 MX's performance in U2 is so different from that of the Ti 200. A blend of all the things I've mentioned and some I haven't considered, I suppose. :-?

Riptides

02-Apr-2002, 10:35

Ahh.. i should have come back and defended my post earlier, but real life got in the way.. but i will cover some points here. :lol:
And i will try to make it short.
And did i say Suxor in my first post ? Guess that is what happens when one reads VE forums too often. But i dont think i would stoop that low to say that..

And before i start, it amazes me how it passes over you guys heads how most of the opinions i posted was rehashing of YOUR own opinions stated all over this Forum.

dumb question: do you have any idea what the future (never released) products from the late 3dfx included?
It does come down to what the majority really wants doesn't it?

Sure i am well aware of what the late 3dfx was up to, and what their then in development products were capable of, and yeah, that tech is long old and long gone, all i ask from Nvidia is to integrate the 3dfx FSAA into their products, they now have the speed it seems, and i dont see one detractor from the gaming community regarding them adding in this feature. In fact i believe the most wanted feature out of the 3dfx takeover was quick integration of their FSAA routines.

And the majority ? Seems the Majority is stuck getting TNT2's in their system still to this day. If not Rage Chips.. that was/is my main gripe, Correct me if i am wrong, but in fact, what the majority wants, is for the top manufacturers to stop selling 4-5 year old tech to OEM's.

DKSuiko - Mang, i gots respect for what you post here, but you totally took my words out of context, is it cos i put 3dfx into the topic?? ;)
Once nVidia, ATI, or any other company stop concentrating on adding features and on how fast they can push their cards, then there will be NO 3D market.

Wrong, if ATI announced that they were coming out with a new board that would rock the house and be the most compatible to date with everything, and at the same time they were going to develop perfect drivers for this along the entire way, but at the cost of a year or more of true dev time, think of the Hype it would cause, sure the Nvidia fans would start their jeering, but in the end, if ATI delievered, what a boost it would be to the market, and to them, period.
Them and Nvidia will not fail b/c they still supply thousands of cheap TnTs and etc etc to the market, that is their bread and butter, not the cards that push the envelope, that is the hype they live by. They hype the latest and greatest, but still, they make their money off the cheapest they can provide. If either camp stated tomorrow that you would not see a card until this time next year.. they would NOT fail. they both have too many sellable products on the market already. That was 3dfx's failure. One product to sell while developing for 2 years.

Are you saying that had 3Dfx not went down, the PC market would not be touched by the consoles competition and gaming would be great?
nope, didnt say that at all, but was only using that event as a basis to start a timeline.

That long diatribe sounds like you're just trying to convince yourself over everything you've said.

Nope, only trying to convince myself over everything i have READ on here and other gaming/hardware sites. The problem here is that you guys took me too seriously thinking i was taking myself seriously ;)
Cos why in the hell would i put 3dfx in the subj line, i know what happens here when one does that. No respect. ;)
And i am never dead set on my opinions :) in this post i am being deadset on most of YOUR opinions. :)

BTW the rest of the posts after the Leet speak Suxor ones are the type of thing i was trying to incite here, Sharkfood especially brings up the best points out of what i was trying to say, i would love to see a lenghtened product cycle to produce the card Sharkfood speaks of.
As well as Marks points. founts of information :)
But as it stands, right now, you are paying for a overpriced product that will never deliever what is promised from it. And i suspect most of you here wouldnt wait for the DEV cycle to catch up with it before buying into the Hype again.

as far as it goes, hell yeah i still enjoy my V5, if there are going to be new drivers for it, thats more better for the fact that it will make a great 2nd box card. Because by the time the games hit that will render the v5 stupid, i hope to have a better card in this system. I am quickly approaching a decision on what to buy, but as sharkfood stated, i know soon as i plop it into my system, i will have wished i waited a lil longer for somth a lil better, but thats the bleeding edge game we play. I am just glad to say i was able to hold onto the V5 for as long as i did, b/c yes i am one of the fools that paid over 300 bucks for the damn thing and i dont believe in spending the price of my systems worth each year just in video cards alone. But to get the milage i got out of it, dont slight me on that one bit. :roll:

Bambers

02-Apr-2002, 11:58

I don't think that the v5s FSAA tech will be used by nvidia.

Its super sampling which is slow. Multi sampling is far more efficient.

They may also skip straight to a pseudo random FSAA instead of RG.

