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"...nVidia in the GeForce GTS at least uses a form of antialiasing similar to Photoshop's bicubic filtering which is computationally FAR more expensive than 3Dfx's pseudo-nearest-neighbor anti-aliasing approach..."

Thresh's Firingsquad recently performed a side-by-side visual quality comparision of the V5 vs. GeForce GTS FSAA. According to the testers, the Voodoo5 had the best picture quality when in 4x mode, while the GeForce was better than the V5's 2x mode in some games. Both cards seemed to have a few glitches in FSAA mode--the V5 had a "bleeding" problem at 1600x1200, while the GeForce wouldn't work with D3D games.

From their conclusion:
"The results from this set of tests were considerably different from that of last time. Seeing the games in motion side by side is truly the only way to compare the two cards. 2x FSAA comparisons yielded mixed results. The quality difference between the two cards was exceedingly close. We tended to like the GF2 FSAA when compared to the Voodoo 2x. However, if we take into account performance figures, the Voodoo is the clear choice. With 2x FSAA, the Voodoo performs considerably better than the GeForce2 FSAA. When it comes to 4x, the Voodoo has no competition in terms of FSAA quality."

If you would like to know why intel chose Rambus instead of DDR-SDRAM, check out this article
and this one.

If you like Tom Pabst better, look at his new review of GeForce2 GTS cards and note what platform he used for the comparison: Intel OR840 motherboard with RDRAM.

If you like Anandtech better, look at his "Dream System": Intel OR840 + SMP CuMine + RDRAM.

(btw, for 1/2 of the $11,000 price he quotes, you could get a Dell Precision Workstation 420 with a better (Nvidia Quadro) video card, and faster processors (866Mhz vs. 733MHz).

So sure, blame Intel for stepping on it's crank multiple times in the past 6 months. But try to understand the technology too.

Actually, I don't think I'd buy any of the new cards for a few months at the very least, just to see what shakes out when they actually ship. I think it's foolish to buy hardware based solely on a bunch of reviews/benchmarks of beta versions of the cards, and/or reality-impaired press releases.

For sheer geek factor, I'd pick the Voodoo5 6000, which needs its own external power supply.

If you were just shootin' for the best graphics, it looks like nVidia has the best choice, at least when the GeForce2 comes out.

Frankly, ATI would really shock me if their card turned out to be any good. I've seen their top-of-the-line cards before, and they just ain't that great.

Thresh's Firingsquad has an excellent preview and writeup of the first-looks at the Game Developer's Conference.

i was reading a review of the Radeon located at Thresh's Firing Squad and i can't help but be impressed. maybe ati finally has got it right...their other cards have had some...problems. the 3dfx benchmarks of today were kind of disappointing, but maybe there still is hope. i'm a big 3dfx fan, and i appreciate their linux support-but it's good to see other companies grab ahold of linux. there's nothing like playing Quake3 on a system on which you used du -s * | grep "M" just a minute ago. it's really quite liberating. here's to good graphics cards and linux support! yay technology..

I prefer Thresh's [site] over Sharky's [site] since Sharky's started to split their reviews into 20 pages or so...

I prefer Thresh's [site] over Sharky's [site] since Sharky's started to split their reviews into 20 pages or so...

Just because it's more expensive and brand new doesn't make it better. These boards all support AGP, UDMA66 and PC133 SDRAM. The Apollo Pro 133 is arguably the best chipset for PIII motherboards (The good old BX chipset is still faster at 100 Mhz bus, but you have no upgrade path to 133Mhz bus. see here). The fact that Apollo Pro boards are so cheap is a happy coincidence. Also, for users on a budget, an Apollo Pro 133 board and a PIII-550E is an easy (and reliable) overclock to 733. Athlon overclocking is a little more challenging to say the least.

As for Pricewatch, are you really naive enough to believe the lowest prices there? The only reason they're so low is because they charge $20 or more for shipping.

