I just bought a voodoo5 about three weeks ago. It is a great card. I'll
layout my thinking for you so you can see what I took into account.
1. My past experience: My old computer has two voodoo2's running in SLI
mode. They perform on par with video cards like ATI rage fury, rage pro,
matrox g400 and tnt2 with one exception. The visual quality is superior.
Also, those cards work equally well in linux and windows which is important to
me because I play a lot of games that are not and probably never will be
available for linux. 3Dfx drivers are excellent for both platforms and while
they are not updated as often as Nvidia's drivers they are updated when they
need to be.
2. My monitor refreshes at 75hz. So, frame rates beyond that are kind of
silly. A movie (film in a theater) displays about 32 fps. Movies look real
enough to me...you? neurons can only fire once every 130th of a second. so,
I guess about 120-130 fps is about the most that is even theoretically
percievable by a human.
3. My game playing habits. Given a choice between playing at 1024x768 in
16bit color with details set to low and playing at 800x600 in 32 bit with
details set to medium I'll take 800x600 every time. In other words, image
quality is more important to me then frame rates above about 50fps. Also, the
majority of the games I own will use glide and look better, are faster when
using it. I will choose Glide everytime over OpenGL or D3D assuming that
there is not a clear and unmistakeable advantage to one of the other API's in
a particular game.
4. Extra's on the video card. I had an ATI rage fury with TV out, S-Video
out and a host of other features. I never used them once. They were a total
waste of money for me. Since I had already come to the conclusion that I was
choosing between geforce and voodoo5, I looked at their extras.
GeForce2, very very very fast. hardware T&L that only about three games
available right now use. Of those three I own and play quake3. More games
coming in the next year or so. Very good drivers updated very often and very
good linux support. Software full screen anti-aliasing.
voodoo5, very fast. Glide for all of my old games that I still play
regularly. Half-Life, Star Siege, quake2, and so on. Glide for new games
too. Deus Ex, Unreal tournament, Quake3 and many more. Full screen
anti-aliasing in hardware with no extra code required. It can be used with
every game out of the box.
I choose the voodoo5 because it supports all of my old games, it plays them
with VERY high fps with no FSAA and it plays them at very playable fps with
FSAA being used.
Typical Half-life fps with 4xFSAA enabled at 1024x768 in Glide are 50-70.
Absolutely playable and so freaking beautiful that I can't really describe it
with words. UT I play with 2xFSAA in Glide and sit about the same 50-70 fps
at 800x600 with every detail level cranked to the highest.
In linux the current voodoo5 drivers drivers only use 1 of the chips on the
board. I play quake3 at 800x600 with 16 bit color depth and medium detail
levels. Time demo1 produces 57.2 fps. Imagine when the drivers that use both
chips are available! If I want straight speed, I turn off wall marks,
ejecting brass, turn on simple items, play at 640x480 with vertex lighting and
get 80-90 fps in game.
In short, I read all the reviews, I read the hardware specs and I talk with
people who have the hardware to see what it really runs like before I make a
decision. Generally I have a pretty goos idea of what I'm getting before I
buy so I am usually very satisfied with my purchases. In the case of the
voodoo5 and duron based computer I built, it has exceeded my expectations.
I'm happy.
Abe
also, read this article for some illumination on the fps thing.
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/00q3/000704/index.html
>===== Original Message From "dwyatt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> =====
>Sorry if I missed something, because I've not been following this thread.
>But, anyway, you sound like you use your comp a lot like I do (very hard).
>I do have my PIII 500e o/c'd to 750 MHz. I have no stability problems.
>(stock Intel heatsink w/ no extra case or processor cooling and been running
>for 6 months 24/7)
>
>When it comes to 3d accelerator cards, what would you consider a more
>accurate indicator of a card's worth than it's fps rating? Sure, features
>are important, but as far as 3d accelerator cards go, most all of them have
>near the same features. So how is rating a card based on it's fps rating
>hogwash?
>
>Sometimes, a feature is so good that it outweighs the performance advantage
>of another 3d card. For example, www.firingsquad.com rated the Voodoo 5
>higher than the Geforce2 because of the voodoo's higher visual quality, even
>though it is slower than the GF2. In general though, fps ratings are all
>that matters when comparing 3d cards, because features are so similar.
>
>BTW, my 250MHz overclock gets me anywhere from 15-30 fps more in UT. I
>don't know if you are one of those ppl saying what's the point of more than
>30 fps anyway? So just think about this:
>
>do a 360 degree turn in 100ms, divide 360 by your frame rate, your result is
>how often your view is updated during your turn
>
>end of rant :P
>
>
>dwyatt
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Abe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 9:46 PM
>Subject: RE: [[newbie] Athlon thunderbird & ka7-100]
>
>
>> yes but why? My machine never crashes and its on 24/7 with extremely
>heavy
>> use.
>>
>> I have half-life/quake3/unreal tournament marathons over here where I play
>on
>> my computer while it hosts for 5-12 people. I do that twice or three
>times a
>> week for 3-12 hours at a time. The machine just grins and keeps on going.
>>
>> How much faster is it going to be at 800mhz or even 900mhz then it is now?
>> And how unstable will it be? Bottom line is, I don't need to over clock
>it to
>> feel like I got my moneys worth. If it ain't broke it works just fins and
>> should be left alone.
>>
>> Don't forget that the jackasses on the online hardware review sites like
>> firingsquad and such not only tell you to overclock your chips but that
>the
>> only thing that matters when you buy a video card is how high it scores in
>> 3Dmark and how many fps it will put out in quake3. In other words.
>Hogwash.
>>
>>
>> Abe
>>
>> >===== Original Message From [EMAIL PROTECTED] =====
>> >On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, you wrote:
>> >> no. maybe in a year and a half or so when this computer becomes my
>> experiment
>> >> bed.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >u can always unclock your duron. i would overclock it if i was
>> >u. with the motherboard u have i believe it is great for overclocking.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> >===== Original Message From [EMAIL PROTECTED] =====
>> >> >On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, you wrote:
>> >> >> the duron 600s are going for about 75 USD right now. The Asus A7v
>runs
>> >> about
>> >> >> 160. fairly affordable as far as brand new hardware goes. I spent
>> about
>> >> >> three months researching and saving to get this machine built.
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Abe
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> >===== Original Message From "Austin L. Denyer"
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> >> =====
>> >> >> >> it actually takes about a minute. I've got a duron 600 machine
>with
>> >> >> >256M of
>> >> >> >> ram.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> ><envy>
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >> It takes my machine 23 hours and 19 minutes to process a data
>block
>> >> >> >for seti
>> >> >> >> but I only run seti in windows at the moment. Presumably it will
>be
>> >> >> >quite a
>> >> >> >> bit faster in linux.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >You betcha!
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >Regards,
>> >> >> >Ozz.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Jesus saves,
>> >> >> Allah forgives,
>> >> >> Chthulu thinks you'd make a nice sandwich.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >are u going to overclock your duron.
>> >>
>> >> Jesus saves,
>> >> Allah forgives,
>> >> Chthulu thinks you'd make a nice sandwich.
>>
>> Jesus saves,
>> Allah forgives,
>> Chthulu thinks you'd make a nice sandwich.
>>
>>
Jesus saves,
Allah forgives,
Chthulu thinks you'd make a nice sandwich.