Nil Einne

02-Apr-2002, 13:52

Why are you blaming Nvidia et al for the fact that OEMs choose to integrate the cheapest card no matter what the intended market for that card is? Are you suggesting Nvidia et all withdraw their cheapest cards because the OEMs should be putting a better card into gaming machines but they're not? Maybe you also blame the RAM makers for the fact that OEMs are putting out Windows XP PCs with 64mb of RAM? They should only sell 256Mb sticks, at least that way OEMs would always put at least 256Mb RAM in a Windows XP PC (the bare minimum for a Windows XP).

Or maybe you think that Nvidia et al should just screw the average computer user (who plays about 1 3D game in 2 years and has never even used their TNT2 to it's fullest potential) and also screw all the people in China etc who would have to spend half their yearly wage to get a Geforce4 MX440 instead of a TNT2 for their comps. I would agree that the prices for the GeForce2, 3, 4 should and could be lower (while keeping the company heavily in the blue) and all the other cards including the TNT2s. The fact is that if Nvidia didn't have their TNT2s their other cards wouldn't be much cheaper because they're mean bastards who want to make a whole lot of money. If they weren't so bastard like, their other card would be cheaper but so would the TNT2s which would be even cheaper yet still very popular, especially in countries like China etc.

What you have here is a problem a lot more complex which is related to a lot more then Nvidia etc being bad companies.... Solving it would require all the countries in the world and most companies in the world to do a lot things they will never do. Of course, if you did solve it, you will probably solve world hunger and poverty at the same time so there is a positive side.

Nil Einne

02-Apr-2002, 14:12

Correct me if i am wrong, but in fact, what the majority wants, is for the top manufacturers to stop selling 4-5 year old tech to OEM's.
The majority? What do you mean by the majority? If you mean all the people who own expensive cards then you're probably right. If you mean all the computer users in this world or all the population or even all the people who play 3d games then you're wrong. The majority of computer users don't give a damn or want Nvidia (and others) to continue sell the cheapest because it's the only thing they can resonable afford!

That was 3dfx's failure. One product to sell while developing for 2 years.
I think there was a lot more things then this including the fact that their card were probably the worst hyped but failed to truly deliver IMHO. However you're right. Concentration on a niche market tends to be a bad idea....

But as it stands, right now, you are paying for a overpriced product that will never deliever what is promised from it. And i suspect most of you here wouldnt wait for the DEV cycle to catch up with it before buying into the Hype again.
Well if you're talking about most of the people who buy the absolute best cards, you may be right. However, I reckon if you talk about people who buy the cheaper, lower end card like the G3Ti200, Radeon 8500LE etc, you're dead wrong. Many people will be using these cards for at least 1.5 years IMHO, probably longer. Just as there are a lot more poor (and mid class) computer users then rich ones, there are a lot more poor (and mid class) 3d gamers then rich ones who will indeed by a low high range card with the intention of using it for a long time on 3d games. It often makes more sense (is cheaper and better) then buying a series of (or two) low end products in in the same time period. Of course, there are many people whu buy low mid range product or even real low range products with the intention of using it in 3d games in the years to come including many who know what it will eventually be like for them but do it because it's the most they can resonable afford.

I'm not saying I agree with the current product cycles but I am saying that there are a lot of people who WILL be using their cards's potential even though it fairly cutting edge (although maybe not the best). In fact, I reckon (although not so strongly) that the majority of people who do buy even the real best cards, e.g. Ti4600 will in fact use a lot of it's potential. There are some who evalute this as their best option (although I tend to disagree) [get the real best and keep it for a real long time] for buying video cards.

flf

03-Apr-2002, 00:32

(The "lowest common denominator" is zero.)

Uh, actually you can't have a zero denominator. Well, you can try, but you won't get very far with it.

Mark N

03-Apr-2002, 08:02

Seems the Majority is stuck getting TNT2's in their system still to this day. If not Rage Chips. that was/is my main gripe, Correct me if i am wrong, but in fact, what the majority wants, is for the top manufacturers to stop selling 4-5 year old tech to OEM's.

I don't think this reflects reality. Yes, some OEMs still use TNTs and Rage128s and even Rage Pros, but which OEMs are they? I see them mostly in ads by mom-n-pop shops, and always in cheesy $600 boxes. No one is going to do any sort of serious gaming on these things, so who cares? The big OEMs give you video card choices, and you can upgrade way beyond that sort of outdated stuff. The problem now, if there is a problem, is the GF MX cards which litter the OEM scene, and some people get them thinking they are getting a card with serious ganing capability, because the specs say GeForce2 with 64mb of memory (or soon GeForce4).