I personally won't buy it if there's no linux version, but it will be a great game that demonstrates that you don't need cutting-edge graphics to sell a game. It's just gotta be addictively fun and reach out to the beast inside of all of us.

Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto

And have you heard the news? Thresh is giving up quake to become a full-time pokemon player!

Here's a HardwareCentral review of the Celeron 2 (today must be the day NDAs were lifted; look for other butt-kicking sites like Thresh's and Sharky's to maybe have something on it later today.

Here's BP6.com, an excellent reference for those of you with that funky Abit board. Check out the video preview of the Powerleap FC-PGA adapters - basically they plug into Coppermines and allow two of them (new stepping ONLY) to run in SMP mode. Of course, your BP6 would be running at 100MHz FSB by default - and overclocking well past 100MHz (which is what is required to unlock the true potential of Coppermines) is flaky on any BX board.

Coppermines seem, for me, an excellent buy. I have a 500E running at 733Mhz (147MHz FSB) on an MSI MS-6309 Apollo Pro 133A board. Excellent performance, and super stable.

The 66MHz FSB for these new Celerons is a double-edged sword. It's good that the 66MHz+ gap is open, which is really what made the original Celerons such good overclockers; but besides the performance hit (naturally), the lower FSB means a higher multiplier. The internal multiplier (locked by Intel) for the 600MHZ Celeron 2 is 9.0x. That's ass-high, people. I don't think many motherboards currently support that. At the very least I think a BIOS upgrade is in order, unless you're absoluely sure the board can handle that high a multiplier - but getting back to the performance hit, not only is your memory, etc. running at only 66MHz, but with the high multiplier your chip is running 9 times faster than your system. That's a low of waiting on its part.

My advice? Get a 500E or 550E (both can be had for around $200, if you know where to look) and overclock them beyond insanity. 150MHz FSB is not out of the question for these chips, especially the ones with the new core stepping. I'll be going for a 600E (FC-PGA) as soon as school lets out for me for the Summer.

For a truly bent journalistic look at the Coppermines, check out this piece I wrote for the fantastic Overclockers.com over Winter Break.

Here's a HardwareCentral review of the Celeron 2 (today must be the day NDAs were lifted; look for other butt-kicking sites like Thresh's and Sharky's to maybe have something on it later today.

Here's BP6.com, an excellent reference for those of you with that funky Abit board. Check out the video preview of the Powerleap FC-PGA adapters - basically they plug into Coppermines and allow two of them (new stepping ONLY) to run in SMP mode. Of course, your BP6 would be running at 100MHz FSB by default - and overclocking well past 100MHz (which is what is required to unlock the true potential of Coppermines) is flaky on any BX board.

Coppermines seem, for me, an excellent buy. I have a 500E running at 733Mhz (147MHz FSB) on an MSI MS-6309 Apollo Pro 133A board. Excellent performance, and super stable.

The 66MHz FSB for these new Celerons is a double-edged sword. It's good that the 66MHz+ gap is open, which is really what made the original Celerons such good overclockers; but besides the performance hit (naturally), the lower FSB means a higher multiplier. The internal multiplier (locked by Intel) for the 600MHZ Celeron 2 is 9.0x. That's ass-high, people. I don't think many motherboards currently support that. At the very least I think a BIOS upgrade is in order, unless you're absoluely sure the board can handle that high a multiplier - but getting back to the performance hit, not only is your memory, etc. running at only 66MHz, but with the high multiplier your chip is running 9 times faster than your system. That's a low of waiting on its part.

My advice? Get a 500E or 550E (both can be had for around $200, if you know where to look) and overclock them beyond insanity. 150MHz FSB is not out of the question for these chips, especially the ones with the new core stepping. I'll be going for a 600E (FC-PGA) as soon as school lets out for me for the Summer.

For a truly bent journalistic look at the Coppermines, check out this piece I wrote for the fantastic Overclockers.com over Winter Break.

