Reviving the Oak Tech. Warp 5.

[no-X]

I'm reading specifications of the chip and according them it supports 8-tap / 4-tap video scaler

Almost all vendors supported 2-tap horizontal / 2-tap vertical at that time. nVidia introduced 3/2 on TNT and 5/3 on GeForce, Matrox came with 4/3 on G400, ATi with 4/2 on Rage PRO and 4/4 on Rage 128 later, but 8/4 was surpassed many years later by X1800 (6/10).

Video quality must be avesome. It will not be as sharp as todays GPUs shows (no PS sharpening effects), but it must be really smoot

 

[Davros]

what was your final reality score?

 

[Zaphod]

It's in the OP:

Final Reality runs beautifully with no problems, and scores a 1.99

 

[swaaye]

I'm curious about where Warp 5 fits in from a performance standpoint. Is it as fast as Voodoo and RIVA 128? I'm just wondering why they canned it. It must have been due to hardware issues or that it would never compete with cards in '98/99.

Can you run 3DMark 99 Max? Any games, such as Quake 2?

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

I'm curious about where Warp 5 fits in from a performance standpoint. Is it as fast as Voodoo and RIVA 128? I'm just wondering why they canned it. It must have been due to hardware issues or that it would never compete with cards in '98/99.

Can you run 3DMark 99 Max? Any games, such as Quake 2?

Hi swaaye, I'm gonna have a look at that when I get home, Final Reality score was 1.99.

Most games have got texturing issues, I've yet to try most games, Tomb Raider III worked pretty well without much texture problems.

I will let you know, like you, I'm interested to know as well about it's demise.

 

[MrMilli]

I'm curious about where Warp 5 fits in from a performance standpoint. Is it as fast as Voodoo and RIVA 128? I'm just wondering why they canned it. It must have been due to hardware issues or that it would never compete with cards in '98/99.

Can you run 3DMark 99 Max? Any games, such as Quake 2?

Here you go:
http://members.tripod.com/~FireEYE/warp5.html

I find having AA on all the time being a WIN and FAIL at the same time.
It's a WIN because what's life without AA?
It's a FAIL because the card for sure can be faster if you could turn AA off, which would make it more competitive on the speed front. Specially in those times when people were already dazzled by bilinear filtering alone (including me).

What tickles my brain though; what did ATI do with the technology?
From what i've read, they used Tseng ET6300 tech on the Rage 128 Pro. So what happened to Warp 5? Too buggy? Too expensive to produce? Not scaling?

 

[swaaye]

If FSAA slowed Warp 5 down, then its AA wasn't any more amazing than what R300 finally brought. And R100 had Hyper Z, similar to Warp 5's "FreeZe" memory bandwidth saving tech it sounds like. Warp 5 was just too slow. Its situation is reminiscent of how Rendition V3300 was skipped for being too slow compared to the competition.

 

[no-X]

WARP5 used tile-based rendering, unlike R100. On-chip Z-buffer... If it used some kind of multi-sampling, it was very likely almost free.

 

[swaaye]

It is said in a previous post that the card runs quite a bit faster when not using AA.

 

[no-X]

I take it as presumption. As Tim said, the AA is always on, so there's no way to find out, if it really affects performance.

But we know, that the chip is a tiler with this architectural approach it's not difficult to implement AA which doesn't sacrifice performance (e.g. gigapixel GP1 - always presented with AA 4x switched on)

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

I take it as presumption. As Tim said, the AA is always on, so there's no way to find out, if it really affects performance.

But we know, that the chip is a tiler with this architectural approach it's not difficult to implement AA which doesn't sacrifice performance (e.g. gigapixel GP1 - always presented with AA 4x switched on)

Yea, AA can't be switched off.

Haven't had any time, too many things happening at once personal life wise.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

I found the guy from Rage's Hardware, sent him a PM, maybe he can help out a bit here as well as others.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

I just ran Final Reality with an Orchid Voodoo 1 (click click!) and scored a 2.44, but the IQ was appalling compared to the Oak Warp 5, hence the higher speed/score.

I've tried quite a few games now, and all of them don't run very well, I just ran some Tomb Raider 2, and even though there was no texture popping, I could see parts of the wire frame, which was weird.

If anyone has got a newer driver, I can hopefully do some more reliable benchmarks.

 

[the maddman]

I just ran Final Reality with an Orchid Voodoo 1 (click click!) and scored a 2.44, but the IQ was appalling compared to the Oak Warp 5, hence the higher speed/score.

I've tried quite a few games now, and all of them don't run very well, I just ran some Tomb Raider 2, and even though there was no texture popping, I could see parts of the wire frame, which was weird.

If anyone has got a newer driver, I can hopefully do some more reliable benchmarks.

I never ran into anyone that had another Warp5, so I'm not sure there even is a newer driver in existence.

I don't remember finding any games that actually ran correctly on the Warp5, all had texture issues with the driver I had.

I'm sure the problems would have gotten worked out while Oak's driver team got more experienced. You have to admit, it's a very impressive chip for a companies first 3d accelerator.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

I never ran into anyone that had another Warp5, so I'm not sure there even is a newer driver in existence.

I don't remember finding any games that actually ran correctly on the Warp5, all had texture issues with the driver I had.

I'm sure the problems would have gotten worked out while Oak's driver team got more experienced. You have to admit, it's a very impressive chip for a companies first 3d accelerator.

Absolutely, I agree on that one.

I suppose maybe the driver team faced a lot of problems, or discovered some serious flaw in the hardware. Who knows.

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Terribly sorry for bumping an old thread, but just a quick post informing that all updates will be done on my site now.

www.tga3dx.com

 

[nlyang]

Looking to buy a warp 5 card

Hi guys,

I noticed you guys were able to find and run the warp 5 video card. Any interest in selling?

Thanks,

 

[Davros]

Tim sold off at lest part of his collection about 6 months ago
i will try and contact him for you

 

[[EOCF] Tim]

Hi, my two Warp 5 boards (two different bios revs iirc) have been passed on to someone who will continue keeping these things alive. If you need any more info I can ask him if you want. I doubt he will want to part with them though.

(Thanks for letting me know Davros)

 

[nlyang]

Thank you both for the responses. I would greatly appreciate if one of you could help get me in touch with him. I may be able to make it worth his while, and I do not have to keep it long term.