They hype the latest and greatest, but still, they make their money off the cheapest they can provide. If either camp stated tomorrow that you would not see a card until this time next year.. they would NOT fail. they both have too many sellable products on the market already. That was 3dfx's failure.

Don't think so. nVidia was able to move ATi out of the mainstream/low-end OEM leadership position because of their reputation as the technology leader in the high-end and the selling power that brought their name. ATi bungled through that Rage Fury/Pro/Maxx period without much applause from the press, so lost ground. 3dfx was (unfairly, I believe) being roasted by the press at the same time, so their cards designed for the beginnings of OEM penetration never really got off the ground.

The reality is that high-end technology opinion drives the low-end market, like it or not. And nVidia discovered that at the high-end it matters not if the newest, flashiest features can be used at all in games on the market, the press and the people salivating over the new stuff will eat it up anyway. That was mostly the case during the TNT2/Voodoo3 period, when 3dfx put out a card one year after the all-conquering Voodoo2 that ran as fast as a $600 Voodoo2 SLI combo, added good 2D, and sold it for $129, and that card was mostly panned by the press as old technology. Instead they went wild over a $250 card that supported 32-bit color at reasonably playable framerate when games were designed in 16-bit color and most people were playing them that way, included 32mb of expensive memory that was only required for that 32-bit color, supported 2048x2048 textures when games topped out at 256x256, supported AGP texturing which was of no practical value, was AGP 4X compliant when that standard hadn't yet showed on the market, but was no faster than the $179 Voodoo3 3k in 16-bit and had poorer IQ. Then it was on to hardware T&L on $300 cards, programmable shaders on $400 cards, etc. And in the meantime OEM boxes began to be filled with TNT2s and GF2 MXs.

Whether or not it was intentional, 3dfx made cards at that time that allowed you to play the games that were actually on the market (all of them, including Glide games) at playable framerate and with good image quality (including the V5's FSAA), all at reasonable prices. And that wasn't as good as nVidia's "future protection" featuresets, high prices, and six-month product cycle. That in part contributed to their demise, and taught ATi that it was now nVidia's game and had to be played by their rules. I do think nVidia has gotten a bit better now, with their attention to raw speed, memory bandwidth enhancement, IQ, and broadening of the non-3D featureset shown in the GF4 line, but the damned things still cost an arm and a leg. At least they've moved beyond $300+ GeForce256s with unutilized T&L and slow SDR memory.

NuAngel

11-Apr-2002, 03:49

I have to tell you, I made some wrong calls myself. :oops:

A long while back (it sat on the internet for over two years, but I believe it's finally gone) I made a comment, somwhere... I don't remember where. It was right after the Voodoo 5 6000 plans were sold to Quantum 3D.

What I said was along the lines of:

'3dfx and Quantum 3D have been LONG TIME partners, so this should be no big scary shock to anyone. This, and the recent sale of the plant in Juarez, Mexico, appear to be signs of renewal. It looks like 3dfx has a plan, and I like what I'm seeing.'

Essentially, that's what I said.

About four months later, there was no more 3dfx. :o

Their product development was probably their downfall. Pushing back release dates, and press confrences, not unvailing products at certain times, or falsifying their products at trade shows...

So, I made a bad decision. But why do I still use 3dfx hardware? I enjoy the community feeling. Even places that fight, amongst themselves, site to site... it's still a diverse community.

Also, 3dfx was always an underdog. Everyone knew the nVidia cards could crank out frames... once nV made it on the scene, it seemed as though it was all over for 3dfx. But the benchies weren't what I looked at. Screen shots were worthless to me as well. I had to experience. I enjoyed Voodoo 2's back in the day, but the 3d Prophet (GeForce 1) was extremely tempting. After finally tinkering with both, and finding that for my Quake 2 needs 3dfx played the part, I went with the Voodoo 3.
-On that all machine, at the time, the required PCI V3 2000 was more inexpensive than the 3D Prophet was, and I preferred it over the GF1, so that was another determining factor.

But the question remains; why do I still use 3dfx TODAY?

Glide? Perhaps. But I have plans to keep using Glide well after I purchase a newer card, beit a GeForce, Omen, Radeon, or anything else out there.

Cost? It's a big factor. I've got an extremely low income... I'm a student!! I can't even afford a new CDROM drive right now! I've had the plan, all along, to try and make my Voodoo 5 last until fall/winter 2002. It looks like it's going to make it.