"Greg: We would absolutely consider developing for X-Box. And Playstation 2 and Dolphin! We're already doing PC and Dreamcast for MDK2, as well as PC, Mac, Linux and BeOs for Neverwinter Nights.

One of BioWare's goals is to develop for all platforms internally. We want all of our games to appear on every platform imaginable."

"Greg: We would absolutely consider developing for X-Box. And Playstation 2 and Dolphin! We're already doing PC and Dreamcast for MDK2, as well as PC, Mac, Linux and BeOs for Neverwinter Nights.

One of BioWare's goals is to develop for all platforms internally. We want all of our games to appear on every platform imaginable."

yes xbox was unveiled, officially or not, at GDC 2 weeks ago. Since then there has been more info come out about it. Gamespot's article is one of the best I've seen. Gamespot also has an xbox faq. Thresh's Firing Squad also has some analysis. And the demo unit looks like a big, black X. (pics in some of those articles)

yes xbox was unveiled, officially or not, at GDC 2 weeks ago. Since then there has been more info come out about it. Gamespot's article is one of the best I've seen. Gamespot also has an xbox faq. Thresh's Firing Squad also has some analysis. And the demo unit looks like a big, black X. (pics in some of those articles)

What i'm saying is that its going to be better for you to support open source drivers, because when something is wrong, some Godly wizard character like John Carmack (or myself!) is going to be able to fix it, and you now have 5 more FPS! It's very apparent what's better, and half-ass from any company is not good enough.

Mike Roberto
- roberto@soul.apk.net
-- AOL IM: MicroBerto

Ugh, I know it's awful style to reply to my own comment (almost as bad as posting such a long-ass comment in the first place), but I found some mighty interesting X-Box info in this item at firingsquad.

First off, the 64 MB of RAM is shared between the GPU and the motherboard--less than ideal, but it certainly makes sense from cost considerations. Second, the GPU will be running at 300 MHz, which pretty much kicks ass (current GeForces generally run about 150 in their default configs).

Finally, the CPU, while based on the P3 (read, probably no SSE2), *will* have the quad-pumped "400 MHz" bus off the Willamette, as they have its memory bandwidth listed as 6.4 GB/sec. That strongly hints at the inclusion of RDRAM, as it's the only stuff that can really take advantage of that kind of bandwidth.

The have its performance specs listed at 300 million particles/sec, 150 million transformed & lighted polys/sec (no effects). Not bad at all.

Actually I thought he was more of a nod to Thresh, winner of that quake contest for one of Carmack's rides. He was/is simply in a different league than almost any other FPS player. Quite awesome. Check out his page. He even looks like the guy from the episode.

I think that's a typo. According to this page at Thresh's, the number is 22 million. I think that sounds a lot better.

FiringSquad's Article

Too bad this cyrix chip looks as bad as the others, even though the silicon is still beta. I doubt this thing will be on the same level as a Celeron. Unless it is alot cheaper to get ahold of, I'd say screw Cyrix as always. :( Lethal Geek

• news.com
• spaceviews
• EETimes
• FiringSquad
• Ace's Hardware
• The Register

And if that post is worth Score:2 what is this post worth? Anyway, if this WAS a big story like the TPC stuff someone mentioned above that would be a newsworthy item (or a 2.4preXX release for that matter), but this isn't! This is another X-Box hype like trash! Why don't you post stuff about the Glaze3D Hemos if you really want vapourware and not-yet-maybe-never-out trash?

Now come on, how this fall under "stuff that matters?"

I'll have to agree here. It's my professional opinion that the content should be relevant. Get in the game, Hemos. However, maybe it was worth it to put it there because it's a slow Sunday. But in that case, why not post about Charles Schultz's death (Yes... i know :-( )... ?

I think that the games should be left to a site like Thresh's FiringSquad unless its announced for Linux or BSD. Oh wait, nothing comes out for BSD! hahaa, BSD fools. Ok well BSD is good for its stuff, but It won't get GAMES! Chill out everyone, RIP Charles Schultz.

