3D Prophet 4500 arrived today, any tips

Mingon

Diamond Member
Apr 2, 2000
3,012
0
0
My kyro II has arrived and I was wondering if any sane Kyro owners (ironduke excluded) can give me tips on how to get the best out of the card. I will be doing a fresh install onto a clean harddrive. The only thing I wont try is beta directx due to uninstall probs.
 

Teasy

Senior member
Oct 4, 2000
589
0
0
In D3D enable "force texture compression" for games that don't already support it (almost all games have no problem with this setting, and enable "force trilinear filtering" this speeds up trilinear filtering when texture compression is used.

In OpenGL also force TC unless a game already supports it, some games (in both D3D and OpenGL) have problems with forcing TC (Undying and some other UT based games) so maybe it'd be best for you to use profiles (profiles can be set for every game you play in both API's so that when you start the game the settings you made are automatically used so you don't have to keep switching settings for different games) and just leave the general optimization tab at quality.

If you going to play Tribes 2 use a fresh install and add the patch before you start tribes 2 for the first time, and try both OpenGL and D3D to see which works better (In D3D I've heard that the menu's are slow but ingame its faster then OpenGL).
 

Mingon

Diamond Member
Apr 2, 2000
3,012
0
0
I have the latest drivers 7114, is their anything else I need to do ? e.g. registry tweeks. How do I o/c this card ?
 

Teasy

Senior member
Oct 4, 2000
589
0
0
Nope there's no reg tweaks needed, any reg tweaks that might have been needed in the past to help games like CS should be built into the new drivers. You can overclock the card on the fly with powerstrip 3.0 beta and later.
 

dungn

Junior Member
Jul 2, 2001
11
0
0
I bought the Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 (64MB) last saturday. Ran into some unexplainable problems :(

Test:
P3-500MHZ - 384MB and Athlon (TB) 750Mhz (320MB). Both systems tested with W2K Server and W98.
3D Mark 2000: about 1600 points, horrible :Q !!!
3D Mark 2001: about 800 points, horrible :Q !!!
Even my old TNT2 Ultra can do it better!

Games like Quake3 Arena run pretty smooth, even at 1600x1200x32bit (i think 20fps) !!! wow...
Serious Sam did it well also...


But hell, games as...(which i play a lot)

* Half-Life_CounterStrike
give me headache when trying to get back from the game to the game menu: screens totally blankout, then...BSOD ! No, with TNT-cards, the game works fine, as one would expected. Better said, one shouldn't not expect any probs !
* Emperor - The Battle for Dune
Game totally blank out, when running the game with DEFAULT SETTINGS!, BSOD comes once again, and i had to reboot (again). Tip: if u have this prob too, try this: run game with EVERTHING at minimum (lower than default settings) this includes resolution, shadow, etc... When it run normally, try to increase the quality of graphics one at a time. This should help.

After one day of testing other performance software and games, i had enough if this graphicscard. Maybe the drivers 7.111/114 are not stable at the moment. Hopefully at later time it will be. But this is no excuse to sell the card already, and let users wait untill good drivers will be released.

Today (monday, 2 days later) i brought the card back and got my 250 dollar money back. Ordered Asus v7700 Deluxe (32MB) for with the same amound of money. Expect to get the card in 2 days.

Good luck with u guys whom still have faith in Hercules Kyro II).

Out.
 

dungn

Junior Member
Jul 2, 2001
11
0
0
Oh yeah, one thing i forgot to mention:

Games runned on OpenGL runs fine, like
Quake 3 (required)
Half-Life_CounterStrike

Games runned in DirectX, like
Emperor
Half-Life_CounterStrike
gives some screensproblems.

Your conclusion?

Yeah, Microsoft's DirectX suX big time. But hell, other videocards doesn't give us any probs with DX, does it?
 

Teasy

Senior member
Oct 4, 2000
589
0
0
<<<Your conclusion?>>>

My conclusion is there was something seriously wrong with your setup, D3D is actually better on the Kyro II then OpenGL so you shouldn't have had those problems normally.

I just got Emperor Battle for Dune the other day and its great on my Kyro II, I play at 640x480 with 4xFSAA and its nice and fast and looks great, take a look at some pics I took:

Dune Pic 1

Dune Pic 2

Dune Pic 3

Dune Pic 4

Dune Pic 5

Dune Pic 6

And yes those 3dmark2000/1 scores are terrible (they should be 2 to 3 times better on the Kyro II), that and the BSODS and errors in other D3D games shows that there must be something wrong with D3D on your system.
 

dungn

Junior Member
Jul 2, 2001
11
0
0
Does those pics have to impress me? I don't see the difference. Hercules doesn't support hardware T&amp;L, only software, bommer.