There are more and more compatibility issues, which we all know will not be resolved without official driver support, or developer support. But all the games that were supposedly going to be the death of my Voodoo 5, such as Max Payne, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein - smooth as silk, with image quality to knock your socks off. Even the newest games, while slightly buggy, have no real PROBLEMS. I'm enjoying War Craft 3, Serious Sam 2 (without being forced to run in 3dfx compatibility mode),

I'm a Quality buff, not a speed buff... and I simply find the image quality of the Voodoo 5 superior, still, to anything out there. Granted, the others can look just as good, or even better. But the performance to quality ratio provided by these cards is too poor. Even if the image quality is better, and FASTER than my Voodoo 5, when you look at the numbers, getting a newer card to look like a V5, you take more of a hit, than you did with a Voodoo.

Another factor, I'm a fan of the 3dfx Tools. Call me old fashioned, I don't even like Windows XP. All for the same reason. I'm not an idiot, don't dumb things down. For instance, ATi's old RAGE3D control pannel, with the huge blue buttons... "IMAGE QUALITY" check box or "SPEED" check box. 3dfx Tools allows you to customize and have MUCH more control over the features and performance your card can utilize. I'm glad 3dfx didn't think their owners were fools.

I will be moving on soon, and keeping a Glide based video card, just for kicks... and there is no one simple answer the why I do still have 3dfx hardware. I gues all I can say is that I love it!

NuAngel

Ailuros

11-Apr-2002, 10:24

Sure i am well aware of what the late 3dfx was up to, and what their then in development products were capable of, and yeah, that tech is long old and long gone, all i ask from Nvidia is to integrate the 3dfx FSAA into their products, they now have the speed it seems, and i dont see one detractor from the gaming community regarding them adding in this feature. In fact i believe the most wanted feature out of the 3dfx takeover was quick integration of their FSAA routines.

I'm not sure to what extend your are "aware" what 3dfx had actually in their plans even before the VSA-100 release. To the best of my knowledge the initial plans were to introduce hardware full scene antialiasing through the M-buffer, where the T-buffer and it's Rotated Grid Supersampling was rather an "afterthought" and was an alternative implemented in the VSA-100 line, when the Rampage core got more delays, feature-creeps, redesigns whatever....

Anything M-buffer or in extension Spectre was to have Rotated Grid Multisampling, which was to be combined with up to 128-tap anisotropic filtering and that even in the product planned beyond that one. Apart from the NV20's inability to use RGMS with 4 samples, could you possibly point at as to where and why NVIDIA proposed something "that" different to what 3dfx had in plans for their competing dx8 compliant product?

3dfx Tools allows you to customize and have MUCH more control over the features and performance your card can utilize.

Nu,

You really should take a closer look to the driver control panels concerning 2D and 3D and that for all vendors.

Past 2 years from 2000, and leaving RGSS quality aside there's hardly anything recent cards are lacking in terms of image quality, options, configurations etc etc. Rather the contrary, but then again it's pretty normal.

Reverend

11-Apr-2002, 10:37

My only on-topic comment :

The only reasons someone would hang on to a Voodoo5 would be either they are addicted to its 4xAA (of which I have to say as a matter of fact that nothing has come close to it since then), or they are out-and-out 3dfx fans, or they have no money to upgrade, or the games they continually play (and continually buy) are so severely CPU-limited that getting the newer generations of cards since the V5-5.5k affords them nothing compared to their absolute longing for the V5-5.5k's 4xAA that upgrading to a faster CPU may be the better/best choice. We still don't have any really good games with BM or PS or VS or some such.

Off-topic :

I just sold (more like getting rid) a butt-load of hardware today. I sold a P3-650, a AMD T-Bird 800, two mobos, four PC133 RAMs, a SB LIve s/card, a GeForce2 GTS, a plain-vanilla GeForce3 and two V5 5500s.

I kept one V5 5500. I'll probably never use it again but I simply had to have one for keeps. Nostalgia, y'know :) . The fact that it is the longest add-on card I own and has two chips with individual fans also influenced my contemplation to keep one :) .

Randell

11-Apr-2002, 10:55

My son has my old V5 in his box. He is only seven so the only 3d game he wants to play is Jedi Knight II, and it handles it adequately for his needs on a 15" monitor at 800x600.

Tygrus_Artesiaoa

12-Apr-2002, 07:13

There was a group of 3dfx fans that were going to produce a new driver set not just modded infs and reg keys like 1.08
but were gonna call it 1.09...for whatever reasons...I won't go into it here they found that 3dfx had started anisotropic which relates to the filtering comment above...

Randell

12-Apr-2002, 11:08

maybe in the unified driver set, they were getting ready for Rampage aniso. However these claims that they've enabled aniso on the V5 is laughable.

On the old hardwarre front, was aniso ever enabled for the S4?