- Mike Roberto
-- roberto@apk.net
--- AOL IM: MicroBerto

> 1. You just can't get decent graphics on a 320x240 resolution TV

I think you meant TEXT output at 320x240 on a TV.

When I worked on the PSX Need For Speed, we tried using 640x480. The higher resolution helped with the smaller fonts, but we had almost no room left over for textures in the 2 Megs video buffer. So we went back to 320x240 and had a richer color to boot (excuse the pun.)

The Dreamcast uses 640x480 and has a VGA output.
This certainly helps, but TV does antialiasing "for free" so it is STILL a problem of designing a readable font at SMALL sizes.

Thankfully the Dreamcast has a 16 Megs of video memory.

> 4. Ever try playing Tiberian Sun with a gamepad?

Yes, RTS games are very bad on a console. Until keyboards and mice come standard with a console, playing FPS and RTS games are "better" on the PC.

The argument which is beter, is pretty pointless. They were designed for different things. i.e. I don't see any game developers running DevStudio ON a console.

Firing Squad has an interesting link comparing the genres on PC vs Console.

PC vs Console game genres

Cheers

3d game programmer

FS: I've read some earlier interviews where you said you were into bombs and stuff. You were a miscreant kid, right?

John: Yeah in a lot of ways...I looked back and I was an arrogant little jerk when I was a teenager. I matured over the years and when I look back now, I don't think THAT highly of myself as a teenager. I mean, I was really smart, I was already programming computers in a lot of ways. But I was amoral at many times.


This doesn't exactly HELP those of us who are in school and being prejudiced against because of our geeky ways...

It's also nice to see that the money can come not only to a diabolical, evil, Bill Gates type, but also to the cool, small-team programmer type like Carmack, just so long as you have good ideas and pull them off well.

In fact, the original story of Quake was supposed to be an RPG, well not an RPG exactly, but a fantasy game.

Heehee, think about how THAT would've changed the world of first person shooters as we know them today...

Right now, I'm spending more of my time in this lull or break, working on some things in Linux. One of the things I've done is written two 3D drivers for Linux or done a good chunk of the coding on them.
...
There are a lot of zealots in the Linux space that just don't have rationality in their viewpoints, but there is some truth behind the hype on how good it [Linux] actually is.


Comments like this, and programmers like Carmack bode well for the future of Linux as a desktop OS.

All in all, this was a very thorough and interesting article. I suggest anyone who hasn't clicked through the link yet to do it. You'll find it interesting, even if you aren't a hardcore, or even casual gamer.
---------------

Unfortunately some PC games just aren't suited for the console (and vice versa.)

Game genres on PC and Dreamcast

RTS are not very enjoyable on consoles. Check out Warcraft II for the PSX, if you don't believe me. At least the Dreamcast has 640x480 resolution.

Most consoles also don't come with a keyboard and mouse. Playing Quake without a mouse and keyboard? Yeah, right.

Don't get me wrong. Consoles have their place. (Look at the amount of R&D Sega, Sony, and Nintendo are spending on the next generation consoles.)

Consoles were designed for one thing. Play games.
PC's are more expensive because they are more versatile. Sometimes gaming is better on PCs, sometimes not. Soul Caliber on the DreamCast blows me away with the graphics and gameplay. Age of Empires II on the PC does likewise.

Arguing which one is better is pointless. They were designed for different purposes.

But what do I know, I'm just a game developer.

Cheers

Michael,
3D game programmer

Certain styles of games work better on PC, others play better on consoles. The console isn't going to go away anytime soon, especially as Sega, Sony, and Nintendo are pouring huge amounts of money into R&D for the next generation consoles. The 13-25 age market is just too huge too ignore also ;-)

As a 3d game developer its very interesting to see which way the game industry is going to go. Having marketing basically ignoring a game unless it's 3D certainly isn't helping. Some games just don't play as well in 3D.

Unfortunately, the article is generally correct in how the game industry works overall.