1) My systems (see my previous message) can't run at 4xFSAA. After installing the Hercules card, both my system got locked. I heared some strange beeping sound (2 or 4 times), no screen!
2) Removed the Hercules card, good old TNT2 card back, system running again.
3) Resetting BIOS-settings...
4) Hercules card works finally...
5) Testing card...Lockup's and unexpected auto-reboot (see previous message)
6) Formatting HDD. Clean install W2k PRO (not Server) - no ServicePack installed.
7) Same strange locked ups again...
8) the rest of the story know.

Out.

Oh yeah, one more thing i found out...On both systems, when setting default AGP Texture from 64MB to 128/256MB, both my systems locked up!

a Happy owner of a:
* DELL Dimension XPS T500 - 500MHz, 384MB (3x128)
* Athlon Thunderbird 750MHz, 320MB (2x128mb, 1x64mb)

out.
 

dungn

Junior Member
Jul 2, 2001
11
0
0
By the way,

When it runs, i'm very, very happy with the framerate. Especially Q3 @ 1600x1200x32 :p. Very, very playable!

But the locked ups, and BSOD's, arg!

I brough the card back to my seller so early, because i don't want to risk the chance of getting stuck with this darn :p card. Actually, I had a 14 days no good money back guarantee, but i didn't know that untill i brought it back.

By the way (again)
Positive/Negative:
Hercules manufacture rulz, but Hercules-Kyro sux ass!
 

Teasy

Senior member
Oct 4, 2000
589
0
0
<<<Does those pics have to impress me? I don't see the difference.>>>

Err those pics aren't supposed to impress anyone (if they were I wouldn't have used JPG compression), those pics are to show you that you shouldn't have had any problems with Dune if everything was working as it should do (as you said you had &quot;some screens problems&quot;). You asked for comments and I gave you mine and you just get shirty with me, if you don't want to hear opinions then don't ask for them.

What do you mean you don't see the difference, there certainly aren't any screen problems in those pics.

<<<Hercules doesn't support hardware T&amp;L, only software, bommer>>>

Firstly its not Hercules that does support HW T&amp;L its the Kyro II which doesn't support it and what relevence does that have to problems with Emperor Battle for Dune?

<<<Hercules manufacture rulz, but Hercules-Kyro sux ass!>>>

I get no blue screens and neither do most other Kyro II owners, lots of people out there buy any kind of card and get the same sort of problems because they didn't set the system up right or there are either software or hardware conflicts. This doesn't mean a card &quot;sux ass&quot; as you put it, if it did them every card would similtaniously suck ass and be great at the same time which is impossible.
 

Mykex

Senior member
Dec 17, 2000
380
0
0
Im not surprised just installing a KyroII would cause trouble the advice I have seen is Reformat before installing. It does help and makes a CDburner or extra drive a treat. Im not sold on it yet but its not bad for its price,Im leaning to a toss up on KyroII vs. GF2 MX400. Suposedly I can expect great things from DX8.1 build620 and up but thats the build that MickeySoft keeps squashing faster than I find it.

3D#2k4559
2001-7-2
1024*768*16
STMicro KYRO II
AMD Athlon(tm)

5014
2001-6-29
1024*768*16
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
AMD Athlon(tm)

5076
2001-2-24
1024*768*16
3dfx Voodoo5 5500
AMD Athlon(tm)

Ive only done the KyroII in 3D#2k1
(finnaly got around to trying it DOH)

1634
2001-7-2
1024*768*32
STMicro KYRO II
AMD Athlon(tm)

1709
2001-7-2
1024*768*32
STMicro KYRO II
AMD Athlon(tm)

Ive just done a round of IRQ rodeo and got it on 10 alone,my Raid controller is addicted to 11 :(,11 being the &quot;golden&quot; IRQ for the KyroII? The numbers aren't that impressive,(TBird 800ish)but I'm working on them.


 

Teasy

Senior member
Oct 4, 2000
589
0
0
Yep IRQ 11 is where you want the Kyro II for best results.

Don't rely on the 3dmarks to show Kyro II's performance especially not 3dmark2001 as its at a massive disadvantage to any other card with the current DX8 (the new fixed DX8.1 final is expected this month which will double and even triple the speed of the high detail tests for Kyro cards). As for 3dmark2000 well its default test is 16bit which isn't really a fair test since Kyro II's 16bit is more like MX's 32bit. Just play real games at any decent resolution or with FSAA and you can see Kyro II's superiority over the MX easily. Infact the Kyro II is faster at 1024x768x32 4xFSAA then the MX is at 1024x768x32 2xFSAA!
 

dungn

Junior Member
Jul 2, 2001
11
0
0
Resetting the BIOSs and reformatting HDD plus reinstalling Windows...still blue screens. 'Other cards' don't give me such vague problems.

I'll try to update this info, when (hopefully tomorrow) I get my Asus Geforce Deluxe.

We'll keep in touch.

Out.
 

powervr2

Senior member
Mar 11, 2001
584
0
0
I can't see why there are so many problems with kyro ...

my kyro never give me any problems..
never...