All of these sites occasionally do exhaustive introductory articles, and even if you can't find exactly what you're looking for, you'll probably still learn a lot from their tangential remarks etc. (kinda like the LDP).

Ars-Technica also has a number of discussion forums that might be able to give you a hand.

too bad really, because, just like all the other members of /., that is a card I would love to have...

A little bit of info at Thresh's FiringSquad

It has some information about Quadro vs. NV10, and even some CAD-related benchmarks against cards like the GVX1. :)

Guess who won..

-Warren

>As for Matrox and ATI, they have never been in
>the game. I own the rage fury, it sucked, it
>never got an x-server until I replaced it with my >voodoo
> 3. Matrox took an entire release of another card
>before they got their open gl ICD out. (Dual head
>is amazing though, and the linux support is great
> too). But for 3d? Nahh..

I agree with the ICD comment, but with the newest driver set, the G400 MAX is even with the TNT2 Ultra, and in some cases, faster. Check out Thresh's FiringSquad review of the G400 (but be sure to look for the update when Matrox release the new drivers)

GeForce / TNT2Ultra / Voodoo3 Roundup [ Shugashack]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [Ace's Hardware]
Guillemot GeFroce256 3D Prophet Review [Puissance PC]
nVidia GeForce 256: To Buy or Not to Buy [AnandTech]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [GA-Source]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [3DGPU]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [Riva Extreme]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Preview [Thresh's FiringSquad]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [Riva3D]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [Planet Riva]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Benchmarks [Bjorn3D]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [CGO]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [Fast Graphics]
Creative GeForce256 Annihilator Benchmarks [3DHardware]

Anandtech GeForce 256 Review
Ace's Hardware GEForce 256 Review
RivaExtreme GeForce 256 DDR Review
The FiringSquad GeForce 256 DDR Review
GA Source Guillemot 3D Prophet Review
3DGPU Geforce 256 DDR Review
Fast Graphics Guillemot 3D Prophet Review
CGO GeForce 256 Preview
Shugashack GeForce, V3 and TNT2 benchmark roundup
Riva3D Full GeForce 256 DDR Review
GeForce 256 DDR Review at Planet Riva

Did an NDA expire today or something?

Just a couple quick links:

Anandtech GeForce 256 Review
Ace's Hardware GEForce 256 Review
RivaExtreme GeForce 256 DDR Review
The FiringSquad GeForce 256 DDR Review
GA Source Guillemot 3D Prophet Review
3DGPU Geforce 256 DDR Review
Fast Graphics Guillemot 3D Prophet Review
CGO GeForce 256 Preview
Shugashack GeForce, V3 and TNT2 benchmark roundup
Riva3D Full GeForce 256 DDR Review
GeForce 256 DDR Review at Planet Riva

Any others?

Here's a recent interview from FiringSquad with the great JC. The guys a total stand-up, quake rocks, fast cars, open source, and he lives in Dallas, the center of all things cool and computery (wireless what?!).

The thing that got to me the most was the hanging - I'd close the browser and later start it again, only to find that a ghost had remained resident and prevented my new window to open! Then it would give me that not responding BS...

I surf with usually more than one browser window open - I'd hit one of my favorite pages and go to visit another window, only to click on the window later and see only a screen with the other window's contents, and the browser hanging on "contacting host." Or how about when you surf to a page and none of the links would be clickable - you try to shut down but it hangs!

One of my favorite sites, Thresh's Firingsquad, would freeze Netscape for about ten seconds while loading! This is on a dual Pentium III system folks, 256mb RAM, NT 4.0 with Service Pack 5, connected to a LAN. I don't think stability and dependability are too much to ask for considering these resources - apparently Netscape does because their software has gone in the crapper once version 4 came out.

Those damn illegal operations: surf with more than one window and close a window? Maybe it doesn't like that, illegal operation. Add a bookmark? Maybe it doesn't like that, illegal operation. Hell, when I'd finally restart again it would destroy the changes I made to my bookmark file - these past few months I've found myself arbitrarily copying my current URL with CTRL-C just in case Netscape crashes and it would destroy my history, no lie.

I'm tired of the crap, Netscape. Fix it: make it stable, light on its feet, and get rid of the crap nobody but braindead AOLers want - fix what's wrong with your software or I'll stay away forever.

I feel like a Nazi using IE5, but it is stable, light, dependable. I'll continue to use it until someone gives me what I want: a clean, sturdy, and stable version of Netscape, whether Netscape is the one to bring it to me or not.

• Sharky Extreme
• Ars Technica
• AnandTech
• Hard OCP
• Ace's Hardware
• CompHardware
• Tom's Hardware
• The Tech Zone
• Thresh's FiringSquad
• Review News

--

Tom has had this thing for quite some time, the article had been on there for a while already. A tip for those submitting stories.. check the date on the story. That one was posted August 13.

To the previous poster.. say what you want about Tom's Hardware, but it's still on my run-by-to-check-daily list of websites. I actually think it has gotten somewhat better again in the last few weeks. There were a couple of months that there was nothing worth reading on there anymore and that Tom had really lost touch with his core audience (Like with the test of 32 video cards, where he used the driver that was included in the box, i.e. the entire test a complete and utter waste of time. Or like his reviews of Singapore hotels or German cars.). But the addition of the webnews column as well as a publication of a couple of good old fashioned articles about genuinely HOT stuff like K7 motherboards or Ultra video card comparisons has given me hope that things will get back into shape. They can get rid of Second Hand Smoke though, as far as I'm concerned.

There are now so many hardware tech websites that one really can't follow all of them anymore, but the previous poster has indentified the 3 biggies. I agree that Ars Technica's reviewers don't always appear competent, but I don't agree on the 'cheap' issue; I think most people who visit these websites regularly do it exactly to look for things like overclocking and dual celeron. I also read Anandtech a lot and must say I haven't noticed attitude spewing to an annoying degree, but I do think they have far too many reviews of ordinary hardware (What, another BX board? Another TNT2 clone??) and not enough of what really interests me. For instance, 3 weeks ago Anand complained about having experienced K7 motherboard instability and I'm still waiting for the details. That is hot, that is relevant now, that is what I want to hear about.

One other site (Hardware/Games oriented) that I like a lot is the Tresh's FiringSquad.

That's cause they don't taken into account SSE or 3DNow or the G4's AltiVec unit.

AltiVec (what Apple is marketting as the Velocity Engine) is superior to both Intel's and AMD's fancy multimedia stuff. It's what actually gives apple the bragging rights to the G4's Supercomputer status (as defined by the US Government). Don't believe me that the G4 kills the PIII or K7? Check Thresh's review.

Even better, a simply recompile will give software an immediate boost (althought further hand tweeking will yield better performance still) - which isn't so with PIII or K7 i believe (which requires code to be rewritten).

Apple's current G4 tower doesn't make the most out of the G4 chip, but in a month or two it'll be mostly there (they'll be introducing a new motherboard with 450+ MHz G4's).

Boy, this is really off topic. Yellow Dog linux is G4 friendly. I don't see what the whole issue is.

Actually, I've read on Firing Squad Sega Review Part I - Page 6 that they are making an ethernet adapter for the Dreamcast. This would hook up to the same place the modem does and effectively replace it. Can't wait to hook it up to a lan. The port that the modem hooks up to has something like a 400 Mbit/sec bandwitdh (which is also used for sound?) so it should support at the very least a Mbit adapter nicely if not a 100 Mbit one.

Uh, where have you been?