I have uptodate via drivers....
I have uptodate kyro drivers ...
I use both windows 2000 and win98
I use directx8.1 beta build 620
I did a fresh install of both windows 98 and windows 2000
duron 800 oc 900 128 mbs ram with sblive before I installed kyro drivers

I never never had any problems with kyro..
I am sure that this is not only lucky..
;)

my previous tnt-1 gived me a hell lot more trouble...
 

powervr2

Senior member
Mar 11, 2001
584
0
0
sometimes only a change in the bios makes a all lot of difference (I didn't have to do that)
like changing the aperture size ... disabling video cache etc... read that faq..
 

dungn

Junior Member
Jul 2, 2001
11
0
0
Yeah, maybe i was unlucky to get a possibly faulty card. But hell, I was very exited about the performance of this '64MB' card. Had great expectations. But, man, BSOD everywhere. And trust me, I know how to configure my pc...

Microsoft Certified Professional :-O
 

dungn

Junior Member
Jul 2, 2001
11
0
0
PowerVR2, tanx for the link. But, it's too late for me. Don't have the card anymore :-(
 

RobsTV

Platinum Member
Feb 11, 2000
2,520
0
0
Mingon, what card did you have prior to this upgrade, and what are your other system specs?

Please post you results as you go along, and compare the card with the one it replaced if possible.
 

PotNoodle

Senior member
May 18, 2001
450
0
0
Mykex,

&quot;The numbers aren't that impressive,(TBird 800ish)but I'm working on them.&quot;

According to some news posts yesterday one of the Madonion developers was quoted as saying that with the latest drivers KYROII can outpace even GTS in 3Dmark2001. We don't know the conditions of this, although I would assume a high end CPU musy be in operation, however I would be it would be beta drivers with DX8.1. Still, bodes well for KYROII's future.
 

Mingon

Diamond Member
Apr 2, 2000
3,012
0
0
Robstv, this card is for a system I am (eventually) building for a friend, In the meantime I will install it in my machine (1.1tbird/a7v133) and compare it with my Elsa Ultra. I will be doing some comparison benches and they will be on www.pc-critic.com when I have finished. I intend to do a clean winme install of both systems use all the latest drivers and compare it with a duron I also have available. I wanted to ensure that both system where running as quick as possible so it is a fair comparison, if anyone has suggestions for benchmarks to use then go ahead.
 

TravisBickle

Platinum Member
Dec 3, 2000
2,037
0
0
try treemark and then villagemark. :) see who beats up who worse ;)
dungn, was your board AGP2.0 compliant?
 

jbirney

Member
Jul 24, 2000
188
0
0
Folks,

I have a k2 and have installed 3 more of them on friends system since they have come out. One of them was a Win2k system. I have seen some of these dungn has found. I have noticed that in D3D on Win2k is pro to a few blank screens (ie counter strike when you hit escape to go back to your main menu). However running it in OpenGL is fine an trouble free. However in UT in D3D on this same system it is fine. I loaded up for him Q2, Q3, UT, HL/CS, SS and AvP. All of the games were running fine (ei w/o issues) when I left his place. His system wasa AMD 1.4 (OC) 512MB PC-133 SDRAM, KT7A-RAID 2 30GB HDD as one 60 BG HDD, Win2k pro, SP1, DX8, SBlive K2 and a 3COM Nic.

For me I did the daring, I swaped out my V5, cleared the reg, did not re-format and so far I can run the above games fine. Call it an ACID test :) T2 is the only one gamer where it still is kind of slow. I know I need to do fresh install (to fix the T2 thing) but I also am working with a mod team and I have a lot of critical files (which I do have backed up). I dare not format until I relase the data I have. You never know..dam Murphys law.... So some day soon I will re-format everything. But I am very happy with the preformance of the k2 when dropped into a system.


Also I noticed some trade offs. In CS for example D3D runs slower than OpenGl. OpenGL also dose not blurry all of the text in FSAA. Yea finally I can read non-blurry text. OpenGL is somewhat faster in UT. However it varies to much and swings alot more than D3D, so in UT I use D3D.
 

dungn

Junior Member
Jul 2, 2001
11
0
0
Yeah, I have a AGP2 compliant board.

1) Athlon TB 750 on a MSI KT133a board
2) a DELL XPS T500, is also compliant too, i guess.

Darn, why is everyone so happy with this board :). Darn, why me only, i guess.
 

dfloyd

Senior member
Nov 7, 2000
978
0
0
Every board can have conflicts in certain systems. Also every board can be defective out of the box. You would have to look at your complete system to guesstimate what might or might not cause the problems. It sounds like you have went the correct routes trying to fix it (Fresh Install etc)

Have you upgraded to the newest service packs for Win2k?

Are you using the newest drivers? (For video, sound, mouse, motherboard, etc)

Have you checked to make sure there is not a conflict with another board in your system?

Have you made sure you are using newest bios for your motherboard &amp; proper drivers?

What version of DirectX are you using?

What are your complete system specs?

Just a few of the questions that an be asked. Not sure exactly what is causing the problems but they do seem strange as most seem to be having very few problems.