Rage 128 has no where near the balls of a Voodoo3 or a TNT2. Rage 128 can be barely be called a 3rd generation 3d card. More like a 2.5. It only has a 100 mhz core and 100 mhz memory, compared to the Voodoo3, which you can purchase anywhere from 143 mhz (Voodoo3 2000) to 183 mhz (Voodoo3 3500) core and memory speed, and the TNT2, which is availible in 125core/150memory (vanilla OEM TNT2) up to a 175/200 (Herclues ultra TNT2 card, too bad Herc went out of business, but most ultra TNT2's run at 150/183.). Yes, the rage 128 has 32 bit color. So does the TNT2. And the TNT2 kicks it's ass in frame rate.
I'm not going to ramble about specs. Here, just take a look at this link from Thresh's Firingsquad. There's a nice set of a variety of benchmarks (quake 2, q3test, 3dMark, all in different resolutions and quality modes) in addition to the opinions of some damn knowledgable hardware folks. The ATI Rage 128 performs dismally. It gets last in almost every test. It is NOT a decent card for a "new generation" of computers. I'd much rather have a voodoo3 with the beta mac drivers, even without the 32bit color support.

-Wiz

Why not have a look at Thresh's Firingsquad then? ... very good reviews and up-to-date news too. No, I don't work for them.. I just like the site.

/. and the firingsquad are two sites I try to check regularly. .. of course there's always the inevitable overlap in the stories though.

Some hardware sites have been releasing scores for Q3Test SMP on NT lately, such as Tresh's FiringSquad. The video card and driver seem to rapidly become the major speed bottleneck for Q3 at resolutions above 640 x 480. The second CPU doesn't come into play properly except at low detail/textures. With video card drivers and OpenGL libraries for Linux at a relatively tender stage of development and no threads in the kernel, I'm curious if you expect more, the same or less of a speed improvement in a Q3 SMP Linux.

I was running some timedemos myself on 1.07 earlier to gauge the effect of SMP. The results so far are somewhat underwhelming. I didn't take Linux results because I've only set that up to run with my old Voodoo and it has no SMP anyway. I expressly did also try a slower PCI video card to magnify the bottleneck effect.

Scores 1, 2 and 3 were timed on a Diamond Viper 330 PCI with Nvidia's 128ZX chipset and 3.37 reference drivers. Scores 4 and 5 are a Viper 550 with Nvidia TNT and 2.08 ref. drivers. Score 1 is Win98, score 2 and 4 are NT 4.0 Server SP5 with R_SMP 0, score 3 and 5 with R_SMP 1.

]timedemo 1
]demo q3testdemo1.dm3

W98, NT4, SMP, NT4, SMP
43.7 , 48.0 , 51.8 , 73.3 , 92.0 , FASTEST setting
33.9 , 34.3 , 36.7 , 65.5 , 76.5 , FAST
21.8 , 21.2 , 21.8 , 48.5 , 50.1 , NORMAL
14.7 , 14.2 , 14.2 , 20.3 , 20.3 , HIGH QUALITY

Epox KP6-BS / 2x550 Mhz Celeron(366)
128 MB PC100 / 3.2 gig DMA IBM HD
SB32AWE / NE2000 ISA
NCR875UW SCSI PCI

I usually play at NORMAL graphics setting and with only a speed improvement of around 0.6 to 1.6 frames per second depending on video card, this particular second CPU is going back to cracking RC5DES...

Michiel

I agree with the sentiment; 70 fps can cause motion sickness. :o> Reason why some people refuse to play Quake and EverQuest; it's not because they don't like playing games, they just get physically sick of watching those polygons.

18 fps was the quality of most .mov videos when Quicktime 1.5 was the big, big deal. I remember those looking choppy as hell. Maybe different eyes are more or less sensitive than "normal" eyes. I dunno. All I know is that you can't tell geeks they can't use technology if it presents itself, so by next year we all could be convulsing in epilepsy.

J.

Check out Thresh's FiringSquad's IDE vs. SCSI review for the complete info. (It goes very in depth.

Check out Thresh's FiringSquad's IDE vs. SCSI review for the complete info. (It goes very in depth.

Check out firingsquad.com's article about overclocking a Celeron 366 to 550 Mhz; it is faster than a PII overclocked to 500 Mhz. It only raised the chip's temperature ~4 degrees celsius. Zoom!